Reflections of My Life

Sliverfox said:
Katlupe,, thanks for a reminder about asking people what they are doing.
I tend to 'run off at the mouth' when folks drop by.

Enjoy you threads very much.
May you be blessed with a wonderful New Year.
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Thank you! I am happy when I know my friends here read what I write. I know my day to day life can be boring but I try to portray what life for a woman my age is really like.

I feel as I am blessed already with my friends right here on this forum. I have been trying to change my fakebook timeline to be more personal (like here) and not just sharing weird jokes. I love animals so I tend to over do on those types of posts.
 
Aunt Bea said:
I am trying an experiment with people in my building now. Instead of saying, "How are you?" I am going to say, "What did you do today?" Or "What are you doing today?"

I try to do that when I talk to young people. It's much more interesting if you can find something that requires more than a one-word answer to break the ice and get the conversation started.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas!
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Yeah, that one word answer to me means they don't think I really care how they are. But I don't want them to dwell on all their aches and pains either. So I was trying to come up with ideas to get people to talk more about their personal side or what their lives were like in the past or what they were interested in. Open them up a bit and I think it is good for everyone.
 
Christmas Day is here! I didn't want to do anything for it. But I put my own feelings aside and decided for Jeff and Sonny, I will make a dinner. Nothing fancy really. I have been wanting to try a recipe for making chicken wings in my Instant Pot. I got some when we were at the store. I will finish them off in the NuWave oven so they will be crisped, but not hard. For Jeff I am also making some chicken thighs. He is going to take his dinner home. He is more comfortable at his own apartment now. Making loaded broccoli for the vegetable along with the olive cream cheese dip and celery sticks. Keto but food that Sonny will like as well.

I have been using a keto replacement drink for one meal a day and I will do that today as well. For the morning meal. Since doing this, my feet and ankles have gone way down. Yesterday, I could put my shoes on without wearing the compression stockings or using a shoe horn. I could even wiggle my toes! Oh boy, such things to make my day!

Then we will most likely watch movies. Sonny will fall asleep. While he sleeps I will clean the bunny cage and clean up the kitchen. If he can't sleep due to the rocking chair not being comfortable, he will probably leave early and maybe stop at his daughter's on the way home. Where I told him to go in the beginning.

Merry Christmas, My Friends! May God be good to you this coming year.

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Sounds like the heart is bigger than our own doubts. I am so glad you will be sharing your kind spirit with your friends.
I will probably call my younger brother in California. He and I are the only family now. I have been so ill the past year I haven't talked with him. For some reason, Christmas has a way of opening our hearts, and we have a longing to share peace and love together. Amazing. It really is a celebration and if I could remember this feeling all year round, will be my Christmas wish for all.
I am interested in the drink you are substituting for a meal. What is your eating schedule? I am eating at noon and 6pm ( balanced Keto ). My ankles are a more swollen than I want, with compression socks. I put my feet up on my wall above my head for about 20 minutes almost every day, but it doesn't seem to be helping. Could you recommend a good drink meal?

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Paco Dennis said:
I am interested in the drink you are substituting for a meal. What is your eating schedule? I am eating at noon and 6pm ( balanced Keto ). My ankles are a more swollen than I want, with compression socks. I put my feet up on my wall above my head for about 20 minutes almost every day, but it doesn't seem to be helping. Could you recommend a good drink meal?
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Oh boy, I could never put my feet up above my head! I can't get on the floor to do that. I'd never be able to get up again.

It is a product called Keto Chow. I am using it once a day. It is very good, at least to me it is. I never could stick with my food plans in the past and now I can. I have coffee with cream when I get up in the morning. Then at noon, I fix a meal or drink a Keto Chow shake or whatever. Then around 3, I start fixing my supper or if I know I am going to drink Keto Chow I will wait till about 4 to have it. It really fills me up. The nice thing is if I have to do anything or go anywhere, I don't have to take the time to cook food to stick to my keto food plan. Just take a shake. I prepare a couple the day before.

It has no fat in it. You have to add whatever type of fat you want. I use melted butter or heavy cream. Remember on keto you need the fat. Check out it out on YouTube by putting "Keto Chow" in their search engine. For Christmas they sent a gift with their orders and surprised everyone. Many different flavors and other products as well.

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Christmas is done with at my home.

Chicken wings turned out good cooked in the Instant Pot and browned in the NuWave........but TOO much work for me! Cutting the wing tips off was a piece of cake but cutting the two parts apart was not easy. I am not that strong anymore. So won't be doing that again. I also cooked four chicken thighs for Jeff and he came over and got them and was gone within 5 minutes. So that is that. It did not bother me that he was in and out because that is what he does. He is like me.

I have set my kitchen up basically for cooking for one person. Standing for long periods cooking and cleaning is so painful for me that I get angry at everyone. No fun to be around. Poor Sonny. Now he is on his way to his daughter's house where I tried to get him to go for the whole day to begin with. I have my whole kitchen counter covered with dishes and pans I used to make this food today. All clean. When Sonny fell asleep watching television I would go back to the kitchen and clean some more. Almost all done.

Now my feet are all swelled up again and hurt. I almost made it through two days.
 
The day after Christmas is when I take stock of myself......what do I need to do to improve my present life situation? My health issues? Making things simpler and easier to do? Finding ways to keep connections with family and friends but not to create situations for myself that I will grow to hate? Self-care means focusing on me and my needs and wants. You cannot always spend your life doing for everyone else otherwise you will lose yourself in the process. I know this. I did it.

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Yesterday I had my appointment with the Lymphedema Therapy clinic. It was a good appointment and I will be going back in February. They are very busy and booked up so far in advance. My therapist was a doll! She listened to me and helped me understand it much better. I had done a lot of my own research so when discussing it with her, I knew what she was talking about and she liked that.

I have two sheets of massage therapy that I have to do twice a day. I have a jump start on the understanding of this because I had already started "dry brushing" and had bought the proper brush a couple of months ago. She showed me how to do the massage and then watched me do it myself.

She measured my toes, feet, ankles and legs. My left side is a bit larger than the right. It figures I am lopsided! The plus side of this is that I now know for sure there is nothing horribly wrong with me and I can improve over time. Patience is the key.

So this morning at two, I woke up to go to the bathroom and had a bloody nose! It just kept coming. So I ended up staying up and dealing with that mess. I research online what to do to stop it and it is kinda stopped now. If I try to do something that involves moving around it starts back up again. So I will be careful and just drink coffee for now.

Need to buy a humidifier I think. It is dry in here. Electric heat.
 
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katlupe said:
Yesterday I had my appointment with the Lymphedema Therapy clinic. It was a good appointment and I will be going back in February. They are very busy and booked up so far in advance. My therapist was a doll! She listened to me and helped me understand it much better. I had done a lot of my own research so when discussing it with her, I knew what she was talking about and she liked that.

I have two sheets of massage therapy that I have to do twice a day. I have a jump start on the understanding of this because I had already started "dry brushing" and had bought the proper brush a couple of months ago. She showed me how to do the massage and then watched me do it myself.

She measured my toes, feet, ankles and legs. My left side is a larger than the right. It figures I am lopsided! The plus side of this is that I now know for sure there is nothing horribly wrong with me and I can improve over time. Patience is the key.

So this morning at two, I woke up to go to the bathroom and had a bloody nose! It just kept coming. So I ended up staying up and dealing with that mess. I research online what to do to stop it and it is kinda stopped now. If I try to do something that involves moving around it starts back up again. So I will be careful and just drink coffee for now.

Need to buy a humidifier I think. It is dry in here. Electric heat.
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Yes!! Get a humidifier. I have to use one every winter as the heated air is too dry.
 
Aunt Bea said:
For now, try air drying some laundry, a pot of water simmering on the stove, a spray bottle filled water, mopping the floor, etc…. Anything to get some moisture into the air.
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If your heating vents are in the floor, you can fill bowls and/or pans with water as well; the water will evaporate as well. Did this for many years when we could not afford to buy even the smallest humidifier.
 
Slept good last night. No bloody nose. I made sure to keep it moisturized all day. Speaking of moisturizing, my therapist at the Lymphedema Clinic told me it is very important to moisturize my legs through out the day. Of course, not if I have the compression stockings on. Just skip that part. So I guess I will be going through it faster than usual. I tend to skimp on it since it costs money. Mine is an ultra thick kind (Curel) but she said if it wasn't to blend Vaseline in it. Yuk! Don't think I will be doing that.

My Christmas gift to myself is a new coffeemaker. I had been researching them for awhile. I chose the Ninja one and so far I am in love with it. Even with plain coffee beans from Walmart, the coffee came out very good. I had a gift card at Amazon so this came off from that and I have a package of coffee beans coming today too. The coffee maker came yesterday and I wasn't expecting it until Friday so I was happy.

The old coffee maker I will clean as good as I can (hard to clean the reservoir) and pack it away downstairs in the storage locker. Always good to have a back up. The reservoir on the new one comes right off to fill or to clean goes in the dish pan. Since it comes off one of the features is taking it to the sink to fill it with water, but I don't use that water anyway. It is easier and smarter for me to pour water in it right in place on the coffee maker. Too heavy otherwise and lifting it up will hurt my shoulder.

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I am not sure what happened, but remember the 2 women causing chaos within our small apartment community? They have been extra sweet and nice to not only me, but to the friend they were harassing also. All the trouble started with them at Halloween time over decorating, of all things! They decorated like crazy for Christmas. Must have had 5 or 6 Christmas trees in their hall and lobby with lots of other decorations as well. The day after Christmas, they started removing it all. Took them a few days. All gone now.

Our manager is off until the 3rd (check day around here) and I must say it has been a relief of fresh air with her not here. So we still cannot play Bingo in the community room. The lady upstairs, who is 97 years old usually has a family dinner a couple days after Christmas with her family in the community room. First the manager told her she could have it. Then she told her she couldn't have it. On her last day here before her days off, she told her she could have the dinner after all.

Well, that lady had made other arrangements but did not tell the manager. She planned it herself and made reservations at a restaurant nearby. Her family came and there were 11 of them including herself. They had a wonderful time! She paid for it herself even though family members all wanted to contribute but she would not hear of it. It was her treat including the tip. Where did she get the money? All year, for many years, her family members (many were present) send her cash Christmas presents and for her birthday and Mother's Day also. So she didn't have to worry about the check!

This made her Christmas! She had been really depressed over not being able to use the community any longer for our Bingo games or other activities. I guess it forced her out of her comfort zone. Now her daughter told me she has wanted to do this for many years. When they had the dinner downstairs in the community room, the family members brought food in, had to set it up and clean it up. This was fun and more relaxing for all. She was smiling and happy all day!

Like I always say, "every cloud has a silver lining." Sometimes you have to get the heck out of your comfort zone to find it, but it is there.
 
Aunt Bea said:
Great news about the two troublemakers, but I would be cautious.

Most leopards never change their spots.
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“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” - Maya Angelou
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Yes, I am well aware of that. Especially since I believe in keeping my friends close and my enemies closer. Not sure how that exact quote is written but it is smart advice. That is why I usually do not get into an argument with anyone. Let them have their say, while my brain is calculating what they really mean. What alerted me is the fact that both of those women have been giving me compliments like crazy??????? I am like, what are they up to now? Trying to add me to their "pack" or something? Not me.
 

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