Tag: pods

Can the Rest of Your Life Be the Best of Your Life?

Can the Rest of Your Life

Be the Best of Your Life?

I have spoken many times about the limitations inherent in the whole getting-old thing. Few escape the fun surprises of old age and the many sad days remembering those who have left the party before you.

So what can one do to lift their spirits during this whole aging process?

Let’s face it, most aren’t capable of beginning to train for a marathon or mountain climbing. Still, many can. Of course, it’s possible to do numerous things as we age despite the fact there are some physical limits to what we can accomplish. Yet, and go with me here…the wisdom we’ve gleaned over so the years can help to achieve goals that may have been out of our reach in our youth.

Wisdom doesn’t require exercise. It doesn’t need a 20-year-old body.

As we age and our presence seems to diminish, we grow less and less relevant and our footprint grows lighter and smaller.

So what is the alternative to this inevitability?

Women have known for years we don’t need an invisibility cloak after the age of fifty. It used to be forty but Botox has added a few years to our presence.

Most women are aware that as the years pass so does their ability to attract attention and many have accepted this fate.

However, with the advent of social media, seniors have raised their profile and possess numerous ways to remain in the game.

Coolness is no longer predicated on age or sex. So many have found fun and lucrative ways to add years to their social lives by starting businesses, becoming politically active and checking off items from their bucket list.

So is it boring to just want to live the days quietly and unadventurously? Visiting grandchildren and walking through the park? Baking our children’s favorite recipes and delivering them? Meeting a friend for lunch and living a serene life? Should we feel guilty that we aren’t still out in the world making a difference or leaving our mark on humanity? Is it a sign of laziness to want to enjoy a bowl of popcorn and a Mel Brooks movie festival on a rainy day?

Are we entitled to choose our path and is it a shame to opt for the quiet one? Does the quality of our life depend on how much we do with it? How exciting we make every day? Does it seem like simply living is actually waiting to leave life? Well you sure ask a lot of questions for someone from Detroit, Norma.

So I’ve asked myself many times, what should I be doing with the rest of my life? Is this a time I could be using to live out old dreams, accomplish never-achieved goals or perhaps set a new agenda?

There is that old saw after all about Grandma Moses beginning to paint at 78 years old.

Colonel Harland Sanders was 65 when he started Kentucky Fried Chicken and Laura Ingalls Wilder was 65 when she began writing the highly successful Little House on the Prairie series.

I’m thinking that since 50 is the new 40 that 75 is the new 65. With that in mind is there any reason not to jump in and swim to the shore marked unfulfilled dreams?

The new wave in education toward home schooling has led to a new thing called PODS where parents form their own group and hire a teacher. Sort of home schooling on steroids.

Now a teacher can even continue teaching in a new and different way if they choose.

There are so many more opportunities today.

Online work and businesses, influencers, and of course the tried-and-true activities.

Classes in art, painting. sculpting, wine, cooking, Maj Jong or Bridge and so much more to fill the days.

That being said there is a fly in the ointment; COVID slowed us down. Instead of making us race into new endeavors, so many I know have discovered they are content to be at home and puttering about the house or garden just enjoying a quiet life.

Taking into account the options are numerous and more than ever before is there anything wrong with simply choosing to do nothing? Is any guilt attached to slowing your roll and taking life easy? Is carpe diem reserved for those who feel they must fill up every minute of each day with another activity?

After living a life of running here and there, caring for your children and out and about constantly isn’t it perfectly acceptable for one to feel content in solitude? Simply enjoying sitting and remembering or arranging flowers from your own garden in a beautiful vase?

Do we have to be writing a book or is reading one we’ve put off for years enough? For some yes, for others the answer is obviously a big no.

I believe that’s the beauty of growing older, the choices are endless and entirely up to you.

No one judges whether or not you used your laugh, laugh golden years to seek a cure for cancer or you merely took a walk on the beach or in the woods picking berries and baking them into a pie.

Enjoying the crisp air and the beautiful colors of autumn is a right one has earned by virtue of a life lived in fullness and now the choice is ours. Should we do one thing or perhaps both. Do unlived dreams have a right to be brought to fruition just because they lie on our hearts?

Should we be mindful of the ultimate responsibility to ourselves to live life to the fullest? Yet isn’t that degree of fullness up to us to determine?

I suppose I’m addressing my own guilt feeling remiss to achieve what hasn’t been done. Or are some dreams simply meant to be just that…dreams? Not every wish can come true nor should we feel less than for replacing old ambitions with new ones?

I haven’t quite figured it all out yet but I do know I enjoy the quiet days as much as the productive ones so maybe it’s possible to do both. If one feels a desire to do more, they easily can.

Maybe you feel the same or have managed to come to terms with how you choose to carpe diem your life. If you have, I hope every moment is proving to be a happy one.

Here is my recipe for an easy yummy Thanksgiving dessert albeit a bit early.

Pumpkin Blueberry Mousse

With Pumpkin Candy Crunch Topping

1 cup pumpkin

1 cup fresh blueberries

7 ounces of cream cheese

1 ½ cups whipped cream

1 cup powdered sugar

1/8/ tsp cloves

1/8 tsp ginger

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

Mix sugar and cream cheese until whipped nicely.

Add pumpkin and seasonings

Mix well. Set aside and hip cream until peaked.

Fold all but 1½ into pumpkin mixture. Set aside rest of whipped cream for topping.

Fold in blueberries and pour into parfait glasses or martini glasses. Top with whipped cream.

Place in fridge to set.

Pumpkin Seed Candy Crunch.

Place two tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar in non-stick frying pan.

When melted and combined add ½ cup of pumpkin seeds (Not roasted or salted)

Saute on low heat (watch carefully so they don’t burn) for about five minutes until seeds are nicely coated.

Remove from burner and place in fridge to harden.

When set and butter is hardened remove crunch from pan and chop up into pieces. Not too small but small enough to fit on top of mousse.

Bring mousses back out and top crunchies.

Enjoy!!!

Is COVID a Scary Glimpse Into and Preparation For The Future?

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Is COVID a Scary Glimpse Into and Preparation For The Future?

Cocooning: staying inside one’s home insulated from perceived danger.

Faith Popcorn, the trends and futurist guru coined the term cocooning in 1981 predicting a trend toward staying at home in lieu of interacting with an increasingly uncertain world. I always thought her theories were fascinating and right on, this one has to be not merely predictive, but downright psychic.

So what does this mean to us as individuals if we prefer to stay inside and interact less with what transpires outside our domain? Will it create a world of hermits living in fur-lined, customized caves? How will it affect what we manufacture, purchase, create and invent? Especially the way we communicate with one another.

Or can we let go of others and forego human interaction for that great new series on Netflix?

According to Popcorn, the places we live will become more minimal with movable multi-use furniture. We won’t even need television screens any longer thanks to Microsoft’s Hololens and other new ways of delivering images directly to our brain. Sales of tiny houses in the US are up 67% already and designers are building new and more interactive homes every day.

The last phase Popcorn mentions is the regenerative phase of cocooning or living in a pod that is wired to anticipate our needs. It’s transportable and can be taken with us wherever we go. Mercedes has already envisioned a live/work space that takes us from location to location guided by a robot.

She predicts 50% of work will be freelance and your robotic kitchen will cater to your nutritional and dietary needs. Your bathroom fixtures and mirror will scan your health and transmit it to your medi-bot to make the required changes in your diet or meds. And what if I still want that Sander’s Hot Fudge? Will I have to battle my robot for a sundae?  Is Big Brother my doctor?

Alexa will be there to listen when you’ve had a rough day and provide a robotic shoulder to cry on. Houses will float on water or be underground as rising sea levels affect millions whose homes will be underwater in high tide. Does that mean ocean front property will be selling super cheap?

I could continue but I suggest you read Popcorn’s report at faithpopcorn.com as it is a fascinating, albeit sometimes scary peak into the not-to-distant future.

Yes, I believe these new technologies and inventions exist, but recent events seem to point otherwise. I may not be an expert on trends, but human nature I know something about. After my last blog I received so many responses from people saying how much they treasure their early memories and having others to share them.

So if human beings are so happy to share and interact with others, why are we going out of our way to create a world where we do neither? I’ve always been under the impression there are two kinds of people; those who love wide-open spaces and the second type that enjoys urban living. My generation, once married seemed to gravitate toward homes with large lots and spacious yards for playing, entertaining and creating a comfortable distance with one’s neighbors. Yet, not too far as there seemed to be a genuine need to have other children for playing and parents with whom to socialize.

It seems incredibly foreign to me after being locked in captivity the last three months that this would become a permanent way of life. I certainly don’t see anyone enjoying the solitude and whoever can is running outside faster than Coyote chasing Roadrunner toward that cliff.

Was Barbra wrong when she sang, “people who need people are the luckiest people in the world?”

Or is this a world that will only exist in the memories of those still alive to remember the good old days, when people socialized and interacted with one another?

Recalling a time when we stood in line at crowded movie theaters and at restaurants to dine. When we watched a television show together as a family on that great new, big screen Dad brought home for himself for Mother’s Day?

When we look back it does seem that life has truly changed greatly in the last 75 years since World War II, but the changes to come that are really revolutionary are not that far away now. Tech is moving so quickly one day we’ll blink and that new “modern” kitchen will be as outdated as a Model T Ford.

So I have to ask myself, technology is evolving at warp speed but is mankind? Is there something in all those new gadgets that will alter a human’s need for love, caring and affection? Can we be satisfied with Alexa’s shoulder to lean on when a dream dies, a romance falls apart or we feel hopeless and vulnerable? Is this the way man will evolve, a creature controlled by artificial intelligence sitting in a tiny pod (guess they cure claustrophobia in the future) and having a movie programmed through his brain?

Yipes! I imagine humans will adapt to this new form of existence although I’m glad I won’t have to. I prefer sharing memories with friends, hugging my kids and grandchildren, walking in a beautiful garden and enjoying a meal I’ve prepared with someone special. The future seems awfully lonely and we’ve recently glimpsed into it Zooming, Skyping and Amazoning through today.

I for one will be glad to get out into that scary, unpredictable world once more, because as frightening as it may seem, it beats cocooning, seeking solace from a robot or hiding away forever.

The following is a recipe from a dear friend no longer here. It’s still one of the yummiest. ENJOY!

Malka B’s Strudel

Strudel dough

2 cups flour

½ pound of cream cheese

½ pound butter

½ cup of honey mixed with 2 tablespoons of water

Cream butter and cream cheese and add flour. Knead well

Chill several hours or overnight

Divide into six portions, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate about half and hour before rolling out to 14 or 16 inches.

 

Fillings

1 18 oz jar of apricot preserves

1 small package of sweetened coconut

1 small package of walnuts

1 small package of raisins

1 cup of graham cracker crumbs

 

You can also use fresh apple slices, raisins walnuts and cinnamon and sugar as a filling and for a new kick add some caramel to the mix.

 

Preheat oven to 350

 

Roll out one portion of dough and brush on a thin layer of honey and water mixture

Spread on a layer of preserves

Sprinkle on a light layer of graham cracker crumbs

Add coconut raisins and walnuts and begin rolling from the bottom up. Seal top together with honey water mixture.

 

Score the top into eight pieces and place on a parchment covered cookie sheet.

 

Bake about 45 minutes until lightly browned.

Cut into pieces and sprinkle with powdered sugar when cooled before serving.