WOMEN AGES 50+ FOR AUGUST 2017

Rye in TX: I also wear my shoes for many years. When they make my feet or back hurt, they're done & donated unless they're too worn to donate. :ohwell:

Marcelyn: Sending good thoughts for your personal safety and minimal or no damage to your property. :flowerforyou:

Heather: I'm glad that rest is solving your facial concerns. I guess the old phrase "beauty sleep" has truth to it.

Lisa: The Columbia River ran very deep for weeks after last winter's snow and ice storms. Luckily our home was not in danger from anything but raccoons and that problem has been solved. Now the river is at a lower level than we saw any time last summer. :ohwell:

Lanette: I'm glad you're doing well with your health issues. My solution to hot weather cooking is cold salads and grilling meat outside. That way the heat from cooking doesn't get into my house. If I want to boil potatoes or macaroni for salads I do it early in the morning. :flowerforyou:

Chris in MA: Sending good thoughts and prayers your way. (((HUGS)))

Heather: Telling your sons about your difficult childhood takes a great deal of inner strength. You constantly amaze me with your courage and openness. Could your DIL, the psychologist, be of any help with telling the boys about this?


I bought my son and daughter animal handpuppets when they were children. They were handmade by a wonderful woman from Eugene, Oregon, where we lived when my son was little & before my daughter was born. She made them with all the positive attributes of a stuffed toy, but also a functional puppet. Today I bought four handcrafted puppets directly from this same woman at Portland's Sunday Market! One is for each of my grandchildren and one is for the baby to come. This is putting a big smile on my face. There are more than 40 years between the first purchase and today.

Katla in beautiful NW Oregon

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'!" -Audrey Hepburn

I have had several conversations with people about retirement lately, and so many of them are bored and want to go back to work, or are in the process of going back to work. It seems that these people wanted to retire, and then once they were retired, within a couple of years they wanted to go back to work...feeling bored, or gaining too much weight, or feeling useless, or not liking being on a fixed budget...do any of you retired ladies care to comment? I can cut back on my work schedule to as little as 2 days each month as I get older if I want to. The closer I get to retirement, the more I think having that option is incredibly fortunate. I could work just enough to cover the "extras" for as long as I wanted to (and was competent, LOL!)


Karen - – ah, retirement. Very exciting to think about and now’s the time to start planning.

Your situation sounds ideal. Things to consider tho – will this part-time job be subject to different hours, different supervisor, different rules. In case it doesn’t work out, what will happen then?

What your friends said about being bored, needing money, gaining weight, feeling useless… can all be true! Don’t have to be, but can be.

Have you considered why you want to retire? And how you will fill your days and time when you don’t have to head to work on a set schedule so many days per week? We don’t have grandkids, but I’ve heard comments that gals retired to spend more time with the grands but those plans didn’t materialize. A GF of mine stuck it out in a county job for years under a wack-o supervisor for the retirement and insurance. Shortly after she retired, her DH was diagnosed with prostate cancer so her days are now filled dealing with his treatments, depression. He has become a recluse. Her dreams of travel and doing fun things are gone.

My DH was already a recluse and had chronic illness which is often painful and will likely become disabling, so I had considered that when I retired.

I will say one of the deciding factors for me was wanting more time off and working fewer hours, but there came a point where we needed my pension and in order for that to kick in, I needed to leave my job.

I have postponed taking social security – my pension was just about enough to cover our monthly bills along with DH’s retirement and SS. In this case, getting a part-time job from mid-October to this past April was adequate along with savings to keep things moving along and keep insurance paid. We’re frugal, on Medicare, don’t travel, have some savings in case the house needs a new roof, new HVAC (looks like some of it will be spent on a new deck next year.)

I didn’t have the job when I retired… my guardian angel took over and put me in the right place at the right time.

Being an ENTJ who plans things to the nth degree, I started budgeting for retirement early on, working through many scenarios so there wouldn’t be nasty surprises once I turned in my retirement paperwork.

All that being said, winter and endless rainy days will arrive this fall, and I’ll be looking for excuses to get out of the house a couple days a week. Actually working again? I’m not sure- my Social Security should be kicking in this fall – I’ll contact the gal I worked for this spring and see if they’ll be needing me again. If not, right now I don’t see myself actively seeking a job if I don’t need the $$. So I plan to spend more time at the gym or doing things with GF's (many of them have been laid up with medical problems! Back surgery, hip replacement, other back problems - my younger friends are still working )

Sorry for the epistle. Hope this helps! HUGS!

Lanette

Good evening ladies! I had an interesting day....didn't amount to much of anything, but wow!!! I'm gong to be a Grammy!!!! . My daughter, who has actually been my step-daughter from the time she was 4, just visited us with this amazing news! We(she, obgyn, and myself), never thought this would happen, as she doesn't ovulate every month, never has, but two visits to her obgyn confirmed she definitely is. She is due in April, and my poor girl ONLY went to the doctors because she was throwing up every morning
I made sure she called my mom, both of them! I was adopted, and my mom died when I was 14. I met my biological mom in my late twenties, and we are very close, plus I have a step-mom. AND, I asked my (step) daughter if she told her mother, very touchy subject, but no. I was pregnant twice, and miscarried both, then divorced. I put my dreams of having a little tom-boy of a daughter behind me, and moved on. To make a long story short, I got my tom-boy, and raised her to have an opinion, and be assertive.
I am just so tickled that I'm gong to be a Grammy, i still get all leaky eyes just thinking about watching my little peanut grow into a mother, so I spend much of the day on the phone with everyone! THEN...(this is sort of funny) I decided to get my yarn out, and start crotcheting. Well, my ADD got the best of me, and I then decided our down pillows needed a good fluffing, and freshening up, so in the dryer they went with tennis balls, and Febreeze. An hour later, the hubby comes home, and I go out to get the pillows, thinking he'll be so happy, because he was just complaining about his pillow being flat. I opened the dryer door, and stood there saying " oh no...oh no...oh no...". Hubby comes running into the laundry room, (oh, is he going to be pi..mad!) Feather were EVERYWERE! In my hair, the whole room, and all over everything! I think my hubby may have peed a little, he was laughing so hard! Unfortunately, we now need to take the dryer apart, and vacuum every last feather out, oh well....live & learn! Guess it's off to Amazon to shop for new pillows...who knew there were so many feather in those two pillows!!!! Any Crafters out there have ideas on what to do with all these feathers???
It's good to see everyone's doing well, during this destrutive hurricane. ~Tiffanie