I grew up in the early 50’s and my parents like many of their friends believed in making it a practice to attend church as a family. For them, church was a core item in our home and not an addendum that would be discarded by other distractions. Quite the opposite… Other distractions were discarded or never considered on the basis of what they were learning and becoming as a result of their devotion to personal growth in their faith walk with God. Continue reading
Category Archives: Learn
Readers Theatre
“Readers Theatre” is an idea that I want to introduce as a new kind of community enjoyment to the friends and neighbors here at Glendale Place.
Readers Theatre connects oral reading, literature, and drama in a group setting. Using only voices and facial expressions, each reader interprets the emotions, beliefs, attitudes, and motives of the characters in a story. A narrator conveys the story’s setting and action and provides the commentary necessary for transition between scenes. Continue reading
Grow Some Money
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I am hearing from some of my peers that they are definitely not living the comfortable retirement lifestyle they always imagined because the needed money is just not there. Complicating matters, things keep getting more expensive, while incomes remains fixed. Something’s got to give.
The solutions are that same as they have always been. Cut spending and increase income at the same time. Continue reading
Eagle Project
This week I met with a young man who is working to become and Eagle Scout. This soon to be 10th grader is interested in pursuing an Eagle Project, which I have learned is no small undertaking.
A quality Eagle project takes time. The Scout must do all pre-planning, design, any fundraising, and go through a multi-step review process with the end user of his work, property owners, his scout troop and the scouting district. Most Scouts plan 6-9 months for an Eagle Project, taking it from a concept to a fully fledged plan, getting it reviewed (which often involves changes), reviewed again until it is fully ready, and then to implementation. Continue reading
Cut To The Core
You’ve heard the saying… “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. True or not, it is my practice to eat an apple every day. Recently, I noticed that the top was showing some spoiling, so I thought, “I’ll just cut that part off and eat the rest. When I cut off the part that was visibly offensive, I found that the whole thing was rotten to the core with only the surface areas appearing to be yet unspoiled. It was clear, that given a few more days, even in the refrigerator, the whole apple would have been spoiled. Continue reading
My Story
No matter how old I feel, I know that I am in the final quarter of the game. There is a lot of living left, but I think often about what I want to leave behind for the people I love. The essence of connection to other people is “being known” and I want those I love to know who I am and what I am about.
Obviously, I will leave behind all my stuff and whatever money I have accumulated, but what I really want to leave is the ideas and beliefs that have driven everything along the way. Continue reading
Alone, Not Lonely
Alone-ness is typically equated with loneliness, but that is just not the case with me. I like being alone! It is during the time I spend with myself and my own thoughts and feeling where I find the best refreshment and regain perspective on every topic. I live alone and I am almost never lonely. I am also rarely bored or at a loss as to how to use my time. In fact, I am convinced that my life will run out before I have the opportunity to pursue all my interests.
Maybe you are like me and actually need hours alone every day. Continue reading
Food Is My Medicine
My peers are a group of aging people. I hear plenty of talk about the cost of medications that seem to be prescribed like a “mixed cocktail” that sometimes necessitates elaborate plans on the part the patient to make sure it all goes down at the right time, in the right dose. In fact, this is so common that one might assume that it just has to be that way. I disagree. Continue reading
Pay it Forward
As we get older, there is a natural drift toward isolation. Senior men and women begin to feel marginalized as their world shrinks and the choices are not as wide open as they were in the past. So how can we find meaning and purpose for our lives during the final season? How can we invest ourselves during the final season?
We live our lives forward, but we understand them by looking backward. Continue reading
Learn it & you own it!
When I was 10 years old we got our first TV set, not because my parents needed more entertainment, but because a family friend gave it to my dad. The only reason he wanted to get near a TV set was to find out “how” it worked. He had already disassembled a few of them to discover what made it work. He was also a ham radio operator conversing with people all over the world and we had a big towering antenna attached to our house to bring in the signals. Continue reading