Discussing the stages of aging may seem like a trite, overworked exercise. However, it is a profound and persistent challenge to all of us as we reach 60 and beyond. It starts long before 60, but the magic of 60 is likely prompted by our having already been a member of AARP for a few years, considering retirement, looking at the issues surrounding medicare, experiencing a few health matters that remind us of aging, and knowing that the slope of the hill has changed from climbing to coming down off the mountain.

So we begin evaluating our own aging and what is in store for us. Birthdays, we admit, take on a different sheen. They are more grey and less red and blue and other exciting colors that remind us of happy childhood. Continuing to find ways to celebrate by marking the decades (who hasn’t had an over the hill party?) attempt to inject frivolity, an avoidance of reality, and an escape, at least for a

Looking for a Good Small Camera? On my tours as a guide I find that there are many seniors with heavy Nikons, Canons, Olympus and Sonys hung around their necks with a lens that is at least four inches long.  I find from my own recent experience in London and Rome that the pocket size [...]

Senior Citizen Journal has received several requests to ‘explain Medicare’.  We’ve taken a look at the resources on the Internet, and will take a stab at an explanation here today.  Although a number of countries have Medicare programs, this discussion will be limited to the program in the United States.// Explain Medicare Medicare is a [...]

Practical Suggestions to Avoid the Flu Every year in the last three months, seniors are reminded to get our flu shots and to do what we can to avoid contracting the viruses that cause influenza.  Because of age and increasing physical vulnerability, senior citizens are more at risk for problems developing if we get the [...]

Sorting through the stacks of stuff, the over-bulging files, the scribbled notes, the dogeared pages on my messy desk, these two illustrations caught my eye and my fancy. We hope they speak to you today, Just for Sunday, October 30, 2011.

Celebrate the Temporary: Clyde Reid

“Celebrate the temporary. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Live today. Celebrate the simple things. Enjoy the butterfly. Embrace the snow. Run with the ocean. Delight in the trees, or a single lonely flower. Go barefoot in the grass. Don’t wait until all the problems are solved or all the bills are paid. You will wait forever. Eternity will come and go and you will still be waiting. Live in the now with all its problems and its agonies. With its joys and its pain. Celebrate your pain, your despair, your anger. It means you’re alive. Look

Festive Colors and Flavors There are all kinds of great ways to prepare cranberries for holiday dishes.  Jellied cranberries in a fancy-dancy mold has always been a favorite in our house.  But this week I came across a new one that I plan to try for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.// I especially like the blend [...]

Retirees can choose from among seven days which is our favorite. We seniors have the latitude, for the most part, to choose any among the week that seems to give us the most pleasure and satisfaction. Once, when visiting a friend who had retired, he launched into how busy his days were since he and his spouse had retired. They moved from their midwestern home to Branson, Missouri, which had not yet been “discovered.” He noted that an established routine had taken over his time and pointed out that his days went like so:

Sundays: Get ready for and attend church; go out with friends for lunch; watch TV in the afternoon or nap or both.

Mondays: Prepare for the week. Put away Sunday clothes; pick up the house from Sunday, discard newspapers and take out the trash.

Seniors Discover the Kent Coast Less than two hours from London by train, the Kent Coast offers long stretches of clean, sandy beaches (many of them with the desirable blue flag status), secluded coves, and bustling seaside towns. Kent is known as the garden of England but also boasts many miles of coastline with famous [...]

Income Increases Dramatically for Top 1 Percent The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report recently showing how and why income rose so dramatically for the top 1 percent over the past 28 years.  The CBO is a nonpartisan office that provides research for Congress, based on requests.  This report was requested by Senators Charles [...]

Something can be said for a messy desk. It likely can be the sign of procrastination, which is a cousin to laziness, or promise, which is a nephew or niece of potential. If procrastination, it may be that under all that clutter and mishmash which makes up the surface of a desk, there lurks some good stuff in which is locked some really profound inspiration. That also may just be rationalization at work, putting off again the occasion to do something about the mess.

Or, it may be promise. It may be like kindling for a fire, that without it, there could be no blaze, no warmth, no light. There must be some reason we keep all the stuff we do. There must be some explanation why we think all those scribbled notes, kept quotes, unexplained and indecipherable notes were worth keeping. Until one day, either through the provocation of another, e.g. spouse, friend or neighbor, the question is asked “What is all that stuff?” Then you have received the nudge, or is it challenge, to do something