Flexible Stuff - Article 3, Sunday, May 19, 2024
Can I live without my cell phone?
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Last week, I wrote about a common challenge that some people use to gauge how much intelligence you might lose when you become addicted to your cell phone.
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This week, my cell phone tested my own addiction by frying its motherboard, leaving me without a phone for three days.
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I survived, but while waiting for my husband as he shopped, I cleaned out our car's glove compartment twice and then proceeded to take a really long nap.
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The experience of missing out on email, TikTok, Facebook, Audible, and my digital book collection when faced with nothing else to do was tough.
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Worse still? My replacement phone doesn't work either.
Cleaning Service or Senior Living​
Many people look forward to retirement, relishing the idea of having more time to themselves without the need to clock into work. The problem is that, after several years of retirement—with ample time to dust, scrub, and tidy one's home—little actually gets done.
Six months ago, a friend moved into a memory-care unit in a stunningly beautiful nursing home where everything is kept fashionably tidy. Comparing his new living quarters to my own place, which was badly in need of dusting, vacuuming, laundry care, and Amazon box removal, made me realize something important. Do we have to sink into dementia before we admit that letting someone else take care of regular cleaning chores is better than living in a place which is fast becoming a dump?
A house cleaning service is a fraction of the monthly cost of an assisted living facility. It's a pleasure to spend this money now, before potentially sinking into the gloom of dementia, when we won't be able to distinguish whether we are living in a nice place or not.
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Free Face Lift!​
For many people, especially women, the biggest fear of aging is not the actual age itself but looking old. Almost $2 billion a year is spent on facelifts in the US, and on top of that, another $150 billion is spent on cosmetics. If you're not familiar with facelift procedures and their risks, take some time to check out the subject on YouTube.
Facelifts, not to be confused with skin re-conditioning, tighten the skin that forms the face, pulling it against the jaw, cheek, and eyebrow ridge bones, then up into the hairline. Unfortunately, as people age, repeated lifts often completely change their appearance.
Some well-known examples include Madonna, Cher, Sophia Loren, Joan Rivers, Kris Jenner, Courtney Cox, Britney Spears, Sharon Osbourne, Bethenny Frankel, Jane Fonda, Melanie Griffith, and Meg Ryan.
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To keep the tightened skin looking natural, plastic surgeons inject facial fillers (fat) under the skin, then mold the fat to give the skin a soft contour. Photographic lighting and expertly applied makeup can make the surface of the skin look rejuvenated, but the resulting tightened features may no longer resemble the youthful look older plastic surgery patients hope to regain.
One big consequence of aging we'd all like to avoid—and which may be the primary concern for women seeking facelifts—is a sagging jawline and drooping features that make some of us look angry.
Fortunately, most people can tighten saggy jowls without surgery and fillers, and get rid of frown lines while at it. While facial shaping might not return your youthful skin, it can improve your youthful look by maintaining the natural shape of your face, the one your friends and family remember you having. It just takes a little applied effort.
In next week's blog, I'll introduce you to the topic of facial reshaping which will be a regular feature for the next few months. I hope you take the time to follow it!​