Saturday, February 25, 2017

Crystallized Intelligence




Thou Shalt Not Whine


It's odd.  "They" (whoever "they" are) cannot make up their minds whether they want us old folks to work until we can barely waddle out of the workplace,


or get out of the workplace earlier and open up slots for the younger unemployed workers. 

                                                           



.

It is straightforward  in Japan.  MUST retire at 60.  CANNOT "draw money" until 65.
Now there is a solution!
In Japan, you are expected to bridge that 5 year gap with your own saved funds.
Japanese workers save money for that horrendous 5 year gap.



Saving money means not SPENDING money, and our own national economy is dependent on us spending, not saving!

Japan's economy is also dependent on spending.  
Hence the "prolonged economic downturn" in Japan, the land of the "setting sun citizens".


Ageing is an adventure 
in the workplace .  
Or anywhere else.


Recent research by Monash University and the Australian Institute of Management found older workers may bring specific management 
skills and crystallized intelligence (intelligence based on knowledge acquisition and experience) to the table, 
where younger managers may have higher levels of fluid intelligence (basic or abstract reasoning ability).
Wow. 

Excuse me! 
   Not all older people  "crystallize".
Some remain fluid.  



OK.  
Most of us do dry up a little.  Crack around the edges.  "Crystallize", if you will.                                                               Experienced.                                                                                                                                                                                                 Got the tee shirt.    

       
Image result for images of old person with "got the tee shirt"pinterest


Thanks for the fly-by.  You obviously haven't crystallized!
Riverwatch













Wednesday, February 22, 2017

"You own everything........"






One of my favorite authors is Anne Lamott.
Here is a particularly comforting quote from her:


"You own everything that happened to you.

Tell your stories.

If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better."





Here is my own little quote:

"It is not always a good thing to be a close associate of somebody who loves to write.......
and it is particularly hazardous to give birth to somebody who loves to write!"




Image result for images of people writing
The Odessey On Line






Thank you for your bravery in showing up at this blog,
Riverwatch










Sunday, February 19, 2017

Game-changer



Game-changer Against Alzheimer's Disease



"It's a potential game-changer in the fight against the disease".

GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. - For the first time ever, researchers in California claim they have reversed memory loss associated with Alzheimer's disease.
It's a potential game-changer in the fight against the disease as, to date, no effective treatment has been found.
More than five million Americans have Alzheimer's, and recent estimates put it as the third leading cause of death in the U.S.
"Everybody knows you can't reverse this. Once you lose it you can't get it back," said Dr. Dale Bredesen, neuroscientist at UCLA and author of the study.
"And I said, 'Well maybe that's not the case.'"
The study, released in partnership with the Buck Institute for Research and Aging, claims 9 out of 10 patients with progressive memory loss had their symptoms reversed within three to six months after undergoing an ultra-healthy lifestyle change personalized to each patient.
The one person who did not show improvement had late stage Alzheimer's.
Bredesen's approach included:
  • Eliminating simple carbs from her diet; 
  • no gluten or processed foods 
  •  Eating more veggies, fruits and wild caught fish 
  •  Yoga and meditation Increasing sleep to at least seven hours a night 
  •  Exercising at least 30 minutes, six days a week 
  •  Taking a regiment of vitamins and supplements
"I would even go so far as to say I don't even think I have a problem with memory now, which is a great surprise to me from where I was a year ago," said one patient in the study.
Bredesen feels this is a significant step in the direction toward finding effective treatment, but more needs to be done.
"So this is the beginning. This is the toe in the water. We are seeing for the first time reversals in cognitive decline, and we need to do many more patients and we need to do much more documentation," said Bredesen.
But the Alzheimer's Association is hesitant to hail this as a breakthrough for the disease.
"It's only ten people," said Debbie Richman, education director at the Minnesota-North Dakota Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. "It's not enough for us as an organization to say this is going to be the next great thing, but we also aren't going to say it's bad to do those things."
Bredesen said he has already started a much larger test group for this new treatment -- something the science world will need before trusting it."
********




Nutrition matters in the fight against aging, which is not a disease, and diseases of all kinds.

Two supplements have made a world of difference to my own health:
Vitamin B-12 (high dose)  sublingually (under the tongue) though it could be given by injection at the Doctor's Office.


Image result for pink vitamin b12 pillPinterest
Sublingual.  I take four of these under my tongue to dissolve and enter my blood stream directly from the blood vessels under my tongue.
It is important to by-pass the stomach and digestive system where B12 has difficulty absorbing in older people.



Vitamin D 5000 units daily.  Yes, five thousand units.  Daily.
Image result for Vitamin Dglobalhealing.com



I take the B-12 for memory.  I usually take it once or twice a week......but I scurry to take a dose daily  if I find myself struggling to remember somebody's name or start with the everlasting blasted typo's and other little mistakes.

I take the high dose Vitamin D because two specialist physicians have told me to take it daily....and because it has erased a lot of musculoskeletal pain!  Both my parents died of colon cancer and that has been linked theoretically to low vitamin D levels.



.Related imagestylecraze.com




Thanks for dropping by my blog,
Riverwatch


















Saturday, February 18, 2017

How about a dose of unrest, even guilt and turmoil?




How religious leaders can threaten you if you lose  faith in them. 

They equate themselves with the Almighty, saying if you turn away from them, you turn away from the Almighty.  
And the Almighty  will drown you.

Drown if you leave the boat!  

Image result for images of Christ feeding the ten thousandtenthousandplaces.org

I would laugh, but it isn't funny.

Image result for images of Christ feeding the ten thousand


From  the Mormon's World Wide General Conference October  2014

Stay in the Boat and Hold On!

by M. Russell Ballard

“I have discovered in my ministry that those who have become lost [and] confused are typically those who have most often … forgotten that when the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve speak with a united voice, it is the voice of the Lord for that time. The Lord reminds us, ‘Whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same’ [D&C 1:38].”5
In other words, they leave the Old Ship Zion—they fall away; they apostatize. Tragically, they often experience short-term and eventually long-term unintended consequences, not only for themselves but also for their families.
Our local Church leaders, like seasoned river guides, have been tutored by life’s experiences; have been trained and mentored by apostles and prophets and other officers of the Church; and, most important, have been tutored by the Lord Himself.
*
*

Or how about some  guilt for those who think they can swim?

                                                   Ilder Kacher of the Seventy:
Will I be wise enough to hang on in spite of questions?  
Never trifle with sacred things.  
Choice affects others.   
Our sins causes others to fall away.      
*
*

So, if I am honest in my belief, it is a sin?
Oh, dear.

Sorry about Ballard and Kacher's god.  

My God does say "Come unto me, all you who are heavy burdened and I will give you rest."
He also says "love one another" and I am working on that.

Related imagewordpress.com


Nowhere does he say, "Follow those men. They are infallible."


Thank you  for your attention to my blog,
Riverwatch









Saturday, February 11, 2017

"Everything is not about you, Mom."










Family breakfasts here at my "down on the farm" home in the middle of suburbia are nothing like the "Pioneer Woman's" TV show.

But it will do.

Since my daughter-in-law is too busy reading scriptures about how to build family relationships, she doesn't have time to build family relationships.
It is just my son and his kids.
Sometimes other cousins and attached adults.
Mostly just my son and his kids.

I cook.  He serves and he serves without thought.  He is used to serving meals to his children.  I am grieved that he is so......used.  My daughter jumps all over me.  "Mom!  This is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing. What is wrong with you!!"
"I have low self-esteem", I mumble quietly, almost incoherently.
Aloud I say strongly, "I wish he had a wife who was on deck!"

"Why?", comes the acid rejoinder.
See, my daughter just went through a "WE ARE BOTH ON THE SAME PAGE" dissolution of her 28 yr marriage.
"Relationships are too much damn work!" she exclaims.
She seems acidic for someone who has just had an "amicable" divorce and when I recover my self-esteem I am going to tell her so.


Flappin' family  fragments, but it will do.



Finished with the cookin' and the servin', my son and I have a chance to sit and chat.
His goal is to sit and relax.
My goal is to sit and chat with an adult man.

He speaks of scouting.  He is ambivalent about his boy and scouts.  "If it were just about a bunch of boys camping, I  would feel differently.  It is just so messed up.  And he doesn't want to go.  I don't believe in making people be religious or making people have fun.  His mother makes him go."

Suddenly I picture my daughter-in-law sitting in their home ALONE with the drapes drawn while she studies scriptures.
Actually that might not be the worst way to spend your motherhood time.
Image result for images  oanimatedf rainy day iphotobucket

Probably not state of the art mothering.  But it will do.  Don't forget to lock the door.

I probe about the scout dilemma.  "Is it the gay issue?"
"NO! Gosh. You are sounding self-righteous again."
I am stunned.  I don't know whether I am more stunned by "self-righteous" or "again".
Later I whine to my daughter about this unwarranted attack and she says, acidly, "Oh get over it Mom.  Everything is not about you!  He is having a hard time.  Let it go."

But for the moment I am distracted by my son's opinion of me and so I change the subject.
"Your children sure live in a different world these days."
"Yes.  My children are going to be faced with the Fast Food of Relationships."
"Say, what ?"
"My generation had Fast Food to destroy our health.  It was such an easy solution to a difficult dilemma of getting food in a busy world.  We all know Fast Food isn't good for you, but it will do when you are hungry.  Long range destruction to your health and well-being, but an easy solution to a challenging problem.  We are learning to stay away from Fast Food.
But my children will grow up into a world of Fast Food of Relationships, acceptable porn and sex robots, bypassing the challenge of developing real relationships.  It will not be as good as love. But it  will do.  And it will destroy health and well being as surely as Fast Food.  In fact it will be devastating.   I grieve for what my children will face."







He and I munch silently on our bacon.  He has figured out I am not as smart, (excuse me, he said EDUCATED) as he is.  I am wondering if he is as smart as he knows he is.
Yeh, I'm the one who bought the bacon.  I, a nurse, know it is not a wise choice, but it will do on a rainy day down on the farm.


Image result for images  oanimatedf rainy day i
chi nese.com






Thanks for raising my self-esteem by visiting because the  bacon didn't do it,
Riverwatch

Related imagepinterest                



Image result for images  oanimatedf rainy day i
                                                                                                  The Odyssey On-line



















Friday, February 10, 2017

Parenting is a style.

I love this post about the power of love.


*

Absentee  Parent


Was she really gone?  


Is Mommy never coming back?

She said she was coming back. 

IS  she coming back?

When?

She doesn't love me!

She said she loved me.  That she loved us all.

She said she was coming back.

She hasn't come back!  She's never coming back.

When is she coming back?

She left because I am bad, didn't she?  
I'm sorry, Mommy.  
Forgive me, Mommy.


That is how it went for my father.


And then, one fine day, after "the village" had finished rearing her kids with their broken hearts, my father's mother showed up, just like she said she would.

The "second coming" had actually happened, just like she said it would.

She Was Adored !!!!!!!

Image result for images of a woman with her grown sonsfoxbusiness.com
All her sons adored her.
They basked in her love, her steadiness!
Hearts were mended, sinews were put back together.



Her daughters-in-law hated her.
After all, it was a "first coming" for them.
Image result for images of a woman with her grown sonsirishtimes.com

But her sons adored her and needed her presence to heal.

   She did love them, after all!!

They bowed and scraped to her the rest of their lives.
Not one of them went into therapy.
(How can you whine about the village vintage bits who raised you a bit here and a bit there?  Or a mother who reappears?)

Some of my kids, on the other hand, with their zealous mommy, have taken a stint or two through therapy chairs.  I kid you not.
It is so vexing to be protected, guided, fed properly and managed !

Someone making you brush your teeth or do your homework is obviously the crucible.

Screaming "Shut UP!" to boisterous loud kids is NOT COOL!  I get that.
After all, it is your fault they were born, your fault they are nervous, your fault they are genetically flawed.
 And guess what.  You are the one who has taught them to be loud.
*

I cannot help but think about God, sometimes, when I think about my reappearing Granny, adored by her grown sons.  
That might sound offensive, since Granny was obviously grievously flawed........
but don't some people feel abandoned by God?
Don't  some people not even believe in Him?
How could He leave us alone to rely on the village persons (who may not even LIKE us) for help when we need help?

He does answer prayers.........but you gotta  have your eyes open and your ears open to see and hear.

He is NOT micro-managing us.

When He comes again, as He has promised, our broken hearts will be mended,
     we will adore Him,
          for we will realize we really are and have been loved.

We will not need therapy.

He made us.

He allows us.

  

Looking forward to the Second Coming,
....already dreading Mother's Day and it is only February,

Riverwatch














Thursday, February 9, 2017

There are no locks on the gates of hell.





The Good News

There are no locks on the gates of hell.




Image result for images of unlocked gatebtoindia.com






Jesus asked which one of us, having one of our children ask for a piece of bread, would give him a stone?  

Image result for images of bread and stonesalbrooke.com
We would give bread, of course, and God is greater than we.  No stones for us, he said.

So why do we think the New Testament scribe got it right about the assignment to hell for the wicked? Doesn't really go with the "Bread, Not Stones" story, does it?


And by the way, what is hell, anyway.  Is it really fire, or just the absence of love, the absence of God?  


Which one of us would throw our little kids into hell (whether fire or dark aloneness) and throw away the key?  Image result for images of bread and stones


We wouldn't even do that to a rude and unappreciative teenager.  Not forever.




There are no locks on the gates of hell. 

Hell is a temporary place and there is no reason to suffer there forever.

Hell is a place of suffering.  
Image result for images of suffering people
abouna.org
No, this is not the Hereafter.  This is the Here and Now.  This is Aleppo, Earth




Have you ever been to hell?  

I have been to hell and back.   I didn't have to leave earth to do it.                                                                                                I didn't have to reject God to go there.

All I had to do was find my husband in bed with another woman.

Oh, that's right.  I CREATE hell!


"Hell" is a vivid imagery meant to scare people into submission.  Not into growth.  Into submission.  
Hell is about POWER.  I don't think Jesus was into WORLDLY POWER.  Some of his followers wanted him to be into power.
 "My kingdom is not of this world", he told them. 

I reject the dogma of hell while admitting that hell exits.  


Thanks for visiting here, 

Riverwatch

PS  I think we can do a lot to end hell, or at least not create hell.
There are no locks on the gates of hell.













Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Unfettered Faith

Well, I am old and still trying to figure life out.

I love what my daughter once told me when she was a teenager.  "Mom, it scares me to think about life."
"Really?  Why?"
"Because life is so strange it blows my mind away and the only thing stranger than life is no life.  I don't like to think about these things!"

Well, that's one reason we all keep busy.

I have lately busied myself reading on-line from a couple of volumes  of "History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century"
by d Aubigne'.
                                    Image result for images of old bookscommons.wikimedia.org

It was published in 1845 and that was the main reason I wanted to read it.....or should I say read at it.
Old books fascinate me as I think of the long-departed author and the world of yesteryear.

I did find some interesting thoughts embedded in the work and so I share the following about full liberty of faith, but paraphrased:

Unity in diversity and diversity in unity, is a law of nature as well as of the Church.
*

We are about to contemplate the diversities, or, as they have been called, the variations of the Reformation. 
These diversities are one of its most essential characteristics.
*
Truth is like the light of the sun: it descends from heaven one and ever the same; and yet it assumes different colours upon earth, according to the objects on which it falls.




How dull would creation be if this boundless variety of forms and colours, which gives it beauty, were replaced by an absolute uniformity!
Image result for images of natureimagico.com



But how melancholy also would be its appearance, if all created beings did not form a magnificent unity!
Divine unity has its rights, so also has human diversity.

In religion we must suppress neither God nor man.

If you have not unity, your religion is not of God; if you have not diversity, the religion is not of man; but it ought to be of both.



Would you erase from creation one of the laws that God himself has imposed on it,—that of infinite diversity?
[221] 



Well, that is what this history said. 




Thanks for sharing this moment with me, 
Riverwatch











Sunday, February 5, 2017

Stand up and live long.











Standing up may be the best best best thing we can do for our DNA health!
It may be even better than exercise for lengthening those DNA telomeres (those stringy thingies at the end of each cell) that contribute to longevity!.

In other words, sitting for hours at the computer or TV and then getting up and exercising does not produce the same anti-aging results as not sitting down to begin with!




Longevity runs in my family  and as I.... SIT.... here I am wondering about those old family members and if they exercise/exercised or not.   Hum.




I don't think anybody in my family has been or is an exercise nut.
Well, nut, yes.
Exercise nut, probably not.


However, the oldies are not/were not "sitters".  On their feet a lot, they were/are.
                                                                          

Let the young people sit.  We stand!


Old People Wearing Funny T-shirts (17 pics)





Most of us in my family are a bunch of nervous ninnies.
That will keep you upright!
That will keep you from being sedentary!

I long ago figured out that sedentary is a result of a relaxed nervous system!



Too relaxed?  Hang onto a pole if you must, but keep yourself upright.





Image result for animated images of canyons
Nauseated.
Dizzy.
Do not sit down!  Hang on.                                                             





Check out why you shouldn't be sitting around reading and writing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/11073662/How-standing-might-be-the-best-anti-ageing-technique.html



PS  I am going to fix my computer on a high top, so I can stand!
   

Glad you visited,
Riverwatch






PS   I cannot stress this enough.  Sitting is NOT a good idea.