Retire In Style Blog Too

Here is a woman that has walked the talk all of her life.  I found this interview very interesting and that was before i had visited her blog.  Wow! Choosing a Sustainable Future: Honored to be Interviewed by Fab Over Fifty! : "I had a great conversation with Fab Over Fifty - FOF. The FOF website features women over fifty living the life that they ..." FYI. b

Second Bedroom...where my antiques live! We have put out condo in Oregon up for sale!  We, like so many of our friends, have been playing the waiting game with houses that we need to sell.  Our health is good and we want to enjoy the house we move into next...we do not want to move when we are sick or disabled.  So we will sell and buy something on one level.  OUR  HILLSBORO HOME  IS FOR SALE!!!!  WE WILL SELL!!! Why am I so confident?  Because we have come to realize that the price we get for our house is all relative to what the rest of the market is doing.  Even though our condo was worth a good deal more two years ago, what it is worth today is just right in relationship to what everything else is selling for. This is where the greed comes in. We are not going to be greedy...sellers can be blinded by that old sinful emotion and we are just not going to go there.  Selling is a two way street so the buyer and the seller should meet in ...

The Astor Column, Astoria, Oregon  Image via Wikipedia Note:  If you like the article please click on the share button at the bottom of the post.  It helps me a lot.  Thank you. I love the willing suspension of reality...that emotional place that we visit when we stand on ground so historically important that it's mere existence speaks to the beginning of our country.  Believe it or not that is the way I feel when I vist the Oregon Coast.  If you have ever read Undaunted Courage by Steven Ambrose for example and then stood in the salt cairn in Seaside you can feel Lewis and Clark standing beside you and you know you are taking in the same air that Lewis and Clark breathed over 200 years ago.  North of that part of the coast you will find Fort Clatsop where the Lewis and Clark expedition spent the winter of 1805.  When I visit these places I can close my eyes and hear the birds in the tree tops.  I know they were there.  I love that...

You take your average whale's intestines and stretch them out..... You're looking at three miles and change.  Cliff Clavin, Season I Goldfish or Carp??? It is said that the quickest way to act old is to be the office expert on everything...the archivist they call it.  I call it the "Cliff Clavin Syndrome".  I might be a little bit like Cliff...not that I am proud of it!  Here is what has happened this week. I know nothing about gold fish (or whales)...I just want you to know that from the beginning.  Yet I am willing to tell you things about gold fish that will amaze you.  For example, did you know that a gold fish will grow to only big enough to survive in the container it is place in?  Small containers hold small goldfish, big ponds hold very big goldfish.  Did you know that?  I have said it a lot of times in spite of the fact that I have never actually seen one piece of information to tell me that the statement is true. We were out an a fi...

Image via Wikipedia Tucson is the place that Bing Crosby filmed The Bells of St. Mary back in the mid 40s.  We have St. Augustine Cathedral in the city and the Catholic Church boasts no less than 24 separate sanctuaries.  This was the perfect setting for the movie. In the world of Catholicism, Tucson has a faithful and dynamic following.  When Lent arrives each year,  the fish fry world comes to life like wildfire. Here in Tucson, AZ every restaurant from Ihop to the local Italian restaurant feature a fish fry on Friday nights.  St. Pius on the east side of the city features a fish fry cooked by the Knights of Columbus group.  Next week we will go and try their offering.  We are going to eat out at Del Lago Golf Course tonight.  Their special fish fry is around $10.00.  On some Fridays we go to the Elks club where we get broiled fish and then dance afterwards. Lent is a special time in this community and the fish fry has come to be a symbol o...

I think Spring might be happening.  Here in Arizona Spring means 80 degrees and lots of sunshine.  Spring in Oregon mean 55 degree, rain, wind and beautiful flowers.  It is all relative.  In either case the feeling is the same...hopeful and happy! We will be returning home soon and now I am beginning to think about our summer gift giving.    We are gone all winter and so birthdays and other small celebrations get neglected.  To make up for it, we have a huge "share a cake" celebration and everyone gets a gift.  It is like Christmas in the summer. I like that a lot.  I will shop mostly on Amazon so I signed up for their 2-3 day free shipping offer.  I can use the service for one month at no cost.  Free shipping is huge these day. So here are 10 things I will be looking at for the family: I saw these Zazzle shoes while we were on vacation last summer.  The man that was wearing them was very proud of his personal design. Puzzles.....

The Walking Wounded! I fell in a hole...I really fell in a hole.  After walking almost 18 holes of golf on a par 72 golf course, I stepped in an invisible hole and sprained my right ankle.  YUCK!!!  I can walk on it and move everything so I did not go to the doctor.  And, after I went to bed last night in a "state of agony", I started laughing!  What I was enduring was not that bad but it sure did helped me understand what some of my friends are going through. You see we are all the walking wounded.  My friend Carol had back surgery almost two years ago and she still has shooting pains down her leg. Another friend had a hernia operated on and his wife had a knee replacement this summer.  Two other friends have lot of stents in their hearts.  A neighbor fell and had to have rotary cuff surgery last week.  I fell yesterday and got up with a badly sprained ankle.  A friend down the street fell off her bike today and broke her arm just above...

Grilled Grandmas:   I am now a member of a select group of woman called Grilled Grandmas.  I was privileged to be selected and interviewed by the Grandma's Briefs Blog this week.  You will find out who I really am when you read my responses! #259 - Free Sunday Scribblings A week in the life of a retiree can be anything you want it to be.  Living in the past or in the future is okay but enjoying this week, day, hour minute is the best ever.  We have declared our FREEDOM and our lives are what we make of them.  I personally don't apologise for the wonderful life we enjoy Freedom at it's best! Yesterday we were watching the final game of the bocci ball game season with the game that would determine who was the champion here in the RV Resort.  I know it seems silly to those of you that disdain a game like bocci...there is no thrilling dangerous excitement.  No one gets hurt, or pushed or even yelled at.  It is usually quiet even with 100 pe...

Image via Wikipedia I LOVE MY KINDLE I love my Kindle handheld ebook reader .  The books are very inexpensive and I don't have to store real books on a shelf!  The large print has saved my reading life...that alone makes the device worth it's weight in gold! HOW MUCH HAVE I USED MY KINDLE Well here is the list that is on my reader today and how I rate them: The Girl Who Played with Fire  (reading now) The Girl with Dragon Tattoo   **** Romeo, Romeo (terrible book but free)  Tinkers  *** Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: A Novel  **** Eat, Pray Love  * The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Club  *** Sarah's Keys  (NYT Best Seller) *** What did I pay for these books?  Well I paid around $8...sometimes a lot less.  The next book I read will be Cutting for Stone .  This book was recommended by a friend.  It is marketed on the Amazon website for $7.99.  When I order the book, it will be delivered withi...

Note:  I am still asking readers to click on the follow button if they have not already done that.  I have also added a Technorati Badge on the right.  If you click on that I would appreciate it too.  Thank you. We have family living in Shanghai, China.  They live on the east side of the city...Pu Dong.  Their house is on a golf course and the China Sea spills into their living room when the monsoon season comes each year.  We try not to worry because they are very responsible world citizens. Third Culture Kids When the earth quake hit Japan last week we remembered that our son and his wife had applied for jobs in Japan last year.  How different their and our lives are because they did not get that job. We received a simple text message from them that said "We are okay...no tsunami!"  Then as we began to get word of nuclear reactor problems we like the parents of children that attend the school where my son is deputy superintendent were very...

It Crossed My Mind: Covert...Sunday Scribblings

Re-Nest Article Link   Re-nest over at Apartment Therapy posted an article called  10 Ways to Kick the Paper Habit . The suggestions were for those of you that are drowning in a sea of files gone wild and articles about a trip you planned on taking 20 years ago.  Paper magazines, National Geographics and golf magazines can take over every room in your house.  If you are moving those magazines to the guest room or the unused bathroom you might want to consider taking them to the doctor's office...they might need them.  They will throw them away if you can't. If you have not read them for several month you never will so bite the bullet now! I have subscribed to Oprah online and the back issues are archived for me. I probably will not do this again because I am not an Oprah fan but I will do it with other magazines. I shared the Re-nest article on my FaceBook account sometime this last week. These were the comments I received from friends.  I would love to hav...

Outside our little comfort zone...links to people living in far flung places.  Could you be tempted to be a little uncomfortable if the rewards were big and the "uncomfortable" would go away before very long?  Would you be willing to travel that world that is strange to you?  See what people are saying about a life overseas! Puerta Vallarta, MX...Should you be afraid in this neighborhood...no!!! Links: Empty Nest Expat How to be a Frugal Traveler  from the Blogs at New York Times Neography Lesson  from Tmagazines blogs at New York Time Expat Blog Directory   Peace Corp Journals...largest archive of Peace Corp Stories Military Families Blogs 10 Great Expat Blogs from Mexico How To Travel the World It occurred to me the other evening that there are a lot of people that will never, never venture outside their comfort zone.  Food, neighborhoods and traveling the world are at the top of their "never going there or doing that" lifestyle.  The one I just...