Transplanted Heads

Hints and Tricks for Gettin’ ’er Done, Part 2

Well, ladies, this is my final post. Not my final-forever post, I hope, just my final post for Live Lazy, Live Large: Tips for Making Life Fun for Us Ol’ Ladies. I’ve written other blogs (mostly about writing and now in book format) as every now and again, a blog idea strikes me and away I go spending weekends sharing what I’ve learned on my journey and blah-blah-ing away about this and that. I…

Hints and Tricks for Gettin’ ’er Done, Part 1

It feels so good when it stops. I like watching TV in the late afternoons and evenings. I’m up at 6:00 AM. My “work” is done and over by 2:00 PM at the latest. (That’s an eight-hour day right there.) I deserve it. I deserve to be able to just—as my mother would call it—“sit around on my ass.” (When I was a kid, she would tell me to “get outside and get some of the stink blown off.” That still…

Nighttime Routines/Sleep Aids, Part 2

TV or not TV If you decide that watching TV won’t be too en-light-ening for you (sorry), make certain you watch something pleasant on TV, not something wild and exciting and action filled that will stay with you, “If only he’d slammed that opponent into the boards, he would have gotten the goal.” Make it something that you know will have a satisfying, soothing, calm (boring?) ending so when you…

Nighttime Routines/Sleep Aids, Part 1

What day is it anyway? A great way of knowing what day it is, is by using a medicine tablet thingey. I don’t have to keep yelling out, “Hey Alexa, What day is today?” I don’t like asking her because she usually adds something like, “Enjoy your day.” To this I reply, with my middle finger extended, “Don’t tell me what to do.” I refill my medicine tablet thingey on the same day each week. I have…

Getting Started with Routines

Locked in stone? Why is it, on Mondays, we wake up saying, “Noooooooooo? It can’t be Monday! I’m so tired!” But on Fridays we said, “Yay. It’s Friday. I can stay up half the night for the next two.” Good way to mess up our timing. We need to stick to the same wake/sleep timing to maintain our mental health. We no longer have to get up to go to work, do we? Same with our meals. Now I’m not…

“G’ mornin’, Sunshine.” (Yeah, right.) I repeat, Don’t sleep in. Ever. And stay the hell out of the bedroom except for sleep-time. If we associate our bed with sleeping, that’s what we’ll do there. (Well, I’m not setting aside what else we can do in bed [*winks*], but right now I’m talking about sleeping.) When we’re teenagers, we need a lot of sleep. Sleeping in is important. But as we get…

Routine or Not Routine? That Is the Question

“But if it ain’t broke…?” Routines will help us remember what we need to remember, like taking our daily medications (that keep us alive), showing up for annual doctors’ appointments (which will help keep us alive), eating regular-ish meals (without which we would not be alive for all that long), and so on. Routines will also give us loads of free time to do whatever we want to do even if, like…

The Computer: The Bane of Us Old Ladies? (Part II)

“Easy does it!” When we are online, we tend not to blink as much. This is not good for anyone, especially those with dry eye syndrome. Something I learned when I was typesetting many years ago (i.e., spending eight hours a day plus, typing on a computer), was to look away often. Get up and go look out a window into the distance every now and again. Remember to blink. Close both eyes for several…

The Computer: The Bane of Us Old Ladies? (Part I)

“Easy as pie?” More like, easy as baklava. (This will be in two parts. I got carried away.) Many women in my generation have this idea that computers are monstrous creatures who say things like, “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” (Hal, 2001: A Space Odyssey) And we don’t yet have robots like Robby from the 1956 Forbidden Planet. At least, not affordable ones. Not yet. Although… I…

The Gift of Your Experience Can Make Lives Better

“And this is how we can make that happen. See how it works?” When I did an online search for “senior” and “volunteer,” I came up with an amazing number of projects and programs that seniors—both women and men—can get involved in. My search generated actual organizations throughout the USA and Canada but I won’t list individual contact information here. For example, the Canadian projects and…

I’m Ready to Evolve! Let’s Do Something Different!

“Think of it as a decompression chamber between lives.” One thing we old ladies can volunteer for is fostering for animal rescue groups. (It’s not only dogs that require fostering. There are rescue groups for cats and other critters as well.) Many families had at least one dog (or kitty). If we had good luck with these critters, meaning we treated them like family and took them to training…

Three… Two… One. [*gunshot*]

“Wait! What? I was never trained for this!” What are you talking about, telling me to get out there and do something new? We old ladies don’t know how to do anything other than what we’ve always done. We aren’t supposed to be doing anything other than what we were trained for, created for, meant for. Right? No, no, no. Doing something new is way too scary. And isn’t it kind of “forbidden” or…

“I have nothing to live for. I am of no value to anyone.” Life as I’ve always known it is no longer. I’m useless. I’m bored. I’m lost. I’m depressed. I have no value. If I can’t be someone’s 3C*, what good am I? Before Women’s Liberation, certain things were expected of females. We were trained to not just act a certain way, but to be and to think a certain way. If we refused to conform, we…

Shouldn’t Decluttering Be Called Ripping out My Soul?

“My place is a mess with all this stuff lying around. Stuff I don’t even…” What am I doing with all this stuff? Stuff I think I want but don’t use. Some of it I’d even forgotten about. I don’t need even half of it. Not even a quarter of it. Maybe none. Aha. What I’ll do is move some of it out to the garage. Maybe rent a storage facility. Maybe put it all in the… No. I’ll still have the…

Where Do I Find Room for “Everything in its Place?”

“Every time I turn around, something else has sprouted.” Ah. The age-old question for us older gals who have accumulated too much over the years: Where did it all come from? And where can I put it? During Ice Storm ’98, I realized there is very little we actually need. We need oxygen, water, food, and shelter from the elements. Every species on Earth requires these things. (Yes, yes. I know…

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