Edison Lightbulb

We have three of these light fixtures hanging over our kitchen counter. They don't shed a lot of light, but I like them. They came with an extra set of lightbulbs, but these original ones are still burning faithfully almost every night for almost ten years. I wonder what we did with that extra set of bulbs?

I was reading through the wonderful diversity of lives and stories, triumphs and dilemmas that is Blipfoto, and began thinking of several different journals and realizing that diverse as they are, there was a common thread connecting them, however tenuously.  Booky_Goatherd has been entertaining us with 'fact checks' on 'The Diplomat.' She said that she and a colleague agreed that they would 'dearly love' it if our deputies brought us a range of outfits to choose from for various occasions'. The main character in 'The Diplomat' hates all the clothes that are chosen for her.  Can a stylist know you well enough to choose clothes you want to wear? My neighbor is trying to choose a dress for her son's wedding and he and his fiancé  have nixed all her choices.  Obviously her son knows her well but he doesn't care if she likes what she is wearing as long as it doesn't spoil the wedding pictures.

Another Blipper has decided to try going vegan in order to lower her cholesterol without taking statins. Is it possible to make a drastic change in one's diet...changes that, however well motivated, must be maintained for a lifetime?

After a difficult trip from Glasgow to Stornoway, involving late flights, awkward flight times and bad service, She had news from a tour company she used for a trip to Italy had changed all her flights, making connections as established impossible. She decided to cancel the whole thing. She asks, 'was travel ever relaxing?'.

I have been thinking a lot about the effects of Covid on all our lives and how they have been pretty profound, even if we're not aware of it. I'm really interested in this question . Is it a separate issue from aging, or are they interconnected? I used to never be home during the day until we moved from Berkeley. After we moved, I found myself at home a lot more and wasn't sure I liked it. Then Covid came along, we were forced to stay home for long enough that it became difficult moving back to 'normal' once it became more possible.

A recently retired blipper is having trouble developing her own 'internal driver’ after having had so many of my days being filled with activities set by others'. 

I think the thing that connects all these random stories  is the question of 'lifestyle' and the larger question of how well we adapt to somebody else telling us what they think we should do.  I know, it's a really broad, philosophical question, but we're all humans and we're all different, and I spend l lot of time thinking about it, and why, on a broader scale, we seem to have so much trouble getting along.