Author: sssmahh303

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.      

Bag Lady

by sssmahh303, posted in Taking Care of Business

Mary Ann        

When I was a young woman, I was a single mother living on a teacher’s salary and supplementing it with tutoring and summer work.  There wasn’t much left over to save for retirement.  I was just trying to get by.  What little saving I did have was precious.  At the time a friend of mine suggested I move the money to a fund that was getting around 8% which was much better than the return I was currently getting so I moved the money.  As the months passed, the fund kept losing money, and I kept calling the firm asking why this was occurring. No one could tell me why, and after losing half my money, I returned to the original company.  With a little research, I found the fund was junk bonds and the bottom was falling out of them. 

I was so mad at myself that I said never again would I be “fooled.” I had my Scarlett O’Hara moment yelling in my head I will never be hungry again or rather I will learn about money, investments, and retirement.  I spent the next 40 years doing just that reading about investments, talking to advisers, starting investment clubs, and being awake. I did not have much money to invest in the early years, but I would always match what the schools were offering in their retirement programs.  After my children were on their own, I began to max out my annual contributions, and then you turn 50 and you get to make up for lost time with even bigger contributions.  I did just that.  Then there is the magic of compound interest which is the gift that keeps on giving.  

As I was moving with career advancement, I would move my money from the 403bs (the non-profit retirement programs) to IRAs with Vanguard. It was there that my investments really grew.  I also decided to work until I was 70 to max out my Social Security.  The extra years allowed me to grow my retirement savings as well and have more Social Security quarters at a higher rate thus giving me a higher Social Security payment.  I had put my learning to use setting me up for a comfortable retirement. 

Now, that I am retired those early decisions have given me financial security.  I developed a plan, stuck to it, and have reaped the benefits from it all.  When you work in the Independent School world, you must create your own pension from your savings. There is no state pension.  

I feel confident about all my decisions until I start reading the articles online about finance and retirement then I panic.  Inflation, taxes, life expectancy, medical expenses, and low investment growth dominate the headlines.  Will you outlive your money?  What!  I thought I had that all taken care of.  These articles are mind-blowing causing sheer terror and constant anxiety.  If I did everything right, why am I going to be a Bag Lady in a few years.  I read somewhere that women all think that they are going to be Bag Ladies. It makes sense, doesn’t it?

I have recently decided that I need to just enjoy the day.  None of us know how long we have.  It is time to stop reading the articles.  I am going to be Scarlett O’Hara and think about all this tomorrow.  To worry now, doesn’t solve anything.  You need to enjoy life and not fret all the time. You still must be wise about money and watch your investments, but there is more to life than constant worry.  If you remember, Scarlett O’Hara was a bag lady in her lovely green velvet curtains and had lost most of her family fortune.  She would just say fiddle-dee-dee and go about living!  

Dostadning

by sssmahh303, posted in Lifestyle

Mary Ann 

You may have heard of Swedish Death Cleaning, Dostadnning.  It was a popular book by Margareta Magnusson a few years back, and there is a TV show on Peacock about it.  Death Cleaning is the weeding through of all your stuff before you die so that your family will not have to do it.  It may sound morbid, but really it is a kindness, a gift to your family.  We will all have to death clean someone in our lives at some time. It is not an easy process, but if the person has done their own death cleaning, the job will be easier.

My brother and I had to death clean our parents’ home.  Our parents both lived into their nineties, so we had lots of time to know their wishes, determine who got what, and disseminate items. Once our mother passed as she predeceased our father, we were able to start the cleaning.  Our mother was the collector, and our father was more than happy to simplify his life which simplified our lives.  

The hardest part of the process for us was the cards and pictures that my mother had kept for 70 years of marriage. It took a long time to go through it all.  There were shoeboxes full of all the cards our family had ever sent our parents over the years. They had all the photographs of us through the years as well as the pictures of their grand- and great-grandchildren. I am the family photographer, so I had duplicates made for them of their family’s lives.  I already had the original pictures, so I didn’t need more copies.  We did make packets of pictures for family members, so they had a record of their lives preserved.  However, in the end there were still a huge number of duplicates.  

What do you do with all the cards and photos?  It didn’t seem right to just bag them and toss, all that love to just disappear in a puff!  So, I came up with the idea to burn them in some kind of goodbye ceremony that would honor our parents and the love represented in the cards and photos.  We would send them to our parents in heaven.  My brother planned to have all the cards and photos shredded, and he then found a place where we could burn everything.  There was a patio/firepit at the local Audubon Society that could be rented.  He bagged all the shredded materials into paper grocery bags – we had 28 bags – so we could place one bag at a time in the firepit to burn.

We had a beautiful fall day with leaves falling all around us, and the family gathered to watch the cards and photos ascent into the heavens.  We brought a picnic lunch and drinks to enjoy while we watched everything burn.  It was a lovely, peaceful time to talk about our parents, say a prayer in honor of them, and recall wonderful family memories.  It took us two half days to complete the task.  My brother and I decided this informal ceremony was the best way to say goodbye to this part of our lives – true closure.  We only had to dispose of the ashes, and my brother had an idea that the ashes could be made into soap for the family.  Nice idea but we didn’t do it.  However, our family’s death cleaning had a happy ending with this goodbye ceremony. I know our parents were smiling down at us for taking this step for them.  

PS – Burning is an environmental concern so disposable of the photos will either go into the atmosphere or into landfills. There is no easy choice.

Comfy Box

by sssmahh303, posted in Wellness

Mary Ann

When I was a young girl, it was the custom to have a Hope Chest. It usually was a cedar chest often from the Lane Company to store your future linens and household items to set up housekeeping after you married.  Did any of you get a miniature cedar chest from a local furniture store for your graduation?  I did, and it too was from the Lane Company.  I have had it my whole adult life, and it is where I save my quarters.  It is a happy, little box. It makes me smile when I see it as it represents my youth.

As my generation has gotten older, I have taken the concept of a Hope Chest to create a Comfy Box.  There will a time when we will be going to need assistance in caring for ourselves. The caregivers may know nothing about us, our likes and dislikes, our wants, and needs. So, as we prepped for marriage with Hope Chests, we can now prep for our old age with a Comfy Box. 

 At this time of life, we can still shop for ourselves, and we know what we want to wear so this is the time to buy pretty night gowns, bed jackets, robes, and slippers.  I would think you need a night gown for every day of the week plus one or two extra ones for the just in cases.  We are probably going to be messy in our old age; however, we want to be clean. I have mine stored in a plastic tub but there are wonderful soft-sides storage containers for clothes now.  I like soft socks, and my cold feet like the warmth they provide.  It helps me sleep better as well.  I have slippers for the day and have found boiled wool ones that support my feet and keep them warm.  

I have prepared a small notebook with information to help make me comfortable.  I have included where to buy certain products and have included pictures from the internet just to clarify the item.  I included my favorite kind of tea – Harney and Son’s Paris blend, a fancy Earl Gray. I put a teacup/tea pot combo in the Comfy Box so I can enjoy a pretty cup of tea!  I have a particular hand and foot lotion that I like from Sabon. Candles would be nice but probably too dangerous for an old lady.  An atomizer with an auto turnoff would be safer, and I can put my favorite essential oils in the water such as Shinrin-Yoku or Serenty by DoTerra Essential Oils. It would help with sleep and cover any odors.  I plan on adding to the little notebook as I find items.

One thing that I want to make sure that I have either on my phone or iPad is my Calm App.  I bought a lifetime subscription, but I am putting all the info about the account in my notebook. I listen to the meditations each day and fall asleep to the Sleep Stories each night.  I need to figure out audio books. I love stories so I want that in my life.  It does scare me a bit that most technology may beyond me regarding the TV and streaming services.  I find it hard at times now to figure out what I need for the various services. Maybe I will be able to just tell the TV what to do.  One can only hope!  

We do not have control over aging, but we do have some control now how we might want to live later. The quality of our life can be somewhat up to us. A Comfy Box is a way to make this happen.  I can see myself now sitting in bed in a pretty night gown wrapped in a soft bedjacket sipping a cup tea in my soft socks with toasty toes. How about you? 

Mama Bear

by sssmahh303, posted in Taking Care of Business

 Mary Ann

Mama Bears are fierce mothers.  They would defend their babies with their lives.  As they rear their cubs, the mamas teach them how to take care of themselves.  Then one day, Mama Bears send their cubs up a tree and walk away.  Suddenly, the cubs are on their own and eventually climb down the tree and begin their lives.   

I think there are real lessons that the Mama Bears could teach all parents.  Of course, we aren’t sending our children up trees and are not going to walk away from them.  However, learning to be independent is a real gift for life.  Over my 40 years as an educator, I wrote several articles about letting children fail, and afterwards, learning to pick themselves up and begin again.  When children make mistakes, they need to know that they can recover from them.  Each small lesson builds on one another, so they learn how to handle bigger challenges later in life. 

Every time we swoop in to save our children, we are telling them that they cannot help themselves.  Life is hard, and children need to learn how to manage those tough times.  When you start small, it builds self-confidence for children.  As a parent, I picked my children up way too many times. Guilty, Guilty, Guilty!  I tried to make a perfect world for them.  Guilty, Guilty, Guilty!   As I look back, I should have made them figure out their own problems and save them less.I realize that once you become a parent, you are a parent forever.  However, you are not responsible to take care of your children when they become adults.  Statistically, 65% of parents are supporting their adult children and grandchildren in some way.  Many cannot afford this and pay for their own retirement.  As older adults, we don’t know how long we will live and will we have enough money to last for the whole retirement.  Life is indeed hard, and if you can underwrite your children’s lifestyle, more power to you.  Nevertheless, many retirees cannot fund their children’s lives.  It is a hard decision, but we need to be independent and take care of ourselves.  Most financial advisors will tell you to do this.  It is time to be Mam

I am REALLY a Silver Sage!

by sssmahh303, posted in Lifestyle

Mary Ann

I was teaching a class on Vision Boards.  When the class was busy cutting and pasting, a nice buzz permeated the classroom with people sharing their stories and comparing their wishes for the future. I milled around the room chatting with the students when I settled at a table with two forty some year-old women. They were busy mothers trying to balance home and work so this Vision Boards class was a good exercise for them to clarify their hopes and dreams.

As we chatted, one of them asked me what advice I would give to a younger woman.  At first, I froze. No one ever asked me for advice. Someone cared enough to ask my opinion. Time stood still.  I quickly went back through 70 years of living trying to find just the right words to say to her. This was my moment to make a statement that someone would use to guide his or her life. This had to be good.  The responsibility was so heavy on my shoulders.   

Then, words from my mother began to emerge from the fog that surrounded me.  My mother told me when I was a younger woman that you need to buy what you want, do what you want, and go where you want because a time will come when you cannot. I think at the time I didn’t take the words very seriously and didn’t see the wisdom in them.  As I have gotten older, it absolutely makes sense. None of us know what life is going to bring us or if we are going to have many years to do the things that we want. I think what my mother meant was enjoy life now.  There may not be a tomorrow.  Yet, how many times do we put things off for that tomorrow?     

So, I shared this with the mothers.  They chewed on it a bit.  Making the Vision Boards was a chance to put the things they wanted to buy, to do, or to go in a concrete format that they could revisit each time they passed their Vision Boards.  Their dreams would go out to the universe.  They had a path to making their dreams a reality.  

Now, I was puffed up like a peacock and emotionally drained at the same time.  This was such a lovely compliment for a younger woman to ask an older woman for her advice.  We all need to ask those older women, those silver sages, in our lives for some of their wisdom, because a day will come when they will not be there to ask.  The wise words my mother gave me have stuck with me.  I was glad to pass it on to other women.  They need to remember them and remember to work on their core. When the core is gone, it is so hard to get it back, and believe me, you will need it!   

Kiplinger’s Retirement Report

by sssmahh303, posted in Taking Care of Business

Mary Ann

Kiplinger’s Retirement Report

Occasionally, the universe rewards you with an unexpected gift, and that gift for me came via the Kiplinger’s Retirement Report.  This monthly newsletter is worth every penny of its subscription price. The newsletter is filled with valuable information about government actions regarding Social Security, Medicare, and other policies that affect your life. It has investment advice, information where to retire in the US or internationally, tax updates, consumer guidance, travel info, and on and on. 

My gift was finding a nugget of information in one of their Social Security articles.  Divorced people who were married for 10 years or more, older than 62, and have not remarried could claim Social Security against the former spouse’s benefits.  You must be divorced for at least two years, and the ex-spouse must be eligible to collect Social Security. You can collect half of the ex-spouse’s benefit, and if the ex-spouse is deceased, you can collect the full amount of the benefit.

I may have read this in the past, but it had not registered.  Social Security certainly is not going to contact you about this option.  As soon as I read the article, I made an appointment at the Social Security Office to see if it was indeed true.  It was, and I could collect the benefit.  Later, when I turned 70, my own Social Security kicked in. I was able to share this information with one of my colleagues at work who was in the exact situation as I was, and her former husband had passed so she got the entire benefit.  This gift from the universe allowed me to buy a house prior to retiring, and it allowed my colleague to retire earlier.  We both collected our Social Security at 70 getting the maximum benefit and preventing two little old ladies from becoming bag ladies.   

I think of all the women (and men) who did not know about this benefit and missed out on the extra money.  It may have made all the difference in the lives of those eligible people.  It does not affect the former spouse at all, and the former spouse would never even know this is occurring.  However, you still must pay taxes on the funds.  You must meet the criteria for the claim. Always check with Social Security. The Social Security website post all the details in the Divorced Spouse Benefit section.  In the end, it allows you to build you own future Social Security by delaying claiming it earlier.   So, all I can say is thank you Kiplinger, thank you universe! 

CALM

by sssmahh303, posted in Reviews

Mary Ann

Have you seen the Calm commercial where rain falls on leaves, and you are instructed to take a break for 30 seconds and breath?  It is a favorite because it does make me stop what I am doing and take a break.  That moment is what Calm is about.

I have been a member of Calm for several years now, and I can’t say enough good about the app.  I do the mediations and sleep stories.  I listen to the music and take the courses that are offered about anxiety, sleep, stress, being present, and many others about the human condition.  Some sessions are a few minutes, others are an hour long, and yet others can be a month of lessons teaching you how to mediate for example.  

I start my morning doing the three 10-minutes mediations led my Tamara Levitt with the Daily Calm, Jeff Warren with the Daily Trip, and Jay Shetty with the Daily Jay.  These three cheerleaders lead you thorough short mediations and give you a pep talk to help you face the day.  It is funny how just the right message seems to come when you need it.  There is also a session by Mel Mah called the Daily Move.  It is a short program of three exercises to do to help with back pain to anxiety to balance to flexibility.   Quite a variety is offered in a gentle way.

The day ends with me listening to a Sleep Story to fall asleep.  There are travel, train, kids, self-help, nature, fiction, and non-fiction stories, many with celebrities narrating the stories.  Some stories are 15 minutes where others can take up to an hour.  Most of the time I never finish the story because I am asleep. If I wake up in the night, I start the story later in the session.  There are also a whole catalog of sleep mediations with varying lengths and focus.  It is nice to end the day with a gratitude mediation.  

There is a seven-day free trial to introduce you to the programs. Then it is $69.99 a year if you decide to subscribe.   A life-time subscription is available for $399.99.  Occasionally, it is offered for less.  For me the life-time subscription was best since I use Calm all the time.  After a few years, you have paid for it had you done the annual subscriptions fees.  If you have a Prime account with Amazon, you can get three free months with that.  There are several ways to underwrite the subscription.  You just need to do a little investigating.  

Calm had made such a difference in my life.  When I have hit bumps in the road, I can find sessions on Calm that help me through those challenging times.  You can save them in your favorites.  I have so many favorites that I need to edit them since they are all so meaningful to me.    

Your pennies are important to you in your golden years. You need to be wise where you spend them.  For me, the money I have spent on Calm have been money well-spent and has brough me the gift of calm to my soul. 

Silver Foxes

by sssmahh303, posted in Lifestyle

Mary Ann

Covid was hard for everyone, yet there were also some silver linings for us.  And I mean literally a silver lining.  When we all had to stay home due to the pandemic, women were faced with the dilemma of coloring their own hair or going au naturelle.  I had decided I would go natural!  I colored and highlighted my hair for years, and I wasn’t sure what I would look like with a different color; however, there was no time like the present to check it out.

 So, I began letting my hair grow out.  An Adventure!  A Challenge!   A Mess!!  I could see I had a row of pretty silver at my roots.  I hated that silver streak peeking out each month prior to my hair appointment, but now, it could not grow out fast enough.  I also began cutting my own hair so figured I could cut off all the light brown with blond highlights in a few months, and viola, I would be a silver fox.   At first, I was a calico cat with three colors all over my head. Then I morphed into Cruella Da Ville with a line of white hair circling my head.  Finally, I ended up looking like Mrs. Claus with a lovely shade of platinum.  I found myself doing double takes in the mirror.  Who was that lady?   Well, Mrs. Claus, of course!  

Thankfully, I was housebound with the pandemic and could hide my head of messy hair for the needed time to become a silver fox.  I have come to love my new look and wondered why I didn’t do this earlier.  However, I would have had to leave the country for a few months to hide or fake a maternity leave which would have been a stretch.   So many of my friends have gone au naturelle and are loving it.  It is freeing to embrace who you really are.  And besides, you save a lot of money.  You just need a good hair cut to become the silver fox that you were always meant to be. I get many compliments about my hair color, and one child I have known for a long time told me I looked younger.  He still believes in Santa Claus, so I think he was hedging his bets that I might really be Mrs. Claus. At any rate, I am thankful for the unexpected silver lining of the pandemic and taking the leap of faith!  

Welcome

by sssmahh303, posted in Uncategorized

Mary Ann and Cynthia

As you begin reading our blogs, you probably wonder why we decided to write them.  When the Covid pandemic locked Americans in their homes, we were in contact with one another checking on each other’s well-being.  Cynthia had recently retired and within months began to care for her elderly mother.  Mary Ann had also recently retired, moved to a different state, and lost her father right in time for Covid.  Neither of our retirements were turning out as we had envisioned.  

Since we were house bound with the pandemic, we decided to contact one another through emails, texts, and ZOOM visits to share a daily creative endeavor. Those contacts grew and grew over the next four years, and we birthed the idea of turning those exchanges into blogs that we would share with others.  

We began writing blogs recording our thoughts and learning how to put them on WordPress. This was all good for the brain! We chose the name Silver Sage Sisters – Silver for being women of a certain age; Sage for wisdom, experience, and knowledge; and Sisters for the bond that women have with each other.  

We had some things to say and wanted to share them with other women.  Women of a certain age will understand our mutual experiences.  We hope that younger women can learn from our hard-earned life lesson and grow from them.  

Our blogs will be about family and friends, finance, some legal issues, retirement, reviews (books, TV, films, products, and services), and general lifestyle ideas that include holidays, travel, hobbies, decorating, and miscellaneous topics.  At times, guest contributors will provide additional content and alternative ideas.

We do not pretend to have all the answers. We are not providing professional advice or consult, rather these blogs are our opinions and our experiences. We don’t proclaim to be experts, just women who have lived long lives. We want to bring you glimmers — a term for joyful and peaceful moments coined by psychotherapist Deb Dana.  The world is full of so much negativity and many challenges. We are hoping, instead, to bring some positivity and good ideas into your lives.  We are simply passing on some of our hard-learned lessons.  Welcome to the Silver Sage Sisters blog!