Be Grateful for Another Candle

Do you ever think aloud, “Oh no, I’m growing old!”  Another birthday is approaching.  I began struggling with birthdays ending in zeros starting with my 30th.  At 30 I was pregnant with my second and made a silly request of my OB-GYN to change my age to 29 on my records.  My 40th birthday present to myself was a mid-life crisis convertible, and for my 50th my only request was, “Please no party.”   

There seems to be some aversion to growing old - that slight dash of panic as our next dreaded birthday approaches.  Mention the word aging and we become fearful of all that comes with it - anywhere from wrinkles to sickness.  Understandably, we want to exercise and eat right to keep our bodies in good shape so that we have good health for as long as possible.  We strive to stay active physically and mentally to ward off Alzheimer’s and dementia.  It makes good sense to want to keep our minds and bodies young so that life is enjoyable as we grow older.  But to be offended when we get the senior discount without asking for it or to refuse to celebrate any more birthdays - shouldn’t we instead be celebrating each day given to us with an Attitude of Gratitude?

No matter how much we loathe aging, know that being given the opportunity to age is a gift.  Another year has passed and we are still here.  Every wrinkle I see in the mirror represents a time that I worried about my children because I love them.  I am so grateful for them and their families.  This is not the year I am one year closer to 60, it’s the year I get to see Carson and Dominic learn how to walk and talk.     

Age is just a number.  It’s the number of years we have spent on Earth.    There may be some nuances of social behavior that come with it, but besides that, it doesn’t mean much.  James A. Garfield said, “If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart.  The spirit should not grow old.”  Bring on another candle I say.                    

Loving My Vegetable Garden

Everyone needs to have a Retirement Wish List when they retire.  Included in this Wish List might be new hobbies or endeavors.  Some will be loved and others may be deleted from the list.  Always an over-achiever, I am guilty of having quite an extensive Wish List.  One of my “loved” Wish List items is gardening.  

I grew up on a farm, my mother had a garden, and I remember helping her harvest her garden and watching her can and freeze vegetables from her garden.  I never had a garden - never felt like I had time to take care of it.  Most of the crop would need to be harvested about the same time I was going back to school in late summer.  I put "growing a garden" on my Retirement Wish List and it was one of the first things I did when I retired.  

Of the many good reasons to plant a vegetable garden (like reducing my carbon footprint or saving the bees), primarily I wanted to plant a garden in order to eat fresh vegetables and attempt to try out some great canning recipes.  It didn’t occur to me until after I started planting and working in my garden that there would be so many other positive health benefits such as exercise (cultivating, weeding, lifting, and planting), better immune system (Vitamin D from the sun) and improved mental health (stress reduction and released serotonin).  

Our year 1 garden was so enjoyable last summer that I planted another garden this year.  Last year, all of the plants came from seedlings and this year the garden started from seeds, except for the tomato plants.  (Seeds are sooo much cheaper, and yes they sprout right through that soil and grow just fine!)  Last year’s crop included tomatoes, green and red pepper, poblano and jalapeño peppers, cilantro, broccoli, cucumber, green beans and corn.  This year, I did not plant the poblanos and jalapeños (not much use for them) and cilantro (tricky to harvest) but I added peas, peppermint and zucchini.  

Don’t know how much canning I will be doing this year.  We are simply enjoying eating the vegetables fresh!  Grandson Dominic has even been enjoying fresh puréed vegetables from our garden.  Here are some tips for new gardeners:

• Put a fence around it.  I learned from last year - the bunnies and raccoons certainly enjoyed themselves.  This year, the only enemy has been deer.  
• Grow broccoli.  Each plant doesn’t produce a lot, but there’s nothing like fresh broccoli. 
• If you are growing squash, allow plenty of space.  It likes to spread out.  
• Keep those tomato plants off the ground.
• Corn - the deer love it.  Won’t be planting it next year. 

How's Your Airplane Etiquette?

Have you become a frequent flyer?  I do love a good road trip, but driving can be a lot more taxing as we get older.  Although traveling via air is preferable for many people, it does have it’s disadvantages.  Most of us have experienced at least some of the obvious ones - flight delays, cost, lost baggage - but what about dealing with other travelers who break the unwritten rules of flying?  

Want to really know a person?  Pay attention to how they treat other people - especially on an airplane with a hundred people packed into a small space having the potential of triggering total chaos.   Fortunately, nearly everyone does manage to observe the social, unspoken code of flight etiquette most of the time.  Most people naturally get it.  But there are those occasional rule breakers who are clueless of the effect they have on other people's travel experience.  If you happen to take a flight in the near future, do some people watching - you will be sure to spot one.  Some infractions are pretty obvious while others are in that gray area of “should I or shouldn’t I?”  

Here are a few guidelines that will either make you reflect, or make you laugh.  Either way, enjoy the reading:

1. Be patient while going through security.  Allow the traveler in front of you to place their belongings on the rollers before blindly plopping your big bag down in front of them.  
2. Push your belongings onto the conveyor belt before skipping off to the body scanner.  You're stuff is your responsibility - not the traveler’s behind you.  Those rollers before the conveyor belt don’t move on their own.
3. Board with your proper boarding position, but also don’t get too crazy if you think someone has “cut” you during boarding.  The boarding process is not perfect, but it’s the best attempt at establishing order to the process so just go with it. 
4. If carrying-on, don’t leave your bag sticking out so that the flight attendant has to re-
   
   organize all of the bags in the overhead bin because you failed to realize that the bin door has to close before taking off.  And by all means, please try your best to use the bin over YOUR seat.  
5. Quickly put your bag in the overhead bin and take your seat.  There are a hundred travelers behind you waiting as you re-organize your life in the aisle.  
6. If you are a snorer, DO NOT fall asleep.  Consume enough caffeine to stay awake through the flight.  No one wants to listen to you snore.  
7. Offer to switch seats so someone can sit next to the child or elderly person in their accompaniment.  It’s the right thing to do and just plain decent.  
8. Do Not Recline if sitting in economy.  The quarter of an inch you gain is not worth disrupting the comfort level of the traveler behind you, not to mention forcing them to readjust their laptop, knees, drink and life for the next few hours.  News flash: there’s not a lot of room back there.  
9. You are allowed to say something to parents of obnoxious kids.  This does not include babies.  Babies are babies and sometimes they cry.  If the crying bothers you, put on your headphones.  But parents who don’t intervene when their five year old continuously kicks or bangs the seat in front of them should not be offended when the traveler in front of them intervenes on their behalf.
10. Let’s agree.  The middle seat is the worst - no window, no breathing room.  Let the middle seat person have the armrests if they need them.  With that in mind, if you are a middle seat traveler, don’t take this opportunity to spill yourself over past that sacred armrest boundary.  
11. If you need to get up during the flight, don’t grab the back of another seat while getting up or walking.  Your fellow passengers don’t want to be yanked around every time you get up or walk past.  
12. If listening to or watching something with sound on your device, by all means, use headphones.  This should be a no-brainer.
13. When it’s time to leave the plane, remember what you learned in kindergarten and file out IN ORDER.  I don’t know why we forget all of those niceties.  
14. In case I have forgotten any other “rules” - just be polite to everyone.     

Loving Traditions

When my daughter went to kindergarten, my mom started a tradition where she would take her shopping for a back-to-school outfit.  We looked forward to this event every year.  It wasn’t about getting a new outfit - it was about spending the day with my mom, having lunch at my mom’s favorite restaurant, and continuing a tradition that was extended to each and every one of her grandkids.  I love traditions.  My mother loved traditions.  The traditions she created for our family had a profound impact on the memories we created and stories we gathered.  Traditions tell a story about a family - it’s history, events, and experiences.  Focusing our lives around experiences rather than things is a vital ingredient in the recipe for a happy family life.  

Families that establish rituals build stronger relationships with each other and give children a source of identity within the family.  Carrying on the traditions created by my mother allow my grandkids to know the great grandmother they will never meet.  When my brothers and I were children, one of our favorite Christmas traditions was listening to my mother read “The Littlest Angel” on Christmas Eve.  After our baths, we would put on our PJs, put out milk and cookies for Santa, then listen to my mother read this favorite Christmas story before falling asleep in anticipation of Santa.  This magical ritual meant so much to us that we shared it with our children and it became a Christmas tradition for them.  Now this tradition, started by our mother close to 60 years ago, will be carried on to our grandchildren and their great grandmother will become a part of their story.  When children grow up knowing stories about their parents, grandparents, and even great grandparents, it provides them a source of identity that creates a higher degree of self-confidence.  

We have dozens (more like hundreds) of photos of our kids from our many Disney trips from ages 4 to 24.  They can't wait to repeat and share their magical Disney experiences with their children.  Same goes for all of our beach vacations.  This summer, our new grandsons were introduced to the beach to become a part of the tradition of family vacations and start making their own stories.  They will grow up knowing all of the family vacation stories and making some of their own.  They will know that although they live miles away from each other, they will get to spend time with each other on family getaways.  The lasting memories they will make will be priceless.  Many of my friends have been going on multi-generational vacations for years - they have built strong family relationships and have made so many precious memories.  

As new grandparents, it’s so much fun to see our children carry on family traditions to their children - it shows that those traditions meant a lot to them.  My son and his family have adopted our “find the pickle” Christmas tradition and my daughter (now a teacher) and I still honor the “back-to-school” tradition started by my mom.  When my grandsons (and other future grands) are in kindergarten, we will be “back-to-school” shopping.  They will know the story behind this tradition.  They will know another part of their great grandmother.

Fit Your Retirement Wish List Into Your Budget

Familiar with the term, “retirement spending smile?”  It’s a term coined by David Blanchett at Morningstar that represents a retirement spending  pattern arc that looks like a smile.  😊  This spending pattern suggests that when people reach their 50s and 60s, they have an increase in disposable income - the mortgage is paid off, kids are out of college and income is up.  It’s kind of like a financial honeymoon period.  So when retirement hits, young retirees tend to use this extra money for their wish list.  Some travel, others renovate their homes or even buy a second home.  In other words, spending is up immediately after retirement.  After several years, spending goes down - retirees in their mid 70s and 80s tend to stay home or closer to home more often and spend very little - so the arc (spending) drops down.  But the arc soon goes back up as aging creates health problems and health care spending dramatically increases - thus creating a spending pattern that looks like a smile. 

The interesting thing about the spending smile is that the spending on the front half is controllable, but unfortunately, the spending on the back half (health care) is not.  I remember when my parents retired.  Their conservative spending and smart choices about planning for long-term care when they were in their 50s and 60s allowed for my mother to be well taken care of when she got sick in her 80s.  That’s not to say that they didn’t have a little fun and fulfill their wish list.  They purchased a winter home in AZ, they traveled, but they watched their “splurges”.  

Many new retirees who envision retirement as a time when they can really sock away the money, soon find out that a lot of their extra available money is being spent on new hobbies, travel and entertainment - their “wish list".  Is it possible to fulfill our wish lists and put money away for the years in later retirement when health care spending is up?  Of course it is, as long as we budget for it.  

Our retirement wish lists don't always consist of things of material value like second homes or expensive vacations.  Some of the best features of a wish list are experiences.  I love going to the city to see Broadway musicals.  Before retirement, there was barely enough time to see one show a year.  And the expense - at $150+ per ticket (and those were for upper balcony), seeing shows on a regular basis can get pricey.    A friend of mine who retired a few years ago suggested I look into season tickets to Broadway in Chicago.  Each season includes 4 or 5 shows with your choice of matinee or evening, week day or weekend, and choice of seats.  At around $450 for 2 lower balcony tickets to each of 5 musicals, the $45 per ticket that I am spending for better seats is much better than the $150+ I spent before.   

Since my daughter is also a fan of the theater, she attends the musicals with me.  It’s a great mother/daughter outing that we look forward to once a month.  We choose a restaurant in the theater district and walk to the show after dinner.  Parking in Chicago can get expensive, so here's another useful bit of information - many of the restaurants in the theater district are "theater partners", provide free valet if you are seeing a show, and keep your car for you while at the theater.  We have enjoyed the summer season so much that I secured tickets for the fall/winter season.  

Remember - retirement is an adventure and slow and steady wins the race!    

Beaches and Babies

We just returned from our first multi-generational vacation with the kids and their families.  With grandsons Carson and Dominic only 5 and 6 months old, choosing a destination was a delicate task.  We needed to choose a getaway that allowed for flexibility of babies’ needs, opportunity for parents (or grandparents) to play, and by all means included a beach (we love the beach).

We have always enjoyed vacations with a great balance of play, sight-seeing and relaxation.  The notion of taking our first vacation with the kids and grandkids filled us with excitement, but also a little anxiety knowing that careful planning was essential.  Since we have always enjoyed the Outer Banks, and it’s a vacation that can be tailored to fit everyone’s needs, this destination seemed like a perfect choice.  We wouldn’t be tied to a strict schedule, there would be plenty of opportunity for water sports and sight-seeing, and it’s never failed as a relaxing beach getaway.  We could rent a 4 bedroom beach house, take turns at cooking, and enjoy the Atlantic for a week.   

Hangin' out under the beach canopy

After choosing a week that fit into everyone’s schedule, we had to secure a beach house.  We had always loved the house we rented in the past - it wasn't oceanfront but it was oceanside, and a short walk to the beach.  We never needed a pool since we spent most of our hours at the beach.  But our needs are different now with Carson and Dominic.  An oceanfront beach house with a pool would be better.  It would be easier for lugging beach and baby gear, and the boys could play in the pool when the sand and waves got to be too much for them.  The beach house we selected was perfect - 4 bedroom, oceanfront with a pool.   

The pool was a big hit!

Exhausted!

Although the dynamic has definitely changed from our past beach vacations now that the kids have young families, it’s a welcome change.  We used to watch our kids “ride the waves” and do their best to stay on top of a surf board and now we watch them having the time of their lives throwing their babies in the air while playing with them in the pool.  We used to watch them boogie board for HOURS and HOURS and now they build little sand pools to introduce their sons to the ocean.  I remember constantly nagging my children to reapply sunscreen and now they have become obsessed with keeping their children plastered in SPF 50 and covered in full body swimsuits and hats.  

Filled to the top w/beach and baby gear

It was so much fun watching the four young parents toss a football around on the beach and play in the surf while the babies slept underneath the canopy that their parents had set up for them.  Sitting around the campfire we built on the beach, making S’mores and watching our kids and their families sit back, laugh, and enjoy being together is the best part of a family vacation.    

Family vacations are not easy - planning requires some compromise, packing can be rough, children (and sometimes adults) can get cranky, and the entire experience can be exhausting (aren’t you supposed to feel rested?).  But here’s the happy ending:  being together with your family for one solid week a year is irreplaceable.  Growing up, the boys will look forward to these vacations with their cousins.  These are the very best of memories. 

Vacation Recreation: Escape the Ordinary for the Extraordinary - at least for a few days (Part II)

One of the most exciting things to do on a trip is vacation recreation.  I can’t remember a single vacation I have ever taken that did not involve some type of sport, particularly one that is specific to the locale.  While in the Outer Banks, we kite surfed, jet-skied, and surfed (well I didn’t surf, the kids did), while in Destin, we snorkeled, in Cabo we went scuba-diving and horseback riding on the beach, and in Puerto Vallarta, we did the obvious-zip-lining.  Vacation recreation always makes the trip memorable and unique.  In fact, I guess it’s safe to say that when choosing a destination, we always look at available activities.  

The activity of choice in Sedona?  Hands down, it was hiking.  There are close to 100 different hiking trails in Sedona, with a variety of ability levels from easy to difficult.  The great thing about hiking is that you make it what you want.  If you're hiking a 4 mile loop and you start getting tired, just turn around and go back.  Turn the 4 mile loop into a 1 or 2 mile hike.  The main thing is that you STAY ON THE TRAIL.  Although it’s kind of fun to challenge yourself and try to do some climbing (like we did), safety is very important.  

We were only going to be in Sedona for 5 days with days 1 and 5 partially used as travel days.  Since day 4 was our Spa day, we only had days 2 and 3 to beat up our bodies executing “Xtreme" activities (at least Xtreme for us).  We had seen images online of hikers standing on an incredible arch, which we later learned is called “Devil’s Bridge,” so that was definitely on our radar.  To get to the trailhead for Devil’s Bridge, we needed to walk close to 2 miles one-way down a “road” that’s only accessible to off road jeeps (so you can only imagine how rough THAT road is).  After getting to the trailhead, the hike was a gradual incline until we got closer to the bridge.  After getting close to the bridge, be ready to walk up a very steep, natural “spiral staircase” to the bridge.  Challenging, but worth every step!  If you are scared of heights (or should I say scared of falling) walking out onto the bridge can definitely be intimidating.  Once we got out on the bridge, it wasn’t that bad.  This group of spa warriors did the entire hike -  “photo shoot” and all - in approximately 3 hours.    

The Devil’s Bridge hike and the climb to the top of Bell Rock offered plenty of recreation during our Sedona Getaway.   Now that we are all grown up and our kids are all grown up, it’s fun to explore, discover, and try new activities.  Do’s and Dont’s?  Any activity we can do is beneficial so Do what you enjoy but Do take precautions.  Don’t let fear get in the way of physical activity and Don’t limit yourself to only “senior-type” activities.