It would be interesting to know the origin of the expression, “He’s driving me nuts”.  Nuts do not make you crazy!  On the contrary, they are very, very good for you.

There are many kinds of nuts-cashew, almond, walnut, Brazil nut, hazelnut, etc. and each has its own beneficial property for the body.  This is of special interest as we age.

Of all nuts, cashews have the highest rate of magnesium, which is very efficient in controlling cramps, especially leg cramps.

Pistachio nuts are used in baking and in mediterranean dishes.  They are very rich in vitamin B which is so valuable for the nervous system.

Walnuts are known to be very healthy for the heart, with their antioxidant properties.

Almonds play an important role in containing and even decreasing bad cholesterol levels while enhancing the good cholesterol.

Almonds and Brazil nuts are the only nuts that are alkaline in the acidic-alkaline chart.  Most of the food we eat is acidic, and it is this acidity in the body which promotes cancer and rheumatism among other ailments.

Judging from what is known about them, it is better to pick up a bag of nuts at the grocery store than potato chips or other starchy foods.  The choice of nuts is there, and they are all healthy.

Grandma Nature

Bonnie Foods and Flavors, Health Factors, Uncategorized almonds, Brazil nuts, decrease bad cholesterol, Grandma Nature, magnesium, pistachio nuts, vitamin B, walnuts

Honoring Fathers and Grandfathers

Yesterday we honored fathers on Father’s Day, but…

Where would we be without grandfathers?  They are the examples that sons and sons-in-law have had and continue to have as models of fatherhood.  Yes, today men may father differently than their own fathers, but the core values, desire to do one’s best and love do not change.   And grandfathers remain fathers even though their children have grown.

Grandfathers with age esteem know that they continue to set an example.  They share in a special dimension of nurturing their grandchildren. – Not as fathers, but as grandfathers.

A father with age esteem knows that the greatest gift that he can give to his children is to love their mother.

Grandfathers with age esteem also realize that the greatest gift they can offer to themselves is to love their grandchildren unconditionally and to love the spouse of their grown child.  Love unites the generations.  It creates a fertile environment for dialogue, laughter and memories.   Grandfathers with age esteem know this.

Today let’s honor fathers and grandfathers.

Bonnie Fatio, AgeEsteem

Bonnie Uncategorized

HAVE A HAPPY AND BLESSED EASTER AND PASSOVER

Bonnie Holidays, Uncategorized blessed, Easter, passover

New Beginnings

Let us toast to the New Year’s Beginnings,

Let us boast our new powers of forgiving,

Let us host and become more engaging,

Let us most of all fear NOT old-aging.

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem

Bonnie Entertainment & Fun, For the Soul, Uncategorized AgeEsteem, Alexandra Taylor, new beginnings, New Year, old-aging

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the holiday season ?  Is there too much to do and too little time to do it?  Have you forgotten the meaning of the season?

As we get older I think we often try to do even more to enhance the  season.  There have been so many happy traditions over the years that we sometimes find ourselves trying to incorporate them all!

Why not simplify your efforts?  Be creative.  Make the holiday season what you want it to be rather than what you think others expect.  Ask yourself some simple questions and listen closely to your answers.

• What is important to me at this time of the year: activities, people surrounding me,…?
• How could I simplify what I am doing to decorate, cook, entertain and gift wrap?
• What could I offer as gifts that would be meaningful and personal, yet inexpensive?
• Could I send New Year cards or Valentine cards rather than Christmas cards?

Chances are that you will come up with creative answers.

Bonnie Fatio

Bonnie Uncategorized

Alex Stauffer, 67, Swiss

When I hear the term Age Esteem I think in our old age that we should be happier with what we have, including health and wrinkles, and not think “Oh I’m getting old now.” or “It’s too late.”

Alex’s tips:  I would say you have to love yourself and in order to love yourself you have to be in good health, so you need to do something about it.  I know I drink a little bit too much, but I eat healthy, I move a lot, I do my exercises, I try to help other people.  But it’s not always easy.

I’m a little short tempered with people who have health problems because they do nothing about it.  They do nothing to prevent the problems even when they have time to exercise and money to buy good food.  I know it is sometimes expensive to eat good fruit and vegetables instead of junk food, but if you can do that and don’t do it, I have no patience.

Bonnie Health Factors, Secrets to AgeEsteem, Uncategorized age-esteem, Alex Stauffer, health problems, love yourself, prevent, secrets of age esteem, wrinkles

Unfortunately being older does not make us immune to stress.  In fact it may bring even more as we juggle grandchildren and caring for our own parents while trying to carve out time for ourselves.  We are told that there is good stress and bad stress, but it might be better to have no stress at all!

Mother Nature provides us with many effective aids to combat stress.  A lovely walk in the countryside or in the mountains or along a river will lower blood pressure, oxygenate your body and enable you to forget your worries and problems.  Depending upon the season, there is much to see such as trees and flowers in blossom and vegetables bursting forth in all their colorful glory.  How beautiful it is to see a field of sunflowers, bright yellow and tall, all having turned their heads to look at you as you pass by.  They might make you laugh and this is “the best medicine”.  In colder months, we see the beautiful colors of turning leaves, and even in winter we can be refreshed when outside and getting physical exercise. Just looking at nature soothes the soul.

Regardless of the season being in the warm sun for a while can calm you as well.

Also to soak in a warm bubble bath, preferably with relaxing oils such as lavender, chamomile, jasmine, rose or sandalwood will do wonders for your well-being.

A swim in the ocean will increase endorphins which will give you a euphoric feeling.

Studies have shown that sugar and low-fat carbohydrates are very effective in lowering anxiety. This is due to a chemical reaction in the brain.  Sugar works more quickly than carbohydrates but both successfully create a calming effect, and even chewing gum aids in relieving anxiety. When feeling overwrought and overburdened just have some chocolate, other sweets.

Finally to end a stressful day there is nothing more rewarding than a delicious meal and a glass of wine, again bounties coming from the earth.  So, enjoy and no longer feel stressed. – Just take the time!

Grandma Nature

Bonnie Health Factors, Secrets to AgeEsteem, Uncategorized aids to combat stress, endorphins, Grandma Nature, nature, stress solutions

At The Movies

Superb  ****    Very Good  ***     Good  **      Mediocre   *    Forget It  -

Unmissables

El Secreto De Sus Ojos ( The Secret in their Eyes) **** (vo Spanish)  It seemed an upset when The White Ribbon from Austria/Germany did not receive the best foreign film Oscar and this Argentinean film picked it up instead. Well, I just saw the film and am still in awe as I write this. Using flashbacks to some 25 years ago, director Juan José Campanella has woven an elegant tale of love, injustice, loyalty and empty lives around a crime of rape and murder that was never quite resolved. This intricate account is exceptional on many levels. It’s about a retired justice official (Ricardo Darin) who is writing a novel on the unsolved crime that will not leave his mind. It’s a love story that has remained locked in the hearts of the two colleagues (Darin and Soledad Villamil) involved in the old investigation. It’s a reminder of the duplicity and power politics of revolving-door governments. And above all, it’s a manifestation of the exquisite quality of South American and especially Argentinean cinema – the dialogue, direction, the subtlety of the acting, cinematography and editing – you name it, they excel.

Une Exécution Ordinaire  **** (vo French)  During the last days of Stalin’s life, an infernal triangle forms between a doctor who has extraordinary healing powers in her hands, her physicist husband and the father of the country himself, who summons her to alleviate his pains. Marina Hinds continues her brilliance (after her tender portrayal of Lady Chatterley) as the frightened healer, while André Dussollier becomes Stalin, in all his power, ruthlessness and enigma. This is quite an intimate foray into what was the terrible pressure on common citizens under Stalin’s vicious reign. With great sensitivity and discretion, the multi-awarded writer Marc Dugain directs here his first film based on his own book. Impressive!

Romans d’Ados 1- 4  **** (vo French)   Béatrice Bakhti as director and her husband Nasser as producer, backed by the Swiss TSR, have created an exhaustive documentary about a group of teenagers in Yverdon whom they followed from the ages of 12 to 18. This is an amazing, caring work about personable characters as well as a psychological quest through the turmoil of growing-up. The families give of themselves completely, without inhibition, while the individual teenagers grow on us with their emotional disclosures. The four episodes of approximately two hours each are as gripping as any fine work of fiction, beautifully filmed, paced and edited, as well as being important pedagogically. This is truly a revelatory tour-de-force of courage, pain and joy in a cycle of continuity.

Troubled Water (En Eaux Troubles)  ***1/2 (vo Norwegian)  A kidnapping gone terribly wrong and the guilt over a child’s death are shown from two points of view – that of the kidnapper who has been released from prison and that of the child’s mother. Brilliantly and delicately balanced, it bares the truest of reactions on all sides – responsibility, revenge, redemption – casting the spectator in the role of Solomon. The acting is superb all around (young Pal Sverre Valheim Hagen has the makings of a world star – might help to drop a few of those names) and the Norwegian director, Eric Poppe, grabs our attention from the first tentative minutes till the end, using music as a balm for so much sorrow.

Moon  ***1/2 Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie) has deservedly picked up a slew of awards for this first feature film, a science-fiction tale about a lone man on the moon who works for a company that extracts helium for energy use on earth. Impatiently waiting for the end of his three-year stint, he begins to have delusions that develop into some sinister realities. Sam Rockwell is excellent, as is the voice of Kevin Spacey as Gerty, his indispensable computer. There are obvious shades of Kubrick’s Hal and 2001, A Space Odyssey, though this one is a far more personal, engrossing and well-written version of what can happen up there. Sorry Stanley, but I never could warm to that film of yours.

Robin Hood (Robin des Bois) *** The dynamic Oscar-winning duo of Ridley Scott as director and Russell Crowe as star are back again (They’ve done Gladiator, A Good Year,  American Gangster and A Body of Lies together.), this time with an old classic which they’ve decided to turn on its head, by telling it as a historical prequel. You will be surprised, for this is not your everyday outlaw-in-green-tights. As Crowe (who’s also producer this time) puts it, “It’s anarchy, violence and adrenaline… with an instinctively heroic Robin Hood who could have really existed…With research you discover the story is probably based on up to 30 real people” in the late 12th century when King Richard the Lionhearted was returning from the Crusades. With a top-notch cast including Cate Blanchett and Max Von Sydow, it blends history, grand battle scenes (the one of the French invasion at the cliffs of Dover is reminiscent of the sea landing in Saving Private Ryan), the struggle between royal power and a just social order and a tender love story growing between Robin and Lady Marion. As always, Crowe is simply riveting.

La Tête en friche  *** (vo French)  Jean Becker tends to make nostalgic films of bucolic friendships, such as his Les Enfants du Marais or Dialogue avec mon Jardinier. This one, with the monumental Gérard Depardieu (the Marlon Brando of France, in so many ways), is a wonderfully gentle tale of a simple man who meets an elderly lady (Sophie Guillemin) on a park bench and gradually becomes what he could have been, through her love of books. It’s moving, amusing and so human, with an array of quirky characters. Don’t listen to the negativism of snob critics.

Kick-Ass  *** How can one say that a film is entertaining and super fun if it’s also terribly violent, with an 11-year-old girl who ends up pulverizing more men than Schwarzenegger?! But it is brilliantly done, which makes it that much more dangerous for the kids who will end up seeing it. It’s smart and a treat on various levels – the reality of being a nerdy teenager, the fantasy of becoming a super-hero, and the collision of a criminal gang (headed by Mark Strong), a surrealistic father/daughter revenge machine (Nicolas Cage and Chloe Moretz) and the wannabe Kick-Ass (Aaron Johnson). British Matthew Vaughn (producer of Guy Ritchie’s films and husband of Claudia Schiffer) does an amazing job of creating thrills and comedy drenched in violence. I guess you could just say it’s kick-ass…

Neptune Ingwersen 

Bonnie Au Cinema, Entertainment & Fun, Uncategorized Beatrice Bakhti, cinema, Duncan Jones, Gerard Depardieu, Juan Jose Campanella, Marc Dugain, Marina Hinds, Matthew Vaughn, movies, Neptune Ingwersen, Nicolas Cage, Pal Sverre Valheim Hagen, Ricardo Darin, Ridley Scott Russell Crowe, Sophie Guillemin, Stalin

As we enter into this glorious Spring season with trees and flowers blooming, we surely must also think of asparagus.  This versatile vegetable is at its peak in the springtime. When we see it in the open markets or food stores we think of Mother’s Day or May Day or other festive occasions during this time of year.

Asparagus is a member of the lily family.

It is another of Mother Nature’s gifts as it is very important to our health as we age.

• It is full of antioxidants and one of them, glutathione, is known to prevent cataracts.
• This same antioxidant is also a cancer-prevention food.
• A unique phytochemical in asparagus that produces an anti-inflammatory effect helps relieve arthritis and rheumatism.
• Vitamins A and C are found in asparagus as well.

Of course, asparagus can be found all year round in tins and in the frozen food compartment but there is nothing more delightful than choosing a bunch of asparagus in season. They are green, white and purple and are eaten simply with a mayonnaise or vinaigrette. Asparagus is even found in fancy pasta creations such as ravioli or tortellini. They can be boiled, steamed, microwaved or grilled.

Why not pick up a bunch now and prepare a favorite meal?  At the same time you will bring valuable nutrients to your body.

Grandma Nature

Bonnie Uncategorized anti-inflammatory, arthritis, asparagus, cancer-prevention, cataracts, Grandma Nature, healthy aging, rheumatism

When I told friends we were headed to “Paducah”, they thought it was an exotic island or a joke.

Actually it is neither.  Paducah, Kentucky is hometown to two cousins.  We were going there to meet up with the Blewfield clan of cousins.   As children growing up in the Midwest, we spent a week each year with cousins in LaPorte, Indiana.  We swam, boated, had hamburger eating contests, and played from dawn til dark.  It was a highlight of summer.

Now 60 years later we still look forward to being together. The Cousin’s Reunion has become a tradition with a different person taking on the organization every two years.

This year a conversation revolved around benefits of being older.  -  Especially living our passions, investing time in work and activities we truly love and that build our confidence and age-esteem.

• We feel vibant and involved in new ways.
• People seek us out.  Our strengths are recognized and sought after.
• We are involved in amazing activities that give meaning to our lives.
• We are more tolerant and understanding, no longer sweating the small stuff.
• Our lives have greater perspective.

Bonnie AgeEsteemers, Life Stages - Ages, Uncategorized age-esteem, Blewfield, confidence, cousin's reunion, Indiana, Kentucky, LaPorte, Paducah