This comes from a friend of mine who helped another friend celebrate her 102nd birthday! I asked her to tell me something about her friend. I think we tend to hear more of decrepitude than elders who are still going strong. I like to collect stories of folks living life well into their elder years. It counteracts what we hear way more of than we should for our own good.

Karin

My friend who is celebrating her 102nd birthday this week, is so inspiring to me. She stays up to date with news and current events and is always interesting to talk to. She knows what's going on and often has a thoughtful comment to offer. She has friends of all ages. I know that each of her friends feel just as I do.....they visit her because they WANT to, not because they feel obligated. They enjoy talking to her and they enjoy being with her.

One day, when she was 98 years old, I took her to the bank because she had two c.d.'s that were coming due and she wasn't sure what to do with them. I waited while she went in and talked to the bank officer. A few minutes later she came out of his office and with a little smile on her face, she told me that she had renewed the cd's for another two years. We both kind of chuckled at her decision, but that was just another example of how she lives each moment of her life, always living in the here and now. I don't know what she did with the cd's when they came due again. She would have been 100 that year and I'd be willing to bet that she renewed them for another two years. (and if so, it's now time to renew them again!) She lives each day with anticipation and appreciation.

About two years ago the apartment building which she had lived in for more than 25 years was being turned into condos and everyone had to leave unless they wanted to buy a unit. She knew she would have to leave, and after much help from several friends she moved from her spacious two bedroom apartment into a much smaller one-bedroom apartment a few blocks away. She could not fit all of her furniture into the one bedroom apartment, but instead of selling the furniture that she couldn't use, she rented a storage unit and stored the excess furniture.. I saw that as one more example of her living for the moment. She seldom talks about the past unless she has an interesting story to tell you. She's a real inspiration!

You asked me to include any comments that she might have made at her birthday party about life or birthdays, but she just simply thanked everyone for being there and for their kindness. She seems to take each birthday in stride without ever making a big deal about it . Amazing! Love, J.

Originally posted 2007-02-18 14:00:35.

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It's only fair to present the other side, after Valentine's Day. I always thought this song was clever.

It might add a little humor to life if we thought of another word for lover -- perhaps job or resentment or anger or...we aren't stuck in unhappiness in life if we look for a way out. Sometimes that might even mean staying under new circumstances.

Karin

Originally posted 2007-02-16 07:59:39.

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The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green. -- Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish Writer

Sometimes I think we feel we need to be doing something really huge to justify taking up space, but this quote puts it into perspective for me. I just love this one.

It's enough just to be. And we water the ground around us. Maybe we even make a wilderness bloom. And it is not that we do it consciously, we just do it because we are.

Even the simple things of life that we take doing for granted, such as washing dishes, are seen to be important if they are not done.

It's enough just to be who we are. Going through our day with as much enjoyment and as much courage as we can muster, hitting some hard or low spots, or even high spots, but carrying on carrying on is really doing a good work.

And yes, sometimes it is work...

Without a word our lives can be a counterbalance to the difficult places or people in life, and that's saying a lot.

Karin

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Jesus in John 7: 38

Originally posted 2007-03-17 07:48:31.

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H = S + C + V
Happiness = Set Point + Conditions of Your Life + Volunteer Activities

The S and C account for ...60% of our happiness. "But that still leaves 40% which is really quite a lot." [Lyubomirsky] Liz Seymour

I'd like to know where they get their percentages. I think there are times when C can be a lot more than 60%. It can permeate the whole of life, even if we have happy moments.

We have to fight for the kind of life we want -- and that includes our happiness. Make the choices that increase our overall sense of well-being.

Martin Seligman, originator of the term 'positive psychology' [director of the Positive Psychology Center at the U of PA] divides the building blocks of happiness into two broad categories: pleasures and gratifications. Pleasures are sensual and emotional (a good meal...a back rub) but generally fleeting in their effect. Gratifications are those activities that call on our skills and strengths and give us a sense of a job well done. [He] divides [these] even further into what he calls 'signature strengths' -- marks of character such as perseverance, kindness, curiosity, and humility that make each of us the individuals that we are.

...[Haidt] assigned [psychology students] four activities: attend a lecture, perform an act of kindness, express gratitude to someone, [or]eat an ice cream cone. Only the ice cream cone failed to lift the student's mood for the whole day. ... "We are most fully engaged in life when we are part of something that isn't just for ourselves." Liz Seymour

Well, no wonder food is not really a comfort, if this holds true. Of course, we knew that empirically, but now it is confirmed. I'm still not ready to give up chocolate, but if I go for a while not eating it, I find I don't want it.

What things give you the best day or the best feeling about yourself or your life? Kindness and curiosity rank up there with keeping involved in life.

Karin

Originally posted 2007-09-24 21:04:27.

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Sherry and I were emailing one day. She shared some difficult things she'd been through with her kids. I liked this and asked her permission to share it.

Karin

But it's a thread in our lives now, not the entire fabric, and sometimes it's almost hidden within the warp and weft of our lives. And laughter adds a little sparkle to that fabric as well.
Sherry B

Originally posted 2007-01-10 23:22:43.

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I was talking to a friend today, laughing, and I said, I had been moderately motivated to clean my bathtub. You would have had to have been there. It cracked us up. Really, now, who would want to be more motivated than that and still have a life?

The back story was that a grapevine wreath had fallen into it with the attendant dust everywhere. I did what I could to show I was reasonably motivated, but since I knew I wasn't going to use it that day, that was all I did.

Good choice!

As I've said before, I like the illusion of perfection when it comes to my house. If I'm striving for real perfection, it's an exercise in frustration and only makes me nuts. I can't keep up with the rest of the folks who live here. If they don't do their part, well then, I can't do it all for them either.

My friend Cathy, the housekeeper, laughingly (she has the most delicious wicked laugh, very hard not to laugh with her!) says she leaves some of her clients' homes and says: Wow, they really live like that. OKKKKKK....

I don't think my standards have slipped that far yet.

How about you? have you relaxed your standards? do you even have any standards? I wanna know what happened to our standards! And you know, it's OK to relax them. Really. Seriously. Moderately. Reasonably.

Karin

Originally posted 2007-05-31 10:31:56.

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Basic DEMO storyline with pics and video Brian Joo & Mika Nakshima "Whatever it takes" By Kelly Coffey made by LisaLao enjoy!

Mika Nakashima Description:
Born in Kagoshima Prefecture, on the island of Kyūshū, Japan, Mika Nakashima was the youngest of three children. She dreamed of pursuing a singing career from a young age. She decided not to attend high school or college in order to pursue a music career.

She was chosen from among 3000 girls to be the heroine of the 2001 fall Fuji TV drama, Kizudarake no Love Song (Tainted Love Song). In November, she made her debut with Sony Music Associated Records, with the song "Stars", which was also the theme song of the drama. Her second single "Crescent Moon", an 80's themed song, was limited to 100,000 copies. It sold out the first day of its release. In March of 2002 she released her third single "One Survive" and her first video collection, "Film Lotus". This was followed in May by her 4th single "Helpless Rain", and in August, by her 5th single "Will", which went on to rack up sales of over 140,000. Both were top ten hits and sold over or near the key 100k mark, proving Nakashima's rising star appeal.

Originally posted 2007-06-30 09:28:23.

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I recently read an author interview with Ted Gup about his book A Secret Gift in The Christian Science Monitor (December 20, 2010.) It sparked my interest, so I ordered the book from the library.

This is not a review, but a heads up on this non-fiction book, because I haven't finished reading it yet, but I will say that what I've read is 5* out of 5*.

The story
In December, 1933, B. Virdot (the pseudonym for Gup's grandfather, Sam Stone) placed an ad in the Canton, Ohio, local paper, offering to sent $10 to up to 75 families who wrote to him telling him of their needs. He got a very large response, so he actually sent $5 to 150 families. $5 in those days is roughly the equivalent of $100 in today's money. He never told anyone about what he had done or that he was B. Virdot. However, it was common knowledge to his wife and children, including Gup's mother.

Stone knew the power of a philanthropic gesture. Even if he couldn't alleviate all suffering, he could do his part. We know how much $100 would mean to us today, even if our straits are not so dire, so with a little knowledge of what those times were really like, we can catch a glimpse of how much it meant then.

How did the story come to light?
When Gup's mother was downsizing, she took him up to the attic and gave him a small suitcase which he didn't immediately go through. And when he did look at it more closely, he still didn't immediately catch the significance.

The name B. Virdot rang a bell for him, though, and as he pondered how he knew this name, he remembered that his grandfather had named a boat with it.

Now the book
Gup makes the depression come alive, with real folks' difficulties, whether they were at one time wealthy then lost it all or were from more modest circumstances and then had even less. With a historian's eye, he reads the letters to his grandfather requesting money and the many letters of thanks his grandfather received afterwards. Gup does his best to track down the various writers' families to see how the gesture of receiving $5 at a time of extremity factored into future events with the writers and their family line.

He unearths secrets within the townsfolk, as well as in his family.

I find it utterly fascinating, easy to read, even though the subject is difficult.

In my own family the depression was not kind to one side of the family. From what I remember of what I was told: While they had once had a home, they lost it during those years and the father (my grandfather) who had been a good provider spent his days playing cards and drinking. His wife, my grandmother, I was told, went door to door selling dresses. I don't know where she got them. Maybe they were her own. Or maybe she sewed them. Or maybe she was selling dresses she got from other people. Those are parts of the story lost to me, as my parent who would remember has died. But it could not have been an easy life.

Gup's book certainly puts those times and years into perspective.

Have you read it?
It is also available for Kindle.

Buy the physical book here. A Secret Gift: How One Man's Kindness--and a Trove of Letters--Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression

Buy the Kindle book here. A Secret Gift: How One Man's Kindness--and a Trove of Letters--Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression

Sam Stone is a man worth remembering. May his name be for a blessing.

Karin
www.savvythinker.com

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Originally posted 2011-01-27 14:34:03.

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They say copying is the truest form of flattery, but when entire posts with images are taken verbatim from my site with no attribution and nary a request, then posted at two other sites (maybe more that I don't know of) that is just dirty pool.

What's with not writing a word of content yourself?

It has happened once before, and all posts were removed from that blog.

Karin

Originally posted 2009-08-17 12:15:11.

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In Praise of Books

A book is a garden you can hold in your hand,
An orchard you can take on your lap.

A book is a companion who sleeps
Only when you are asleep,
And speaks only when you wish him to.

A book is a tree that lives long
And bears delicious and abundant fruit
That is easy to pick and perfectly ripe
At all times of the year.

A book obeys you by night and by day,
Abroad and at home;
It has no need of sleep
And does not grow weary from sitting up.

--Al-Jahiz (Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahral-Jahiz, known to his friends as al-Jahiz, was born in Basra in 776 and was the leading literary and intellectual figure of his age.)

I like that when reading a book, we can commune with the author no matter what time frame they lived in. People we'd have no chance to sit down or talk with, are as close as our thoughts when reading the words they have written.

Another thing I like about books, outside of the fact that I like to read and have broad interests, is that they can be put down and later picked back up again -- that's an important thing in a busy life. Invariably if I try to watch TV, I am interrupted. I might as well not try to watch TV unless it is recorded so that I can treat it like a book.

Plus reading a book is one of the few things that gets a little bit more done each time, like knitting or embroidery, unlike the chores of life that are never ending. You can actually see progress in reading a book as you get further into it, similar to seeing an embroidery begin to take shape.

I have, however, in recent years given myself permission not to finish a book if it doesn't strike me in one way or another. Because I read fast, I could skim to finish -- but when time is at a premium, I'd rather move on to another book or another project. It's the rare book that I read every word at a pace that is savoring it.

I like the tactile nature of books, holding them in my hands. I'm not really into using wooden stands to help me hold a book, though it might be nice if a book is particularly heavy. And I like the way most books smell -- a combination of paper and ink.

Android Phone Apps and such for reading
I store and read parts of books (and books with the Kindle for Android App or Stanza)on my iPod Touch (quotes and such) and at one time had the Bible downloaded into my Palm. I now have a Bible App for my Android phone that offers many versions.

ebooks
And now that I have a Kindle, I have read many ebooks. I have read a friend's manuscript on the computer. I did not print it out. Then I converted it for Kindle. I have also done this with some research I have done.

Audio books
I have listened to a couple of audio books which were very well done. The Harry Potter audio books are excellent. Jim Dale, the reader, voices every character differently. Another I read (and heard) took place in England. The reader had an English accent, so it had a different feel than reading it to myself with my own voice which is not English, but American. I get impatient listening to a book because I can read it so much faster, but it is a good pastime in the car on long or repetitive rides.

What are you reading?

Video
I thought this video was quite funny. Introducing the book (with subtitles.) This is a skit showing how a monk might have learned to read a book when he was used only to a scroll. Not too far off from introducing a computer or an ebook. We gotta learn how to do it!

Karin
www.savvythinker.com

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Originally posted 2007-02-16 08:03:57.

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