Back when I was a newlywed, my husband was taking classes to become a paramedic he brought home some special vials that had hearts on them, and a big heart shaped sticker to put on the refrigerator door. He told me that the idea was people that have medical conditions that emergency response personnel should know about where supposed to put information about that condition in the vials and put the vials in their freezer. The emergency response personnel were trained to look at the refrigerator door for that heart sticker and if they saw it that they would look in the freezer for that medical information. Part of the reasoning for this was that freezers are insulated and would resist burning in a house fire, so that would be a great place to keep something important.

From my point of view that’s a good idea, except that my refrigerator doors are always filled with magnets and shopping lists – I’m not sure that anyone would see a heart sticker on it! But that was back in the 1980′s and I don’t have any idea if the rescue people still hand those out or not. And my hubby at that time is now my ex-hubby and I’m not very inclined to call him up just to ask him about it, so I may never know.

I looked up and was very surprised to see he had shaved his head!

I didn’t know what to say, so I asked him “what inspired you to shave your head?”

He said “I’m balding anyway, I just wanted to see how I will look when I’m completely bald!”

I hope he grows it back!

According to the website www.acne.com there are six different types of acne.  There are two types of non-inflammatory acne, and four types of inflammatory acne.

This website is a vast storage vessel of information about what causes acne, what DOESN’T cause acne, acne prevention, and offers some treatment options, one of which is the well-known Proactive product. I was interested to see that none of the treatment options given included toothpaste, which actually is my favorite treatment!

When I was a teenager, my parents always told me that eating pizza, and french fries, and chocolate were to blame for my acne.  That was even accepted “common knowledge” and was published in local newspapers at the time.

Modern medicine debunks that theory and says that none of those foods cause acne.  There is an interesting article about that on the acne.com website. Having said that, I find that every single time that I eat a piece of chocolate, the very next day I get a pimple!

When I got home from work I put a dab of toothpaste on the pimple and let it stay there overnight.  When I got up in the morning, the pimple had come to a head and broke open when I washed my face.

She was beginning to wonder if she was EVER going to get married!

They want to have a medieval theme wedding.  They love going to Renaissance Fairs.  They will be planning their wedding around the medieval theme as much as possible.   I guess I’ll be sewing a medieval costume!  Good thing I love to sew!

They are planning to have their wedding at Bull Run Castle in Aldie, Virginia.  The Bull Run Castle is a romantic bed and breakfast that they think they can rent for the wedding.  The Bull Run Castle is eight miles away from Dulles Airport, which should make it very convenient for their guests to fly in from the four corners of the world.  They are going to have the wedding reception the next day at the Medieval Times Restaurant in nearby Hanover Maryland.  The Medieval Times Restaurant has a very entertaining show that is included with dinner.  The bride and groom are asking their guests to dress in medieval costume if possible.

I have a really hard time getting my family to eat the right foods. 

I only have one son that is interested in eating right, and he is living on his own now.  So I am here at home struggling with trying to get the rest of my family to eat right and stay healthy.  It seems to be a losing battle.

I cook healthy and tasty meals, but apparently no one wants to eat healthy tasty meals.  I get discouraged from cooking so much food and sitting down at the table by myself to eat. At least it is easy to get fresh fruits locally so I can grab some fruit to snack on without having to cook a large portion of anything. The only drawback to that is I have found that after I eat fresh fruit I feel hungrier than I did before I ate it. So then I try to have some quick protein – one of those Baby Bel cheeses. I really like them a lot, but I keep hearing from a lot of people that cheese is not a healthy food to eat. In fact I have one nephew that insists that cheese is really bad for you. I don’t understand how it can be really bad for you unless you eat a lot of it.

I love going to the zoo and going to museums of Natural History.  I love looking at bodies of water, and looking at mountain ranges.  Being around nature renews my soul.

But I do NOT like ticks, mosquitoes, or any bug that bites or stings. That is where I draw the line. Don’t get me wrong, if a bee buzzes around my head I don’t try to dodge it and run away, I just stay still and let it go away on its own (it usually does.) But since their stings and bites, etc cause pain, and I don’t like pain, I do not like them. I am not into pain.

She has noticed that her eyelids have been sagging a little bit more every year. The drooping eyelids have started to affect her ability to see clearly, so she feels that it is more of a medical necessity than a vanity issue.  Of course, the fact that it will make her look younger is an added bonus!

I’ve noticed that my eyelids have been drooping a lot lately, too.  Maybe I should consider having that done to me too! I wonder if any of my medical insurance would help to pay for any of it.

I’ve watched a few episodes with him, and I have to say that one of the episodes was TERRIFIC!  I absolutely loved it.  The episode was called “My Musical” and the entire episode was a musical.  What a riot!  The cast must have had a lot of fun taping that show!  The basic idea behind the show was that a patient had something wrong with her brain so that she thought that everyone was singing and dancing all of the time.

Of course, they fixed her, but it was a great episode, watching everyone dancing and singing!  I’m sure we’ll be watching that episode again!

Recently I’ve been seeing the local ski club has been trying to organize a couple of Ski holidays in Whistler. To be perfectly honest I didn’t remember that Whistler was the site of the Winter Olympics a few years back. If I were thirty years younger I would jump at the offer to be part of the trip, which includes a chartered bus, ski accommodation in Whistler, all meals included and discount whistler lift passes.

But I am now a woman who has too many physical frailties to be able to go downhill skiing any more. Although from time to time I get to thinking that maybe, just maybe, if I got the chance to go for one more day of skiing, even if it was the bunny slope, I would love to go. And feel the rush of adrenaline that I get when I look up the mountain from the lodge and see the slopes waiting to be conquered one more time.

When I found out that she was in the hospital I wanted to go right away and visit with her, and be her patient advocate but she is a proud and stubborn woman and refused to allow anyone to come be with her.So I went online and arranged to send flowers with a “Get well soon” balloon attached to her room. I called her on the telephone every day to let her know that I was concerned about her and to just try to keep her cheered up a little bit.

Being alone in a hospital room can get very depressing; I wanted to keep her spirits up. She acted like she really didn’t want anyone to care, but everyone in the family was quite concerned about her health. She is getting on in years and we all know that she won’t be here forever. Blood clots in the lungs can be a very serious thing.

Besides her current favorite chair is getting very dilapidated from the cats sharpening their claws on it all of the time. It looks terrible! I think that a lift chair would be of great value to her.

Our hope was that the waterproof dog beds would be able to be washed off easily enough for the odor to be eliminated, but that was not to be. After a couple of weeks of constantly cleaning those dog beds, we ended up just putting them outside in the hope that the sun and the rain would deodorize them.
You may suggest that we “get rid of “ the cat, and although we did discuss that as an alternative solution, his advancing age was also something we had to consider.

I can recall, as a young child, watching my father lather up his face with shaving cream, using a brush, and shaving with a single-blade razor.  My mother did the same with shaving her legs. 

Wet hair was simply dried naturally, we didn’t have any kind of hair dryer at home.  If we wanted to curl our hair, we put our wet hair up in plastic or wire brush rollers and tried to sleep in them overnight.  (Notice I said TRIED!)  Toothbrushes were all manual, we had to move the brush up and down and side to side ourselves.  The bathtub, sink, and toilet were all scrubbed manually.

Now, a look at today’s bathroom shows electric shavers to shave our various body parts.  We have blow driers to dry our hair, and heated curlers or curling irons to curl our hair.  We have electric toothbrushes (and electric waterpiks) to brush our teeth for us.  Our toilet bowl is kept clean (more or less) by some version of automatic toilet bowl cleaner.  Currently I’m using the newest version of “Never scrub” which seems to be working pretty well.  And, our bathtub is kept clean with the daily use of the automatic Scrubbing Bubbles shower cleaner (which I like quite a bit.)

My hubby gave me a soap & shampoo dispenser for my birthday last fall that he hung in the shower that also has a clock and radio in it.  (I think he gave it to me because HE wanted it!)  My hubby listens to the radio in the shower, I prefer to just listen to the running water and try to relax.

A few years ago I actually took a few lessons in figure ice skating, and I thought I did pretty good!  I only took a few lessons because money was short at the time (actually it still is!)

I’d like to take lessons again in the future, I had a lot of fun learning how to figure skate!