: Family Members

When Bread Becomes a Broken-Tooth Risk, It’s Time to Toss It Out

Hello everyone:

My maiden aunt was blessed by many friends who liked to give her meals, but she didn’t eat much. She would have one meal out of a big dish and then put the rest of the food in the refrigerator where she would forget she had it (she was 93 ½ so this was forgivable). This applied to whole turkeys, casseroles, and pies.

The remains of the food she was given were in the refrigerator when we inherited the property three months after she had been put in the rehab center where she died.  She was very well-liked by many considerate people who thought she had a much larger appetite than she did.

Bugs flew out of the refrigerator the first time we opened it, along with the most horrid stench you can imagine. [Decaying food had been there at least three months and was accompanied by bugs, mold, whatever….you do the math!]

Here’s more advice: if you have an elderly family member of friend who is hospitalized, offer to check on his or her house and check out the refrigerator. Immediately. Get everything out of it that has the potential of decaying or turning a peculiar color and dump it out.  

Throw away all expired food. It does not get better with age; once it’s gone a few years past the sell-by date, you need to toss it or take the chance of getting food poisoning from it.  [The record for expired food that I have found is eleven years past the expiration date. Please don’t try this at home!]

When the person is ready to come home from the hospital, replace what you threw away, if that’s possible. That way, you don’t have the guilt of starving the person to death and you will have done something very nice for someone who might have needed the food in his or her refrigerator.

You might also try offering to buy all new food at the store, since the fact that the food was in there for a very long time might mean the person tried it but didn’t like it. [Another side note: If the sliced bread has been in the house long enough to become one solid, petrified block, it is time to get rid of it, rather than risking a broken tooth on it.]

I hope you find these tips helpful!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

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Making great scrambled eggs

Hello everyone:

Since neither of the men I originally penned Suddenly Single for knows how to scramble an egg, let me share my recipe with you.

It starts with a non-stick pan heated on the stove. Put the pan on the stove and turn the heat on to medium.

Get a coffee mug, and take two eggs and crack them open by hitting them on the side with a sharp knife. Dump the contents of the eggs into the mug, checking to make sure you don’t have any eggshells in the cup (remove the shells with a spoon, if there are any eggshells in the mug).

Add a dash of milk to the mug (about a tablespoon, if you are measuring it) and stir the milk and eggs rapidly in circular motions, using a fork. (You are beating the egg here.)

When the pan is hot and the eggs are mixed up, dump them into the pan. Using a plastic spoon (one of the long cooking spoons, not a plastic spoon from a fast food restaurant), stir the eggs continuously as they cook.

The secret to great scrambled eggs is to constantly keep stirring the mixture as it cooks. When the eggs are firm, they are done.

Add salt and/or pepper to taste and eat them while they are hot. If you want toast with the eggs, make it in the toaster while your eggs are just beginning to cook. (I assume you don’t have 3 hands here, so put the toast in the toaster while the eggs are still cooking and it will be done at about the same time as the eggs.)

Enjoy!

Dr. Sheri

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Adjusting to life’s adjustments

Hi everyone:

You know you’re getting older when you are never called “Miss” anymore. You sense a feeling that age is creeping up on you when you can’t fasten your buttons as easily and it’s not because your clothes are too tight.

When you go to get on the bus at the airport parking garage and they lower the step so you can get on, the sign is there that you aren’t the spring chicken you once thought. Perhaps you went through the TSA security line and they told you that it’s okay to keep your shoes on. (Please note that this is only okay if they think you’re over the hill and most of the way down the other side.)

“But I don’t feel old,” you might whine. Look in the mirror, brother or sister. Does your makeup take more time in the morning, ladies? Do you have to re-apply it several times a day, in order to not frighten small children and animals? Groan. I am there with you, my friends.

Sometimes our age shows in other ways. Take, for example, the television shows we watch. Do you find that the advertisers focus on denture adhesive and constipation remedies? That, dear friends, is a sign of the aging times.

Do you remember when jeans used to be thrown away when they got holes in them? Now they are sold for three times the price and displayed in the store’s window.

Do you go to bed when it’s still light outside? (Okay, if you are in Port Isaac, England, the sun doesn’t go down until 10:30 pm in the summer and it’s up by 5, so that doesn’t count.) Do you have trouble sleeping past five am and wake up but aren’t sure what to do? This is a sign….

Do you go into a room and forget why you’re there? Be still my soul…

What examples can you share?

Best,

Dr. Sheri

 

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When do you need to buy more?

Hello everyone:

When the bottle of ketchup or the container of strawberries gets low, you probably know it.

Would you rather run completely out of something, need it desperately, and then have to make an emergency run to the store to buy it? Nope, I didn’t think so.

When you see that the bottle that you have is less than half full, start looking for specials for that product. If something is on sale, don’t buy ten bottles if you live alone, but do stock up.

Note: Things rot and products have expiration dates. Be sure to check the dates on the side of the container. If you think you won’t use it up by then, only buy one, not fifteen. Even if it is a really good deal, if you aren’t going to use it before it expires, then it really is not wise to buy too many of whatever it is.

I went to help clean out a friend’s kitchen when his wife died. It was amazing what I found. There were spices that had expired twenty years ago in his kitchen cabinet, cans of soup that had been officially dead for several years, and ketchup that had fermented (if that is possible). I’m glad he didn’t eat any of those things. He could have gotten seriously ill.

Please throw away anything that’s expired, so you won’t.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

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Facing the day

Hello everyone:

Let’s face it. There are some days when you just don’t feel like facing the day. The love of your life is no longer around, for whatever reason. The person you married is physically still there, perhaps, but has checked out mentally.  Don’t cut yourself off. Stay with it.

Why is this important? I have seen several people who basically disconnected from life when they lost their significant  other. With enough years of isolation, they became less than they had been, mentally and physically.

After a devastating loss such as the death or departure of a spouse, it can be difficult to get back into life. If you are a member of a church or synagogue, you may already be surrounded by friends who share your beliefs and values. But what about the individual who does not belong to a place of worship, or who simply wants to grieve alone? It is important that that person get back into the world in his or her own time.

There are numerous interest groups where you can join other like-minded people and keep your mind active. The temptation is to isolate yourself until you are “ready” but you may never feel ready. The groups you might enjoy include but are not limited to stamp clubs, game clubs (like bridge and other card games), book clubs, scrapbooking groups, couponing clubs, surfers, travelers, and Chatty Cathys.

If you live in an area with many senior citizens and you are an older individual, you may find there is a senior citizen center nearby where you could visit and take classes for little or no cost. If there is a class at the local community college on something you always wanted to learn about, you may be able to take the course for the cost of the books, if you are 62 years or older.

Jump back in, don’t cover your head and hope the world will go away. It might not be easy, at first, but it is the best thing for your future.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

 

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Preparing for storms

Hello everyone:

I thought this picture was absolutely stunning.  But what is it? Is the day dawning or fading? It all depends on your point of view and how you see things.

The photographer of this shot calls it “Lightning at Sunset,” so we see where he’s coming from. I mean, he was there and was the one who caught this breathtaking shot.  He knows what was happening.

It’s kind of like that with losing your spouse. It’s very helpful to have someone alongside who has been where you are going. I’ve watched as gals or guys lost their spouse and have observed them putting their lives back together as Plan B became their life. They had planned on Plan A working just fine, until one day when it didn’t.

Whether you are the spouse who thought “till death does us part” was the way your marriage was going to unfold but ended with a divorce or you are the individual who really lived out that saying, this website is for you. Just today, I learned of a young woman who lost her seemingly-healthy hubby to a heart attack at age 45. The novel I am just finishing writing tells the story of a 40-something gal whose hubby didn’t come home from a conference- he had a one-car accident on the way home. It is based on a friend of mine’s actual experience.

The storms of life happen, dear friends, but I am here to help you through that difficult time, that storm of life. I hope you will see my blog postings as a valuable resource just for you at this time of life. Take care and stay in touch.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

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Bugs

Hello everyone:

Let’s talk about bugs. You may like them personally under some circumstances (which I cannot imagine) but you don’t want them in the kitchen, eating your food.

When I grew up in Florida, I went to an un-air-conditioned high school with direct access to the outside world. The school had problems with palmetto bugs and cockroaches. When we put our lunches in our lockers, the bugs frequently got our lunch before lunchtime. We got used to carrying our lunches with us all morning; I developed a taste for squashed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by default because my sandwiches always looked like they were run through an old-fashioned ringer washer by lunchtime. Please note that we could also stop here and talk about the rats in the locker rooms, but I digress!

Sealed containers are great for storing cookies, pretzels, and cereal. They are not expensive and can be purchased at the grocery store. If your significant other never had them, please buy some and transfer your food into them. If your dearly beloved had them but the food has been in there for an extended period of time, dump the food and start over. You may be growing penicillin, otherwise.

Here’s a quick bit of information: if you like soft cookies, put a piece of bread in the Tupperware-type container when you add cookies and they will remain soft longer. The bread will become hard as a rock, so you will need to toss it out and replace it occasionally, but the cookies will be delightful.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

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Getting what you don’t expect

Hi everyone:

A friend of mine is a fellow with a real heart for older folks. He took care of an elderly neighbor for many years because she had no family. It came as a real shock when, following her death, her lawyer informed him that the woman had left everything to him. This included a small bank account and her house, which was in dire need of repair.

He is a contractor by trade, so he immediately set to work to get it ready to sell. He was not prepared for the next shock: she had gotten a reverse mortgage several years prior to her death. She had been living on the money from the mortgage and had left him a house whose equity was almost totally eaten up by the mortgage.

By the time everything was over, he barely made enough money to pay for the expenses he had incurred while fixing up the house. It was only the search by the title company that revealed that there was a mortgage on the property; she had no paperwork in the house that indicated it was anything but paid for and he assumed that it was free and clear of encumbrances.

Make sure that you check things out before you sink money into a project. Otherwise, you may end up like my friend: seriously deluged with out-of-pocket expenses and now nothing to show for it.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

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Mice are not household pets

Hello everyone:

Do you have a problem with mice in your house? I live in the country and find that they do periodically show up, unannounced, except for the mouse turds they leave wherever they are.

How do you get rid of them? I have my tried and true “catch them in a mousetrap and then run over them with your car” method that I have explained in an earlier blog posting.

A good friend of mine has a cat that periodically demonstrates its love by depositing half-dead mice at her feet.  After she got somewhat used to this method of devotion, she said that her favorite means of removal was to pick the rodent up with a large pair of kitchen tongs and place the unfortunate animal in the toilet, for rapid flushing. She must have a really high-quality toilet, since there is no problem with the toilet accepting the mouse for disposal.

If you have a toilet that might not take such deposits, you might be better off using the tongs to toss the creature outside in order to rid your home of it. However, if the animal does not die, you could have a problem with a mad, injured mouse returning to torment your life via the courtesy of your cat, since the mouse would be considerably easier to catch in its current condition.

What do you do to rid yourself of these sometimes-cute but definitely not wanted pests?  I would love to hear your stories and read your tales of mouse woe!

Best,

Dr. Sheri

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When Young Adults become the Parent

Hello everyone:

Today when I was visiting my dentist, I became aware of a whole new group of people: young adults who had the responsibility of caring for their elderly grandparents. This is not a group normally associated with the care of aging relatives, yet it is a “new normal” for many young adults.

Perhaps their parents are deceased or ill themselves, and the young adult who might have expected to be out enjoying his or her life might find instead that he or she is responsible for the care of a dementia patient or terminally ill individual or …or…or  You name it.

Young friends, my hat is off to you. I hope that you will find information and help in the blogs I have posted previously and would appreciate your sharing with my readers any special needs that you have that we can talk about herein.

It is my goal to serve you as well as the folks who are middle-aged and helping out their elderly parents. Please feel free to comment on any special needs you as a young person have and I will research the situation and report back to you.

For now, just know that you are an incredible person and I have the upmost respect and admiration for you as you walk the delicate balance between being young and being in such a position of responsibility.

Best,

Dr. Sheri

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