Good morning, Danish, Donuts and Bagels in the Break Room. Ladies night with friends and wine. Have a Lovely day everyone.

Good evening Boomers. Bring on the weekend!

OH Yeah!! I am ready for the weekend too SpaceQuestFan; it's Friday's eve so let's start with a cup of hot chocolate and a cinnamon crunch bagel from Gerry and Connie. Have a great morning TaintedFury. Wishing the rest of us a wonderful evening!

Good Morning Everyone...Happy Friday! Any plans for the weekend?

Super strong dark brew coffee, dark brew English tea, and hot chocolate await.

Enjoy your day!

Gerry

Good morning, Danish, Donuts and Bagels in the Break Room. Enjoy your day everyone.

Even my three strong cappuccinos couldn't wake me up this morning. I've thrown in some chai as well but still feel like crawling back into bed. It's dark and rainy today; that's probably why. I managed a run to the Sally Ann Thrift Store but that's the extent of my motivation for the day.

Hagatha, that makes me feel better. I have no energy even after making strong tea and drinking that in the morning. some days with the gray weather, I just want to go back to bed. but, I am babysitting today so I can't do that but, I sure want to. I have been having trouble with energy lately and I go to the doc in a few months and I am going to mention that. possibly something is wrong?? Hope not.

Good Morning Connie, hagatha, mbday630 and everyone. I have those "more tired morning" lately too hagatha and mbday630. I think is is lack of sunshine and not enough vitamin D. Strong coffee and tea are ready to consume, along with hot chocolate.

Happy Saturday!

Gerry

Good Morning Everyone

Soot You too thanks & enjoy your weekend ......Hi Kaki's Sister We're back to grey clouds and no sun, so I'm drying clothes inside...\

Have a great weekend Boomers

Good morning TaintedFury, Gerry, mbDay360, Hagatha, Connie, SpaceQuestFan and everyone else who gets a chance to pop in for coffee and bagels. TaintedFury, ugh, grey clouds can be bleak and somber but I can assure you there is a bright blue sky and sun above them...tomorrow is another day...have a good night's rest. Gerry, I am ready for coffee and I'll grab a bagel from Connie in a bit. Hey Ho mbDay360, it's good to see you in the Break Room...hope babysitting went well yesterday and that you got a good night's rest and have more energy today. We've got Dungeons and Dragons with grandkids and sons on the docket for the day and maybe some shopping once the storms pass through. Have a wonderful Saturday everyone.

Good morning, Danish, Donuts and Bagels in the Break Room. Shopping is on the agenda today. Working the kitchen at the Eagles tonight, trivia to follow. Have a Lovely day everyone.

Perhaps a thyroid test is in order; not just the TSH, but the complete test. I was depressed and sluggish for decades before a doctor finally did a thyroid test and it turned out my thyroid had NO function at all, and the endocrinologist suggested that based on the history of my symptoms, I had been suffering since my late teens (I was diagnosed at 39 years old). Thyroid is often overlooked by doctors, but it has a profound effect on the body and brain.

Oh, YES to having that thyroid checked, mbday! A good friend's father was having these manic/paranoid episodes and it turned out to be a hyperthyroid condition. Once they got him on meds, he had zero issues again. Low - or no - thyroid levels can cause the opposite such as they way you're feeling mbday. Definitely mention it to your doctor.

Good Morning and Happy Sunday everyone. Interesting discussion about the thyroid and how it can affect your mood hagatha and mbday630. Sounds like testing the thyroid function should be one of the first thing a doctor should do when one is experiencing mood issues.

Dark brew Sumatra coffee, strong Earl Grey tea, and dark hot chocolate ready to share with Connie's break room treats!

Enjoy!

Gerry

Greetings everyone, hope you are all having a good weekend, be it exciting or relaxing.

I wholeheartedly endorse the comments about thyroid checks: I know several people who had problems of that nature, and it seems to be something from which women are far more likely to suffer than men.

Here is a rather cute item someone sent us which I hope you enjoy

My Father Never Drove A Car

This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed.

Here goes... My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet. "In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it." At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in: "Oh, bull *&!$!" she said. "He hit a horse." "Well," my father said, "there was that, too." So, my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down, a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.
My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together. My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and that was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one." It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first. But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown. It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car. Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother.
So, in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying more than once. For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work. Still, they both continued to walk a lot.
My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.) He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home. If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."
After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored." If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?" "I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre. "No left turns," he said. "What?" I asked. "No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic. As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn." "What?" I said again. "No left turns," he said. "Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights." "You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support. "No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works." But then she added: "Except when your father loses count." I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. "Loses count?" I asked. "Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again." I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked. "No," he said. "If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week." My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102. They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.) He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.
One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news. A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer." "You're probably right," I said. "Why would you say that?" he countered, somewhat irritated. "Because you're 102 years old," I said. "Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day. That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet." An hour or so later, he spoke his last words: "I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have." A short time later, he died. I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long. I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, or because he quit taking left turns. "Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it and if it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it."

ENJOY LIFE NOW - IT HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE! Remember - - NO LEFT TURNS

Good morning, Danish, Donuts and Bagels in the Break Room. Lex, what a Beautiful and meaningful story, it brought tears to my eyes. Enjoy your day everyone, and as the story says no left turns. Hugs to all.

Good Palm Sunday morning Connie, Gerry, Lex, Draclvr, Hagatha and anyone else who gets the chance to pop. Oh my goodness, thanks for sharing that article Lex...no left turns. Gerry, your dark brew Sumatra coffee is perfect with Connie's bagels...thank you both. We plan on a hike today and wish you all a wonderful Sunday.

Lex, my father in law was very much like that. He lived to 96, cared for by John's older brother (who still lives in the family home in Southampton). He was as sharp as a tack until his last couple of years, when his short-term memory failed. His barbed wit never left him, though, right up to the end.

Good Morning all and Happy Monday! Lex what a heartwarming story...thanks for sharing. As always extra strong coffee to start your monday along with tea and hot chocolate.
Let the sun shine on your day!

Gerry

I know the sun is shining above the clouds as it is currently pouring cats and dogs below them. Gerry, the Sumatra Mandheling coffee is fantastic...and Connie will be here shortly with bagels. Happy Monday everyone

Good morning, Danish, Donuts and Bagels in the Break Room. Meeting at the Eagles tonight. Enjoy your day everyone.

Big day around here. The tree pruner and the deck contractor will be arriving around noon. Fortunately we have a lot of space for parking here.

Good Morning and Happy Tuesday! The usually strong coffee, tea, and hot chocolate are ready to enjoy with Connie's danish, bagels, and donuts. No plans for me today...just pay bills and some spring cleaning.

Enjoy your day!

Gerry

Good Morning Everyone :wavegirl

Lex Thanking you for sharing your story with us, beautiful too read

Soot The last few days have been blue sky but hubby just told me we've got some cold weather on the way that's Mother Nature

Kaki's Sister Enjoy your morning Coffee/Tea

Take care & Happy Gaming Boomers

Good morning, Danish, Donuts and Bagels in the Break Room. Lunch and Prime with a friend today. Enjoy your day everyone.