The right cane is essential, whether you need one to balance as you walk or to help compensate for an injury or disability. You have many choices but the most important thing is a finding a cane with a good fit that will be comfortable to use and decrease your chance of falling.
See the Mayo Clinic’s slideshow on choosing a cane
Read one man’s story of choosing a cane
Shower heads are a perfect environment for a dangerous bacteria related to tuberculosis. Mycobacterium avium thrives in wet, dark environments and can invade the lungs when sprayed from a shower head.
While healthy people are not at risk, the microbes can be dangerous for pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems, says the National Academy of Sciences.
“Unfortunately, shower heads have nooks and crannies that make
them hard to clean. Products with bleach can temporarily remove many
microbes, but they just grow back,” researcher Leah Feazel said.
Feazel recommends changing shower heads two to four times a year or switching to a metal shower head and letting the water run a few minutes to flush out pathogens. Bathing is a option because the water droplets are too large to penetrate the lungs, she said.
Cait & Marty do not hunt, unless you count their scavenging forays at estate sales. Cait’s Baby Boomer friend, Steve, does hunt and knows what he’s talking about when it comes to protecting his hearing. Steve owns Best Days a A field, a fine Wisconsin hunting lodge, and sent us this post about a hearing Gimpliment he uses in the field:
I have been using hearing protection for 40 or more years for shooting, and operating noisy equipment. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to use electronic hearing protectors, one of my favorites is the Howard Leight Impact™ Sport Earmuff with a jack to plug in an iPod.
I love listening to books-on-tape and use my iPod for the treadmill at the gym, for driving, and for the deer stand. If you get engaged in a good story you will probably last longer on the treadmill, and it’s always more pleasant. The iPod also makes driving more pleasant, keeping me awake and alert on longer drives as it does in the deer stand.
I jack the iPod cable into the earmuffs to listen to books-on-tape for lawn mowing and sedentary hunting like sitting on deer stand, or waiting for a turkey. Turn the iPod off and turn the earmuff volume up and you can hear game sneaking around.
A friend missed a nice deer years ago using headphones to listen to a big sports game. The headphones did not have an external microphone, like my Leight earmuffs do, so he didn’t hear the deer sneak up. When he moved slightly, not knowing the deer was practicaly in his lap, he spooked it and the deer bolted.
Eds. Note: Cait thinks bird watchers would find these useful, too.
Cait came across this on Etsy and it’s giving us stick envy.
Woodworkers in Texas at Brazo’s Walking Stick make these sturdy beasts from ash or oak with a 36-inch ruler on the side — perfect for placing plants in the garden.
The handsome Yard Stick has a metal tip which doubles as a dibber, so not only is it a sturdy walking aid, it’s also a functional garden tool.
We fancy it would make walking around the backyard a more majestic experience and quite elevate tedious, but necessary, summer-long bug smashing.
Our friend Lori P. shares our passion for finding easier ways to garden and move heavy loads with less effort. Here’s her review of Vermont Garden Carts, which she says she couldn’t live without in her garden and elsewhere:
I have a delicate lower back and wonky knee and need all the help I can get when it comes to carrying things. I’m now 55 and have been using these Vermont Garden Carts since I was in my 20s and working in my first garden.
The cart is so well balanced that I can carry a full load of cordwood and easily flip it up to dump the load, without anyone helping me.
I’ve used them to carry everything from compost and buckets of water to hay, pumpkins, shrubs, ducks and even a lamb or two. Other members of my family have used the same cart to move gravel, car engines, wood stoves and heavy loads of automotive supplies.
Perfect for giving my nieces rides down to the garden, the carts comes in several sizes and can be taken apart for moving, if necessary. To me, my cart is priceless because it makes life so much easier.
Just as we trust OXO products, we have faith in Gimpliments sold by Lee Valley.
Our households have full-sized drills, but we admit to have drill-envy when we look at the compact size and price - $26.50 - of this Lithium-Ion 3.6 Volt Driver Set.
Lee Valley says this well-made drill is the primary household drill used in Japan and will hold retain 85 percent of a full charge after more than a year of storage.
It has a quick-release chuck, a forward/reverse trigger, a co-molded soft rubber grip and a switchable LED light. In tests, Lee Valley workers said the drill excelled at small jobs in their shop and around the house.
The drill, small enough to be kept in a drawer, comes in a padded case with 15 screwdriver bits, a magnetic bit extender and two hex-shank drill bits.
Pair it with the Condo Hammer and Mr. 7 Hands and you nearly have a complete tool box — of which could fit in the drawer of your condo, apartment or your grandchild’s dorm room.
Eileen is a Chicago “Trend Spotter” who’s still working while thinking about retirement. She’s reached the point where comfort is a priority, especially when it comes to dealing with her arthritis.
She speaks for many of us when she writes about adjusting for comfort at home, including what her comfort-level demands in the way of clothing:
“It’s making me pickier and pickier in terms of clothes. Clothes that stretch and don’t get in the way when I need to bend my knees or reach over my head. Coats and jackets that are light in weight so they don’t drag on my shoulders when I’m driving or walking, especially walking quickly. Sweaters that keep me warm but aren’t itchy, especially around the neck. (I just decided to give away a super-warm Missoni sweater meant to wear at some ski lodge that is knit beautifully but out of scratchy mohair). Shoes that don’t pinch my toes or have too low or high a heel; boots that let my ankles bend and have rubber soles to help keep me from slipping on snow or ice.”
(via Life Meets Work)
We don’t believe these are going to catch fire, so to speak, and appear in many homes, but it’s good to know you can, if you wish, warm your breasts with a computer attachment. (Did we really just write that?)
On the one hand, just the idea of USB breast warmers seems so silly. On the other, there are many times we can remember when “the girls” seemed eternally frozen while our feet had booties and our hands had mittens.
Where would you use these? Maybe plugged into your laptop computer in the stands at a Green Bay Packers Football game? Not likely, though the Japanese-based firm Thanko seems to think they will sell somewhere.
Eds. Note: We can’t imagine they would be very comfortable, and comfort is what we are all about. At the end of a long day, our favorite saying is “Time to let the girls out.”
(via BoingBoing)
This little doo-dad is brilliant and at $3.50 a piece you can buy an extra and give it to a friend who will love you for it.
The Magnetic Paintbrush Holder solves the problem of where to rest your brush when it’s wet and it even comes with a metal tab to open paint cans.
It clips to the rim of any size can and then secures the metal ferrule of the brush to its magnets.
One magnet keeps the brush above the liquid in a full can and the other grips it vertically for when the paint level is lower.
Our friend Tom Lowy of Philadelphia maintains there’s only one way to store T-shirts - carefully roll each one up and stack them together in a drawer.
It’s quick, space efficient and, surprisingly, they come out fairly wrinkle free. And if you exercise as much as Tom, and go through T-shirts as quickly as Tom, it’s definitely the way to go.
If, however, you like taking better care of your shirts than Tom, here’s three other ways to fold them by buying something, making something or just using your pinkies.
The Flip-Fold comes in several sizes, is sturdy and would be easy to use if you have limited coordination and strength.
If you’re crafty, here’s a do-it-yourself flip fold made from cardboard, and if you’re fingers are nimble, here’s the way to fold it yourself using just your pinkies.
