World's Oldest Person Dies at 115

Gertrude Baines died peacefully in her sleep on Friday, September 11, 2009. She was born on April 6, 1894. She became the oldest person in the world in January after another 115 year old woman died. And now the oldest person in the world is Japan's Kama Chien at 114.

Gertrude has no living relatives. She had only been in a nursing home for the last 10 years and before that lived on her own. Her only daughter died at the age of 18. This had to be a woman who had an amazing social network.

I have no plans to live until 115. Even though there's never enough time to do everything we want to do in life, really what would you do for all those extra years? I guess as I get older I might change my thinking about that.

Quote from the news; "According to the Times, when Baines was asked by reporters her secret for living a long life, she would reply "Ask God."

Here's a little fact for you: A supercentenarian (sometimes hyphenated as super-centenarian) is someone who has reached the age of 110 years, something achieved by only one in a thousand centenarians (based on European data). Furthermore, only 1 in 50 supercentenarians lives to be 115.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090911/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_oldest_1

Birthday

Last night as I was laying in bed thinking about my birthday today, I started thinking about a few memorable birthdays I've had in the past.

The first one that came to mind was my 16th birthday. I remember I was babysitting for a family whose parents had gone overseas. I was living at their house taking care of the kids on my birthday. That day my friends came over with everything to make root beer floats.

On my 22nd birthday, I was out of college living in an apartment in Salt Lake City with a friend. My parents were always great about sending letters and fun boxes in the mail. For this birthday my Dad had put together a paper poster like thing (I remember it was orange) and attached to it 22 - 2.00 bills for my 22nd birthday.

The next year on my 23rd birthday I was married and had a 1 month old baby. That night I remember I cooked steak and corn on the cob for dinner and my husband had forgotten my birthday! I didn't say anything about it. A few days later his mother remembered it and we celebrated then. (It was our first year of marriage and coincidentally that marriage didn't last.) After that I learned to start talking about my birthday well in advance.

Another birthday memory is my 30th birthday. At that time I was divorced with two small children and was having a long distance romance with my now husband who at that time worked in another state. He came to town to celebrate my birthday and we had dinner at the Spaghetti Factory in Trolley Square and he gave me a beautiful necklace. The necklace was a tri-colored heart. I wore that every single day for years until the heart wore so thin it could no longer stay on the chain. Now I keep it in my jewelry box.

Birthdays are very different now that I'm older. Mostly less fanfare. I still make it "my day" and actually since it's on the first of the month, I can drag it out for weeks, with lunch with friends and more dinners with family. I enjoyed all the Birthday wishes on Facebook, and email, the cards that came in the mail and the phone calls.

My parents used to call and sing Happy Birthday to me and then hang up the phone. It was the cutest thing. That was back in the days where you paid for long distance phone calls. Those calls are greatly missed. I appreciate my sister and brother-in-law calling and singing today. I told them they were lucky I was by myself and in the car cause I had them on speaker phone!

And then there was the Key Lime Cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory. All in all it was a good day. And besides, really aren't I just one day older anyway? And when you think about it, so are you!