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MARCH 2023
HEALTHY, WEALTHY,
& Wise
1 Denver Federal Center Building 45, Entrance E-9, Room 1050 Lakewood, CO 80225
HOW TO USE MEASURING TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS WHAT COUNTS, AND WHAT DOESN’T?
Lately, I’ve spent hours every day walking the beaches of Maui. My husband and I are working from the island — we’re unbelievably lucky! — and the beach is just outside our front door. By now, I know all of its moods. The morning beach is wide, with compacted sand that holds up underfoot. After lunch, it narrows to a thin strip. The waves splash at my ankles, and the soft sand dents under my heels, trying to swallow me up. I didn’t intend to make these beach walks a daily practice, but now I’m strolling five miles per day. Every time I look down at my Apple watch and see I’ve hit 10,000 steps; I feel a little glow of pride and accomplishment. That positive feeling pushes me to take another step and then another. Thinking about that ritual, it strikes me how important it is to measure our progress toward our goals. Without my watch, I’m not sure if I would keep up the 5-mile walks — but I have a streak to maintain! Many of us measure by instinct. We track our steps, log the growth in our paychecks and bank accounts, compare our productivity to our coworkers, and catalog how heavy we lift at the gym. But this is sloppy measuring — some things deserve to be measured, while others are a waste of time. As Albert Einstein
once said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
So, how do you figure out which things you should measure? And how do you do it in retirement when many of the usual yardsticks disappear? You should start by asking yourself two questions. 1. “Is this activity something I need to do, or is it just something I’m doing?” This will help you isolate productive work from busy work. Productive work is worth measuring — busywork isn’t. Would you rather be busy or accomplished? 2. “Which of my top three goals will this activity help me achieve?” If the answer is “none of them,” then the practice probably shouldn’t be a priority for you. It isn’t worth measuring. If you’re not quite sure how to apply these questions in real life, think about your email inbox. You could track how many emails are in your inbox and how quickly you can reduce that number to zero each morning. But should you? Probably not. In most cases, emails are busywork, and answering them quickly won’t help you achieve your goals. To find activities you should track, look at your big goals for the year and break them down into quarterly, weekly, and daily milestones. If you can track any of those daily tasks, you should! Logging your progress will keep you motivated and making progress — just like my Apple watch pushes me to keep walking on the beach. You can achieve amazing things with this approach. It’s the same process my friends use to complete 29029, a fitness challenge that involves climbing the same mountain over and over to reach the height of Mount Everest (29,029 feet) in 36 hours. I’m not sure I could ever do that , but it’s a testament to what you can accomplish when you measure your achievements.
Aloha nui from Hawaii,
–Ann Vanderslice
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If you’re retired or about to retire, you have a new and exciting life ahead of you. You may plan to travel the world, start a home project, or adopt a pet. Whatever you decide to do in your retirement, it’s essential to ensure you have as much time to enjoy it as possible. And How Can You Improve It WHAT IS HEALTHSPAN?
So, how do you make it last?
The best way to ensure you get the most out of your life after retiring is to focus on improving your healthspan. While your lifespan is how long you live, your healthspan is how long you can do things independently with complete physical and cognitive ability. Your healthspan also impacts the quality of life left in your lifespan, and the more you invest in it, the more you can enjoy your sunset years to their fullest.
How much you invest matters. We all get busy — that much is true — but how much time you invest in your health makes a difference in how much of a return you get. Ideally, you want to exercise in one of the above categories for 30 minutes daily. If your schedule is slammed, and exercise seems impossible to fit in, try to exercise at a higher intensity (at a level where you cannot hold a conversation during it) for at least 15 minutes a day for roughly the same results. Investing in a well-rounded exercise routine with consistent time durations can improve your healthspan for many years. While the amount of time you have left is important, the quality of that time undoubtedly matters too. When you invest in your healthspan, you’re investing in your independence!
Here’s what you can do to invest in your health now to get the highest return in the future.
Invest in all aspects of your fitness. Exercise is always an excellent investment for a healthier life, but to increase your healthspan, you’ll need to invest in all facets of your fitness. To diversify your health investments, focus on strength, power (how much energy you can output in a short time), balance, flexibility, and cardio. You can accomplish this through any activity, but ensure that your weekly exercises are well-rounded and include at least one exercise in each category.
MY FLOORS HAVE A YELLOW TINT Two Strategies to Remove Rug Stains reaction with the rug. If your rug has rubber backing, it can also have a chemical reaction with the materials in the vinyl flooring. How can rug stains be removed? Some stains, such as the ones caused by the rubber backing of certain rugs, are permanent. However, you can remove the stain if you have yellow stains from mats without rubber backing. The first strategy involves using sunlight. You want to remove all of your rugs and allow your floor to get as much sunlight as possible — do not put your mats back until the stains have faded. The cons to this method are that some bathrooms do not have windows (or have small windows), and it can take a long time to regain color. Another strategy is to use baking soda. After mopping your floor, while still damp, cover the stains with baking soda. Allow the baking soda to set for 10–15 minutes before wiping it away. Repeat this process until the stains are gone. Can yellow stains be prevented? The best thing you can do with rubber and non-rubber backing rugs is to remove the mats when they aren’t used. While some of the yellow stains on your bathroom tiles could be permanent, you can ensure they will never happen again. These strategies can be used for all rugs on your bathroom, kitchen, living room, and dining room floors.
Have you ever gone to mop your bathroom floors and found yellow stains on the floor where your bath rugs usually are? No matter how often you mop and scrub, it seems like these stains will never come out. But how do the stains happen, and can they be removed? Why are there stains on the floor? If your rugs stay in the same place for long periods — whether it has a rubber backing or not — they can leave a yellow stain on your floor. If sunlight does not enter your bathroom, the materials on your rug and flooring can oxidize, creating a yellow tint on the floor.
Additionally, if you have vinyl flooring, the materials used to create the flooring could cause a chemical
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‘IRISH I KNEW THAT SOONER!’
Six Fun Facts About St. Patrick’s Day
He didn’t banish snakes. Legend has it that St. Patrick banished all of the snakes from Ireland. In fact, even some portraits depict him doing so. However, fossil records show that snakes were never present in Ireland around his lifetime. Corned beef and cabbage originated in America. On March 17, everyone loads up on corned beef and cabbage in celebration, but did you know that in Ireland, they ate ham and cabbage, and the corned beef tradition actually began in America? In the 19th century, Irish Americans bought leftover corned beef from ships returning from China. The first St. Patrick’s Day parade happened in America. Many believe that St. Patrick’s Day was first celebrated in Ireland, but in 1737, the first St. Patrick’s Day parades actually took place in Boston and New York City.
Get ready to celebrate the luck of the Irish while impressing others with some fun St. Patrick’s Day trivia. The man’s British roots run deep. St. Patrick isn’t Irish — he was born in Britain around the end of the fourth century. Legend has it that at 16 years old, he was kidnapped and sold into slavery by Irish raiders. After six years, he was able to escape back to Britain and returned to Ireland much later as a Christian missionary. Ireland named him the country’s patron saint after he passed away. March 17 isn’t St. Patrick’s birthday. Many believe that we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on his birthday, but it’s actually the day he died in 461 A.D. That’s not his name. As mentioned earlier, St. Patrick is not his real name! When he became a bishop, Maewyn Succat changed his name to Patrick.
Year after year, we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with green shamrocks, leprechauns, pots of gold, and Lucky Charms, but did you know that St. Patrick was actually British? Even more surprising, St. Patrick isn’t even his real name!
Train Your
BRAIN!
Irish Pancakes
xxx
Inspired by TheKitchyKitchen.com
INGREDIENTS
• 2 cups all-purpose flour • 1/2 tsp baking soda • 1/2 tsp kosher salt • 1 tbsp white sugar
• 1 large egg, beaten • 1 cup buttermilk • 2 tbsp unsalted butter, divided
DIRECTIONS
1. In a bowl, sift the dry ingredients together. Set aside. 2. In a skillet, brown 1 tbsp of butter. 3. In a separate bowl, mix the beaten egg, buttermilk, and browned butter. 4. In a constant stream, add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients while stirring. Do not over beat! 5. Heat a skillet over medium-low heat. Add 1 tbsp of butter, stir until the skillet is coated, and then add a few large dollops of batter (about 3 inches wide) to the pan. Do not overcrowd. 6. Cook 4–5 minutes a side, until golden brown and cooked through. Serve with butter, jam, and syrup.
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issue INSIDE THIS Ann’s Letter From Hawaii PAGE 1
The Investment You Can’t Afford to Skip
Why Do My Rugs Leave Yellow Stains? PAGE 2
Six St. Patrick’s Day Fun Facts
Irish Pancakes PAGE 3
How a Cat Saved Her Humans’ Lives PAGE 4
SCHNAUTZIE SAVES THE DAY Facing a Gas Leak, She Thought Fast
Besides a fire, a gas leak is one of the worst things that can happen in the middle of the night. Fortunately for one Montana couple in 2007, Schnautzie the cat was on the case. She woke up her owners to alert them to the danger, preventing a deadly — and explosive — tragedy. People magazine reported that Greg and Trudy Guy adopted Schnautzie from a local pet store in April 2007. They’d gone with hopes of adopting a puppy but instead fell in love with a tiny black kitten. The couple only intended to foster Schnautzie, but she proved herself a hero and became a permanent family member. That October, Schnautzie climbed up on Trudy’s chest at 2 a.m. and started pawing at her nose. Since cats sometimes do strange (and annoying) things, Trudy didn’t think too much of it — until Schnautzie kept at it. Schnautzie captured Trudy’s attention when Trudy noticed her persistently sniffing the air around her. Once fully awake, Trudy noticed a hissing sound somewhere in the house. Getting up to investigate, she found a broken pipe outside her bathroom, pumping gas into the basement. “The gas was just fuming,” Trudy remembered. “Our house was saturated in a short time.” The Guys quickly vacated the house with Schnautzie in tow and called the fire department. Only upon the rescue workers’ arrival did the Guys realize the extent of the danger they had faced. While the
gas alone could have killed them, it was also an unseasonably frigid night in October. Had the heater or water tank turned on, it would have ignited the fumes and caused an explosion.
Schnautzie was a hero to the Guys, but extra treats and a permanent home were thanks enough for her. Still, she received a bit more than that in 2010. The Great Falls Animal Foundation learned how Schnautzie had saved the day and decided to honor her with the Purple
Paw Award. While Schnautzie appreciated the thought, Greg said she didn’t enjoy the reception. “She’s shy around strangers,” he explained. But there’s no doubt that Schnautzie deserved her award. Sally Cerny of the animal foundation told Catster.com that the Purple Paw is given to pets who uniquely demonstrate the bond between animals and humans. And, she concluded, “There’s no more special way to show that than to save your family.”
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