Laughter

Sister #1 and her family visited us for Thanksgiving. Mom and Dad were with us, too. The meal turned out very nicely--no burnt casseroles or exploding casseroles as we have had in the past. :^)

On Friday night, after a supper of Thanksgiving leftovers, I pulled out some of our older video tapes of the kids when they were young--really young. We laughed hard as we watched those old videos. Little kids are funny--not that they intend to be, but they are. There were some episodes that my daughters felt too pained to watch--so we used the fast forward button in a few places, but mostly we all sat with our gazes riveted to the television screen watching the kids grow up all over again.

Time flies.

Me and My Osteopenia

After a recent bone scan my doctor informed me that I have osteopenia--something I had never heard of until now. Evidently, it's the level of the loss of bone density before osteoporosis sets in.

Risk factors include being white, thin (until I went through menopause I was thin), inactive (I sit when I write), and a diet low in calcium and vitamin D (I'm not fond of milk). There are other risk factors as well but those don't apply to me.

My doctor told me to up my calcium, vitamin D, do weight resistant exercises, and take Boniva.

Boniva made me sick. I wasted a weekend feeling like death.

I told the doctor I did not want to take that stuff again. So she told me that I should continue the calcium, D, exercises--and take magnesium. That intrigued me. Why hadn't she mentioned it before? I looked it up online and found that studies have indicated the importance of magnesium in bone density.

Not only is magnesium way less expensive than Boniva, I also discovered that magnesium has a salutary effect on high blood pressure as well.

Naturally, my doctor warned that if I don't make any progress on my current regimen, it's back to the Boniva. Ugh.

The Bog Trail

This is the bog trail in Shark River Park. I think it is awesome.

Halloweens Past

Few parents make costumes for their children anymore. Most of the costumes are purchased from the store. There are Power Rangers, Disney characters, and superheroes.

I used to create Halloween costumes for my daughters. It was fun--though challenging. Sometimes, they had rather unusual requests. Daughter #2 wanted to be a snowflake one year so I did my best to come up with a costume for her.


The following year, Daughter #3 wanted to be a butterfly. Fortunately, Daughter #1 was okay with being a Native American again--and Daughter #2 wore the Polish outfit that Babci had given her. I was able to throw all my energy into the butterfly.

But I'm getting lazy now. This year I decided to be a farmer. I wore my jeans, put on one of hubby's plaid shirts, tied a bandanna around my neck and stuck a straw hat on my head. Simple--and boring.

Sigh.

I'll have to come up with something more interesting next year.