Heh, you and I are in the minority on that one. Go figure!
I've slowly added hats over the years, usually found at art fairs and similar venues. If you like to visit those, keep an eye out. Music festivals are also a potential source. Of course there's online now. I still have every hat I ever got except cheap visors bought many years ago because the elastic band in back deteriorated (colorful fabric visors gotten in the 80s). Not sure how many hats I have but it's around 10 or so. My oldest is from the early 70s. What kind of hat will work for you depends on your body type and sense of style. I have a very large skull so finding hats that fit online is difficult; the circumference of most is about 3 inches too small. So when I find a really cute hat that does fit, I tend to get it.
Yeah it's brutal before acclimation and it must be done with each seasonal change too when you live in places with seasons; even here there are. It sounds like it didn't take you too long to acclimate fortunately. Last March we had to fly across country for a funeral and they had record heat there with 100% humidity while we were there and even at just 83, I about cooked with the heat as I was not acclimated to it that early in the year.
Yes, as we get older, we tend to have both less energy and less free time. So it takes an effort to maintain friendships. It's not uncommon to keep in touch with quick messages via text, social media (ugh) and emails. I miss the days when phoning was the norm but I too am guilty of not making those calls.
You're lucky in that. We've found even in the Bay Area, there are areas where local streets are in very poor shape; it's not just in more modest income areas.
Ah, if you're on medication that causes you to burn easily, then yes, sunscreen is a must. If shade is that scarce down there, have you considered a sunbrella? I have amassed over the years a decent collection of sun hats.
On the bonus side, if you're in the heat long enough, eventually you do acclimate and it becomes comfortable. In my case it only took 30 years.... rolleyes Most people do in a year or two.
That's good! Definitely not easier in any way, and both seem like solid career paths.
I bet nursing would have more interesting subject matters though maybe.
I need to apply to grad school crying Im thinking of taking classes in various things to figure out which way I want to go.
But otherwise I made my copyediting website and am going to get it out on the web soon.
Ah, you're on vacation hours and relaxing. Got it.
I truly wish that were true.
No, the difficulty is due to modern life; everyone is so wrapped up on social media, texting, focusing on that instead of in person; and/or they are extremely busy between work and parenting even if grandparents helping out. Some of it is distance as people tend to move around but even those who live close are swamped with little free time. It makes it hard to spend the time needed to develop and keep deep connections and friendships that don't drift away over time. But fortunately not impossible. Close communities are harder to come by.
Pot holes are a problem it seems in most areas of CA now alas. I used to be so diligent about wearing sunscreen that I ended up with huge vit. D deficiency in spite of taking supplements. So I stopped using it but limit the time I spend in direct sunshine when a lot of skin is showing. Wrapped up for winter and when the sun is less intense during that time I don't need to. That was over 10 years ago; I've not been burnt once since and my vit. D levels with that approach, with pills to is right in the center of the normal range. It's easy to avoid direct sunlight as I don't want it in summer heat! I seek shade always.
Being awake at 10 pm is one thing; just taking a break from work is yet another; it implies you're doing homework or working late into the night then not sleeping much. Lack of sleep cuts available brain function in half so everything takes much longer and the results are worse. Memory goes way downhill....
Yes, it is. To not do so is unthinkably selfish and cruel.
In today's world, those without family or those who don't have a religious community really have to work to avoid isolation. It's vital each of us maintain connections in such situations. She did to an extent; I make it a point to also. I'm like her in that I never want to end up in a nursing or assisted living home and for much the same reasons. I'm just relieved she was put in a situation where she couldn't turn down help at home. Me; I'd welcome that, in this we're unlike. Having friends who truly care is so important. And ways to meet them offline are increasingly difficult now.
Yeah, the parts of the south bay are definitely redwood territory. I shall always miss having them nearby. So it's more dessert and less sagebrush south of LA? So it seems when it comes to direct sun light. Although it can feel pretty good on cool days in winter, sunburn is always something to watch out for. Even on foggy or cloudy days. We do need some though--vitamin D production.
I totally get you! And I thought I remembered it was Nursing!
I hope you are enjoying it still. Lots of jobs out there Id bet smile
Thank you!!
I will PM you the details ^_^
How late was it for you when you posted that? My time stamp says 10:06 pm! I think we're in the same time zone still so that was a very long day indeed!
Yeah, they're doing pretty well all things considered. I still miss my other kitties though. I do take some comfort knowing they're no longer suffering and that they didn't have long lingering painful deaths. It's so hard; all they want to do is live even when they know they can't.
I wonder about people who don't have that support, how they fair? She can try and push away that help as much as she wants, but people keep finding a way through.
Ah, you're in sagebrush territory? Yeah, the time to walk there is right at sunrise or sunset. I have very fair skin and don't tan so I am careful to either seek shade or go out very early or very late. There aren't a lot of trees on the trails here either so they're about 1/4 shaded along the way in some spots and less than others. I was just out early this morning at our nearest wildlife preserve. And it was far too windy to wear a hat. The wind did help us stay cool though.
Oh my, it has been a long while. I get it about school, when the work load piles up.
Sadly, his time came last March. With care, we were able to give him a couple extra months of life; my husband didn't tell me until the end the vet had given my cat only days to live, his cancer was so advanced. However, our female cat is going on 11 months with failed kidneys and still doing fairly well with treatment. My 4 cats now are 14 and all have some health issues which is not unexpected given their beginnings. I honestly didn't think back then that so many of them would make it this far--they were born of a feral mom with very advanced FIV so got exposed in utero and when nursing to a myriad of virus and pathogens. Thankfully it turned out they didn't contract FIV.
It's been rough about her too; she did find a way to cope and was doing well, but in the recent past (before he died) she had had a series of ministrokes. 2 months after he died, she had another set and they took their toll. So now she deals with Sundowner's Syndrome and intermittent dementia. She has no family and lives alone, but it turns out she has a 2nd group of friends who live closer to her than we do and both groups look out for her, help her keep track of appointments, medications, etc., provide transportation and she now has a social worker who sends people to check in on her on a regular basis. So that is a huge improvement.
When I was in college, I found walking around campus between classes to be beneficial as most campuses are nicely landscaped, kind of like parks in a way. Is where you're going like that? If you get make it to a preserve or nature trail area a couple of times a month it'll do wonders for stress, but it's great you're out walking regularly.
Editing for her was the easiest editing job I'd every taken by far. It was amazing. You're in for a treat once school is finished.
So much has happened since we last spoke. My cat had high blood pressure as it turned out and medication now has it under control for now so she's holding her own. In the meantime, one of our other cats was declining fast and we FINALLY got a definitive diagnosis after years of trying, after my cat got a ultrasound. Sadly he has intestinal cancer and it's spread to the lymph nodes. He doesn't have long to live, but the symptoms are being treated somewhat successfully with medication to shrink the tumors so he can keep food down.
My friend's partner is managing well emotionally now, but she's now had a couple of ministrokes and is refusing any in home visits or check ins so we're worried about her. She just turned 90; he was quite a bit younger and died at 82.
Today I am in grief mode so my intuition is picking up on something imminent. Times of death are so hard!
I think my frequent walks in nature are key to me staying emotionally healthy amid all I've gone through. They help me stay centered and move through everything, processing fully. Plus we've seen some amazing things recently; this is the best time of year for abundance as the last of the birds have arrived for the winter, but the first to arrive are still here too.
Reading about other cultures in novels and stories, no matter the genre is always interesting. I love a good historical novel as well and can recommend a wonderful author. I fell in love with her books, then later we became friends and I became one of her team of editors. Niada West; River of Red Gold; What the Bear Saw and Rest for the Wicked--her California trilogy. She wrote it from multiple cultural perspectives, richly woven stories covering California from when the Spanish first arrived to the early 1900s. They became required reading in universities in the US for fine literature and in the UK for history. Be sure to get the later editions as she added more with each edition as more information came in. They're over 90% factual and without the documentation I could never figure out which bits were fictional. I'm glad in later editions she included that information in an appendix. I got to see the original sources. Most of her main characters though are fictional, but not all.
Can AI? It can be programmed to do specific things and recognize patterns. Humans can do much more and go beyond programmed parameters. What takes humans so long is often resistance to change. Once that is set aside, people learn extremely fast.
Ah that tree; it's sitting in my curio cabinet and I get a laugh every time I see that silly thing.
Still in a tough time, but at least mail box is fixed, email is working and power is steady. My friend is doing as well as can be expected, once she got past the shock and overwhelm which is a relief. We were all so worried about her. But we got another shock; another of our cats was just diagnosed with advanced intestinal cancer. They're trying to shrink some of the tumors with prednisone so he can live a bit longer but it doesn't seem to be working well yet.
I did have a nice Christmas in spite of grieving. It's amazing how many emotions one can feel simultaneously, opposing emotions at that though. New Years plans, modest though they were fell through so we just had a quiet couple of days at home. And celebrated on Jan 2nd by getting out in nature.
I hope your holidays went well.
I'm just in the habit of daily reading; I have been since I was just 2 years old. I've never watched shows daily; there were years I didn't at all. So I schedule a small set time for TV or net shows and a set time for reading and it's part of my daily routine right now. When traveling, I still read daily, but don't go online or watch tv. The genre I don't care for is true crime. I also don't care for excessive gory violence, reveling in cruelty (some humor is about that too), predictable stories with shallow characters--more characterizations than real people, and every genre has some of that, some genres more than others. I do enjoy good humor and wit, characters that are interesting and likeable, stories that are unpredictable but tie together well, stories that have caring and kindness. Seems right now, the focus is on wallowing in greed and excess or morality plays, neither of which have any interest for me. I truly disliked getting preached at, even if I agree with the point of view.
Oh, they are trying to replace people with AI in jobs but AI is still pretty primitive. So for now it isn't going to happen; those who try are going to find failure in their businesses. This gives the space for people to learn new skills and ways of doing things that incorporate AI as useful tools to increase their productivity and thus worth to themselves and their employers or businesses.
Yep, it has been quite soggy, windy and wild. We don't decorate but I can now brag the most minimalist holiday decorating ever thanks to a gift my sister in law sent us. It's a wooden tree about 8 inches high that consists of a stake and 3 rings of "branches" with no tops. When my husband and I put it together, we looked at it sideways, went OK...and had a laugh. When he asked her about it later, she said the branches were hotplates (they flatten when you lay them down). It is still very odd and a bit silly. rofl
I spent the day over at my friend's as planned and it was needed as last week has been really rough. A friend of mine died unexpectedly and I found out at a meetup of friends last Sat.
While we were all process ing and trying to figure out what we could do for his partner who is elderly and frail and fiercely independent and over 100 miles from me, my email went down. So while still reeling, I spent most of a morning working with ATT tech trying to find out if it was a regional outage. Well, their tech dept is now guided by AI that demands they try all kinds of steps to determine it isn't the customer's system even if the know already there is an outage AND they don't let the tech's know there is. So when it became obvious long before all the hoops were jumped through that it wasn't my system, the tech noted 99% of the calls in the call center were from people trying to find out the same thing. And the final irony; the AI elected to let me know there was a regional outage, not by releasing that info to the tech dept. but by sending out emails! Ah yeah, an email we can't access letting us know we can't! emotion_facepalm 2 hours after that, I got my email back and there were indeed about 10 emails from my group of friends figuring it all out and we did a really good job, the process helped us all and led to some good ideas on how to reach out to his partner. Plus another dozen or so emails unrelated.
Then we discovered a couple of mailboxes in our bank of them got broken into so no mail was being delivered to anyone who has a box in that group. And they didn't let anyone know. After a couple of days of no mail, my husband was supposed to go down there and check and he never did. Finally our postman hand delivered some prescription medicines to him and let him know what happened. Fortunately, all it was was 5 days of junk mail....rolleyes
It's hard enough dealing with stuff like email and mail when not grieving. That Sat. all the joy went out of the holidays for me, but the peaceful day at my friend's helped. We had planned low key; turkey sandwiches, appetizers and a couple of desserts. Still managed way too much food of course. I made the turkey the day before; every year I buy an organic turkey and have the market cut it into parts and vacuum wrap for the freezer. I have this year's turkey now but I had half a breast piece left over from last year's that I roasted and sliced. After exchanging gifts, we ate and played board games and visited for the day. My husband and I stayed just long enough to miss the worst down pours
As for reading; I do that daily, no matter what. My gift wish list is almost always all books of interest, lol.
I hope they start paying attention to the potential security risks because I know for sure the bad guys will be using AI tools to take advantage and until holes are plugged, a lot of people will get ripped off due to just using AI to do their search for them. The first large companies to do so will have a huge competitive edge and great selling point so there is motivation.
I am glad of it too and hope quick access to it when needed is there. Right now it only is when there are cancellations as there are more people needing help than people to treat them.
It would be a good idea not to put up anything the kitten could wreck. Time to get creative if you want to decorate using materials she can't harm. Or yep, just relax, let it go and disappear into that hoard of books while you've time to enjoy them.
For me it's Firefox. And I do my own research, don't rely on AI results.
Benign vertigo is an inner ear problem where a crystal breaks free of a nerve fiber and bounces around, causing dizziness and visual spinning. I got it treated before it got too bad so it wasn't very violent. I got lucky in that I didn't have to wait too long for a PT appt to fix it. Yep, you experienced a bit of what we've been dealing with here; I live near hwy 5.
That is low key. We're having turkey sandwiches (I'm roasting up a piece of my organic turkey the night before), exchanging gifts, socializing and playing board games. As for reading, I do that daily anyway. So many great books out there being written right now. I like the festive aspect too, but I'm not Christian and I have a houseful of cats so I don't decorate. My friend does and some years she's gone overboard with it, even living alone. My husband doesn't care if we decorate or not. Do you decorate?
Thank you for the gift. I'm holding off opening them until closer to Xmas and the 8th day of Hanuka. I've got a nice collection waiting now. mrgreenheart
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