The last post…….

 

I will be signing off for a while, due to unforeseen circumstances. Thank you for watching the posts. 

Best wishes and kind regards
Margaret

You will never get rich or famous doing housework.……

Sometimes there are words that go together naturally, like “clean and tidy”, but if you turn this phrase around and make it “tidy but not clean”, then that puts a whole new perspective on the gentle art of doing housework.

I used to berate myself for not doing all of the housework to my critical satisfaction, fretting about dust that could have come from Mars.  However, as I grow older and my eyesight dims, I realise that what my eye doesn’t see clearly, my mind doesn’t fret about.  So, with that mind shift firmly in place, I now make a big effort to be “tidy” and don’t worry too much about being “clean”. After all, if your house is tidy then it is performing an optical illusion, as people just cant separate out the term “clean and tidy”  If they see tidiness, they naturally assume that it’s also clean.  It would be nice if this was always true, but there you are, I am old, I can make excuses!!!

However, you need to be consistently tidy and I do this every morning under the guise of “self maintenance”.  I put on the timer for, say, twenty minutes, and go at it.  So, stop worrying about the dreaded housework, which, left unchecked, will expand to fill every minute of your day.   Use my version of the turn of phrase “clean and tidy” and enjoy all of the extra time you will have, and the compliments on the order of your house.

After all, no one would be cheeky enough to run their finger along the windowsill, would they dare?

Fast track by ambulance…..

This week’s adventure was a visit to Auckland Hospital, and, as usual, it was by ambulance.  I haven’t had to go to the hospital for quite a while now, so I wasn’t all that pleased to once again be visiting the Accident & Emergency room.  I would like to say a word of thanks to the staff at the hospital, who were, as usual, so kind and helpful, and got me up and running again in a couple of days. This is a world class hospital, located right in the heart of Auckland. We are so lucky to have such a facility on our doorstep, and its free!!! And St Johns Ambulance were, as always, life savers par excellence. 

A word on being prepared for unexpected trips like this.  My hospital visits became almost a shuttle service by ambulance a couple of years ago.   I am now a seasoned traveller and I always have a small bag packed, just in case.  In it, I put things like toiletries, comb and small mirror, etc and a change of clothes as well as night attire and slippers or shoes.  I  have a small radio and earphones, cellphone  and a few dollars  Then, when the unexpected need arises, I just pick up the bag and go.  I also have a  file with a list of my current medications, medical notes, contacts etc, which makes admission to the hospital go a lot faster. The reason I take a change of clothes is that I usually arrive in hospital in my pyjamas and need clothes to go home in. 

So, be like the Boy Scouts. Be prepared!!!!! 

When prosperity comes, do not use all of it. Confucius

Having money troubles?  Read “The Richest Man in Babylon”. Save 10 percent from the top of your net income  and you will never be broke……



Some years ago, when I was into self-help books, mainly business, I came across this little gem of a book written by George Glason, who wrote it in the 1920’s.  This book has been in publication ever since the first printing.   It has been updated, and I haven’t read the new version, but I can most certainly recommend this as the most useful money management book I have ever read.  It seems simple and is written in parables, but, what dynamite suggestions!!


The secret to this 10 percent savings plan is that you squirrel money away for yourself, and don’t make any announcements about it. This is your money to do with what you want without having to discuss it or ask permission to spend it.  My late sister, who only had her pension, was talking to me one day and I made this suggestion to her. She immediately put it into place, and she told me she actually had some money of her own for the first time in her life, and had gone from zero to $2000 in a very short time.


So, give it a go, you have nothing to lose and a whole lot of money to gain.


"What can a book written in the 1920s tell modern investors about their finances? A whole lot if it's George Clason's delightful set of parables that explain the basics of money. This is a great gift for a graduate or anyone who seems baffled by the world of finance and a wonderful, refreshing read for even the most experienced investor." -Los Angeles Times

If you are lonely, start a blog.

 

 I live with my daughter and, really, I  live alone in a little unit on her property.  While I always see the family every day, most of the time they are busy with their own lives, so sometimes I don't get to talk to anyone all day.  I just wave as they leave to go to school and work.

That’s not to say I am entirely on my own, not with three galumphing dogs in the background. I had no experience with dogs in my life, yet I seem to have acquired the wellbeing of these mutts.  The biggest one, Obie, is black, very large with long white fangs and a lovely smile.  He doesn’t take kindly to strangers, so I guess you would call him my bodyguard. After all, he is dressed in black and only needs a black pair of sunglasses to complete the picture!! He has no social graces, having come to us too late to be really socialised, and he is a sneak thief. No food left lying exposed on benches will escape his snaffling intentions.

I think being alone needs to be addressed in some way, and as I am not a particularly social person, joining the various clubs that are available to senior citizens is not the way forward for me.  No, now that I am a “blogstar”, I feel that I have lots of contact with other human beings.  Blogging always seemed to me to be a mysterious art form, something like magic, but it is not.  It is really easy to set up, get a techno savvy person to do the initial work if you don’t feel happy doing it yourself, and start posting.

You could be surprised at the valuable knowledge you have accumulated over the years. Maybe you are a potential cooking blogstar or a gardening blogstar, or who knows what hidden talents are waiting to come to the surface.    Don't worry about nobody reading it.....you are speaking of your life, and you are listening and remembering.  

Don’t take blind leaps into the unknown……

I was doing my computer housekeeping yesterday, and while I was clearing some of the many emails, I also had a look into my filing system, which is chaotic.  I found that I had started to write children’s stories some time ago, a pursuit which I had long forgotten about.  Anyway, to cut to the chase, the following is a story I wrote for my granddaughter as a school project. I don’t know what marks I got.  Read this and I hope you have a laugh!!!

THE MONKEY AND THE FROG

Once upon a time there were two creatures who were supposed to be friends. The monkey was very friendly but the frog was very pompous and was always bragging about how far he could jump.

One day, the monkey got fed up with the frog always talking about how good he was at jumping, and he decided to teach him a lesson.

So he said to the frog “I am going to challenge you to a leaping competition. I will jump over this little puddle and we will see if you can do it too.”

“No problem,” said the frog, “anything you can do, I can do better!!!”

And so the monkey took a big jump right over the puddle. “Your turn”, he said to the frog.

The frog puffed himself up and jumped right over the puddle. “There you are, see” he scoffed.

The monkey said “ Ok,  here we go again. I will leap over this bigger puddle” and, with that, he ran and jumped right over the water.

The frog took one look , did a giant leap and landed safely. 

Now, the monkey said to the frog” Well, you are very good at this, aren’t you? “

“I sure am, I am a much better jumper than you will ever be”, the frog boasted.

The monkey now took a scarf from around his neck and said “ Well, how about doing a jump with a blindfold on? I bet you can’t do that!!”

“I most certainly can”, laughed the frog, “ here, let me go first”

And so the monkey tied the blindfold around the frog’s eyes and led him to a much bigger pool.

“Go on, jump now” said the monkey.

The frog took a huge run forward and leapt high into the sky, but, as he couldn’t see the pool, he didn’t know that the monkey had tricked him. He fell into the pool with a giant splash, and , unfortunately,  there was a monstrous crocodile waiting for him with his jaws wide open and the last thing the frog heard was “SNAP”

And so the moral of the story is:

DON’T TAKE BLIND LEAPS INTO THE UNKN OWN

Dredging the River of Memories…..

 

My best advice for this dangerous pursuit is to watch out for the crocodiles on the river bank!  Don’t let them snap you up!  Sometimes, in dredging, you bring up the mud of your life, and sometimes you come unexpectedly upon some lost treasure of a memory.  The secret is to dump that sludge and enjoy the treasure.

Why crocodiles on the river bank?  Well, my last great adventure was the trip to North Queensland, and the first far northern city I called in at was Cairns.  I did some of the usual tourist things, and, as I had a few hours to fill in before flying on to Gove, I went on a “river” tour in a smallish ferry.  To call this a river was a flight of imagination ….. it had been dredged out of a muddy mangrove swamp and was now home to a lot of Australian Naval vessels. On this particular morning, as we drove past the shores, there were lots of crocodiles there, sunning themselves on the banks.  There weren’t many passengers on board, and I was sitting close to the skipper, who  had a friend with him on this trip.  A chance to catch up on the local gossip.  The friend was telling the skipper of an “ hilarious” incident that had happened the week before to a group of Japanese tourists.  The tour operator had landed them on a beach somewhere, and they all came running back, screaming that the beach was full of crocodiles!  He, of course, thought they were exaggerating, but, when he went to check,  found it was true. The entire contents of the crocodile farm nearby had escaped.  Luckily, none of the tourists was eaten. I don’t think they would have thought it was very funny. 

Not to be outdone, the skipper then told his friend about another tour operator who had recently taken a small band of tourists up into Cape York, a very wild place.  He said he had let the tourists sleep in their tent on the ground while he slept on the roof of the Land Rover. Was he scared of the roaming buffaloes and crocodiles, not to mention the snakes and spiders?   No, of course not. Once again, the tourists all made it back safely to civilisation.

 

 

 

 

Mind your own business---it's not your problem and it's not your fault. Don't let feelings of guilt ruin your day….

If  you are lucky enough to live with your family and still have friends and associates,  it’s likely that, at some point of time, you will get to learn of a variety of  problems in their lives.

It is very easy to take these problems on board into your own sheltered existence, after all, what do you have to worry about?  Declining mobility?  Health fade?  No sleep?

All small stitches indeed in the broad tapestry of life’s carpet .

So, when I find myself being invited into other people’s lives to share their troubles, I have three rules that I follow:

Mind Your Own Business

It’s not your problem

It’s not your fault.

But, if you are asked for advice, then take your chances and give it.  Do whatever you can do to help, but do not, and I repeat, do not,  take other people’s problems onto your shoulders.  If you, like me, have lived through a lifetime of trials and tribulations of your own, it is time to find peace of mind, and hold onto it. 

Regard other people’s problems as a cannon ball they are trying to pass to you, and step aside. 

Don’t Worry, Bee Happy

For the last few days now, I have discovered I have a new visitor to my tiny realm, a large bumble bee.  As part of my gardening, and an effort to rescue a dying flowering plant, I now have a nice pot of some sort of flowers sitting on my deck.  To my surprise, a few days ago  I noticed this large bumble bee visiting the flowers.  I thought nothing of it, just felt interested to see that the flowers were carrying out their task of providing nectar for this insect.

However, every morning when I peer outside, I notice the same bee is back in the flowers, and as these big bumble bees live solitary lives, I guess he has made my plant part of his food gathering routine.

When I look at that bee, no worries, no fears for tomorrow, I realise that there is merit in the saying  “don’t worry, be happy”.  

Confucius says…….It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.

 

 

Now there’s a good word of advice for us slow moving individuals – I used to rush all over the place when I was a bit younger, well a lot younger actually, and never gave a thought to the day when I might go into tortoise mode.

 

However, here I am, staring very old age in the face, body creaking, and I really try not to stop.  I guess the best thing I can do is to let my mind do the walking, and then I can go anywhere. 

 

I have travelled widely in my life, and now, when I am free from responsibilities, I can no longer face the prospect of a long flight and all of the restrictions which are  in force now.  I have been to many places where I have just touched down  and changed planes to hurry off to some other destination.   London is a case in point.  When my late husband and I travelled to Italy on many occasions, he never wanted to stop over.  Rimini, his home town, always beckoned him onwards and he couldn’t wait to get there. I always imagined that one day I would get to stay and see all of the magnificence of the city.   But I left my run too late. The last time I paid a hurried visit was on a one night stop over, more than twenty years ago.  We had just flown in from India, where the food didn’t agree with us, unfortunately.  We fell upon the hotel restaurant like a pair of starving ants and gratefully munched our way through large plates of  roast beef and potatoes.  What bliss!!!

 

Moral of this story?  Don’t leave your travelling until you are too old to enjoy it.  Look at me, I can go anywhere in the world I want to, as long as I can take a taxi there and a taxi back.  Well, at least it’s cheap!

 

 

 

 

E-vaporating E-mails

 

One of the main annoyances I have with the computer is when I discover that my emails are going nowhere.  It can sometimes take a while to find out that your email service is out of action.  So what to do? 

 

Well, as a start for each day, I send myself a test email.  This works, as you know bright and early if you have problems and the test email doesn’t appear.   How do I resolve this?  As a first port of call I unplug the Router, that little black box of magic linking me up to the other computers in the house. I let it stand around for 5 or 10 minutes, and then replug it in.   That generally fixes it.  And then,  if it doesn’t, I go to the Telecom site called Telecom Broadband Assist and for the most part, working my way through all of the instructions seems to work most of the time.

 

Last week, Telecom sent me some interesting information  about our email service having been compromised again.   This happened to a lot of New Zealand subscribers a few months ago , resulted in considerable mayhem, and it took weeks to fix.  Have a look at this Telecom site.

 

www.telecom.co.nz/emailpasswordhelp

 

Its got a lot of detailed instructions which may be a help.

 

 

 

 

E-vaporating E-mails

 

One of the main annoyances I have with the computer is when I discover that my emails are going nowhere.  It can sometimes take a while to find out that your email service is out of action.  So what to do? 

 

Well, as a start for each day, I send myself a test email.  This works, as you know bright and early if you have problems and the test email doesn’t appear.   How do I resolve this?  As a first port of call I unplug the Router, that little black box of magic linking me up to the other computers in the house. I let it stand around for 5 or 10 minutes, and then replug it in.   That generally fixes it.  And then if it doesn’t, I go to the Telecom site called Telecom Broadband Assist and for the most part, working my way through all of the instructions seems to work most of the time.

 

Last week, Telecom sent me some  interesting information  about our email service being in jeopardy.  This happened to a lot of New Zealand subscribers a few months ago , and resulted in considerable mayhem, and it took weeks to fix.  Have a look at this Telecom site.

 

www.telecom.co.nz/emailpasswordhelp

 

Its got a lot of detailed instructions which may be a help.

 

 

Jigsaw puzzles aren’t just for children…

 

I would have never discovered jigsaw puzzles as a hobby for myself.  About a year ago, my brother brought one over when he came to visit me. I looked at it, thanked him and was about to put it carefully away, never to be looked at again.  I don’t remember doing jigsaw puzzles as a child, I  know nothing about them and, as I was preparing to abandon it, he started unpacking it and laying out the pieces.  He could always read my mind!!! To cut a long story short, he showed me how to find the border pieces, the bits with the flat sides, and then we were off.  This initial jigsaw was a 300 piece one,  recommended age was 8 years old. That sounded about right for me…..into my second childhood, no less. 

 

After a lot of effort, I finally put it together.  As I started buying the puzzles, I found that it isn’t as easy to source them as you would imagine.  I thought the stationery shops or department stores would stock them.  They did, with a very limited range, and much bigger than I would attempt at this juvenile stage of my jigsawing career.  However, back to Google and I located suppliers on the Net.  Having bought a few and discovered that they were quite expensive, I broadened my horizons to look at the Trademe site, and of course, there were a lot. The charity shops are  also a good source.

 

The only trouble with buying in this way is that you cant tell if the puzzles are  complete or not. The ads for the puzzles on Trademe  nearly always say “all pieces are there”, but it isn’t until you are close to finishing the puzzle that you discover a piece is missing. So far I have been lucky.

 

I don’t do the puzzles more than once, and I then pass them on to someone who will enjoy them.  When I break the puzzle down to put it back in the box, I put all the border pieces in one plastic bag, and the rest in another bag.  Of course, if you want to frame the completed work of art, and some of them are truly beautiful, then you can paint over them with a jigsaw fixative glue and frame them.  Ravensburger have a good range of accessories, and I have always found the Ravensburger and Holdsons puzzles are very enjoyable. 

 

I have progressed to 500 piece puzzles now, but I am not going any further than this,  as I know I don’t have the space to lay them out.

 

I thoroughly recommend this pursuit to exercise your brain and even your fingers, and there also puzzles available for Alzheimer’s sufferers.  These are puzzles with very large pictures of every day objects, which are widely used to jog the memory. 

 

So, good puzzling…….