Think Upon Putting a Pillow on Your Fridge

Think Upon Putting a Pillow on Your Fridge

By Stacey Anter

The Library Detective

This Memorial Day weekend, we remembered and honored those who fought and died in order to preserve our freedoms; freedoms that we enjoy everyday and tend to take for granted. Those who have lost their lives in defense of these freedoms should be hailed as heroes -- superheroes, in fact. And while we are recognizing these real heroes, this week also brings other observances and celebrations. May 28th  is National Senior Health and Fitness Day. As part of Older Americans Month, let’s encourage older (and all) Americans to take care of their health and to not forget fitness as a part of daily life. I remember my grandmother as quite an active woman. She owned her own business, she was active in church, she was busy, but she always ate healthy and went for walks. I knew her as an averagely-thin woman, and I was quite surprised to find out that she, at one time, was overweight. She obviously lost her weight by eating healthy and keeping active whenever possible. As we get older, we tend to forget, or neglect activity, and we become physically weaker, unable to run around with our grandchildren or enjoy a marathon afternoon of shopping. I once read a book called Strong Women Stay Young by Miriam Nelson and Sarah Wernick, Ph.D., which discusses basic exercise and simple weight training as a way to achieve and maintain strength. The authors open their book with a tale of an active woman, Bernice, who is always on the go, volunteering at her church, bowling in a league, always willing to help friends and family. And then they mention that she is 93 years old. She had started the strength training program explained in the book just a few years earlier. You will have to read the book, or at least the opening chapter to find out more about Bernice and others. Amazing.

May 29th is Put a Pillow on Your Fridge Day.  It is a date that is celebrated in Europe and in the US. Supposedly, putting a pillow on your refrigerator brings good luck and wealth to your household. At least, that’s what the tradition says. Where and how it originated is not really known, but before the 1930s, cloth was put in pantries or larders to bring prosperity and good luck. In 1927, the first refrigerator for wide-spread use was the General Electric “Monitor Top” refrigerator, and soon the tradition for placing a cloth in larders was forgotten. The tradition hasn’t necessarily died away completely, and it has developed into placing a pillow on top of or inside the refrigerator.

What You Think Upon Grows Day is May 30th .  According to http://WYTUG.com , the phrase, “What You Think Upon Grows,” is an Eastern maxim from Emmet Fox’s Laws of Mind (as well as in the Bible --Phillipians 4:8 ) that basically says, ”Whatever you allow to occupy your mind you magnify in your life. Whether the subject of your thoughts be good or bad, the law works and the condition grows. Any subject that you keep out of your mind tends to diminish in your life, because what you do not use atrophies.”   If you think about it, it is a very accurate saying.. If you continue to think about something, a toothache, for example, the more pain you will be in. If you think about success, the more success you will have. Have you ever heard of the saying “Success breeds success?” It is so true. It is all how you perceive things. If you look upon a situation in a positive light, it won’t seem so bad. So, think positively. You’ll be happier for it.

I call myself the Library Detective because I can find the answers to any question you can think of, or at least I can point you in the right direction.  To find out more about senior health and fitness, traditions like putting a pillow on your fridge, or “what you think upon grows”, visit your local library; there are more Library Detectives there, too.