Author: sssmahh303

Shell Seeker

by sssmahh303, posted in Friends and Family

Do you remember at the end of the eighties, in fact 1987, when Rosamond Pritchard’s Shell Seeker became an international best seller?  Pritchard is a wonderful storyteller and at the time she had a huge following. Her stories captured family dynamics, warts and all, in a magical and engaging way.  

I really don’t remember the plot, but there is a line in the book that has stayed with me for all these years.  It was “The best gift parents could give their children was their independence.” I hope I got that right.  I was a parent at the time, yet I don’t think I really understood the power of those words.  As my parents aged, I began to appreciate what Pritchard was saying.  My parents gave my brother and me a precious gift in staying independent as long as they could take care of themselves and when they couldn’t, they had saved money for long-term care in their home.  This allowed us the freedom to have our own lives.  So many people today are caring for elderly family members, and their lives are not their own.  They care with love and dedication.  God Bless them.  However, their lives revolve around another person. It is wearing on everyone.

Now that I am older, I am tying very hard to follow my parents’ example.  I want to give this gift of my independence to my own children so they can have their own lives.  I have tried to put away as much money as I can, live as healthy as I can, and prepare my home for mature living while I can.  As people live longer, the care of the elderly will have to be addressed as a society. Only 7% of older people have long-term care policies. Those policies are expensive and limiting.  Unless you are rich, this is going to be a challenge for most people with their parents.  

This is the time to think about all of this for yourself.  Let Rosamond Pritchard’s words ring true and guide you to make some important decisions about your and your children’s future.

Note: Ms. Pritchard’s books have been reissued so you still get them on Amazon.  There are some Shell Seeker movies on Netflix as well.  I intend to reread the Shell Seekers whose words helped shape my world. 

Mary Ann

Goals

by sssmahh303, posted in Taking Care of Business

Mary Ann

When I was a little girl, I compiled a list of things I wanted to see before I died.  It was a bit serious for a child of 6 or 7.  However, I am sure that I read about some of these wonders of nature in my Weekly Reader(Remember Weekly Reader?), and I didn’t want to miss anything. My list included: a hummingbird, a falling star, a rainbow, a monarch, and finding a four-leaf clover.  This was my bucket list as a child.  It was more like a small pail than a bucket. 

Eventually, I saw everything, and my little Bible was full of four-leaf clovers. Since those early years, I continued setting goals – getting a puppy, going to college, and on and on.  I never did talk my parents into getting me a horse. I had a perfect plan for a stable by our creek.  

Fast forward to adulthood, and it was time for grown-up goals.   You can set goals, but life has a way of changing everything thus changing your goals.  Nevertheless, every New Year, I would create a list. I bet you do, too!  Then a few months go by, and the goals are forgotten until the next New Year.  It is kind of a vicious cycle.  So how do you get a handle on setting goals?

Since I have been keeping in touch with Cynthia, we have done annual goals.  No one else I know does goals as well as Cynthia.  She makes spread sheets, lists goals with sets of to-do lists and deadlines, and we set goal reviews on Zoom every few months. it all puts me to shame.  I have created all the same sheets, but I just couldn’t keep up. 

So, this year, I decided I was going to make a few big goals and keep it simple.   I created four meaningful goals that included: the Blog, my Estate Notebook, my School Materials, and Healthy Living – So far so good.  Cynthia and I got Silver Sage Sisters up and running.  I have written 24 blogs.  We do need to get better with the photos, and I promise we are working on that.  I went through my School Materials and have found homes for most it. I need to get my Estate Notebook finished to make my inevitable passing easier for my family when it comes. Finally, Healthy Living is moving along.  I really want to create menus of healthy recipes, so I can plan meals and my shopping list.  I waste too much food which makes me very guilty when I throw it out.  I also started working out on the machines at the gym, and I can tell I am stronger. Now, at the half-way point of the year, I am at a pretty good place.  All the goals’ loose ends will be finished by year’s end. This is the best I have ever been with goals at the mid-point.

Another technique that has been very helpful is working with a buddy.  It makes you accountable, and you can cheerlead one another on.  Cynthia and friend L have done this with me for health goals and financial goals.  If you do one small thing, they will add up to the one big thing you want to accomplish.  It also makes it fun to tag team with a bud.

Please know that Cynthia and I do some goals over and over.  It is funny because we don’t ever seem to get ahead. An example of this is organizing our cookbooks and recipes.  I think I could have my cookbooks suddenly disappear and nothing would change.  Again, I am constantly finding new recipes, so the pile of clippings and new cookbooks keeps growing.  In any given year, I can hardly get all my favorite meals prepared let alone new ones, yet I try.  It really isn’t that bad of a problem, and it all tastes good!

In conclusion, when goal setting, keep it simple, determine what really matters to you, and get a buddy to keep you honest.  It has worked for me this year, so it will be my goal to keep doing it.   

A Kiss Is Still A Kiss

by sssmahh303, posted in Lifestyle

As the song, As Time Goes By, says A Kiss is Still A Kiss. Or is it? There are all kinds of kisses. The slobbery kisses of a puppy or the scratchy lick of kitty are loving gestures to their humans.  A butterfly kiss from a little child with a flutter of eyelashes to your cheek is just precious. And who can forget when you were passionately kissed by someone you love or loved, when your knees buckle, and you fall into a swoon.  All of this is true, but there are still many other kinds of kisses in the world.  

When you travel to the Galapagos Islands, you experience one of Earth’s most unique places.  It is truly the peaceable kingdom where animals and man can coexist without fear of one another.  I experienced this during my visit.  I decided to spend some quiet time on the beach and do some sketching.  I sat crisscross applesauce among 20 or so seals that were scattered around the beach taking naps and sunbathing.  They were only a few feet from me. Nowhere else on Earth could you do this.  

I happily was sketching the seals and was in the zone not paying too much attention to what was going on around me.  Then I suddenly felt something bristly encircle my knee.  I looked down and a baby seal was touching my knee with its nose.  I was being kissed by a seal.  I sat there is shock, and the little guy scooched by me and nestled in the sand a few feet away falling immediately to sleep.  Mother did not seem to be around, and the other seals paid no attention to us.  I then sketched my new friend.  When I left the beach, I took more than my sketches.  I took a priceless memory of my sweet encounter with the baby seal – I got a whisker kiss, and it made me swoon!  

There is a Giraffe Center in Nairobi, Kenya, where you can have a close encounter of the tall kind.  A staircase takes you up to a wraparound deck to meet the giraffes at their level.  Giraffe kibble was available to purchase to feed them.  I wonder if Purina made them for the giraffes as they make many kinds of animal kibble – imagine bags of giraffe kibble among cat and dog food.  

The giraffes were ready for a treat.  Luckily for me there were not many people there, so I got lots of attention from the giraffes wanting their goodies. You could feed them by hand and pet their patterned faces.  They have big, beautiful, brown eyes that are like mirrors where you can see yourself.  If you are more daring, you can place a piece of kibble between your lips, and the giraffe will take the kibble from you.  I did just that. Their big, soft, floppy lips gently touch my lips as they took the kibble. I was being kissed by a giraffe -What a sweet memory for me from Africa.

Finally, my family was on vacation at the Jersey Shore near Atlantic City.  My Father wanted to go fishing.  It was a terrible day, cold and rainy.  We went on a fishing cruise that took us to a nearby inlet to fish. Dressed in giant yellow slickers, we casted our fishing lines into the choppy water.  Hours passed, I really mean hours, and no one caught a fish.  It was a long afternoon when suddenly my Father caught a tiny shark about 6 to 8 inches long.  (As the years passed, the shark got bigger with each retelling of the tale.) It was a perfect shark in miniature.  

Since the book and later the movie, Jaws, I have always been terrified of sharks.  Intellectually, I know sharks are necessary to the ocean ecosystem, but emotionally, they can eat you.  Right before my Father tossed the shark back into the water, I asked him to give it to me.  I was going to face my fear.  In my hands I was holding a SHARK!  Its skin was like sandpaper, and it was thrashing a bit.  I am sure it was just as scared of me as I was of it.  Right then I decided to plant a big kiss on its head and send it on its way.  Off it went into the deep blue sea. Now, I am still a little afraid of sharks, but my new fear is the shark will return to kiss me.  I don’t think there is a sweet way for a shark to kiss you.  Duuuunnnn duun…

Mary Ann 

Just the Right Book

by sssmahh303, posted in Wellness

Have you ever had the experience where you were plagued by a problem or were facing a challenging time in life, and suddenly you find just the right book or the right article to help you find the answers to your dilemma?  It has happened to me so many times that I have lost count.  I think it is divine intervention.  It may be that I am open to finding direction and then the universe provides.    Regardless of how it happens, I am thankful.

Books have been known for a long time to have power to change a life.  Bibliotherapy is the term for this.  It sometimes is called Book Therapy.  It is a creative arts therapy that uses specific reading texts to help with various issues. You may not be in therapy, but books can really help make a difference in your life.

The books can be fiction or nonfiction.  The Little Paris Bookshop by French author, Nina George, is a charming tale about Monsieur Perdu who is the proprietor of a bookstore that is housed in a barge on the Seine.  He sees himself as a “literary apothecary” because he intuits the exact book a customer needs; he “prescribes” novels for the hardships of life. It seems that finding the right book is universal. For the remainder of the book, Perdu sets out to find his long-lost love as he navigates his bookstore barge down the French rivers dispensing books and wisdom along the way. This work of fiction is a delightful French adventure that denotes the power of books.  

My friend, L, and I started a nonfiction book club at the beginning of the Covid Pandemic. I shared this with you in the past.  It is still going strong because it has been so powerful in our lives.  The topics have educated us in health, wealth, and happiness. Not all the books have been great, yet there are always nuggets of wisdom in each book. However, there are some books, just the right books, that have been life changing for each of us or both of us.  In Martha Beck’s The Way of Integrity, Finding the Path to Your True Self, Ms. Beck claims that books are teachers, soul guides. She states on page 42, “Reading is the way I’ve met most of my life teachers, and clients often tell me that just when they felt most confused, the perfect book seems to ‘throw itself off the shelf’ and into their attention.”  Again, the power of just the right book signifies their importance in our lives.  

The Way of Integrity has been a meaningful book for us.  A Life in the Light, Meditations on Impermanence by Mary Pipher is another. Silver Sage Sisters, you will identify with her memoir because you too have walked the same path as she in years’ past.  My copy of The Comfort Book by Matt Haig is dog-eared throughout. The collection of essays offers comfort in every way, plain and simple.  Untamed by Glennon Doyle is a book about living fully and authentically.  Her truth was different from my life, yet I understand that for many of us, we created a life that others wanted for us rather than the one we would have chosen for ourselves if given the opportunity.  We are currently reading Brené Brown’s Rising Strong.  We love Brene Brown, and of course, she has written her books just for us. 

All the forementioned books are great reads for both education and for enjoyment.  Books are friends, helpful friends that lead us to see the world with different perspectives.   Special books can indeed change our lives.  

A Boodle

by sssmahh303, posted in Taking Care of Business

My dear friend, Patty, would often talk about having a boodle.  Her mother told her that every woman needed a boodle, a stash of her own money, often secret.  I had never heard of it before Patty used it.  I thought it was a Yiddish word, but it’s not. I thought it was a family word. It was not.  However, boodle is a real word. A boodle means a large quantity of something, often ill-gotten money. It is from the Dutch word boedel from the 1600s.  A few of our politician have boodles that get them into a lot of trouble. We are going to talk about the good kind of boodle.

When I was a young woman, we really didn’t think about having our own money. You might save your babysitting money or what you made as a waitress or another job.  You used it to buy clothes or to have a good time. We weren’t taught how to invest or build your credit score.  We hardly knew how to balance our check books if you had one. Then we married and often our husbands took over the finances. I imagine many women had their own boodles from pennies pinched here and there that was stashed away somewhere in the pantry.

 I was a military wife, so I had to do the bills since often my husband was deployed. That was a blessing in disguise for me.  When my husband left me, my eyes opened, not how to pay a bill, but how economics worked.  I had no credit since my credit was tied to my husband’s.  Yet, I was responsibility for caring for two children. 

 I had a good, stable job which was lifesaving for my family.  I was able to get a place to live since I had the money for deposits. The car was a whole other ball game.  With no credit, it was hard to get a loan for a car.  A very nice salesman at the Renault dealership worked very hard to get me a lease so I had a car.  That kind man was a guardian angel.  Angels come in different forms. 

As time passed, and I slowly began building a credit history by paying the rent and the car lease payments, I bravely applied for a Shell gas card.  When I got approved for it, I was walking on air.  I had a credit card. I had a new beginning to take care of myself and my family. Then, the big whammy hit.  My ex did not pay the bills that had my name on it, so what little credit I had built was now in danger. I was back in the hole again. I ended up slowing paying off the loans and credit cards of the joint accounts.  You need to be careful what you sign – if your name is on the account, you are responsible regardless the circumstances. 

I wish I had a boodle.  I could have taken better care of myself if the “stash” was available. I could have eased the challenges I faced.  However, I may not have learned the money lessons I needed to learn. Obviously, I did thrive on my own and grew my credit history.  It was not easy, but it can be done. I am living proof. 

When I became a principal, I would always tell my young female teachers to build their own credit, grow their savings, invest in their retirement, and create a boodle which today is an emergency fund.  It is easier today for women to build credit and manage money but not necessarily easy.  I would also give this advice to older women for many of them still don’t know how to manage their finances.  Life can change so quickly from the passing of a spouse to an unexpected divorce.  It is always better to be prepared.  If you don’t know where to begin, I suggest reading Jane Bryant Quinn’s How to Make Your Money Last or Get Good with Money by Tiffnay Aliche.  Both finance books can help you to self-educate.  You can do it! 

Mary Ann

Merlin

by sssmahh303, posted in Reviews

Have you ever been sitting on your deck or walking in the woods and hear a bird singing its heart out and have no idea what kind of bird is serenading you?  It happens to me all the time.  Then I found the Merlin app and pure magic entered my life – abracadabra!

Merlin Bird ID is a nature app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (Study of Birds so you know for a future Jeopardy game.) It is free and once you start using it, you will use it every day or at least I have. All you do is open the app and tap the green sound button. The app then begins to record the bird sounds that you are hearing and some you do not hear.  As different birds sings, they are identified, and a little picture appears of the bird. Each time that bird sings the bird’s name is highlighted in yellow. If you touch the bird picture, a small paragraph appears with info about the bird. You can also play the bird song of a particular bird and learn to identify the bird yourself. I didn’t realize that I was surrounded by birds. I don’t see them, but they are there.  So far this summer, the app has identified 20ish species. 

Cornell Lab has a wealth of information about birds at their website cornellbirds@cornell.edu.  They offer great classes such as The Wonderful World of Hummingbirds to art classes to everything you ever wanted to know about birding – all at reasonable fees.  They have bird cams to view baby birds hatch and grow up.  There are bird counts that you can participate in with people from all over the country and the world.  I am always finding one more bit of information on everything bird, science, and conservation on the site.

If you join the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, you will receive their eBulletin and their wonderful bi-annual magazine, Living Bird which has exquisite photographs and excellent articles on birds.  Supporter level is $39.00, and a family subscription is $60.00.  It provides a lot of bang for the buck. 

Nature gives us so many gifts, and the choir of our feather friends is so often taken for granted in our daily lives.  If you stop and take a moment, you can hear their greatest hits and feel the magic!  

Mary Ann

More Than a Gold Watch

by sssmahh303, posted in Lifestyle

 Mary Ann

When people used to retire, they were given a gold watch for their many years of service to their place of employment.  Many people today don’t even wear a watch anymore.  They use their phones to tell time.  In the end, a watch is not really a very good way to celebrate someone’s life’s work.  So, what is? 

We live longer now so retirement can go on for a very long time.  People see retirement as another chapter in their lives rather than an end.  What would be a better gift than a gold watch? We want to wish the retiree good health, wealth, and happiness. Now, how do you do that exactly?

My friend, Lisa, and I started a nonfiction book club when Covid started, and we explored a variety of subjects over the next four years.  We talk every Saturday about the reading assignments.  We have read over 60 books and have gained so much insight and knowledge from them.  From our reading, we have found books that focused on health, wealth, and happiness, and the following books are our all-star favorites that will give any retiree many nuggets of wisdom for their golden years.

Health – AARP has an excellent book on health called The Whole Body Reset by Stephen Perrine.  It is about living a healthy life rather than just a diet.  It is simple and a good guide to eating better in your senior years.  

Wealth – Jane Bryant Quinn’s How to Make Your Money Last, the Indispensable Retirement Guide is the bible for financial planning both before and after retirement.  Quinn has authored several books on finance and is an expert in her field.  My book is dogeared and underlined throughout.  It is a book that I constantly refer to for financial advice. I have gifted this book to both the young and old over the years, and it is always appreciated.  

Happiness – Julia Cameron is a writer who focuses on creativity. She is most famous for The Artist’s Way.  However, she has written a book for those who are retiring and how to live a more creative, fulfilling life.  It is Never too Late to Begin Again: Discovering Creativity and Meaning at Midlife and Beyond. This a book that can help a retiree to gain meaning for a happier life in retirement.

These books are so helpful, useful, and good reads.   All you need now is to wrap them up and give them to the retirees in your life.  I would tell them that each book represents good wishes for health, wealth, and happiness.  I put tags on each wrapped book explaining just that. These books are worth more in gold than any watch could ever be.  They would be a good gift to give yourself, and don’t we all want to live a life of better health, more secure wealth, and new opportunities of happiness in our own golden years. 

Get Good With Money Review

by sssmahh303, posted in Taking Care of Business

Mary Ann

During Covid, my good friend L and I did a non-fiction book club. We lived in different states, so this was a way to connect during our confinements.  It was only the two of us, and each Saturday morning, we talk for two or three hours about the reading assignments and life in general.  Even though we could have stopped when the pandemic ended, we have continued reading 60 plus books over the last four years. We focused on nonfiction that included topics on money, health, happiness, self-actualizing, retirement, getting ready to retire, etc.  We wanted to learn about topics that would help us in our lives.

One of the first books we read centered on finance.  I had retired, and L is going to retire at the end of 2024. We needed to get a handle on our money and know how to best support ourselves in the years to come.  The first finance book was How to Make Your Money Last – The indispensable Retirement Guide by Jane Bryant Quinn and is the bible of finance as far as I am concerned.  I frequently refer to this book.  Another finance book that I love is a gem of a little book called How to Retire with Enough Money and How to Know What is Enough Is by Teresa Ghilarducci.  It is the Cliff Notes of finance.  Both are excellent books and very well-written.

Recently, we have added a new book to our All-Star Finance List.  It is Get Good with Money – 10 Simple Steps to Becoming Financially Whole by Tiffany Aliche.  She is known as the Budgetnista.  Ms. Aliche breaks down money into categories and in simple terms explains how a budget works, how to invest, how to buy insurance, and how exactly is your credit score determined.  These elements among others add up to 100% and in the end gives individuals a blueprint to get their finances in order.  Topics are clearly explained, good examples are given for understanding concepts, and most importantly, Ms. Aliche has personally lived through most of what she recommends. She has made all the mistakes and knows what it is like to be penniless. Her firsthand experiences gives everyone hope. She also offers finance worksheets and the like in her book and on her website, getgoodwithmoney.com.

This book is a good gift to give your children and/or grandchildren. L and I have done just that.  I wish that Ms. Aliche would write a finance book for little old ladies like me that would advise elders about medical costs and a guide for signing up for Medicare- the ABCD programs can be so confusing and then you have the supplement alphabet!  Investments for someone retired is different from building retirement funds. I am sure that Ms. Aliche could help investors to help themselves. I gained so much information from Aliche’s book, but I could use some help with my retirement finances. 

All three of these books were written by women.  They all offer good financial advice regardless of gender; however, it is so nice to see women lead on finance.  I can remember years ago when that wasn’t the case.  Thank you, Ms. Bryant, Ms. Ghilarducci, and most recently Ms. Aliche!  You are making all the difference! 

Greetings

by sssmahh303, posted in Lifestyle

Mary Ann

When you open your mailbox and fight your way through the charity requests, monthly bills, and endless catalogs, you find a colorful envelop nestled amid the jumble of paper.  You pull it out and find that a dear friend or special relative had sent you a card. Then a smile crosses your face and for a moment you experience pure bliss.  Someone remembered you with a greeting card.  

Few things can give you such joy as a birthday card or thinking of you card. Holiday wishes are captured in a rainbow of colors throughout the year.  There isn’t a digital card, text, or email that can capture the same feelings that a splash of color discovered in your mailbox.  Someone had to go out of their way to write to you.  They had to find a card, address the envelop, locate a stamp, and sign the card possibly adding a few thoughts. And all of this done using real handwriting. Remember handwriting?  It all seems like a lost art. 

I love to shop for cards selecting just the right one for the person I intend to write to.  The browsing is such fun and reading the text is uplifting for me.  However, it can be an expensive endeavor, especially if you frequently send cards.  Some cards can cost as much as $5-$10 dollars each. That really can add up if you send several cards.  When you are on a fixed income, it is something you must consider. However, there are some options that makes this all affordable. 

I have a friend who is in a card-making club, and at the monthly meeting, they make various cards.  They are cute, colorful, and clever. What a great way to get together with friends and create cards to bring joy to others. It brings joy to you as well.  I have another friend who is a talented photographer, and she make cards from the photos she takes.  I love getting a card from her.  You can get blank cards at craft stores like Michaels or online from Amazon.  You can even print your own photos.  I like doing this as well and have put collections together of travels or flowers as a gift of note cards.  

My best kept secret for greeting cards is Dollar Tree.  They have American Greetings and Hallmark cards for a $1.00, and Hallmark has created a line for Dollar Tree which is the best bargain yet – two cards for a $1.00. They offer holiday cards, standard birthday cards or get-well cards, and unique cards for new grandparents, retirement, bride-to be cards, and on and on.  I leave with a stack of cards, and my bill is often under $10.00. The cards are made of high-quality paper, often are sprinkled with glitter, and the envelops are colorful. At times, you need to give the envelops a good lick.   Now, there is no reason not to bring joy to close friends or beloved grandchildren and not break the bank. You will bring joy to loved ones, and in the end you will bring joy to yourself.  

Baby Shots

by sssmahh303, posted in Wellness

Mary Ann

When I was a little girl, I was not allowed to go to the community pool in the summer or participate in other activities where large groups gathered.  My mother was scared that I would contract Polio.  The fear was a nightmare at the time for our parents – death and withered limbs loomed large for them.  Then Salk and later Sabin developed vaccines that eventually eradicated polio from the United States and for the most part, the world. 

I can remember going to the local high school gym for a shot.  The lines were long and both adults and children got the shots. For most parents, they could at last exhale.  A few years later, we lined up again for a sugar cube that Sabin developed – so much better than a needle.  

Time passed and hardly anyone spoke of polio again.   We grew up and had children.  Our children and later grandchildren got a whole host of vaccinations.  They didn’t have to endure measles, mumps, or rubella and on and on.  I sat in a dark room when I had measles to protect my eyes – it may have been a wives’ tales, but my mother was not taking any chances.  There was a girl in my hometown who lost her hearing at the age of two from measles. There was danger. 

Then we became senior citizens and suddenly we have a whole new set of shots, our baby shots.  There is the annual Flu and Covid shots, RSV, Shingles, Pneumonia, Hep A Hep B, and you still need Tdap (Tetanus, Diphtheria, Pertussis) every ten years.  If you travel, you may need Yellow Fever, Typhoid, Cholera, and so on.  On a trip to Africa, I had to get another Polio shot – they had had a recent outbreak.   At times, you feel like a human pin cushion.   

However, regardless of how uncomfortable the vaccinations may be, the alternative of getting the disease and possibly dying from it, is far worse.  With each shot, I can see my mother smiling at me for protecting myself with the new baby shots, just as she once protected me from polio.   I am thankful for these life-saving shots. They can make all the difference in my old age.