Pentagenarians & Beyond: May 25, 2025

Good morning. Today I did my usual yoga/ mobility for 18 minutes. Yesterday was my rest day and I went to the Farmer’s Market.

Valerie, safe travels today. This certainly sounds like a working trip for you.

Judy, great job with Upper Body strength, core, active recovery, and Yin Yoga. I’m sure that HD will be very busy this weekend.

Cathy, I’m glad that you had a safe trip home. Great job with Lower/Upper Balance discs, your finished step routine, STS disc 1.

Shannon, great job with STS 2 Super Sets Total Body, and RWH abs.

Hello to Diane Sue.
 
This morning I did Gloved Up and Sweaty, Live Core-iffic (recent one and uses light weights, discs and mini ball), and STS2 Total Body Stretch.

Carolyn it's so nice that you have a good Farmer's Market there. Wish I had one near me.

Shannon I've rarely ever gotten Mother Nature to agree with me, so best of luck to you. I believe it was 3 years ago that construction sent me through what appeared to be the downtown (though on highway) area of Little Rock. Sailed right on past this time.

Valerie I hope your trip goes smoothly.

Hi to Judy and Diane Sue.
 
nice uneventful drive with extremely light traffic. could hardly believe it. 11 hours . all looks ok. im tired today, no way am i functional on the first day. going to work on the weed problem. being a holiday weekend road construction .... as Cathy has mentioned..... could be a problem but no one was working yesterday.

for those of you in low humidity areas.. is there a trick to keeping printer cartridges working? we opened new cartridges 2 months ago and they dont work because the ink dries. i set the surface of the cartridge on a paper towel dampened with rubbing alcohol. did not help. that has helped in the past. now I put the damp towel and "shrink wrapped" it into a food saver bag and letting it sit for a while. i need to pull cartridges when we leave to protect them somehow. i haven't googled this yet but will do that next.
 
Today I did KCM’s Cardio Fit, Cardio Kickboxing premix. That was 21 minutes, 150 calories burned, average heart rate 133, maximum heart rate 153. Then I did Step Boss Extended Chair Stretch for another 18 minutes and 20 calories burned.

Cathy, great job with Gloved Up and Sweaty, Live Core-iffic, and STS 2 Total Body Stretch. I do feel fortunate to have a Farmer’s Market to go to. It’s not huge, but it has a wonderful selection of vendors. I have seen a few farm stands this year which is a nice addition. Years ago it wasn’t unusual to see roadside vendors but they all seemed to disappear over time. I think they are coming back and people are stopping to buy things.

Valerie, I’m glad that you had a good trip. I can’t help with the toner cartridges. I wasn’t aware of that issue, but it only remove mine to replace them.

Hello to everyone and have a good Memorial Day.
 
Hi, everyone. I’m about ready to go lift weights on my own, and I’m going to take my time and do whatever I feel like, because it’s sopping wet outside and I need something to get me moving.

It’s been a rather wet weekend, but Mother Nature has been kind enough to give me a few breaks. Saturday the rain stopped at about 2:30 or 3, so I was able to take a nice road walk. I definitely prefer to just walk, instead of trying to power walk and make it a workout. Walking will always be my way to relax, and there’s just no point in trying anything else. Yesterday the rain didn’t start until late afternoon, so I got lots of outside stuff done. It was a dark, cloudy day, but as long as it’s not raining, I’m fine with that. Today the rain started at about 8. It’s 12:30 now and it might be done, but definitely too wet to do anything outside. I’ll wait a bit and maybe take Sara for a short walk. We’ve had plenty of thunder and heavy rain, but nothing major.

Valerie – I googled Russian thistle. Ugh, nasty stuff. I sure am glad we don’t have it out here. It looks like something that belongs in a desert, and good grief do I hate the desert. I really can’t think of anything good about deserts. Sorry I can’t help with your low humidity question, LOL. That is definitely not an issue in Arkansas.

Carolyn – did you find any good stuff at the Farmer’s Market? I hope the rain isn’t too bad down your way. The radar looked a lot worse to the south of us.

Cathy – I’m glad you made it through LR with no problems. Really, the only time traffic is a problem is during rush hour. During other times of the day, it’s pretty light.

Hello to Judy and Diane.

Happy Memorial Day!
 
Well a little after 2 a.m. Verizon went down in our area. So no cell service and no wifi. I did The step only premix from Intensity, but had to skip doing STS Disk 2, as I had no access to the workout manager to see what weights to use and the early workouts move pretty quickly so choosing in the moment would have been harder. I'll just shuffle things around. Tomorrow is a zoo day.

Valerie glad you made it there without any issues. In general, for 3 day weekends, Michigan shuts down all road constructions, so no workers. When Derek and I were driving to the national park, we actually had a tumbleweed roll across the highway in front of us, so I was able to add that to my list of new things.
 
shannon when people hear "russian thistle" they might think of the tall spiny plant with the neon pink flowers. Weeds end up with so many common names and regional names that its not always clear what plant we are talking about. this is tumbleweed in its green and growing state. its spiny. looks like a little fir tree to start but rounds out and gets big. when it dies, breaks off at the stem and gets blown all over. they tumble in wind like beach balls spreading seeds everywhere they clump up against fences, road dividers, barriers and can actually close highways. we get them caught in our snow fences. they grow especially in gravel or disturbed dirt, field edges. our driveway gets lots of them along with cheat grass and other weeds. I dont know all the names. I dont know how far east tumbleweeds are established but any dry open plains area probably has them. its an introduced weed from eastern europe and has successfully spread everywhere it can grow. the Dakotas, Idaho Montana Wyoming Utah Nevada eastern WA and Or, California, new Mexico and Arizona Texas. i would think Kansas Oklahoma and Nebraska but I haven't driven there.
there are areas of I-90 that are perpetually under construction. all the coned off lanes are still closed but nobody doing anything makes it an easier drive.

our ink cartridges still dont work and show up as empty. we ordered some new ones but takes several days to get here. this time I will be sure to take the cartridges out and lightly shrink wrap them. the humidity here is 40% today but sometimes is 10or 15%. things dry out and HP ink is expensive. plus inconvenient to run out of ink. the color one works but the black ones dont. Its > 100 mile round trip to Bozeman so will manage without. so many specific cartridges and this is not a new printer.
 
This weekend I walked over 15 miles at Home Depot. It was a very busy weekend there. Today we went out for breakfast and ran some errands. As if I hadn’t spent enough time at HD, we ended up going there twice today to pick up some things we needed. This afternoon I did a 45-minute Peloton Power Zone Ride, 10 Minutes of Arms & Light Weights and 30 minutes of Restorative Yoga.

Caroline-Nice job with your yoga/mobility, KCM’s Cardio Fit, Cardio Kickboxing premix and Step Boss Extended Chair Stretch.

Cathy-Nice job with Gloved Up and Sweaty, Live Core-iffic, STS2 Total Body Stretch and step only premix from Intensity. I’m sorry about the Verizon outage. It was very nice not to have any road construction this weekend.

Valerie-I’m glad you had a good trip.

Hi to Shannon and Diane Sue
 
Good morning, ladies. I had a very good, long weight workout yesterday. I'm even a little sore this morning. We still have a few days of rain in the forecast. Maybe one of these days we will see the sun again. At least we've had some breaks so my poor dog can settle down. She's terrified of thunder, and just knowing it's going to rain sends her into hiding. I call her my canine barometer. She's right every single time.

Cathy - I'm sorry Verizon went down, but at least it wasn't a power outage. But like we mentioned when Carolyn's power went out the other day, it's amazing how much we rely on these things. If my internet goes out, I can't do my job. That would pretty much suck.

Valerie - yes, I read all of what you said about Russian thistle, and that when a tumbleweed breaks loose, it can spread an ungodly number of seeds, like 250,000 I think. Now, there's Russian sage, which is quite a lovely landscaping plant:
1748356173886.png

Judy - Wow, you covered some ground this weekend! And you still had energy to do some workouts too. Way to go!

Hello to Carolyn and Diane
 
Today I did Stacked Sets Upper Body which was 44 minutes and 136 calories burned. My average heart rate was 106 and maximum heart rate was 149. This rainy, stormy weather is never ending. This afternoon we are again under severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado watches. Some areas to the west of us, including where I go to the Farmer’s Market, is currently under a tornado warning. At least my new oven was delivered and installed before the storm came.

Shannon, nice job with your own weight workout.

Cathy, it’s hard to be without internet and Wi-Fi. That was my situation last Wednesday.

Judy, walking 15 minutes at work must leave you with tired feet and legs! Great job with the Peloton ride, weights, and Restorative yoga.

Hello to Diane Sue and Cathy.
 
I really was tired yesterday., but just before dinner I did most of the exercises from stacked upper body plus a few others using the gear i have here. I have better 12 lb dumbbells here so use them instead of the 10's. i dont like the fat handles of the coated dumbbells. also the core work i do most days. took about an hour.

judy that is some impressive mileage for work! no wonder you don't want to work constantly.

shannon thats right...not hard to figure out how come sagebrush is everywhere. i like russian sage, and yours is lovely. i tried it and it got too tall and lanky here and didnt look nice like yours. gets 5 feet tall and leggy. growing conditions here are pretty specific.

this morning we did a mt bike for 2 hrs 15 minutes. its our standard acclimate to altitude, ride up a not steep gravel road for 4.5 miles and then back down. its close by and open and not busy. along a creek but not a lot of use so we can be alone.
 
This morning I did Live Yoga Blocks Core Express and Total Body Stretching w/Ball #2. Then I went to the zoo and my parents. They are having a ramp put in this week, and my Mom is in full I hate it and will use the back porch chairs mode. We'll see. It's extremely hard for her to do stairs right now, but anything different/new sets her off. I took her some flowers for a belated Mother's Day and that gave her something to focus on. Give her cut flowers and she gets to arrange them and then she'll keep redoing them every couple days until they die.

Shannon it's hard to have a dog who is afraid of storms. The cats could care less and will even go outside in it, but we had two dogs who at 80 + lbs, though they had to sit on me during storms. I've driven through areas with no cell coverage, but I've never lost it at home. Even when there's no power I still have cell service. With no house phone, it was really weird to feel so cut off from the world and no idea what had happened or how long it would last. It's crazy when for the first 50+ years of my life all I had was a house phone, but they are relied on so much now.

Judy that's a lot of miles in a couple days.

Hi Valerie, Diane Sue and Carolyn.
 
Good morning, ladies. Yesterday I did my much modified version of Cross Fire. I remember the first time I did that workout, way back when. I thought OMG, this is a hard workout! No way would I do all those crazy tuck jumps and stuff today.

Carolyn – I’m sorry you’re dealing with such awful weather. I hope no tornadoes hit. We might actually have a day without rain today. Imagine that.

Valerie – I don’t like the fat handled dumbbells either. I have a set of 8’s like that, and I very rarely use them because of the handles. Oh, that picture of the Russian sage isn’t mine. It’s a screengrab. I can’t grow anything except ivy and monkey grass. I tried for years to grow pretty flowers, including Russian sage, and finally got tired of wasting all the money when plants kept dying.

Cathy – I’m sure your mom will get used to the idea of a ramp. It’ll just take her time to adjust. Last year I went to California to move my grandmother into assisted living. She doesn’t have dementia, per se, but she has memory problems and lots of health problems. It’s taken her almost a year to get adjusted and admit that it’s a really nice place. Ah, I remember the days when all we had was a land line. Heck, I even had a party line until sometime in my 20s. So we’d pick up the phone, and if we heard one of the neighbors down the road talking, we’d have to wait our turn.

Hello to Judy and Diane.
 
Yesterday I did a 45-minute Peloton Ride and 60 minutes of Restorative Yoga. We planted our flowers this morning. We always plant Impatiens but this year we had a hard time finding them. We went to 3 Home Depots and 2 nurseries with no luck. My Home Depot had them, but only one flat. One of the nurseries had them, but they looked horrible. We finally found some that looked healthy enough at Lowes.

Shannon-Great job with your weight workout and modified Cross Fire.

Carolyn-Great job with Stacked Sets Upper Body. I’m sorry about the bad weather you have been having.

Valerie-Great job with Stacked Upper Body and your mountain bike ride.

Cathy- Great job with Live Yoga Blocks Core Express and Total Body Stretching w/Ball #2.

Hi to Diane Sue
 
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Today I did Live Boom Boom Pow Kickbox and STS Disk 2.

Shannon we never had a party line, but my Dad has lots of stories from having one. LOL You'd get the chatty ones tying up the line, and apparently my grandpa wasn't always polite about it! Mom woke my Dad up at 2 a.m. to complain about the ramp and lots of other things. I wish that he had the ability to detach himself more from her anger and see that he's not responsible, but he's just so much of a peacekeeper that he absorbs it all. Crossfire-that workout is o_O
 
Siiiiiigh. I have no work. What on earth can I do to keep myself sane while I keep an eye on my email and pray for work to come in? You have no idea how boring this is, but thank heavens I'm at home and not stuck in a cube all day. Been there, done that.

Judy - the weather sure has been weird this spring, and it sounds like it's affecting the impatiens. I'm glad you finally found some.

Cathy - And then there were times when I'd be talking on the phone and one of the neighbors would keep picking up their phone and listening to the conversation, and I'd say HANG UP NOW! Fun times, LOL. Your dad definitely has a big burden to carry. I'm really sorry it's so hard on him.

Two more hours. Then I can get on with my life. Siiiiiiiiigh .........
 
This morning I did KCM’s Cardio Quick Fix workout one. That was 26 minutes, 177 calories burned, average heart rate 131, and maximum heart rate 156. Yesterday’s bad weather didn’t leave any major damage behind.

Valerie, good job with Stacked Sets Upper Body and your core work.

Cathy, good job with Live Yoga Blocks Core Express,Total Body Stretching with the ball, Live Boom Boom POW, and STS disc 2.

Shannon, great job with your modified version of Cross Fire.

Judy, nice job with the Peloton ride and Restorative yoga.

Hello to Diane Sue.
 
Good morning, ladies. Yesterday I did Strong & Sweaty Bootcamp – “double it” premix. I lightened up on the weights, knowing I was going to go longer than usual. It was a great workout and felt really good after not doing much all day. I hope I get some work today.

Carolyn – I sure am glad your bad weather didn’t cause any damage. Good work on Cardio Quick Fix.

Hello to everyone else. Have a great day.
 
Good morning everyone. weve been keeping busy here.

i remember a party line but not for too long. my mother liked to blabber on the phone for hours so they got a private line early on. yep cathy, she was one of the chatty ones. nothing important either, just like to yak endlessly.
i think your mother will adapt to the ramp quickly. this is the time dementia will (probably) work in your favor. her memory isnt great and after a short time she will forget the ramp wasn't always there. with vision problems that is safer than stairs anyway.
carolyn that weather is so frightening. I've already said how distressing it is for me. i don't go places where it happens. thunderstorms in MT are exciting and can be damaging but no tornadoes, lots of lightning, rain, wind and sometimes hail. not softball size . the expanse of sky is so big here. they are majestic and beautiful. we enjoy them when they happen but this week looks benign. predictions are pretty accurate or at least they have been.

shannon I thought that was your garden!. maybe thats why i bought russian sage but it never grew well for me. some still comes up but meh. thin and weedy looking. gardening is tough. finding plants that grow well but dont overrun everything are hard to find and specific to your area. . you are not the only one with many failures. i dont do annuals anymore . impatiens and petunias etc lovely but being gone for a week to two they dont survive so Im a perennial only gardener.

we did a hike in the park yesterday. DH wanted a final test of his knee and whether he should go forward. a very loud "yes". we hiked up a well known ridge that is pretty steep. now we both need to stop often. altitude and sketchy footing but we still did it in respectable time. it went ok but his knee locks up and gets sore and swollen after even using a substantial brace. we saw lots of critters. we sat at the top for a while but overall 4 hours. had to work around a cranky bison that wanted the trail but kept going in our direction no matter which way we went. they are so dangerous. pronghorns everywhere, my favorite animal. prairie dogs. bears with cubs. elk. bison with their calves. they are cute at that age, and called red dogs because they are an orange color when they are very young. sand hill cranes. assorted ducks. osprey deer. omg it was a busy place though. we dont go much in summer because of the crowds and traffic.

in a complete turnaround, one of the first things DH said after we got here was" I miss the cat". i do too!. we will not be back here for a while so maybe we can work out bringing him next time depending on DH's knee status. he's already been contacted by the surgery team scheduler but needs the preliminary tests done first. we are thinking this might happen in june if anything at all happens efficiently.
 
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