According to Time magazine, “lose weight and get fit” is the most commonly busted New Year’s resolution. Shocking, huh?
But if 2015 is the year you absolutely, positively, seriously mean to get in shape, this week’s giveaway can help.
The 2015 Fitness Boost package contains a handful of items to support your goals. You still have to do the work, of course, but at least this will start you off with new stuff.
This is an unsolicited, unreimbursed testimonial for the robotic vacuum cleaner known as the iRobot Roomba. When I first heard the words “robotic vacuum” years ago I made a rude noise with my lips. It sounded like a pricey toy more than a useful appliance.
But DF, that most frugal and practical of men, has owned one model or another for years. When I moved in with him I decided to learn how to use it.
And then I fell in love with a little self-propelled disc.
Roomba delights me when she’s not scaring me with just how much dust and crud she’s picked up on what looked like clean-enough floors. (Yes, our Roomba is female. She makes us think of the robot maid from “The Jetsons.”)
Given that I have asthma, it’s smart to keep the environment as dust-free as possible. But vacuuming frequently hasn’t generally been high on my to-do list, even though I knew it should have been.
Recently I realized my asthma attacks have all but disappeared since I came to live with DF. Initially I thought it was because I was so much happier. Now I think it’s mostly Roomba’s doing.
Even if you get a flu shot — and I think you should — you still run a chance of getting the flu. According to Consumer Reports, vaccination prevents the illness 80 percent of the time in adults younger than 65.
But a non-flu virus — including the common cold — can make you feel pretty crummy, too. The insult to such injury is the price tags on cold/flu nostrums.
That’s why I put together a cold and flu package giveaway each year. Judging from the numbers of comments the package always gets, you folks don’t like paying retail, either.
Thyroid issues can wreak havoc with your health and well-being, causing problems like low energy, depression and weight gain. Seven years ago. I was crawling through the days, attributing my severe fatigue to the work-plus-university schedule. (Or maybe just a failure of will.)
Then a friend suggested I have my thyroid tested. Seems it wasn’t a question of willpower after all. Now a tiny daily pill takes care of things.
From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 11, women can get a free TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) test at any Sam’s Club that has a pharmacy (about 600 locations nationwide).
The other day I wished I could send some of our weather (52 degrees and raining) to the parched areas of the country, especially to farming regions. Turns out that the Gulf of Alaska was thinking along the same lines.
The Midwest and, eventually, the East Coast will be feeling the effects of “a poor man’s polar vortex” in the week to come. That’s what Washington Post weather editor Jason Samenow calls the “deep pool of cool air” that will dip down into the Great Lakes region in a day or so.
You’re welcome.
Before and after, though, U.S. residents worry about the cost of keeping cool. Nearly two-thirds of the 2,035 people surveyed by HomeServe USA are concerned about the hit that air conditioning will have on their budgets. Yet 55 percent will suck it up and pay whatever it takes to chill out.
Two weekends ago I came down with what seemed like an upper-respiratory virus: congestion, low-grade fever, and general aches and pains. In addition I felt sharp pain in my face whenever I coughed (which was often).
The fever disappeared within two days but everything else hung on, and dug in. After nine days of feeling that I’d been beaten with several efficient hammers, I reluctantly made an appointment at the Anchorage Neighborhood Health Center.
“Reluctantly” because I figured there wasn’t much to be done about a virus and that I didn’t have a full-blown sinus infection that could be treated. But I was so tired of hearing my own breath wheezing and clotting that I figured it was time.
Besides, my Aunt Elna was known to have broken ribs while coughing, and eeeewwww.
Professional demeanor prevented the doc from saying “You sound like crap” but I think that’s what she meant. No pneumonia (“although it could turn into that”) so just as I thought: no antibiotics.
We were hanging out in our library earlier today, me at the desk and DF sorting paperwork nearby. When he asked if I could hand him a pen, I did so without thinking.
Then: “Oh my gosh – look! It’s working!”
I was referring to my right shoulder and arm, which had been more or less immobilized and causing me a fair amount of pain (especially at night) for a while now. Some range-of-motion exercises were helping. But last week I couldn’t reach to the right to pick up a glass of iced tea sitting on the table by my chair. I had to turn my body and reach for it with my left hand.
So this is huge.
We get it: The weather has been very cold lately in the Lower 48, including places that normally don’t see single-digit temps. But is setting your thermostat to 70 degrees or higher the right way to go?
Some 28 percent of the 2,035 people interviewed by HomeServe aim for more than 70 degrees. Of those warm-blooded creatures, 34 percent are elderly and 32 percent are millennials (18 to 34).
Weenies.
I can understand the elderly having trouble regulating their body temperatures. But what’s with all these young pups who just can’t stay warm? Do they own no sweaters?
Recent sustained pain in my right shoulder has made it hard to work, and also to do some of my exercises. Walking’s been tough, too: The freeze-thaw cycle glaciated our side street, and the footpath is as polished as a politician’s promise. Even with ice-grippers on my feet I’m unsteady and fearful of falling.
Between my frozen shoulder and the frozen ground I’ve been frustrated and sluggish. Last week I decided that if I couldn’t walk outdoors, I’d walk inside.
That’s when I started doing laps around the living area.
I’ve heard a bunch of hacking and coughing lately, and I bet Alaska isn’t the only state thus afflicted. With so much time spent indoors, you’re likely to run into some kind of rhinovirus or other virulent cootie just lookin’ for a home.
Once it hits, having to pay $7 for a bottle of cough syrup adds fiscal insult to physical injury. I think that’s why these cold-and-flu giveaways are so popular: Nobody wants to shell out $20 or more for analgesics and expectorants.
This time around the package features:
Advil Congestion Relief. It’s a non-drowsy version, in case you really can’t take time off from work, and it’s a one-pill dose so you don’t have to remember to take it throughout the day.
Tissues. With all the suffering in the world it’s a little embarrassing to complain about a chapped honker. But after a couple of days of nonstop blowing our noses really do get sore. That’s why I’m including a box of Kleenex Lotion Aloe & E Tissues.