Retire In Style Blog Too

Window was left unlatched so the young workers could co-mingle. Happy Halloween!   I have a little secret for you.  Please tell everyone you know. 1)  I am a tongue-in-cheek ghost believer.  2) I thought I should tell you that Multnomah Falls Lodge here in Oregon may have ghosts.  Really, I think there may be something going on there.  I am not an expert but that place just begs for a ghost or two. I was privileged to be invited to an Oregon Press Women workshop at the Lodge last week.  The day featured a private talks by several very interesting people.  But the manager of the lodge, Rick Buck caught everyone's interest.  Stories about the lodge going back to it's beginning included pictures of the locations when it was just a train station for picnicers from Portland during the early 20th century.  During Buck's opening remarks a lady seated next to me interrupted his talk to ask if there were ghosts in the lodge. The question brought ...

Being a snow bird is not something most of us rush into lightly.  We count our pennies first and then fly south.  It occurred to me this morning that in a lot of ways leaving our home in winter is saving us a lot of money.  How?  Well here is a list: Image by Always at Home via Flickr First of all I am healthier.  I don't know if that is a savings but it certainly could be. We don't heat 1500 square feet in bitter cold.   We turn off the water heater to save more electricity/gas. Our second car goes in storage and we only insure it for storage. We only use one car in Arizona.   Groceries are cheaper in Tucson than they are here...and more fresh vegetable are available because of the location. Our entertainment is mostly taken care of in our RV resort.  We do not spend much to keep ourselves happy. I do not have a winter and summer wardrobe.  Because the summer temperature in Portland is very similar to the winter temperature in Tucson I only...

If your hobby is scrapbooking (like me) and you love your computer, this is the type of thing you will find very interested.  I have a software package waiting with YOUR name on it...maybe.  All you need to do is leave a comment here on the blog.  Tell me about someone you know that has a strange hobby.  I personally read one time that " dumpster diving " was a hobby.  I quit looking for strange hobbies after I heard about that.  I will draw a name from there. The contest begins today and will end on November 14th.  Please notice the code and ad in the sidebar for $10 off material at the My Memories website.  Click on the ad and it will take you directly to the website.  Use the code to get your $10 off.  Simple as that!  My motto is never shop without a code or a coupon...never! Have a wonder scrapbooking day! b

See...even cracks in the wall grows beautiful things! Men and women should marry, but maintain separate houses A woman needs her space and room to breath, and, more importantly, men need to learn how to take care of themselves. (from Sex By The Numbers ) The tombs are easy of course - perfect models who stay perfectly still for you... (from: Shelley Scrap, Musings of a Roving Illustrator ) Report says the more coffee you drink, the lower your risk of skin cancer.  http://lat.ms/vWsPT0   Starbucks is celebrating! (@retirementlover) Just a reminder that if you’re tempted to drop a turkey from an airplane, the FAA will be watching you. (from: Good Mom/Bad Mom ) I don't know why but sometimes I find lots of things funny...all on the same day.  It it me or are people just funnier on Tuesday? (from: me  somewhere in my other blog)  Have a wonderful day! Related articles A Coffee (or 3) a Day Keeps Skin Cancer Away? (newser.com)

We have been trying to find a day to visit the Red Ridge Farms since last summer.  An article in the Oregonian spoke in glowing terms about the location, scenery and olive oil.  Olive oil in Oregon is indeed an oddity and worth looking into.  We knew we needed to find this place and see for ourselves. We are located in Hillsboro so the trip to the farms and surrounding wineries can be reached in a number of ways.  We decided to take the Bald Peak Road via S. Hillsboro Highway into Newberg and then head west on 99W toward Dayton and McMinnville.  We had the Garman working full time as we turned right onto NE McDougal and right again onto NE Breyman Orchard Rd.  We were following the signs and GPS carefully.  It was not easy to find at all. Note:  You can scan a mobile  app for you smart phone  called Mobile Wine Tour that will give you turn by turn directions to the wineries.  If you are in a rental car this would be great. In the b...

Image via Wikipedia We share one TV right now.  It is that time of year when my husband really NEEDS to watch football/golf/baseball all at the same time.  Our one TV is busy-busy-busy.  I am beginning to sympathize with Bob Lowery over at Satisfying Retirement .  He and his wife decided to cut the cord and eliminate cable TV.  I too am basically without cable tv right now.  But, after I began tuning into Hula on my computer, my hunger for more choices was taken care of.  I actually think we could do the same thing as Bob. This is the way it works.  You go to Hulu.com and start clicking.  If you are willing to add a little money ($7.95 per month, one month free) and increase your choices you can sign up for HuluPlus.  I do have a free account but you can also sign in with Facebook or not sign it at all. It is easy and did I mention FREE! I watch cooking shows on my kitchen computer when I am working there.  It is just comforting fo...

Sail away with me...the best is yet to come! Gibraltar at sunrise by b Listen up boomers.  Retirement and marriage can be a very bad mix. You thought working was hard.  You haven't seen anything yet.  So get prepared.   Men moving into a different world, women moving from one role to another. Both expecting more than the other is willing to give. It can be very hard! I know I've told you about the time my husband moved all the silverware from one side of the kitchen to the other because it "would be better over there".  I spent a long time getting used to the new placement of something so simple as a fork.  Well, retirement marriage is like that.  The life you are so accustomed to has been misplaced or replaced and it takes some getting used to. Hopefully, you are a couple that has always lived in peace.  You can work together and love spending time together.  But if you are not in that kind of relationship, you need to follow some basic rule...

Brothers on the outs! Over the years my skills as a grandmother babysitter have been questionable and there is a long list of things I have done wrong.  The worst mistake I made was quoting my mother and saying that the neighbor's dog was "so worthless he should be taking out in the back yard and shot".  I guess I had never visualized what that would really look like.  Then my grandson quoted me and tattled about where he heard it.  I was in big big trouble! So there are a few things I need to warn my daughter-in-law about: Even though my children have never brought the grandchildren extremely early in the morning they should know that really early is probably not a good idea.  Oh, yes, I do love the babies beyond reason but I am afraid I might hurt them.  I did almost cut my finger off making a sandwich for my husband very early one summer morning.  He doesn't let me use the knife before noon.  It just doesn't seem like a good idea to let me hand...

I have learned to sign up for email offers and email lists at my favorite stores.  I even do it online with some of my favorite websites. They send email coupons that you can print or a flyer in the mail.  I opened my email to find some of these offer today.  See if there is anything that tickles your fancy. FIY: Case of Barclay's Wines 20% off Barclay's Wine --My husband was given a Groupon gift certificate for $75 toward a case of wine from Barclay's Wine. He didn't believe it was such a good thing until he went to the Barclays website and actually ordered a case.  The case came in at a little over $100...$25 out of his pocket.  We received a case of a variety of different wines.  The wines were above average $10-$12 a bottle wines. We now order a case as we need it.  As prefered customers we received an offer we would like to pass along.  We submit your email address to them and they will send you an offer of 20% off a case of wine.  Thi...

Our new house was owned by a woman named Mrs. French.  Her name was on the front door engraved in bronze.  She died at a very old age but not in the house.  I am sorry for that.  I really need her to be around and explain what things are.  This is an invitation to her.  Please come and pay us a visit.  We would love to have you. It is amazing what you can learn about a person you have never known just by living in their house.  If Mrs. French were to fill out a form telling about herself, I thing she would include some of the following things. She loved scotch tape and used it for almost everything.  The back door had scotch tape over the lock so she would not lock herself out of the house.  There was scotch tape on the dryer knob, on the bathtub knob and every door in the house had several pieces stuck to them.  Most of the scotch tape was invisible to my eye and it was several weeks before I began to notice it.   She believed...

I read an article written by a young woman about her grandmother's last years.  Grandma was living in a nursing home or some other institutionalized environment.  The question the young woman was exploring touched a nerve for me.  She could not understand why it was so hard to go and visit her grandmother and talk to her.  I think she wrote the piece so she could come to grips with her grief and guilt.  One could see that she felt it should not be so hard to spend some time with a person you love. What caught my interest specifically was the paragraph about the appearance of the place her grandmother lived.  Wall were painted that institutional color that sucks all the light of halls and room.  Uncombed hair and a room devoid of personal effects left the young woman feeling alone and slightly afraid in the presence of this loved one. I wondered how others related to this same situation. Bring life into our life! Then I paid a short visit to a website ...

Thank you Linda Rogers for this award! The rules of this award is that: 1. You need to tell 7 things about yourself 2. You'll have to pass this award to 15  bloggers . I have been selected by Linda Rogers for a giant pyramid of "Your Blog is Great" Awards.  I want to play.  So here are 7 things about me: I like football but think it has one too many quarters. My husband reads the newspaper to me.  I really can read it myself but he like to read out loud and I don't mind listening.  I have actually learned a great many things from him. My cat used to have the name "trailer trash" but I renamed him RV.  I began to think the first name was not nice.  He adopted us in Corpus Cristi TX in a really bad trailer park. We just moved. I love to listen to myself talk and write.  I guess they go hand in hand. I always sleep on the right side of the bed...it turns out I can't sleep on the other side. I am a mother, grandmother, wife and teacher.  They are...

Agua Caliente Park, Tucson AZ Living the Snow Bird Life The area around Tucson AZ attracts a great many snow birds.  They come flocking in during the fall to fill RV resort, apartments, and condo rentals. Golf course fill up and the driving habits of all those seniors cause younger people to pull their hair. Grocery stores are full of shoppers and the nurseries order extra plants so these visitors can fill a pot of small garden with winter flowers.  The snow birds in Tucson and Green Valley just south of Tucson increase the population considerable. We find the cost of living to be very affordable in this area so we have chosen to make it our winter home.  We live in Oregon in the summer. Snow Birds Yearnings The robins are back here in Oregon. Their flight path south and north takes them through town for a short period of time. In the spring they come to visit and chirp their happy song every time the sun appears.  If it is a partly cloudy day they wake up again an...

Before After Oh my gosh...when I began to post these two pictures of my before and after kitchen I noticed something very strange.  On the day that I took the picture of the kitchen last August, my display space above the cabinets had been packed with every piece of bric-a-brac that I owned.  When we were moving into this house, my son and daughter began unloading the boxes and before we knew it the whole top was filled with everything from Buddhas to a Red Riding Hood cookie jar. There sitting next to the kerosine lantern is our black cat.  I really have no idea how he got up there but pictures don't lie.  The cat can climb the walls.  Really. In the after picture you can seen the green paint under the cabinets and a tan above.  The green shows a lot greener than it really is or if I am to believe the first picture, it is a lot greener than I thought.  Pictures don't lie! Note :  My husband made the spice can holder out of a piece of welders meta...

Image via Wikipedia I was reading an aritcle on a website called  BOOTSNALL, ONE STOP INDIE TRAVEL GUIDE .  The " 11 Reasons to Stop Dreaming and Start Planning Your Round the World Trip! " title caught my interest.  I don't really even want to go around the world but still it might be fun to plan a trip and see if it is doable.  How many things do you want to do but are "waiting" for more money, time or until you get old or even young again? This article has a list of reason NOT to wait and even related articles to support their argument.  I think you should read it today. Just word here.  If you are waiting for retirement to make your dreams come true, you need to rethink that plan.  Do what you can do now to make a little part of your dream come true.  After all if you wait and it may be too late!   Technorati Tags: aging, travel, social media

I wrote this article back in 2011. As we look back to that time, I realize that I am so much better off than I was then. For those of you that were caught in the storm of 2009 I wonder, have you adjusted or did things change enough that it didn't turn out as bad as you imagined it would? I woke up thinking about the theory of evolution this morning. You know, that idea that things change for reasons we don't or won't understand. We all know that "retirement" is not what it was for a short period of time in the 20th century. Back then we believed the notion that "early retirement" was an attainable goal for everyone.  Dreams of houses at the beach helped people in cold climates to get through the frigid winter and our nation was so prosperous we believed anyone could have one. We may not like it but those day are gone, maybe forever. So, do you like new ideas and concepts? It could be we had better get used to some new things. There is no escaping tod...

This 71 year old knows more  about social media than you and I do. Ron Tite Blog Sunday Finds Screen Shot of Journywoman website.  Retro and Wonderful! It is interesting the things I stumble onto on Sunday mornings.  This morning as I went through  my email, I found a notice from my linked in travel group.  One of the members had recommended an article about an a successful travel expert.  The title of the story attached to the audio interview above jumped off the page at me:   "This 71 year old knows more about social media than you and I do,"  the title read.  All I could think was;  really?  You actually said that?  You see, I know 71 is not old; most people of that age know more about everything. That is no surprise to me.  I am coming up on 70 in a few days. The Author The story was written by Ron Tite on his blog and included his youtube audio interview above. Ron Tite is a very successful man and has b...

How in the name of all that is reasonable am I going to begin packing for this season away from Oregon.  My husband and I will leave Oregon where it is already cold.  Early in November, we will travel over the mountain (probably in the snow) south to Arizona where it will be warm and sunny.  We will be there for one month.  On December 7 we will travel to China where it will be cold, wet and smoggy.  After about a week we will travel to Viet Nam with our son and his family where it will be rainy (I am told).  We will take an over night train to the northern part of the country where my son, his family and friends.  The men will hike and I will learn about the culture. It will be cool there.   After a few days we will fly to the tropical part of Viet Nam and stay in a resort on an island.  Then we will return to China.  If we are still living we will get back to Arizona in late December. I am thinking I need zip off bottoms on every item ...

Making the Gift Registry Work for You I have a suggestion.  Crate and Barrel has a registry online.  (Don't most stores have a registry?)  What if you were to add all those things you love to one of those registries.  If people ask for suggestions for a Xmas gift, you just send them to the registry you have used.   Better yet ask you friends and family to fill out a registry somewhere and then you can use the items for ideas for gifts.  I loved the online idea...we all like to shop from home.  Then a person can simple order something and have the item waiting for you at your local store or at home.   I have seen Crate and Barrel's gift boxes and they are beautiful.  You may have to call a local store but our cell phones have no long distance so who cares.  What a way to possibly save postage and still get the loved one just what they want.  See how it might work...it may be just what you need to do.  I am going to talk to the w...