ainslies.org

This is my second post inspired by reading the book, “Being Mortal”. The author researched long-term care facility practices, spoke to adult children who were placing their parents in them, heard stories from other children who cared for their elderly parent at home and spoke to the parents themselves. The primary goal of the adult…

I woke the other night from one of my recurring nightmares. I have had recurring nightmares throughout my life starting when I was 5 years old. The contents have varied, depending on what stage of life I was in and what I was dealing with. But the commonalities include a lack of control, fear of…

I listened to a podcast last week where the host recapped how she performed with her 2023 New Year’s Resolutions. One of her resolutions was to get outside, every day, for at least 23 minutes. (Get it – 23 minutes a day in 2023…please, gag me). Anyway, she was proud that she accomplished this except…

On the recommendation of a podcast, I just finished reading “Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End” by Atul Gawande. It’s a book full of sad stories about aging, frailty, health and dying in the US. The stories about physicians extending life, at whatever cost and for however briefly, while not considering the…

Yesterday I did a big purge of my stuff. But purging for me is not just useful for things I own. It is something I do with family, friends, relationships, digital data, activities and even now, even memories. When I have too much of anything – especially when it doesn’t spark joy, it becomes a…

Yesterday morning I had an epiphany while thinking about some “perfectly good” stuff I owned that was that I hadn’t used in more than 2 years. If I didn’t use it, then it wasn’t perfectly good for me – but it could be perfectly good for someone else. And so, I spent the entire afternoon…

When I was 21, I worked as a unit clerk for a Nursing Home. It was a terrible fit for me, but it paid better than any other job I could get at the time. As the newest employee on the team, I did not have a dedicated shift. Instead, I filled in whenever they…

A good friend of mine has fallen in love. He has been searching to find “the one” for most of his adult life. Over the last 5 years, he’s struggled trying to turn bad romantic relationships into long lasting partnerships. This time it’s been different. He’s worked hard during the past five years to address…

Several of the podcasts I listen to offer a Patreon (or similar “premium”) subscription service to generate more income for the host. The premium service includes additional content, early releases, Q&As with members or sometimes full content from “teaser” episodes that were cutoff halfway through for free listeners. I get why podcasters are doing this….

For nearly past 40 years, I’ve been tracking my workouts on paper. I’ve gone through various iterations ranging from binders full of detailed sheets specifying reps, sets and rest times to simple lists of core exercises and workout duration. For my current routine, I use a simple spreadsheet to note the duration of each segment…