Well, April showers bring May flowers, but we have had plenty of rain all winter long. It seems that we never have the right weather any time of the year. Hope that your holidays will be fun and exciting and maybe even bring family down to visit.

Advancing with our birthday list, our April birthdays are Suzi Cohen and Bobbie Pilnick. Congrats ladies!

We have in Sterling Lakes, a celebrity, by the name of Sandy November. I understand that she had a one woman show at the clubhouse. Her history was very interesting and informative. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend that day, but I had seen the video and also heard her story in person a number of years ago. Way to go Sandy!

Going along with our community we also have had some sad news. Our resident, Lee Hyman, (no relation to me) passed away. Our condolences to the family.

On a happy note, we may be having another new resident. I will not say who or where until it happens, but we wish our “old” resident a wonderful new and happy life.

Remember, no news in, no news out!

By the time this publication goes to press, the new Oxford BOD will have been elected and officers chosen. We say thanks and farewell to Anne Slaker, Mike Ringler and Richard Haar as their terms end. We also welcome new members to the Aberdeen County Club BOD and our Property Owners’ Association BOD. It is hoped that this infusion of fresh faces brings continued success, collaboration and new ideas to foster strong relationships among neighbors and friends.

Spring breaks differ all over the U.S. so kids will be joining us throughout March and April, celebrating Easter and Passover. It’s refreshing to hear and see them playing in the pools and throughout our neighborhoods.

Florida has held its primaries for the presidential nominations and politicians will be jumping in full force to campaign. This is our first time to experience the politics of Florida and look forward to participating in the excitement.

On a personal note, Jim and I have sold our Delaware beach home (finally) and have become full-timers in Florida! The hot summers will find us traveling to visit family and a big trip to the Canadian Rockies in late July. After a total knee replacement in late March, I plan to resume my exercises and even golf in early summer in preparation for the trekking through Canada!

“April Fools Day” and that defines the volunteer attempting to follow in the editorial footsteps of Vince Marini. Everyone knows me, since I’m here 30 years, know that I will follow Frank Sinatra’s words and “Do It My Way.” The Moorings will have had the elections for the board a week ago and even though we don’t have the drama occurring nationally, the results will appear in the next issue. We have received our 2016 phone directories for Aberdeen and eagerly look forward to next year when it is broken down by neighborhoods. With so many new residents, many people don’t know last names and find it difficult to find a phone number. In the good & welfare department, we wish good health to Harriet Frishman, Jack Gould, Harriet Safier and Faye Wolkoff and anyone else about whom I am not aware. Best wishes to Ruth Asseal moving to California, Richard & Renee Bond returning to MI, Bob and Sandy Bloom enlarging in the Shores and Ralph & Lynne Luongo traveling to Aberdeen West. To our resident Harold Frishman RIP.

In Cupid’s department we have Joan Marini attending her granddaughter’s bridal shower in TX and an exciting engagement for Flora & Jack Miller’s granddaughter, Blair. Short but sweet, Millie Tencer had her son & his lovely bride, Isabelle & Don Rubenstein had their NY family, Marilyn and Alfred Lubell their Va children and their favorite granddaughter, Rachel, Lola Greenberg had granddaughter, Gracie and Eileen & Joe Hahn their Ga family since grandson Stephen is in a Robotics competition at the Convention Center in West Palm Beach. If you would like to read your name in print please share with me some info that could enable us to share your happiness. Next month many college decisions will be made and many graduations will take place, so give me a phone call; I’m in your directory.

By: Dr. Keith Roach – To Your Health

Question: I recently had a heart scan, and the calcium score for one of my arteries was 145. I have no symptoms. My results showed two lesions in the left anterior descending artery, with a calcium score of 154.4. The other arteries’ calcium scores were 0 to 6. My overall cholesterol was 167, HDL 57, triglycerides 52, LDL 100. I’m 57. My father had several heart attacks and died with the last at 57. I never smoked, and my blood pressure is 130/80 on treatment. How serious is this, and can it be reversed with a better diet and more exercise. – Anon.

Answer: Coronary artery scanning is a way to look for coronary artery disease without performing a stress test or a catheterization of the heart. It uses a CT scanner to look for calcium in the walls of the arteries in the heart. Not everyone with detectable calcium in the artery (any score above zero) has blockages. The higher the score, the more likely there is a blockage.

In men 50-60, the average score with no blockage was 56, and the average for men with blockages was 217. Your result is in a gray zone, where we can’t tell for sure if you have a blockage.

I calculated your risk of heart attack in the next 10 years based on the Framingham risk calculator (available at cvdrisk.nhlbi.nih.gov) and the information you gave, and found a result of 7 percent. Although you may have a slightly increased risk because of your calcium score, I can’t precisely estimate how much more risk. Your risk is below the usual cutoff for treatment with statin drugs; even so, some physicians might choose to treat you.

But your specific question is about diet and exercise, and I am happy to say that most people can significantly reduce heart disease risk through better diet. The optimum diet for reducing risk for heart disease is hotly debated, but most authorities agree that these are key components of a heart-heathy diet:

Lots of fruits and vegetables (five or more servings per day.)

Very little or no refined grains; any grain consumed should be whole grain.

Two to three servings of protein-rich foods daily, favoring nuts, legumes and fish, and limiting or eliminating red meat;

Minimal or no refined sugar.

Palm Beach Post

(From the Internet)

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. (Hardly seems worth it.)

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet. (O.M.G.!)

Butterflies taste with their feet. (Something I always wanted to know.)

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people. (If you’re ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump. (Okay, so that would be a good thing.)

A cat’s urine glows under a black light. (I wonder how much the government paid to figure that out.)

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain. (I know some people like that.)

Starfish have no brains. (I know some people like that, too.)

Polar bears are left-handed. (If they switch, they’ll live a lot longer.)

(From the Internet)

This is the wisest doctor I’ve ever read about!

Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?
A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take water out of fruit so you get even more of goodness that way, Beer is also made of grain. Bottoms up!

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
A: Well, if you have body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio two to one, etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
A: Can’t think of a single one, sorry, My philosophy is: No pain … good!

Q: Aren’t fried foods bad for you?
A: YOU ARE NOT LISTENING! Food is fried these day in vegetable oil. In fact, foods are permeated by it. How could getting more vegetable be bad for you?!?

Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?
A: Definitely not! When you exercise muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

Q: Is chocolate bad for me?
A: Are you crazy?!? HEL-LO-O!! Cocoa bean! Another vegetable! It best feel-good food around!

Q: Is swimming good for your figure?
A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

Q: Is getting in shape important for my life-style?
A: Hey! ‘Round’ is a shape!

Well… I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.

And remember:
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways – Chardonnay in one hand – chocolate in the other – body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming “WOO-HOO, what a ride!!”
AND For those of you who watch what you eat, here’s the final word on nutrition and health. It’s a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.
1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suf-fer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans..
5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION:
Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

By: Leslie Pepper

During these lazy days of summer, it’s hard to resist slacking off on healthy eating and exercising habits. Well, it turns out you might not have to harness your willpower: The latest research shows that going easy on yourself when it comes to certain habits can actually be good for your health. Consider this your doctor’s note!

Go ahead and …
Sleep late. Turning in and waking up at the same time every day does help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep. But if you’re up late at a barbecue Friday night, your body definitely benefits from turning off your alarm and getting some extra z’s the next morning. “Making up sleep in the short term does work,” says Christopher Winter, M.D., medical director of the Martha Jefferson Sleep Medicine Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. You can also bank some extra shut-eye beforehand if you know you’re going to spend a late night out.

Skip a workout. A new study shows that you can give your running shoes a rest for a day or two. Researchers found that women who exercised twice a week became as fit (and lost almost as much body fat) as those who worked out six days. Even more astounding: The twice-a-week exercisers burned more calories daily than the six-a-week group.

Treat yourself at breakfast. One study found that dieters who ate a high-carbohydrate, high-protein breakfast that included something sweet felt less hungry, had fewer cravings, and lost more weight over 32 weeks that those who ate a low-cal, low-carb breakfast. Experts think it might be because levels of ghrelin, a hormone that prompts hunger, dropped much more in people who indulged at their a.m. meal. Go for something decadent but nutritious – like one or two strawberries dipped in dark chocolate with one cup of vanilla yogurt, suggests David Katz, M.D., director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center and author of Disease Proof (Hudson Street Press, due out September 26, 2013).

Enjoy that second cup of coffee. If you’re feeling guilty for downing two coffees in less than an hour, maybe this will perk you up: In a National Institutes of Health study of more than 400,000 people. researchers found that the more coffee people drank, the longer they lived. Drinking up to six cups daily (caffeinated or decaf) was associated with a lower risk of dying from heart disease, lung disease, stroke, diabetes, and infections.

Sip a glass of wine nightly. Enjoy your Cabernet regularly with no remorse! Wine, particularly red, is loaded with naturally occurring antioxidants, which can help prevent damage to the cells in your body. Research has shown that red wine may help lower your risk of heart disease, cancer, and various types of dementia.

More than 30 airlines around the world now hold auctions to sell seat upgrades to first class or business class. Some even auction off the chance to have an empty seat beside you in coach. Airlines know who their frequent travelers are and which ones pay for the most expensive seats. Those very elite fliers have typically had the right to upgrade using cash or miles.

Many times they qualified for free upgrades. That left a slim chance for a lower-level business flier ever to luck into an upgrade, but it also left the airline giving away revenue.

That is starting to change as airlines experiment with auctions, giving people a chance at upgraded seats for less money. Mobile app Seatboost.com offers passengers an auction right at the gate. Passengers on the flight bid against each other via the app to win the upgrade.

Virgin America uses SeatBoost auctions at the gate an hour before boarding on Las Vegas flights. Bidding starts at $10, $30 or $50, depending on the length of the flight and whether passengers are also bidding on extra leg-room seats in coach or a first-class seat. Meanwhile, Virgin Airlines and many others use Plusgrade to offer passengers a path to an upgrade 72 hours before a flight. This works right from the airline web site.

Neighborhood News, Mar. 2016

For those of my generation who do not, and cannot, comprehend why Facebook exists, I am now trying to make friends outside of Facebook while still applying the same principles. Therefore, every day, I walk down the street and tell passers by what I have eaten, how I feel at the moment, what I have done the night before, and what I will do later and with whom.

I give them pictures of family, my dog, and of me gardening, taking things apart in the garage, watering the lawn, standing in front of landmarks, driving around town, having lunch and doing what anybody and everybody does every day.

I also listen to their conversations, give them the ‘thumbs up’ and tell them I like them.

And it works almost like Facebook. I already have four people following me: two police officers, a private investigator and a psychiatrist.

Neighborhood News, Mar. 2016

Submitted By: Toby Wolberg (Oxford Place)

Could the wake system in your brain be causing your insomnia? Understanding the 2 systems that affect your sleep —

You know you have insomnia, but what does that really mean? Our understanding of how our brains regulate sleep and wake has evolved. As a result, we’ve gained greater insight into insomnia and what causes it.

Scientific discoveries about insomnia have shown that your brain actually has 2 systems. One helps you sleep; the other helps keep you awake. The wake system sends out signals that put your brain into an alert, or more active state. This helps you wake up in the morning and stay awake during the day. The sleep system sends signals that help you fall and stay asleep at night.

When your 2 systems function as they should, they complement each other, taking turns being in charge and sending signals at the right times. But that’s not always the case. If your wake system stays active when it’s time to sleep, it’s considered to be in an overactive state and insomnia may be a result. The feeling of being trapped between wake and sleep has more science behind it than you may think. When you wake in the morning, your brain sends signals that move it into an alert, or active state. This helps you stay awake during the day. If these signals don’t slow down at night, and you stay in an alert state, your brain is believed to be in a position of over activity. If this happens, your sleep system may not be able to take over – this may be what’s causing your insomnia.

Talk to your health care professional about your wake and sleep systems and what may be causing your insomnia.