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Family Living Focus: Tips to improve your bone health

With proper nutrition, physical activity, and regular checkups and screening, Americans can have strong bones and live longer, healthier lives. Here are some tips to practice. • Eat foods rich in calcium and vitamin D. Calcium and vitamin D are important to your bone health. Learn about foods that are naturally high in calcium and vitamin D. Eat a balanced diet with a variety of fruits and vegetables, grains, and non-fat or low-fat dairy products. Sunshine is also a good source of vitamin D. If you are not getting enough calcium and vitamin D in your diet, supplements can be ...

Family Living Focus: Consider Home Modification

Instead of moving, perhaps modifications to your home would make it more suitable for your retirement. The following list can help prepare your house so you can continue to live there safely and independently. Provide for Accessibility and Safety. As we age, we often experience reduced strength, slower reaction time, sensory losses, and an impaired sense of balance. • Remove potential barriers such as steps, narrow bathroom doors or make necessary adaptations. • Establish all living areas on one floor and in four or fewer rooms. Put a bedroom and bathroom on the first ...

Antiques & Collecting: Was Cream of Wheat served cold?

Cream of Wheat, a cereal first marketed in 1898, is still a popular winter breakfast cereal. A trolley sign in a recent auction showed the picture of a box of Cream of Wheat and two children eating it from a bowl. The sign read, “Summer Favorite Served Cold with Fruit.” Was Cream of Wheat originally served cold? Most advertising, even today, promotes the use of the hot, cooked cereal for a winter breakfast. Other popular cooked cereals -- oatmeal, cornmeal, Ralston, Maltex, Farina and Wheatena -- are like Cream of Wheat in that they could be eaten cold but are always advertised as ...

Off the Shelf: Recent reads

We’ve added some great new titles at New Ulm Public Library in the past few months. Here are a few I’ve enjoyed. Wending Darling is all grown up, but she has never been able to banish her time in Neverland from her mind. It haunts her, especially when her brothers seem to have forgotten their adventures with Peter Pan completely. When Peter returns looking for Wendy he finds a grown woman. Disgusted that Wendy would dare grow up, he kidnaps Wendy’s daughter instead. Despite her fear, Wendy must follow them to Neverland, rescue her daughter, and confront the growing darkness at ...

Antiques & Collecting: Figural chair made haircuts an adventure

Little boys are often terrified when they are taken for a first haircut. All those high chairs, strange men and flashing scissors. So for generations, some barbers have had special figural chairs for children. The most popular is probably a horse. There are barber chair collectors who have enough room to display them or antique lovers who buy one adult chair and keep it in a home bar or library or even living room to use. But those who dream of having a barber’s chair must remember it weighs several hundred pounds and will be hard to move to another location, especially up or down ...

Off the Shelf: Tales of Tails

This year’s summer reading program theme is “Tails and Tales” so I thought I would introduce you to some animal tales you might want to check out this summer. “Agent Lion” by David Soman and Jacky Davis (Picture Book Soman) is a silly tale about the mystery of a missing cat and a bumbling detective who’s been asked to find him. This picture book will make you shake your head at Agent Lion’s antics trying to find the missing cat. Will he ever find the lost pet? “I Am Not a Dog Toy” by Ethan T. Berlin(Picture Book Berlin) is a picture book about a little girl who is ...