I love simplicity and silence. On this blog I share bits and pieces from my daily life. In late 2025 I moved to Ruakākā near Whangārei in Aotearoa. 100% human (she / her). Since July 2024 I've been doing resistance training to help me maintain my independence as I age. Now 71, I'm super happy to be getting old — it means I'm not dead yet! I believe all beings have the right to clean water, nutritious food and adequate shelter, and that humans are simply one small part of the amazing life on this planet that supports us all: humans, animals, plants. My interests include reading cosy mysteries, things to do with language and linguistics, photos of birds, space opera scifi, especially Star Trek. I love learning things. I joined the MB community on 05 January 2018. Follow me on Micro.Blog at https://micro.blog/miraz .
The machines I use at the gym allow me to push or pull to lift a weight which then falls back under gravity.
Until recently I would push and relax, push and relax.
For the last few weeks though I've reduced all my weights a bit and am doing something much harder:
push (explosively, for power)
hold for a few moments
ease the weight back down slowly and under control
This hold and slow release is actually quite hard and tiring.
I'm more of a slow and steady 'tortoise' so the 'explosive' first movement is something I'm still working quite hard on.
Various YouTubers I follow have pointed out that learning to balance on one leg is all very well, but if you start to fall, for example, you need a quick movement to save yourself. I'm applying that notion to all the movements I do. It's a matter of developing power rather than just strength.
Side note: decades ago I was a school teacher. One 13 year old boy went to boxing classes I think. He would wait until I was looking elsewhere, but so he was still in my peripheral vision, then he'd flash his arm up into the air and down again so quickly that by the time I turned my head there was no hand up asking for attention. 🤣
Power training offers more potential for improving muscle power and performance on activity tests in older adults compared to strength training.
If something unexpected comes along I want to be able to move quickly to deal with it.
As for the 'hold' and slow release instead of allowing gravity just to return the weight: that's actually quite demanding too and I feel they're both building strength.
After a couple of years at the gym doing up / down weights I'm enjoying this new routine.
When Nicole’s uncle dies and she inherits his maple syrup farm, she thinks it’s time to leave her career as a criminal defense attorney behind for a life that allows her to stay far away from murderers and liars.
For half a day at least.
Her uncle’s suicide looks like it wasn’t a suicide at all.
vaccination is one of the most powerful tools for preventing disease, but age-related changes in how immune cells make and manage their proteins mean vaccines work less well as people get older, leaving them more vulnerable.
Sharp-eyed Deb was looking at the water of Marsden Bay while I had my eyes on the path, so she was the one who spotted a pod of maybe 20 dolphins swimming, leaping, blowing and generally hanging out.
Of course, they did their best leaps when the camera wasn't looking. 😆
With suspicion closing in and no one willing to tell the whole truth, Kate must untangle a web of secrets before the bookstore—and her freedom—are lost.
Connell Kane … is charged with her death. Then his car is discovered abandoned at the Mull of Galloway, a suicide note taped to the wheel. Case closed.
Two years later, after a ferocious storm, the receding waters reveal a battered car stranded on the Solway mudflats ― and the body of a man.
A few minutes ago I was outside and spotted a couple of pukeko, in spite of the ongoing earthworks behind us. Then I saw a tiny chick pop into view before immediately taking fright and disappearing again. 🐦
I'll be on the lookout now, and hope there's more than one.
Whangarei District Council is running a 'Silver Festival' with all kinds of events for seniors. Yesterday I attended one run by the astronomical society, misleadingly named Night Sky at Noon:
a visit to Stonehenge Whangārei and viewing the sun through our solar telescopes (weather permitting), before embarking on your tour beneath a brilliantly realistic night sky.
It was interesting and enjoyable, although the sun that had blazed from a clear blue sky all morning was covered in dense cloud by the 1 pm start time. 😒
The Zeiss machine that shows the stars is 70 years old!
Up by Kiwi North in Maunu, Whangārei, is the wild bird rescue centre where we can't go in. Next door though is a room full of bird information, especially taxidermied birds of all kinds. 🐦
Hanging from the ceiling were numerous sea birds, including this enormous albatross.
Cherry Healey and Dr Amir Khan break down the silent risks that can affect your heart without obvious symptoms, including high blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar, and explain the warning signs you should never ignore.
They also look at why heart attacks can present differently in women, what changes after the menopause, and what to do if someone suddenly collapses.
I check my blood pressure twice a week (it's low).
a living archive of global progress, containing more than 8,000 entries: every single story we’ve published since 2017, all the way back to the before times 😬.
Each story comes with a headline, a short summary and a linked source, … you can filter by category, region, country, date or even SDG. And my personal favourite, the ‘surprise me’ filter, which gives you three stories at random from the entire archive.
An intriguing mystery with several potential perpetrators and one very unusual character who remembers everything. This book spent a lot of time on the individual characters.
Marnie Bruce has returned to find out what happened the night her mother disappeared — the night she left Marnie for dead.
Marnie has hyperthymesia. She remembers everything she has ever seen and heard: every face, every word, every detail. But that night is the one memory she cannot recover.
When an EMT with PTSD falls through a portal into an alternate version of Boston, three friends from different realities in the multiverse, each of whom owe him a debt, attempt a rescue before conflicting memories of a life he never led destroy his mind.
When we “see” objects like trees and bears and birds, we absorb some photons, packets of light that moments ago kissed these very beings. In an instant, we become the energy that bounced from them. No wonder we feel a “connection.”
