Self isolation with children? Some ideas

Some thoughts on getting through this self-isolation for harried parents as well as grandparents
1. Play silly charades, says Penny Warner, author of Kids’ Party Games & Activities (Meadowbrook, 1993). Fill out cards with offbeat suggestions, such as Santa Claus on a tropical vacation or a monkey trick-or-treating. Take turns writing or drawing a card and acting out the phrase.

2. Put on a play. Kids can make up their own dramas or reenact favourite movies and TV shows. Use old cast-off clothes to make costumes.

3. Hold a talent show. Film it and send it to family members. All the kids can show off their skills, whether it’s doing a cartwheel, telling a joke, or singing a song. This also can be an opportunity to get to know your grandchildren better

4. Turn your names into a game. Warner suggests drawing a grid of five boxes down and five across; put the first five letters of the child’s name across in the top five boxes and one category down the five side boxes. Set a timer and have the kids write down an object in each category that starts with the letter at the top of the column. For example, if the child’s name is Rebecca, and the category is “Animals,” she could write "Rhino" and then "Elephant." The winner is the person with the most boxes filled when the time expires.

5. Make papier-mache figures. Dip paper strips in a mix of white glue and water (or make your own paste from flour and water) and layer them to cover a balloon. "Any balloon with newspaper, flour and water can become a pig, butterfly, or family bust!" says San Francisco educator Lonna Corder

6. Make soap sculptures. Mix powdered Ivory laundry soap and water until it takes on a clay-like consistency. Mold it into fun shapes. The best part: Any spills clean up easily. 

7. Make gross goo and slippery slime. Warner’s slime recipe is simple: one cup of cornstarch mixed with one cup of water. To make goo, mix one cup cold water and eight ounces of white glue in one bowl. Also, mix one tablespoon liquid starch and one-half cup hot water in another bowl. Add a few drops of your favourite food colouring to the starch and combine the two mixtures. The fun thing about goo and slime is that they are messy! Save yourself from a big cleanup and play outside.

8. Turn your kitchen into a sculpture studio. Make your own clay: Mix four cups flour, one cup salt, and one-and-one-half cups water. Mold figures and bake them in a 250-degree oven for two to three hours until firm. Even easier, use a can of ready-to-bake rolls from the fridge, says Lisa Kothari, a party planner and author of Dear Peppers and Pollywogs ... What Parents Want To Know About Planning Their Kids' Parties (Peppers and Pollywogs, 2007).

9. Have a scavenger hunt. Sue Johnson, coauthor of Grandloving: Making Memories With Your Grandchildren (Heartstrings, 2007), suggests looking around the house for objects in different categories, such as something squishy or something green. Or hide wrapped candies for a treasure hunt, says Kothari.

10. Have a spa day at home with your granddaughters. Kothari says bring out all your nail polishes and give one another manicures and pedicures.

11. Cook happy-face pancakes together. Have the kids use blueberries or raisins for eyes, melon for mouths, and bananas for hats, says Johnson.

12. Let the kids make outrageous cookie creations. Start with plain cookie dough and help the little ones mix in condiments and decorations found in your cupboards, says Kothari. Some of the cookies may not taste great, but that is all part of the fun. You may discover a future chef in your family.

13. Make a time capsule. Use any old plastic container with a lid. Put in a copy of the day’s front page and notes or drawings from the kids. Bury it and dig it up together for their next birthday or school graduation.

14. Introduce your grandchildren to old-school games. Find a piece of chalk and teach them to hopscotch or use cocktail stirrers and show them how to play pickup sticks.

15. Entertain younger kids by blowing bubbles yourself. Mix one cup of water, two tablespoons of glycerin, and 4 tablespoons of dishwashing liquid for hours of playtime fun. Use a drinking straw as a blower, or twist a paper clip into a loop or even loop some florist wire into a hoop.

16. Make memory movies, says Johnson. Let the kids use a video camera to interview you and other members of the older generation about your lives. Turn the camera around and let them tell you stories about their often funny lives.

17. Create a superhero. Use paper, pencils, crayons, and markers to help kids make their own comic books.

18. Have make-your-own storytime. Start a story and pass it on to one of the grandchildren to continue. That grandchild passes it on to someone else and so on. You never know where the stories will go.

19. Decorate pickle and mason jars. Make designs out of scraps of coloured tissue paper to decorate the jars. The transparency of the tissue paper makes a nice effect. Paint on your creations with white glue to finish off this crafty keepsake

Every day is a blessing

Reading the reports that are coming out of the USA are scary. These are not the reports of the Pandemic, but the response to the ideas of physical isolation that is meant to save lives, hat some on the right are putting out.

”TV and radio personality Glenn Beck is urging older Americans to return to work to keep the economy going despite the coronavirus infection risks.

“Younger people, he said, could stay home to protect themselves from the virus that causes COVID-19 while older people ― who the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says are more prone to the most serious cases ― should keep working.”

Beck seemed to be following the lead of Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick who, earlier that day,

”...went on Fox News to argue that he would rather die than see public health measures damage the US economy and that he believed 'lots of grandparents' across the country would agree with him”, reports The Guardian.

“My message: let’s get back to work, let’s get back to living, let’s be smart about it, and those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves,” Lt Gov Dan Patrick, a 69-year-old Republican, told Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday night.”  

This is scary, but in we have to have a positive attitude. One of the people I know said to me this morning that every day that he is breathing is a good day, and laughed. I have been very lucky in my life to have met and worked with some wonderful people who have had to overcome many illnesses. Many of these people believe that having a good attitude helped them survive and defeat the illness that they faced. I believe they are partially correct, attitude is an important part of how we deal with life.

I counsel that we cannot control how others behave, all we can do is control how we react to the behaviour. However, if one is sick, or tired, or depressed then our ability to control our own reactions is limited. I have a friend who believes that balance is one of the four (Spirituality, Health, Relationships and Work) important aspects of life. 

Easy to say, hard to do, I am not a spiritual person, so I find it hard to work that aspect into the balance that I seek. I strive to balance, relationships, health, and work so perhaps I am not a square, but a triangle. I think the idea of spirituality residing outside of one's self is interesting but not relevant to many of my generation. I believe that if one should seek spirituality within, by the way, we see ourselves and how we interact with others and our environment. Many of us are on the phenomenal plane and in the pursuit of pleasure, but the pursuit of pleasure sometimes brings pain. Maybe we should be searching for Bliss.

On the phenomenal plane, we seek pleasure and the avoidance of pain. On the noumenal plane, we know the absence of both - which is Bliss. - Why Lazurus Laughed by Wei Wu Wei.

How did corporate pension plans do in 2019?

Do you have a corporate pension plan in Canada, then you may be interested in a report Liabilities mostly offset high returns around the globe, posted in Pension and Investments on January 20th? This report goes into great detail about many countries so if you are not Canadian, you may want to go to the link and read up on your country. 

A pension plan with a traditional 60/40 mix — composed of 20% in Canadian equities, 40% in global equities and 40% in "Canadian universe" bonds, rebalanced monthly — would have enjoyed a 15.7% return, but the lowest long-term bonds yields in more than 60 years offset much of those gains by boosting pension liabilities as well, said Andrew Kitchen, a Toronto-based managing director, institutional Canada, for Russell Investments Canada.

For the year, the solvency ratio of Canadian defined benefit pension plans only improved to 94% from 92% the year before, he said.

All-time lows for Canadian bond yields in 2019 led to all-time highs for corporate defined benefit pension obligations, with a 15% jump in liabilities over the past year alone, said Andrew Whale, a Toronto-based principal in Mercer Canada's financial strategy group in a review of corporate DB plans over the past year.

The median solvency ratio for Mercer's corporate pension clients in Canada rose to 98% from 93%. By Mercer's estimates, a typical balanced pension fund in 2019 would have delivered a 17.4% investment return.

Consultants at both Russell and Mercer said the boost in pension liabilities on the balance sheets of companies with DB plans has left corporate executives focusing more on options such as pension buyouts or pension risk transfers. The cost premium of settling DB obligations by purchasing an annuity over keeping that DB obligations on the balance sheet have shrunk and "we have seen their appetite for annuities increase tremendously," said Mercer's Mr. Whale.

Russell's Mr. Kitchen said risk transfers won't be the appropriate solution for all plan sponsors, with those seeking other ways to manage DB asset volatility now boosting allocations to alternative assets and private market exposures.

Virtual Travel ideas

We are in lockdown in my area, and we are practising physical distancing, but if you have an imagination virtual vacations are open to everyone with an internet connection. Whether you need an antidote to cabin fever or are pining for the flavours of a favourite destination, here are eight ways to travel without leaving home. 

1. Get an up-close view of the world

With Google Street View, you can visit famous sites and monuments while lounging in your pyjamas. Immerse yourself in history at Rome’s Colosseum, admire the view of the Kohala Coast in Hawaii or stroll through the opulent interiors at the Palace of Versailles in France. For more adventure, check out Google Maps' virtual treks. You can go from climbing to Everest Base Camp in Nepal to diving in the Galapagos Islands of Peru to searching for polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba — in just a matter of clicks.

2. Take a virtual museum tour

The world’s best galleries and museums are just a few clicks away with Google Arts & Culture, a platform that allows you to take digital tours of legendary places from the Guggenheim in New York City to the Louvre in Paris.  We also love the free online tours at the British Museum, The Louvre, The Smithsonian and The Vatican, Closer to home, The Virtual Museum of Canada bills itself as the largest digital source of stories and experiences shared by Canada’s museums and heritage organizations. You can even see iconic art pieces up close. The best part? It's all free. 

3. Cook meals from your favourite destinations

Travel and eating are one of life's greatest matches, so what better way to satisfy your wanderlust than by feasting on food from a place you're longing to return to or to see for the first time? Explore the globe from your kitchen by sourcing recipes from the corner of the world you're craving. You can also take online cooking classes such as Nonna Live, where you'll learn to make classics from an Italian grandma. Free lessons have cropped up during this downtime, including daily Delish.com cooking videos for parents and children, and Kitchen Quarantine, Instagram lessons from Michelin-starred chef Massimo Bottura.

4. Learn a new language — or research your mother tongue

Duolingo allows you to spend just a few minutes a day learning a foreign language, in a fun game style. It’s free and there’s even an app for kids. You could also have a go at a new hobby. Maybe it’s time for you to get started on your family tree: Ancestry has a free trial, giving you access to billions of family records. Who knows, your next trip could be to the land of your ancestors.

5. Explore UNESCO World Heritage Sites

It’s not quite the same as being there, but you can visit some of the world’s most celebrated heritage sites without leaving home. The UNESCO website has a list of 1,121 sites that are considered to have “outstanding universal value.” Many of these cultural sites, such as India's Taj Mahal, England's Stonehenge and Peru's Machu Picchu, have their own virtual tours that enable you to see detailed panoramic images while reading all about these fascinating places to appreciate why they are so important.

6. Visit a virtual zoo or aquarium

Hippos, monkeys and penguins can be viewed through webcams, virtual tours and “home safaris.” Visit Ripley's Aquarium of Canada in Toronto to keep an eye on the sharks. The San Diego Zoo is live-streaming a number of animals on its website, including koalas, pandas, giraffes and polar bears. You can also bring exotic animals like snow leopards into your living room with a selection of live video streams from Australian zoos. The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is live-streaming a "home safari show" on its Facebook page each weekday at 3 p.m. ET. Each episode will feature a different animal and an accompanying educational kids activity that can be done from home.

7. Walk in the park — virtually

We may not be able to visit Canada's national and provincial parks in person, but you can still get back to nature (from a distance) with virtual tours and videos. Discover the beaches of Pacific Rim National Park and the magnificent peaks of Banff National Park via Google Earth, watch a live view of Algonquin Provincial Park and let a guide take you on a video tour of Gros Morne National Park. For even more park inspiration, we put together a roundup of our favourite videos and virtual park tours in Canada and the U.S.

My thanks to the folks at Travelzoo for the ideas