Saturday, November 12, 2016

THINKING ALLOWED

Reason for the flowers...just wanted to begin this post with something beautiful to offset what is to come although it's not really all bad.



I in no way want to upset any of my American friends but Phil and I were both disappointed with the results of the presidential election this week.   We realise that the workers of America were promised plenty of jobs but unfortunately there is no way we can see anyone being able to start up huge industries again in the near future and bringing back work that had gone overseas?  It would be a miracle.  Enough said on that topic.

 It is understand the new President does look on Australia favourably but not other countries in our neighbourhood so it is somewhat worrying just how our friendship with the Asian nations may be compromised.  Time alone will tell.  After all, we are the ones who have to get on with OUR neighbours, or else.

Phil's blood test results arrived and all was well except for his cholesterol!!  We had recently begun to eat butter (the softened type) and also use full cream milk and are wondering if that could be enough to cause the rises shown in the report.   We had been thinking "here we are in our mid-80s so what the heck?.  The reasoning behind was this......how many extra days or perhaps months could we expect to live if we ate an absolutely strict diet?  It is rather a miserable life when you can't indulge in all the lovely things like chocolate, fruit cake, ice cream etc. etc. so we decided to kick over the traces a little.  Some serious discussion needed here between the two of us.   My cholesterol was fine last time I had it checked but maybe now....who knows?  Not easy to keep up these things when you are aged.  Notice I didn't say OLD!!  Letter in the post yesterday....the doctor wants to see Phil about the results which is rather what we expected.

Daughter K told me recently that her father (my first hubby) is not doing too well.  He and I have remained friends over the years and I am saddened that he is having health problems.  He was a man who always prided himself on his vitality so it must be hurtful to him to know his health is failing him.  He was to see a specialist a while back and I'm hoping to hear how that went.  He is very fortunate to have a wife some 10 years younger than he is but she at 75 is not finding it easy as he can sometimes be a little difficult.

Phil went to his poetry group Friday morning and they had chosen lyrics by Bob Dylan as he had been given the Literature Nobel Prize.  A few months back my printer decided to call it a day and we'd not bothered replacing it as I don't print or copy much these days.  This week I began researching Bob Dylan's lyrics and found some great ones but suddenly I couldn't print them out.  Panic stations on Thursday....rang Office Works and told them the type of printer I was replacing and could they recommend one.   The young man said yes he could so I asked him to send it up to the front desk so Phil could pick it up in a short while.   This printer is better than my precious Canon printer but so different it took us some time to work it all out.  In other printers I have had the black ink always is on the left of the coloured ink so we couldn't understand why the alarm light kept flashing telling us the ink hadn't been installed correctly.  Back to the instructions went I only to find that in the new printer the coloured ink goes on the LEFT of the  black ink.  I often wonder why this type of change is made when there seemed no reason to change it.   Lots of lyrics copied out so another challenge accepted and won.  Incidentally, both the ladies had computer or printer trouble so were unable to bring along anything so Phil was pleased we had managed to find half a dozen to share with them.   They agreed the lyrics were somewhat sombre but then most of Bob  Dylan's are.

When Phil arrived home I suggested we pop down to Phoenix (our nearest shopping centre) to have lunch,  We both had grilled fish with *chips and a side salad.   Their fish dishes on Friday only cost $15 so it's good to have an enjoyable meal and save a little money at the same time.  My main reason for going there was to visit Big W as Lee Child's latest book "Night School" is out.  We also bought a couple of DVDs as TV is atrocious these days (at least for us) and we've watched nearly all our DVDs several times.   *Tut tut tut.

I hope everyone out there in blogging land has a great weekend and that next week will treat you well.

11 comments:

  1. Love your beautiful flowers.
    And sadly agree with you about the American Presidential Election. Time will tell, but some of his attitudes scare me.
    I am glad that you and Phil have decided to treat yourselves (at least occasionally).
    Have a wonderful weekend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The weekend was quiet and today is HOT.
      Enough said!!

      Delete
  2. Hari OM
    The post-mortem-level extended news items simply can't change the result, no matter how hard they try. The fact of the matter is the T's in; now we just have to sit it out, whatever it is.

    I am inclined to think that in your 80s cholesterol really ought not to be something to get 'raised' about... if the lipids are more than double the 'norm' then maybe some attention to be paid, but really...&*>

    Those flowers are so pretty. Have a great weekend M&P! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. On Facebook the are so many unflattering remarks about T including many saying he did not expect to win and now he has he is terrified. Others will be leading him where they want him to go which doesn't sound too good for the average American.
      I don't feel Phil's cholesterol is too bad but this is the first time ever that his triglycerides have been higher than they should be. Dr K may put him on same tablet I am on which keeps my cholesterol in check very nicely (except for triclycerides and mine have always been high).
      Hope you will have a good week.xx

      Delete
  3. Nice flowers!
    What raises my cholesterol is the goodies - Pie, cookies, pizza. I try behaving, but I use butter and will do totally without before I use that other stuff. DH's cholesterol is pretty good, but his triglycerides are his problem - too much bread, sausage biscuits, and fried foods. Ha Ha. I hope Phil's news isn't too dramatic. It's a shame that almost all of the good stuff is so bad for us.
    I seldom use my printer anymore, but I know as soon as I don't get ink - I will need it. My color ink goes on the left of the black. I have a HP Deskjet.
    Have a good weekend!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Phil does much less physically than he once did and I am wondering if that too could shoot his cholesterol upwards. Perhaps that too is why his triclycerides are up for the first time ever.
      I hadn't used my printer for a while but definitely needed a new one and Phil's need for his poetry group forced the issue and I must admit this new Canon is a beauty and not very expensive either.

      Delete
  4. Real butter and full cream milk will raise the cholesterol, but I don't imagine it could be up by much considering you've only just recently begun using it. I switched back to real butter several years ago and I'm eating too much ice cream as well, so my own cholesterol is probably way too high. I haven't had it checked in quite a while.
    What really annoys me about the cholesterol is my friend who is rather a lot overweight, eats absolutely anything she wants, doesn't exercise and her cholesterol is 3.
    I have a canon printer where the black ink goes on the left, but what annoys me more, is the colour ink always runs out long before the black even though I print mostly text, not photos. It seems the printer mixes the colours to get black for printing. Yet when the colour runs out and I remove the cartridge, I can't print anything with just the black cartridge installed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was thinking the same thing about the length of time since we switched back to butter and full cream milk. Phil doesn't eat icecream, or very rarely.
      We will have to see what Dr Ken says this week.
      My Canon printer seemed to work even when the colour ran out if I left the cartridge in place. What upsets me is both cartridges in my old on were almost new. They are I think 640 and 641.
      Phil's cholesterol was 6.2 which is not all that bad really but for the first time ever his triclycerides were up as well and his risk ratio wasn't good.

      Delete
  5. Don't worry, Mimsie, it'll be okay. Campaigns here are unnecessarily brutal. Glad this one is over.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My worry Sandi is that there is so much discontent all over the US and Trump doesn't seem to be doing much to settle it down. He reckons it's the job of the President and Hillary Clinton to tell people to behave. I think he is way out of his depth and apparently has already told one of his people "You're fired:.

      Delete

    2. Hopefully, it will calm down soon. It seems to be situated in a few areas, but not all over. I haven't seen any of it here. Our news media loves bad news, sorry to say. Sometimes they make things seem worse that they are.

      I don't know what Trump could say to make it calm down. They are mostly Hillary supporters, so it seems like anything he says would be fuel on the fire.

      Delete