Having just come from the doctor’s office, where I went for a routine yearly checkup, I was shocked to be told that my blood pressure is high, 150/120. For the last 60 years, my blood pressure has been perfect - 120/80. No matter what I ate or how I lived, it never fluctuated. But today, it decided to shoot through the roof. My doctor was very concerned and told me to purchase a digital blood pressure meter and monitor my blood pressure 3 times a day over the course of the next week and report back. Having never been overly concerned about blood pressure, I was clueless as to how blood pressure affected my healthy. So, as soon as I got home, I decided to do some investigation on the Internet. Read more »
Cleaning out my old emails this morning, I came across one from a good friend of mine and I would like to share it with you. It’s in response to a question I positted a while back about getting older and it exemplifies the adage of aging gracefully. She writes…..
I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life or my loving family for fewer aches or a flatter belly. As I’ve aged, I’ve become kinder and less critical of myself. I’ve become my own best friend. I don’t chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed every morning, or for buying that silly cement turtle that I didn’t need, but that looks so avant garde in my fern bed. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant. I have seen too many dear friends and loved ones leave this world too soon, before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging. Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 a.m. and sleep until noon? Who even cares? Read more »
The big three automakers went to the hill this past week to ask Congress for a bridge loan of twenty-five billion dollars. Believing that they could not be denied, these CEOs were ill-prepared to face the inquistion of lawmakers and too arrogant to be shamed by Congressional remarks and comments to show humility. LA Times reported that the CEOs of Chrysler, GM and Ford ran into a wall of skepticism from a broad cross-section of lawmakers concerned about the environment, unions and Japanese auto plants in their home states; all topics that the Big Three seemed to dismissively sidestep with a fancy dance. As I watched this story unfold over the last few days on television, I couldn’t help but wonder, what were they thinking? These are very highly-paid, highly compensated CEOs of the three major American automakers. These are men who are responsible for making dynamic decisions that affect not just their employees, but support businesses, educators, home builders, politics, environment and the list goes on. The tentacles of the auto industry are many and deep and they are embedded in just about everything that is American. Yet, these Autogods were totally clueless. In fact, I see a whole new genre of dumb jokes that has nothing to do with blondes, on the horizon. Why did they fly in on their private jets and face Congress without a new and improved game plan? Read more »
The elections are finally over and the United States, with much help from our generation, has elected a new president. With this new president comes the pro-offered promises of change and hope and a new vision of America; but what impact will this new administration have on retired and near-retiring baby boomers? Just like everyone else caught up in the economic woes, baby boomers are facing their own set of problems. Not only have we taken a big hit on our investments, but some of us now find ourselves helping out with family members who have lost jobs or gone into mortgage default. En masse, those of us still working are rethinking early retirement and looking at the prospect of working two to five more years just to recoup our investment losses. Many of those baby boomers who have retired are now looking for part-time jobs in order to make ends meet. So, President-elect Obama, what do you have in store for us? One campaign promise that you made was that seniors making under $50,000 would no longer pay income tax. However, many Democrats think that this is not only a bad idea, but low on the list of things that need to be done. Read more »
To add a little more fuel to the already flaming meltdown, I am now hearing rumors around the Internet about a covert monetary coalition between the U.SA., Canada and Mexico that will virtually render all of our hard earned but depleted savings and investments to pennies on the dollar and that these three nations would be trading in a new currency called the Amero. Here is a little info about it from Wikipedia. It was Polish economist, Mateusz Machaj who pointed out that the Amero theory is a Canadian pipe dream that is going nowhere, and that the images you see all over the web are actually the designs of a private artist named Daniel Carr. I think back to when European nations banded together to create a common currency. According to my memory, the reasoning behind the Euro was that these countries were small and people could conceivably travel between them in a short matter of time making money conversion a headache, especially for tourists. It took years of working out the details and votes by the people of those countries to make it happen. During this time, there was much talk on the news and in fact, before it was common knowledge to the masses, one of the soaps (I think it was General Hospital or Guiding Light) picked it up. Read more »