Retire In Style Blog Too

I know! You think I am getting fat but it is not because I have gained weight.  Really it is not because of that .  I still wear the same size I have worn for many years.  But as my body ages I find that buying stylish and beautiful clothes is becoming more difficult. I don't want to wear bagging clothes or several layers. I don't want ruffles or gathers at the top of my blouse. My back is not fat so all that does is make a woman look bigger. Please don't expect me to buy those kind of clothes. Most importantly I was to look elegant...! New Years Eve 2013.  We range in age from ages 70 to 80. Posing is the key here. I should not have stood at an angle to my friend dressed in red.  But please don't think that I can't afford to buy something that is stylish or even practical for everyday. But I just think that those stores we depend on for our knock about clothing could do better. As it is now,  I can find something that looks good on me but it is very expens...

Traveling is one of the great joys of my life. But it is also a lot of fun to have visitors and be able to see the place where I live through someone else eyes.  That is what happened this week when my granddaughter (16 years old) and our daughter spent 6 days with us. Before they arrived, my husband and I talked a great deal about how we would accommodate them and what we would do. Living in a small space is a challenge for visitors as well as the host. Where would they put their clothes, who would get to take a shower and when, where/what we would eat, etc? Most importantly, we talked about what we would do to provide them with a fun get away. We had a list of things in our mind but we did not really care which our family chose. We liked to do it all. Here in Tucson we have some things that are unique to our area. This city provided a different but wonderful desert vacation experience. The Arizona-Sonora Desert  Museum Saguaro National Parks Santa Catalina Mountains and the ...

Young students study in a lab designed for just this purpose. I never grow tired of going to  Biosphere 2 . I am always a little at a loss for words when I talk about it. Wikipedia says it is "t he size of two and a half football fields, [and] it remains the largest closed system created.  The glass facility is elevated 4,000 feet (1,200 m) above sea level at the base of the  Santa Catalina Mountains , half an hour [north of]  Tucson . "    The physical description however cannot hint at the beauty of this man made creation or the wonder of the things that live and grow within.  Biosphere 1 is our planet of course. Inside the Biosphere 2 some of the most common features of the Biosphere 1 are recreated. We were guided through a rainforest, past an ocean into a savannah and desert. We saw the interior mechanical parts that help run the recreation of earth and were allowed to see the place where the original Biospherians lived sealed in the structu...

Okay, here is the deal...boomerang children can just keep bonging back! And it might keep happening until you move into a tent. Is that okay? My friend and I were talking about our children and how things can go very wrong for them. What would we do if our children needed to move back home? I think we both had mixed feelings about the situation. The conversation did not include any anger or resentment or even ways to get out of it if we were faced with the dilemma. We focused on the positive things that happen when adult children come home for a little while. It is good when there is a reconnection with the parent's lives and grandchildren can benefit from spending more time with Grandma and Grandpa. Our sunset years? We all know that there are families that share lives with all of the family in a very small setting but most retired people are not planning on this type of thing happening. Once we are in our 70's we figure we are in the clear. Still, we are always parents...at ...

I don't know if you have ever visited a place like  Old Tucson Studios where many famous western movies were shot. If you have you will understand what I am talking about now. I live in a make-believe world too. When you look behind the doors or inside the cabinets it is all just pretend.  Oh, I live here and put things in cupboards. I scrub and clean and hang pictures on the wall. But all the while I know I am putting lipstick on a pig! It is all very temporary. My daughter and granddaughter are coming to visit next week so I have prepared a space for my granddaughter to sleep on a small twin bed. I put a TV tray by her bed and paper flowers are in a tin can. The wall was destroyed when we put our porch on last year. You can see styrofoam insulation and aluminum siding on the insidew. I put a screw in a small hole in a metal support so I could hang a string of made believe water jugs on it. A very old desk lamp will light her space. Honestly, it doesn't look too bad! In...

One of our favorite things to say (or think in my husband's case) is "Just a minute...I'm busy!" Most of the time we are on the computer staring at something, wondering if what we are seeing could be true. When I saw this cartoon in the NYTs  Bit's Blog today I laughed.  Isn't it the truth? Be sure to read about how techie's favorite cartoonist, Randall Munroe came to have an asteroid named after him. 4942 Munroe may be his legacy. He is also published author:   What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions  and xkcd: volume 0 Have a wonderful day. b+ Related articles Houghton Mifflin to publish Randall Munroe's 'What If?' Asteroid 4942 Munroe

You really must connect with Bob Lowry on his blog, Satisfying Retirement .  He and his wife, Betty, retired when they were young but they are just now on the cusp of beginning to live "the life". They have purchased an RV and plan to take an extended trip one day soon. Every time I read his blog I can only think how things have changed since we began our adventure over 16 years ago. Traveling is only one of the life changing choices for a new retiree but I think it is one of the most important. It broadens a person's horizons in so many ways. And that is what Betty and Bob are about to do. I thought it would be fun to compare what he is talking about being able to do and what we did when we traveled across the United States in our little Winnebago Class C. Our lives back then were very much the same as the Lowrys today. Grandchildren, children and an aging parent are always on their mind and of course cost is a big factor in deciding where to go and what to do. When we b...

Snowbird Lifestyle: Celebrating my husband's 76th birthday in Mexico! Jeff Foxworthy is a very funny guy. His " You Might Be a Redneck If... "  routines are hilarious. I know I might be a redneck sometimes and I know that because I have watched his routines. That is where this blog is coming from today. Thank you Mr. Foxworthy for making me think.  Snowbird season is in full swing right now here in Tucson, Arizona. Our RV resort is filled to the brim with people ages 55-90+. Most everyone will be gone within a month but for now the landing area for people escaping the snow is very busy. I was watching our Bocce Ball tournament yesterday and it occurred to me that we snowbirds are an odd breed. We are not old and yet we are not young. When we enter the gates of the park, our ages change in subtle ways. We learn lessons, sometimes the hard way, that people are often not what they seem and living near those people can be wonderfully strange. Personally, I love everyday I am ...

The perfect iPhone case...simple, practical and masculine. Snugg 5c phone case    How many choices do you suppose there are in the world of iPhone cases? I would hazard to guess that there is a unique case for EVERYONE! As a result, deciding what to use is very confusing.  Let me make it easy for you...especially if you are a male that just wants the case to be a protection and not make you look like a dufus!  I think I have the perfect choice for you. I am a big fan of The Snugg brand because they are reasonably priced and do what they are suppose to do without a bunch of needless bells and whistles. It's a cell phone case people! So the Snugg people sent my husband a simple black case that protects his 5c and actually makes the colored case a little more grown-up and masculine. AND the sale price right now is a paltry $9.00 on their website.   The surface of the iPhone 5c is slick and shiny. It looks pretty but when I handle it but I always feel like it might...