Be Grateful for Another Candle

Do you ever think aloud, “Oh no, I’m growing old!”  Another birthday is approaching.  I began struggling with birthdays ending in zeros starting with my 30th.  At 30 I was pregnant with my second and made a silly request of my OB-GYN to change my age to 29 on my records.  My 40th birthday present to myself was a mid-life crisis convertible, and for my 50th my only request was, “Please no party.”   

There seems to be some aversion to growing old - that slight dash of panic as our next dreaded birthday approaches.  Mention the word aging and we become fearful of all that comes with it - anywhere from wrinkles to sickness.  Understandably, we want to exercise and eat right to keep our bodies in good shape so that we have good health for as long as possible.  We strive to stay active physically and mentally to ward off Alzheimer’s and dementia.  It makes good sense to want to keep our minds and bodies young so that life is enjoyable as we grow older.  But to be offended when we get the senior discount without asking for it or to refuse to celebrate any more birthdays - shouldn’t we instead be celebrating each day given to us with an Attitude of Gratitude?

No matter how much we loathe aging, know that being given the opportunity to age is a gift.  Another year has passed and we are still here.  Every wrinkle I see in the mirror represents a time that I worried about my children because I love them.  I am so grateful for them and their families.  This is not the year I am one year closer to 60, it’s the year I get to see Carson and Dominic learn how to walk and talk.     

Age is just a number.  It’s the number of years we have spent on Earth.    There may be some nuances of social behavior that come with it, but besides that, it doesn’t mean much.  James A. Garfield said, “If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart.  The spirit should not grow old.”  Bring on another candle I say.                    

Loving My Vegetable Garden

Everyone needs to have a Retirement Wish List when they retire.  Included in this Wish List might be new hobbies or endeavors.  Some will be loved and others may be deleted from the list.  Always an over-achiever, I am guilty of having quite an extensive Wish List.  One of my “loved” Wish List items is gardening.  

I grew up on a farm, my mother had a garden, and I remember helping her harvest her garden and watching her can and freeze vegetables from her garden.  I never had a garden - never felt like I had time to take care of it.  Most of the crop would need to be harvested about the same time I was going back to school in late summer.  I put "growing a garden" on my Retirement Wish List and it was one of the first things I did when I retired.  

Of the many good reasons to plant a vegetable garden (like reducing my carbon footprint or saving the bees), primarily I wanted to plant a garden in order to eat fresh vegetables and attempt to try out some great canning recipes.  It didn’t occur to me until after I started planting and working in my garden that there would be so many other positive health benefits such as exercise (cultivating, weeding, lifting, and planting), better immune system (Vitamin D from the sun) and improved mental health (stress reduction and released serotonin).  

Our year 1 garden was so enjoyable last summer that I planted another garden this year.  Last year, all of the plants came from seedlings and this year the garden started from seeds, except for the tomato plants.  (Seeds are sooo much cheaper, and yes they sprout right through that soil and grow just fine!)  Last year’s crop included tomatoes, green and red pepper, poblano and jalapeño peppers, cilantro, broccoli, cucumber, green beans and corn.  This year, I did not plant the poblanos and jalapeños (not much use for them) and cilantro (tricky to harvest) but I added peas, peppermint and zucchini.  

Don’t know how much canning I will be doing this year.  We are simply enjoying eating the vegetables fresh!  Grandson Dominic has even been enjoying fresh puréed vegetables from our garden.  Here are some tips for new gardeners:

• Put a fence around it.  I learned from last year - the bunnies and raccoons certainly enjoyed themselves.  This year, the only enemy has been deer.  
• Grow broccoli.  Each plant doesn’t produce a lot, but there’s nothing like fresh broccoli. 
• If you are growing squash, allow plenty of space.  It likes to spread out.  
• Keep those tomato plants off the ground.
• Corn - the deer love it.  Won’t be planting it next year. 

How's Your Airplane Etiquette?

Have you become a frequent flyer?  I do love a good road trip, but driving can be a lot more taxing as we get older.  Although traveling via air is preferable for many people, it does have it’s disadvantages.  Most of us have experienced at least some of the obvious ones - flight delays, cost, lost baggage - but what about dealing with other travelers who break the unwritten rules of flying?  

Want to really know a person?  Pay attention to how they treat other people - especially on an airplane with a hundred people packed into a small space having the potential of triggering total chaos.   Fortunately, nearly everyone does manage to observe the social, unspoken code of flight etiquette most of the time.  Most people naturally get it.  But there are those occasional rule breakers who are clueless of the effect they have on other people's travel experience.  If you happen to take a flight in the near future, do some people watching - you will be sure to spot one.  Some infractions are pretty obvious while others are in that gray area of “should I or shouldn’t I?”  

Here are a few guidelines that will either make you reflect, or make you laugh.  Either way, enjoy the reading:

1. Be patient while going through security.  Allow the traveler in front of you to place their belongings on the rollers before blindly plopping your big bag down in front of them.  
2. Push your belongings onto the conveyor belt before skipping off to the body scanner.  You're stuff is your responsibility - not the traveler’s behind you.  Those rollers before the conveyor belt don’t move on their own.
3. Board with your proper boarding position, but also don’t get too crazy if you think someone has “cut” you during boarding.  The boarding process is not perfect, but it’s the best attempt at establishing order to the process so just go with it. 
4. If carrying-on, don’t leave your bag sticking out so that the flight attendant has to re-
   
   organize all of the bags in the overhead bin because you failed to realize that the bin door has to close before taking off.  And by all means, please try your best to use the bin over YOUR seat.  
5. Quickly put your bag in the overhead bin and take your seat.  There are a hundred travelers behind you waiting as you re-organize your life in the aisle.  
6. If you are a snorer, DO NOT fall asleep.  Consume enough caffeine to stay awake through the flight.  No one wants to listen to you snore.  
7. Offer to switch seats so someone can sit next to the child or elderly person in their accompaniment.  It’s the right thing to do and just plain decent.  
8. Do Not Recline if sitting in economy.  The quarter of an inch you gain is not worth disrupting the comfort level of the traveler behind you, not to mention forcing them to readjust their laptop, knees, drink and life for the next few hours.  News flash: there’s not a lot of room back there.  
9. You are allowed to say something to parents of obnoxious kids.  This does not include babies.  Babies are babies and sometimes they cry.  If the crying bothers you, put on your headphones.  But parents who don’t intervene when their five year old continuously kicks or bangs the seat in front of them should not be offended when the traveler in front of them intervenes on their behalf.
10. Let’s agree.  The middle seat is the worst - no window, no breathing room.  Let the middle seat person have the armrests if they need them.  With that in mind, if you are a middle seat traveler, don’t take this opportunity to spill yourself over past that sacred armrest boundary.  
11. If you need to get up during the flight, don’t grab the back of another seat while getting up or walking.  Your fellow passengers don’t want to be yanked around every time you get up or walk past.  
12. If listening to or watching something with sound on your device, by all means, use headphones.  This should be a no-brainer.
13. When it’s time to leave the plane, remember what you learned in kindergarten and file out IN ORDER.  I don’t know why we forget all of those niceties.  
14. In case I have forgotten any other “rules” - just be polite to everyone.