Category Archives: Health & Fitness

Baby Boom

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This month has been a baby boom in my little circle of family and friends. Interestingly, there were two births so far, and both have been girls. The last baby in my circle of family and friends was also a girl. There is an old wife’s tale that a boom in the birth of baby boys foretells an upcoming war and that a boom in the birth of baby girls foretells a period of peace. So I very much hope that is true and that this country and the rest of the world is due for a long period of peace and perhaps even prosperity.

My brother’s son and daughter-in-law just gave birth to a little girl. She was born over a month premature but seems to be doing OK. She only weighed a bit over 4 pounds at birth. that is really very tiny and I hope that she can gain weight and stay healthy enough to go home with her parents very soon. It is odd to think of my younger brother as a grandfather already. He is 10 years younger than me and yet he beat me to that milepost of grandfather-dom.

The other baby girl is was just born to a good friend of mine who immigrated here with his beautiful wife from Russia several years ago. This couple is very hardworking and serious about embracing America and our culture. They both adopted Americanized first names and they’ve named their new daughter Elizabeth. I did not know that Elizabeth was a name familiar to Russians, but there is a Russian spelling for this name and they plan to call her Liz. She was born right on time and is a healthy weight, although I have to admit that the announcement came in with her weight as kg and I had to find a metric conversion tool on the internet to figure out that her birthweight was just under 7 pounds.

Oh Say Can You See?

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Last time I needed contact lenses I went to the optometrist that has a little office next to Sam’s Club and got an exam for $70 and hand carried the contacts prescription to the Optical department at Sam’s. That was the first rude surprise. They don’t stock the lenses and would have to order them for me. It took about a week to get in and then I had to drive down to the Sam’s Club for a second trip to pick them up.

So I used them up and went down to Sam’s Club to get a refill on the contacts, figuring it would take another week to order the refill and I could deal with that. But no. Come to find out the prescription for contact lenses only last for 6 months and my prescription had expired. so now I need another exam for $70 before I can order the lenses and then I wait a week for them to come in and then I make another trip. You know what? There’s got to be a better way.

Peace of Mind

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Yesterday was really nice. My birthday was fun and well celebrated by everyone at work and at home. It’s cool being the center of attraction for at least one day each year, isn’t it?

So today it’s back to reality and actually I’m shifting the focus away from me and onto my family. Trying to be very practical here, who knows how many more birthdays I’ll be able to celebrate? I mean, I’ve already lived more years than my father lived. Cancer took him from us and that threat is always on my mind. My father passed away too young, but he had written a will and made good arrangements to take care of his family with term life insurance and other solid estate plans.

Probably one of the most important types of insurance that he had was mortgage life insurance . With that big expensive house, there’s no way my mom could have kept up the house payments and maintenance on just her own income. By having the mortgage protection he made sure that mom and us kids had a roof over our heads because the mortgage was paid off in full when he passed away. I know he had peace of mind and my mom needed that help.

The other important insurance was the term life because there was enough money to pay the funeral expenses plus all the household expenses for more than a year after he passed. That gave mom enough time to take care of everything and then find a good job to go back to work full time when she was ready rather than desperately taking something at the worst possible time just to pay the bills.

Having seen this first hand has made me keenly aware of my own responsibilities to my family and I have done the same type of estate planning. Let’s hope it’s not needed for a long time yet, but if something does happen I know that my family has been provided for.

Green Moth

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There is a commercial on TV for Lunesta, which is a sleep aid. The commercial shows a woman who is a teacher who has a good night’s sleep, thanks to Lunesta, and wakes up so energetic that he gathers a bunch of junk and odds and ends and takes a big box of the junk to her class, where they all make musical instruments from it.

So throughout this commercial, there’s a magical little green moth that flies around and lands on her shoulder while she’s peacefully sleeping. I don’t really know what the green moth has to do with getting a good night’s sleep.

Honestly, I don’t know the technical difference between a moth and a butterfly. I suppose I used to know the difference – perhaps from biology class in high school. But I can’t recall much of the biology class – I hated it.

So when I found this on the door jamb, I was reminded of the commercial and all these biology questions have come flooding back. It stayed there all day, but sometime during the night it flew away. I suppose it landed on some blonde girl’s shoulder . . .

Eating Right

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I’m a big fan of a varied diet and I have to admit that I love food and I love to eat. Going out to a restaurant is always a fun adventure and I try to order different things off the menus to expand my culinary horizons. Of course, there are some places where I have my favorites and then it is a toss up if I will stick with the familiar that I know I love or take a chance and try something new.

This time of year looking good is even more important when the clothes you wear are shorter and more revealing than what you wear in the winter. Sorry to say that tee shirts and even golf shirts are very unforgiving about showing all the love handles and belly bulges that most middle age guys are carrying around with them. On the plus side, there are plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit for fresh salads and grilling, and it is easier to get exercise when the days are longer and the weather more conducive for outdoor activities.