21st Century Family

In this day and age I am reminded of how much family needs each other.  The blogs I read are interesting and fun to follow.  Of course, like anyone else I love to have comments on my blogs.  For the most part it is family that comments.  I have several readers, but like me, they don't comment all that often.  So I was thinking about what lengths our family goes through to help each other out.

The common family dynamic is no longer two parents, two kids, one dog.  This would be an aberration.

Check this out:  for years Gramma Brown lived in a mother-in-law home next to Aunt Karen.  Now that Gramma is gone cousin Julie occupies that address, hopefully helping Aunt Karen out as she cares for her infirm husband, our Uncle Don.  Aunt Karen has been my ultimate example of selflessness....but even though she may growl about it now and then; it doesn't take away from her commitment as she in turn, took care of Gramma, Uncle Don as well as Julie.

Then there is my address, courtesy of Mom and Dad....I moved in several years ago and stayed so I would be available as they aged and needed more help.  Dad, of course, is gone now but Mom and I are going through the same scenario.  It has been a life saving location for me.

Or Dawn and Yo, who's house is definately a 'yours, mine, and our' locale, their main extention is Laura, a full time nurse who needs assistance raising her three kids, courtesy of Dawn and Yo.  At a point in time my son  also called their house home.  Dawn and Yo are like that.  If Darcie or Andrew had a say in it, they too would have been raised in that house by them.  Knowing this doesn't take away the love or the closeness Andrew, Darcie and I have.  If I had a choice I would be living with Dawn, too.

Which brings me to another example: Darcie with her little family is currently dwelling with her mother-in-law Angie.  In this case it is a mutual admiration society.  Darcie and Angie love each other and would be close friends even without Mondo or the kids in common.

Point is, our family never stops being our life.  We reach in deep and we make room for whatever is needed.  Lane and Jean do this with their kids....mostly against their will, I think, but they do it because they love their kids even when they don't like them.  In the last 10 years I think that at least 3 of their kids lived with them.  Help goes both ways in that situation.

People can seldom afford to live alone, at least in our family we would be happy with 10 acres and the agreement for everyone to dwell within.  Must focus on that, as I am not sure what my fate will be when Mom has gone.  In the meantime, I have my family.

IQ

I read an article about how to raise your IQ by as much as 20 points.  I have a fairly high IQ by the testing I have done. It's not Mensa level by any means.  But it does mean that I should be able to follow instruction, understand irony and sarcasm.  I take it for granted.  I have also taken for granted the high IQ of the others in our family.  The leading cause of a high IQ, to my mind, is a curiosity.  No, I don't mean strange, I mean curiosity in that we ask questions, we want to know things, we play games.

Now, my roll model has always been Mom.  When I was growing up she did word puzzles all the time, she read a lot of books about the mind and controlling life.  But it seems that since she retired she may have also retired her mind...one less struggle?  But I hate to see her just sitting and losing touch with everything.  She has gotten out some of her old books and is slowly reading through them, working her hands, doing jigsaw puzzles online.  But it is a long road.  Mom doesn't think outside the box.  Well, outside of her own box anyhow.

For example, I got Mom a puzzle book, mind challenges, logic problems, etc.  She looked through the book and only found a couple of puzzles she could figure out; the rest are going to be a challenge.  One she figured out was a grid that you fill in with letters to create certain words.  The grid was only 4 across and 4 down.  It's a start.  However, on the same page was a puzzle that gave you a series of 6 jigsaw puzzle pieces.  You had to choose three of the pieces to fit on a puzzle.  The puzzle itself was just three pieces and the clues were made from the outline of this small puzzle board.  Basic.  (Back to this in a minute.  I want to make a side note to my blog.)


(I took some time today to read through book and I can see why she was so final that she can't do it.  I am going to give it a try; maybe I can do about 25% of them.  I will challenge myself somehow and let you know how it goes.)



I attempted the puzzle.  I was able to figure out fairly quick.  So I have copied the puzzle using a paint program.  The puzzle pieces are not precise, so I will ask forgiveness about the disparity you may initially notice.  Keep in mind if it is off center that is the way it should look, even though the off - centeredness is not precise, this is my drawing error, not an error of the actual puzzle.  With that in mind, below is an image of  the puzzle pieces and the actual puzzle they need to fit in.  Please look at it and attempt the puzzle, then let me know in a comment how difficult or easy it was to figure out.

I will explain in the comments the discussion mom and I have about this puzzle.  Have fun and be sure to leave a comment for me.