Retire In Style Blog Too

I was in  the lab yesterday getting my blood drawn. My A1C has been creeping up and so we keep track of it. While I was waiting for the tech, a beautiful straight tall lady walked in and sat in the chair opposite. I sized her up and judged her to be younger than myself by 10 years. I am 77. Imagine my surprise when she revealed that she was 81. See this is not that unusual anymore. I am learning to figure it out. The definition for old is changing so rapidly it is amazing. The idea that people will work longer and be healthy for years more has become a reality. It is those people that have "worked" and I mean "worked" at jobs lifting boxes, digging ditches and wearing out their bodies more in one day than someone like me did in my whole life that are breaking down. A bad back or worn hips, knees or even hands is coming back to haunt them. The other trend that I am seeing and hearing about is medications issues. So many old people are telling me that the mistakes wit...

It is never more apparent that during the Christmas Holidays that we live in the “Way Back Machine”. As we bring out the ornaments (fewer and fewer each year) it is occurring to us that we could sell those beautiful pieces of glass at an antique store to pay for a wonderful gift for everyone we know. We probably should do that because each year a few more are broken. In fact, my family might be looking at that stuff and evaluating their worth. Those things that my husband and I think of as “new” are very old now. When was that we bought those...was our youngest a sophomore in high school? It could be. After the joyful season, we put it all away and the new parts of our lives emerge once again. I simply love the whole cycle of life that flows on around me. Happy “way back machine” Season to you! +b How do things go at your house?

Finding Christmas can be a very hard thing when you get...older. I remember one of my children’s friend experiencing that first time that he was asked what he wanted for his birthday and went shopping with his parents to get his hearts desire. It wasn’t until his birthday arrived that he realized that he knew what was in the package. There wasn’t going to be any surprise or anticipation. His thoughts were "Oh my gosh, are all the rest of my birthdays going to be like this?" That is what it is like when you get to be older. We are now almost falling into the "very old" category. We do not need anything and in many cases ask that there be no presents. Then, like my son’s friend, we hate to think that all the rest of our Christmas’s will be like that. No surprises, no gifts...just another day.  So, our family has taken up making Christmas about what Christmas should be about. Family, friends, children, beautiful lights and...yes indeed, presents for each other. We will...

Our car was stolen...I wrote about that experience last week. Being the Pollyanna that I am. I know that in the scheme of things, losing your car is not that important. I was reminded of our many blessing and moved on. It was Thanksgiving, we had company coming and all the groceries were in our refrigerator. We live about a half a mile from a grocery so we were fine. What were we going to do...what is, is!  This had never happened to us before so we did not know what to worry about and maybe that was good thing. Again, what was done was done. Even now I am not sure what we did right and what we did wrong. We called the police and filed a claim with our insurance electronically. That all seemed logical to us. The police part was fine but filing with the insurance on our computer was not. That was a bad idea because I believe now that our insurance agent would have taken better care of us and walked us through this process. Our computer and the company rep that called did not do that...