My Good (?) Deed

Well, I either did a good deed or created a monster...

As some of you know, I lost my best friend recently when she died. I've been feeling so down that I just haven't known what to do with myself. I was walking around in a bit of a haze.

Last week, before everything really started going downhill for my friend's health, I was worried but hopeful. I ran into one of my elderly neighbors in the lobby. She looked as lonely as I felt sad so I went over to say good morning. I asked how she was and she told me that she was just so bored since leaving her old home. She lived on a farm at one point but I don't know if that is what she meant. I know that she is widowed. She told me that her kids had the bright idea to buy her a computer. What she didn't understand was what they thought she could do with something like a computer.

I said that I'd be glad to help her learn the basics. I said there were some things to do that weren't hard to get the hang of - watch videos and maybe read the news... She thought that was stupid. (Iowa people are blunt but so nice about it that you don't mind.)

She mentioned Facebook. She heard everyone talking about it all the time. Ugh! I loathe Facebook but...

Anyway, later on, I went up to her place and helped her set up a Facebook account. We found her kids and some grandkids and got her friended and connected to a few people. The kids are tickled that she is online. And that laptop they got her is pretty smooth! I showed her some games in the Windows store. And then...

Oh boy.

Then I showed her Farmville. Who knew that Farmville was in the Windows Store? I didn't. I've been sad ever since my old Farmville 2 farm went stagnant a couple of years ago...

I told my neighbor about the game and she was curious. How do you "farm" with a computer? What do you farm? What is the point? Doesn't it seem kind of silly?

Her eyes lit up after I downloaded the game and got it set up for her. At first, she still thought it was a little silly but... kind of fun. I quickly leveled her up to where she had some crops and trees and a few other basics. 

Oh boy. She was loving the idea of a virtual, colorful, noisy farm.

What does she love most? That she doesn't have to mess with the keyboard. She can use the mouse to do everything. She doesn't like the keyboard at all! The keyboard is what terrifies her most about a computer because she doesn't like typing. She does love using that mouse though.

Two hours in, she was playing Farmville on her own. I left her to it and said I'd come back up to help her set up her email account contacts if she wanted. I don't even think she heard me.

This morning, I finally pulled myself together enough to be around people without breaking into tears. I thought about my neighbor and went to see how she and her computer are getting along.

Well, she isn't interested in email or any more social media stuff. She likes looking at her kids' pictures on Facebook but her main groove is her farm. In less than a week, she is leveled up to having more crops and trees. She is trying to earn enough keys to get some of the nicer animals...

Guys, it was so cute. When I got there, she was working that farm like it was for a retirement pension. She was harvesting crops and racking up points like crazy. She could barely talk to me for taking care of her make-believe farm!

I love it. She is really good at playing the game. She doesn't quite get the whole "neighbor" farmer thing - liking or adding people - so I had to show her how to do that. She can trade goods and items with other players but doesn't use the chat feature. Mostly, I think she enjoys the sounds, colors, and interaction of the game. She had the sound up so loud that I could hear mooing and bleating from outside in the hallway. Her monitor is a nice 17-inch one with awesome graphics. I'm so jealous! She has it set up on a nice table that rolls over her lap while she sits in her favorite chair.

When I was up there, she had her snack of berries and melon pieces on a side table and her phone sitting in reach. I'm pretty sure I won't see her sitting in the lobby looking sad and lonely anymore.

I sat there watching her work her farm for a while. She was totally engaged. She even knows better than to spend money buying extras. She said that what she likes is that she can have so much fun without it costing her anything. (Yeah, older Iowans tend to be very cheap frugal also!)

Right now, I'm not going to bother her with setting up any more social media accounts. As far as the email, all she needs it for is to sign into her Facebook and farm. I don't think she cares if she gets any mail or not.

I left her to it. 

I'm thinking now that, where games can be timewasters for some people, they might be useful for the elderly. I'm pretty sure that it's good for my neighbor to keep her brain active. Farmville is a game but it ain't for sissies. There is a reason I rarely play it. It's almost as complicated to keep up with as running a household! For my neighbor though, it gives her something to do and she doesn't have to wait for someone to come and join in. 

Maybe we ought to teach more of our parents and grandparents to use games on computers? If they can't get out by themselves - like my neighbor - and their kids are busy with work and their own kids and such, something like Farmville is a great time-filler.

I feel better knowing that my neighbor has found something she enjoys that doesn't depend on waiting for other people to show up. I'm pretty sure that she's going to be showing some of the other folks how to play Farmville. 

Peace

--Free

**USEFUL** Organizing for the Unorganized

Because of a medical issue, I have great difficulty in organizing and keeping track of important information. I live alone and no longer have the same close-by support system to help me take care of paying bills and keeping track of medications. Now I also have to deal with keeping on top of different doctors, bills, and other life-is-messy stuff. 

I had to come up with a fairly simple system to keep the most important stuff organized. My best friend and I devised a little system a few years or so ago. Recently, she was suddenly very ill and in hospital for days and I'm sure that her family appreciated her having most of her important day-to-day stuff in some kind of order. Sadly, my friend passed away. In my grief, I'm taking time to post about how we set up our little "order out of chaos" system.

What I Use:

• Spiral notebooks. The cheaper, the better. I use one spiral for "general stuff" (I will explain that and another just for bills and regular payments that I call my Bill Pay sheet). You should arrange a system that works best for you.
• Pens and/or pencils (in at least 3 different colors. I use blue, black, and red. A permanent marker with a fine tip is also useful.
• Highlighters in at least 2 colors. You may want to add more.
• Sticky notes. They don't have to be the pricy name brand type but should not fall off easily. (I will tell you later how I have started making my own.)
• Colored tabs or something to "flag" pages and sections. I have cheap tabs that I can write on and reposition.
• A stapler and/or good paper clips.

What I do for my general information:

• If I talk to anyone about anything important - for example, medical insurance or my apartment lease, etc. - I try to immediately record the information in the spiral. At a minimum, I note the date and time and who I was speaking with, and why. If I don't have my spiral, I jot notes on any piece of paper that I can copy, clip or staple into my spiral later.
• I make a tab/flag for each situation. If I make a note about my apartment lease, I make a tab for "Apartment" or "Lease" and try to leave a few blank pages behind it in case I need to add more information later. This helps me find things at a glance when I need to.
• When I fill up a spiral, I start another. I try to keep all the old spirals bound together by type - General, Bills, Medical, etc. I always mark the year on the front.
• I will staple or clip the small relevant loose notes and receipts into the appropriate space in the spiral. If something is too bulky, I will put it into a baggie labeled so I know which spiral and section it belongs to. Cheap envelopes are also good for holding receipts and other flyway papers.

What I do for monthly/regular bill payments (Bill Pay sheet):

• I typed up a sheet listing my set monthly bills to be paid. You want to have at least a year's worth (12). I was able to print mine out but you can handwrite them or have copies made at the library or a store.
• For each month, I show a running tally similar to a basic checkbook with-
• the starting dollar amount or balance that I have to work with
• on each bill line, I show the amount that is due and the amount that I am paying. I subtract what I have minus what I paid, and show the balance left. I move the balance to the next line and repeat.
• I leave space on one side of the columns to make whatever notes I want. I usually note whether I am paying any extra on a bill or if it is an auto-pay, etc.
• I leave space at the bottom or I use the back to make any notes throughout the rest of the month about what I am doing with the remaining balance of my budget - food purchases, unexpected charges, etc.

Of course, I make small changes to my system as I need and you have to practice to see what works for you. I recently changed my "Bill Pay" sheet to add things like the account numbers I need to sign in to pay and the due dates so I don't have to hunt for the information every time.

I pay all my bills at the first of the month even if they are due mid-month. Even if you don't actually pay the bill at that time, you can tally it so you have an idea of your budget.

Last year, I started just stapling my Bill Pay sheet to a page in the spiral because that leaves me more room to jot the many notes I take all the rest of the month. 

It's not pretty but it works. 

You can see that I put a lot of wear and tear on my notebooks! That's because I have to refer back to them so often.

Another thing that I started about 2 years ago is keeping a spiral that is just for information from and for my doctors. I only see my specialist about every 3 months. By the time I get to appointments and he or she is asking, I will have forgotten any specific issues I had in the previous months. One of my doctors is great about printing out info for me to take home - future appointments, changes to make to my diet and exercise, etc. My other doctors tend to forget to do that so I have started taking detailed notes during or immediately afterward. Or my family will mention what they are observing about my health that I need to make a note of.

Keeping track of
important calls...

Even more recently since I changed to a better Medicare plan, I started keeping a whole other notebook for that. I keep track of benefits I'm using or paid OTC stuff I can order, etc.

The bottom line is when you have any kind of issue with your health or memory, etc. you have to be your own advocate and caretaker. I am fortunate to have the best family ever but I live alone. I can't afford to misremember something important like a bill, medication, or something else that impacts my life so seriously.

Maybe you don't even have a specific age- or health-related situation. Maybe you are just disorganized in general. Maybe you have a family member that you are helping. You could set this system up and use it to help them stay on track. At any rate, I hope it's truly useful. It's literally been a life-saver for me.

My mind is very scattered this week & I wanted to come back and add anything I may have missed...

You can make your own Sticky Notes (cheaper than the name Post *ts...) by getting some of this cheap glue. I use scratch paper of cheap newsprint that I cut into different size squares. If you apply the glue to the paper and wait 60 seconds before attaching it to another piece (and another, etc), you can easily re-attach those papers to your notebook. DIY stickies.

I use either pencils or erasable ink for writing in my notebooks. Don't use erasable ink though on anything important such as official documents - or if the paperwork will be exposed to high heat. My Rocketbook ink pens are made to wash away with water or disappear with high heat. I really prefer mechanical pencils for my notes because the lead lasts longer and is cheaper to replace.

I like to keep business-length envelopes around. You can staple them into your notebook to hold a batch of receipts (medical, bills, etc). That way you won't have bits of small papers flapping around in your notebooks.

Have one spot in your home where you can store the accumulation of notebooks. I store mine under a writing desk near my emergency contact stuff. I arrange them by month/year or just year. If we have a fire or other emergency, time allowing, I will grab the most recent stuff.

Make sure that someone in your family or circle of friends knows you have the notebooks. If something happens and they need to help you take care of business, they will at least have somewhere to start.

Setting this up is a lot less complicated than it sounds. Just make a system that works best for you. The main thing is to have some kind of order in the chaos of your life when it comes to important stuff like medical or finances. 

Peace

--Free

**CROSS POST** A Sense of Wonder

Warning: this is one of my posts from my blog about faith. Non-believers may want to exit now. 

This is one of those Does Anyone Else? posts. So... Does anyone else sometimes just sit and wonder what Heaven is like?

This is a frequent pastime of mine. Reading certain passages of the Bible can set off one of these musings, or thinking about a loved one who has died. Thinking about my own mortality is another fuse that lights my wonderings.

My best friend is currently not just "not doing well" but at the "may not make it" stage of her being ill. One morning last week, when I got the news from the family of her recent trip to the emergency room, I was sad for the rest of the day. I couldn't do anything but think of my own potential loss. I've already lost my only biological sister and now I was losing the person I call my "sister of the heart". 

I will miss her so much when she is gone. I will have no one like her to call and tell things that I could only tell her or my later sister. I will not get the phone calls and messages and support of this amazing woman who has been my friend for almost 30 years. I will be so much sadder and lonelier in this world for the loss of her.

Yeah. I spent almost an entire day in the I-zone of misery.

Then, because my Bible reading plan has me in parts of the books of Corinthians, I remembered the verses we inserted into my mother's obituary:

For we know that if our earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed, in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, since in fact after putting it on, we will not be found naked. For indeed, we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a pledge. (2 Corinthians 5:1-5 NASB)

Yes. That part, as the kids now say.

Once I re-read the passage, I stopped the tears. I began to think of how happy my sister-friend is going to be when she steps out of the pain of her earthly tent and into the joy and peace of her heavenly existence.  And then, I went on to muse about her being there in Heaven.

Will she meet my mother and sister again? Will they recognize each other? And will it matter to them in Heaven who they once were on this earth?

I like to try to imagine an existence without the sins and temptations of mortal life. What must it be like to have no social, mental, emotional, or physical ailments to deal with?

If this is what we mortals can imagine, 
just think what God has prepared.

The other side of thinking about Heaven and what it will be like, always makes me appreciate salvation. I think that the greatest joy of Heaven will be being with the Father, meeting Jesus face to face. And the worst of Hell is being forever not in the presence of our Lord.

So, I can never lose this wonder I have about Heaven. I know that my human mind cannot come close to imagining what it is going to be like but it's a comfort to me when I think of my sister leaving here for there.

Peace

--Free

Surface Knowledge & Going Deeper

 Reading a Reddit post about the Rosetta Stone today reminded me to never stop learning. The Stone is one of those things that we hear about all the time without a lot of us really knowing what it is or why it's important. Surface knowledge.

We live in the age of the internet, being "connected" and having access to so much information that we don't absorb details. Surface knowledge.

How many of us are fortunate enough to have a good education? How many of us who have access take full advantage of a good (or even decent) education? 

I honestly believe that many of us didn't realize the importance (and good fortune) of having that access. I don't think that I did. For me, getting just through school was the thing. I was a nervous and shy student. My family, being military, moved around a lot. I never spent more than a year or two at any one school. I'd start at a school and have to get through the anxiety of being the "new kid". By the time I stopped feeling so lost and out of place, it was on to a new school. I believe my older sister felt the same. My brothers, who are more confident and outgoing, all did really well. They are all very "book smart". They really enjoyed their school years and have fond memories about every set of teachers and students they interacted with.

Now that I am much older, I still have the social anxiety and awkwardness of my youth. But now I have the internet. I have access to information of all sorts literally at the fingertips on my keyboard. Not learning about stuff in this society means I am mostly dumb on purpose. Ain't that a shame?

Before I got sick, I was too busy working and enjoying being healthy to take full advantage of all this free knowledge. Now, I have more time but my brain works at half-power. Still, I just cannot get enough of learning. I'm not great at retaining what I learn, but I still get to explore.

When I saw the post about the Rosetta Stone, I did some Googling and - wow.

For all of you out there with a healthy body, mind, and brain, I urge you to take advantage. If you even have 1 hour - even just half an hour - of time that you can set aside for it, go deeper. Please. 

Today, I spent about 40 minutes looking up information about the Rosetta Stone. While I was at it, I wandered down a few rabbit holes and picked up some information about language and culture in general. I will talk more about cultural literacy in just a moment and you will see why I think it's so important.

You can start by picking a book that you've always heard about but never got around to reading. You don't even have to read the book if you don't have time. You can look up notes about it or find a cheat sheet for it. I can't tell you how many lists there are of "Books Everyone Should Read...". Good Reads has a "General Knowledge Books" list.

Years and years ago, I read Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know (by  E.D. Hirsch Jr.). That was the first time I started thinking about how I had shorted my own education post-school. Even though I'd had challenges during my school years, there was nothing really stopping me from going further and deeper afterward. I was just too busy working and being young and cute.

Coming up on that Reddit post and then writing this blog post has encouraged me to get another copy of Hirsch's book. I highly recommend it to anyone who agrees with me about life-long learning. Just because we are no longer in school - or see ourselves as "brainy", there is no reason at all not to continue learning. Maybe we wouldn't be in such an awful mess as a nation right now if we... Never mind. That's a whole other blog post!

I guess the main thing I want to get across is that we let things keep us from learning and growing. Shame is a big obstacle. I was always horrible with math but once I had to use math skills in a job that I loved, I got so much better. (Sadly, those skills were the first to go when I got sarcoidosis). What I have learned since my brain decided to be funky is that there should be no shame in going back to the basics to learn anything. My sister bought me a math book for children when I was first laid up in bed. I had nothing else to do so...  These days, when I am curious about something, I will start with the basics - looking for books written "for beginners" or for children. No shame, people. 

These days, with so much information available to so many, there is no excuse not to at least attempt to learn and grow. Barring health and developmental problems, we are only as dumb as we choose to be.

By the way, here is the Amazon author page for Hirsch. I plan to take a look and see what else he's written.

Peace

--Free

**QUICKIE POST** A New Way to Enjoy Yogurt?

What's your favorite thing to eat with yogurt? What's your favorite type of yogurt? I love Greek yogurt but usually get it sweetened. I'm pretty sure the plain is better for me. But the plain is so... plain. Anyway.

So I'm trying to eat everything up in my fridge before buying groceries. Just about everything is gone. I'm down to a couple f eggs and some cheese. Last night, I had a snack attack and... nothing snack-like but some yogurt, a single apple, and a couple of bananas.

The yogurt is that super-thick Greek Chobani brand. The bananas were about to be too ripe in another day.

I chopped the bananas up over a bowl of yogurt and topped it all with a couple lines of honey.

Let me tell you what... That was the best fruit & yogurt combo I've ever had. It was like eating a healthy version of mock Nilla Wafer banana pudding pie - you know, sans the wafers. Plain Greek yogurt is normally way too tangy-like for me. The bananas just kind of... 'oomphed' it up.

Guess what my new favorite snack is? Not even just as a snack. I mean, I could eat this all day every day. I think that the trick is for the bananas to be at the right ripeness. The ones I had were not going brown, but they were on the softer-sweeter side of ripe. I probably did not need the little bit of honey I used.

The other thing I noticed is that even half a banana would have been really filling. I was over-stuffed because I added two of them - only because they were going to go too ripe soon.

Maybe this is not new to anyone but me. I just never thought of adding bananas to yogurt. I normally eat blueberries, strawberries, or pineapple chunks - you know the juicier fruits. No more. From now on, it's bananas all the way.

Now, I don't know how this will work but I am thinking of trying this combo with the bananas mashed into the yogurt. 

Anyway, that's my new thing. Greek yogurt and bananas. Cheap, healthy, filling, and fiber-full.

By the way, after I finished ranting about this, I found that it's already a thing. 

It's even a "diet thing". Still, I take credit for describing it as a Nilla Wafer cheat!

Peace

--Free