Are You Manifesting?

 One of the prime recommendations in all that manifesting stuff is to write it down. See it, believe it and make it happen. 

I think keeping that belief alive in your heart is one of the hardest parts of manifesting. We all have good and bad days, ups and downs and everyday worries. It's part of our nature. It's stuff we're bombarded with every time we turn on the TV. If the last two years have taught us anything it's that we just have to muddle through the mess to come out on the other side. 

"We'll figure this out."  

One of my favorite sayings and I think I must have gotten it from my mother. Her life wasn't easy but she was always positive. She believed money always came when you needed it. That things work out one way or the other. Of course she had all those Mom related worries, but she was overall a positive person. 

So I've got this "Little Book of Dreams" now to record those manifestations every morning. I'm writing it down and making it happen. 

What's your favorite manifesting tool? Do you write it down? Chant it? Pray? Or just send your wishes into the universe?  Let's share it & hopefully inspire others. 

The Social Security Pathway

 Making the decision to turn on your social security is a big thing.  It's all about crunching numbers and figuring out where you are now and what you'll need in the future. 

The future? How can I know what to expect 5 or 10 or 20 years from now? Do I look like a psychic? 

So, if my full retirement age is 65 + 6 months I get a certain amount. You can go to the Social Security website and enter your info and they'll let you know what you could get now and that higher amount you could get if you wait.  

One of the issues I kind of struggle with is that yes, you'll get more money later each month if you wait.  If you take it now your check is less but the total amount will be a bigger total amount? 

I've been trying to crunch the numbers and I'm not really a math wiz. 

If your starting number now is like 1000 a month. Age 64.

Waiting until age 65 and your number is 1200 a month. 

12 months of $1000 = $12,000? 

So at what point when collecting the full amount of $1200 how many months would it take to make up the $12,000? 

Since the difference is $200. Would it be 60 months? Is that 5 years to break even? 

I guess it comes down to if that $200 will really be a deal breaker in the future? Now we come back to - are we psychic?  Where will we be in 5 years? In one year? 

Have you made this decision? Which way did you decide to go? 

Gray Hair there???

 Okay, most people in their 60's have gray hair. For most, it starts a lot earlier. Hey! It's normal and beautiful. 

I remember my mom's snow white hair, so soft and beautiful.  It's the kind of gray I'd like someday. 

Right now, believe it or not, I don't have a lot of gray. I'm a natural blond so even those glinting grays that do appear, look like highlights. Why not so much gray? I have no idea. It's not a family thing, I don't think, but I do take a lot of vitamins. I have Pernicious Anemia, a B12 deficiency, so I take B12 in shots. Is this why I'm not so gray? 

I had a friend who needed a kidney transplant. After the transplant his gray hair slowly disappeared. Was his body suddenly processing nutrients better? 

Anyway, gray hair can pop up anywhere on our bodies. Down below? Who cares! But the eyebrows? Really? And not the whole eyebrow, just a few random bright white hairs. 

At first I'd pluck those one or two gray eyebrows and be happy. Lately more and more seem to be appearing so now.... what to do?  Plucking a random hair.... so what, no one notices.  Plucking four or 5 from the same brow? 

EEEEEeeeeeeeeekkkk! 

What to do, what to do.... I'm not really a make up kind of person so whatever there is to use on eyebrows is not in my frame of reference. Eyebrow pencils? Will they really color those bright white hairs blond again? Or will I look like a clown with sketched on brows?

Time to call in reinforcements. Time for a YouTube video! 

So how's your brows? How to do control them? Go freestyle? Tame them? Paint them? 

Writing Prompt for Dec 12, 2020

Writing Prompt;  Books & Feelings

Stay at Home!

State lock down! We're ordered by the state to Stay at Home and that's okay. This is slowing that curve in many parts of the country so, as hard as it can be, it's working.

My small business is suffering and we're hoping to survive. I love my studio and miss the people who came in every week. We had regulars whom we loved. We shared their birthdays, their joys, and listened to their problems. It was like an extended family.

Now I worry about them. I hope they all stay healthy and we see them on the other side of all this craziness.

With time on our hands, all the time in the world to do whatever we want ... at home. What do we do? I've watched way too much TV. Attempted to work on a new book. Done some closet reorganizing, cleaning, laundry and I'm bored.

Cabin fever is real. I find myself staring out the front window. I miss chatting with the neighbors. I wander the rooms thinking, what can I do in here?
I'm snacking way to much.

So what do we do about cabin fever?
I'm thinking of writing down a schedule.
Like from 10 am to noon create art.
From noon to 1 lunch hour,
from 1 pm to 2 write,
from 2-4 household stuff...
and on and on.

So what's your Cabin Fever cures? All ideas welcome!

Quarentined in your 60's

We're not in lock down yet in our town but it's coming. Mayors are talking about it on TV and, of course, rumors are flying.  But that's okay. I'm 63 now and it's probably time to go into hiding.

Biggest issue? I'm a small business owner and this shut down might put me out of business permanently.  Yes, I've cried. For my business that I love, for the customers who were regulars and I consider friends and for the uncertainty of our future. Like many other small business people, we have almost everything invested in our business.

So after the tears I said to myself, "You're an entrepenure, damn it, Act like it!"
We're using these last few days before we're sure to get locked down selling take home kits. We have so much bleach and hand sanitizer on our hands they have a permanent odor. Is bleach the new perfume of the 20's? Could be.

So, I have plans for the lockdown.

• Clean out those closets I've been meaning to get to
• Plant a garden
• Write another book 
• Write more blogs
• Walk the dog
• Spend time with the husband (ok, that's not really a choice)
• Movie marathon time
• Paint a room
• Rearrange the furniture (maybe more than once)
• Brainstorm how to save my business

If you're locked down, how are you spending your time? Any creative ideas? 

Hiding the Introvert

Yes, I think I'm an introvert. I'd rather be at home on the couch with my dog or in my studio with my dog making art. Or writing.

However, there's this thing in life called money that seems to be a necessity unless you want to live in a shack in the woods. But then you'd still have to eat and have medical care and buy stuff to wash with and clothes to wear so we do need that thing called money.

Which means we have to be out in the world doing stuff and taking care of those basics. Even the introvert needs to get out and take care of life. If there are people counting on you then it's pull up those big girl pants and just get it done.

Some days it's easier. Some days it's not. But it's always exhausting.

For an Introvert to be "on" all the time takes a lot of energy. When it's over and they get to go home it's all they can do to hold their head up and not just collapse. Mentally and physically spend. The well is dry. It's time to recharge.

How does an introvert recharge? They go to their safe place, their happy place. Could be turning on the TV and zoning out on a favorite show or pulling out that favorite hobby and putting all their attention into it. Maybe they take a hot bath or just a nap. Each has their own way of coming down to normal again and, if you live with that introvert long enough, you'll see it.

How do you handle that introvert hiding in their safe place? How do you draw them out? Easy answer. You don't. Leave them be and let them recharge, clear their head and come back when they're ready.

                                          Sign me,
                                                    Introvert on the inside

New Life, New Business, New Adventures

I know life is nothing without goals but I think as we grow older we stop setting those goals. Where once we had a goal to get a new job, hit the gym regularly, go back to school (my dream) or publish a book (3 to date & a novella -find them on Amazon) or maybe even leave everything you know behind and start a new life.

That's what we did at age 60.

Crazy?

Very. But determined. Our new business seems to be slowly moving along and dare I say - picking up a bit. We need to rethink our marketing. Which I think is something you constantly have to keep re-doing. Marketing is something that constantly changes. It's fun and exhausting.

Still I couldn't imagine being retired and sitting around doing nothing all day. I think that would make me even more crazy than the starting-a-new-business thing. I don't golf and can't imagine just hanging out all day.  Maybe 60 really is the new 40? Like maybe 10 or 15 years from now I'd be more open to just retiring, but now? I'm having fun building something that is ours.

I think sometimes the way to approach a new goal is just one step ahead of the other. Keep moving and don't waste time with worry. That's not productive. Instead I look to the fun part of the job. The art, the people and the day to day activities.

Set that goal, have some fun, and know that as long as you're moving forward you're going in the right direction.

When Death Creeps Close

When someone near to you dies you do go through grief and shock but as you move up in years you think about other things. You grasp for a reason why someone your own age just passed away. 

Mortality smacks you in the face. 

This year I lost both a good friend and relative. The friend smoked for years and it was those nasty cigarettes that finally did her in. She was 65. Bright, vibrant and taken too soon. The relative had health problems she didn't share. (Younger by a few years) That was more of a shock due to the fact we thought everything was alright. 

It wasn't. But her passing was still a shock even to those who knew she had health problems.

When you're 20 or 30 and someone your age passes away it's always a shock but not something that makes you question your own health and lifestyle. 

Then you hit 60 and your perspective is skewed in the "could that have been me?" zone. You start to question that twinge in your chest, the cramp in your calf, and that forgetfulness.  

I think we have to double check everything. Make sure your meds (yes there are two to date) are good and go back to exercising regularly. Throughout the years exercise has come and gone and come back again. In my 20's I was hard core, then came kids and it got sporadic, then through the years it came and went. One thing stays constant? It does make you feel better. Jars are easier to open, boxes lift with less strain, your back thanks you, and squatting down doesn't mean you're stuck down there until someone gives you a lift. 

So to those who have passed I send my prayers, to those who are suffering I send hope that their health takes a turn for the better. 

For me? I need to clean out the spare room and get some weights. A few weeks ago I got a dog so the cardio is on the uptick. Dogs need walks and living where winter never drops below 60 degrees makes walking easy and enjoyable. 

Tomorrow I attack the pile of boxes in the spare room to make space for exercise. Yeah! 

Aging & Changes over 60

Some days I forget how old I am.
Other days it's the little things that hit back to remind me. Some small like that bright white hair in my normally brown eyebrows. Other's are bigger like the creeping arthritis I know is hitting the joints in my hands.

When I first started seeing the little white hairs replacing brown ones in my eye brows I just plucked them out. Bye, bye, all gone!  However I reached the point where it's either live with those pesky little white hairs or have a big bald line where my eye brows used to be. (Insert sigh of resignation here)

I've seen the older people with the enlarged knuckles. Their joints are stiffer, swollen. I'm not there yet but that little pinky on my right hand seems to have stiffened up a bit. Maybe the joint is a bit larger? Ugh!

So, I take my vitamins, walk the dog and think I need to put some weight lifting on my itinerary. They say lifting weights keeps the bones strong and makes you safer from injury.

I tore my rotator cuff years ago and met this little old doctor who treated my after care. He said to make sure to take calcium. He had fallen on an icy step and went down hard. He said the only reason he didn't break anything, as old an as frail as he was- he should have, was because he took calcium every day.

I take B12, too. B12 rules the nervous system and that affects everything in the body. Add D to that because blood work says I'm deficient and I'm rounding out my vitamins with something called Hair, Skin & Nails.

Getting old doesn't mean we no longer pursue health as vapidly as we did in our 20's. I think sometimes we forget to keep all these healthy habits in the front of our aging toolbox. 

Sixty the New Forty?

Could sixty be the new forty? Are people more in-sync with a healthier lifestyle that they eat better, stay active, and get medical care? Could be.

Turn on any morning talk show and half the time you find some doctor talking about the best way to do things. Eat your veggies, walk, drink water. All of this wasn't on our parent's radar when they hit sixty. The information highway has brought this info to us in a constant stream. TV, radio, and of course the computers. (Which are now inside our phones.)

So, yes. Sixty could be the new forty.

Sure I feel a little stiffer in my joints. I've got arthritis in my neck and shoulder from a car accident, and that extra weight doesn't seem as easy to lose as it used to be. But I can still walk a mile, lift weights and work. I think back to my mom at this age and she was already disabled and collecting disability. She had hip and artery problems which I think now were misdiagnosed.  Something we'll never know for sure. She hadn't been working for a few years by this age.

I see friends my own age that are in pretty good shape, too. Some have bigger health challenges but the information that's out there is helping them. They have more places to turn to than just their doctor. They were exposed to a time when new discoveries in medicine surprised us all. Vitamins, vaccines, food values, healthier sweeteners, the list goes on.

So someone tell me, how do we make Seventy be the new forty?

Surviving the Empty Nest

I'll be 62 in a few weeks. Truthfully, I don't feel any different than I did at 40 only, in a way, I have less responsibility.  Oh yeah, I'm still working, building my own business that I started at age 60, but the kids, my life's work up until they went off on their own are now building their own lives.
Empty nesting was hard on me. I had a sense of being lost, wanting to go back but of course there's no going back. Kids grow up and move out. It's pretty much a fact of life. I found myself falling back into the memories of things we did together, places we went, mountains I watched them climb, success and growth. I was drowning in memories.
They are off on their own, successful in their own right. Building their own lives, forging a path. I'm so proud of who they have become.

Now what?
Well, the hubby and I sold the house, moved 900 miles to be closer to the kids and started our own business.
Yikes!
We did that?
It's scary and fun and hard work. But so far it's work I'm loving. So I still have responsibility but it's different. No little lives depend on me, I don't have to wake anyone up in the morning but me. Make dinner or don't. It's just the hubby and I so we take turns or we go out.
I think after going through the empty nest portion of life I've emerged on the other side. My brother once told me empty next is like being 21 again but this time you have money. He's kind of right. Except I took all my money and put it in a business. :)

Truthfully, I think retirement at this point would bore me. The brain has to stay active to continue to grow. Chasing a golf ball around the green just isn't for me. Neither is sitting on the couch. If I had retired like that I'd probably be pacing the room look for the escape hatch.
Bottom line? To survive the empty next set goals. Don't just curl up and think about retirement.
THINK!

Is there something you always wanted to try? Something you always wanted to be? Set a goal. Make it big or small or make many and knock them out one at a time. Either way, don't forget that life is about moving forward.
So move toward a goal no matter how big or small.
It's out there. Go for it. Go for 60! It's gonna be a beautiful decade!

Life After 60?

Yes, life after sixty. Just think of the quote; You're never too old to set a new goal or dream a new dream.

I had a dream at age 5. When people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up I'd always reply; An artist. I knew it then, in my heart, that I was an artist.

Giraffe rock painted for a friend

My mother disagreed.

Let's remember my mother grew up during the depression. She saw the worse of it and although her father always had a job times were lean and the man she married wasn't so lucky. My father came from a family of 12 children. Only 6 survived to adulthood. He quit school in the 6th grade to work to help support the family yet he was one of the smartest people I've ever known. I think it bothered him that he lacked even a grammar school education, but I know that had he been given opportunities, he would have gone far. He was kind and fair. His family was tough as nails, they had to be to survive with 12 kids and little money during those times.

Anyway, my mother said, "Artist don't make any money, pick something else."
Always the good little girl I believed my mother and wandered most of my life looking for that something else. I've worked retail, as a dental assistant, bartender, office manager, more retail, waitress, election clerk, sales manager, marketing director, human resource director, etc. I just floated from job to job as the opportunity arose and never really felt fully satisfied. Some were more interesting than others, some challenging (I loved the challenging jobs) and some were frustratingly boring. None touched my passion. Marketing came close, but the place where I worked was micro managed so it had limitations.

I wrote some books. Got a few more almost done. Yes, writing is in my heart, too, but I guess it's just another kind of art. A few books up on Amazon and really should get the others up soon. Working on that!
I wrote for the confession mags before they went under. Loved those stories.

Now at age 61? My kids moved 900 miles away. Let's face it, New Jersey is a hard state to start out in. They got out and I'm glad they did. Both bought their own homes and built a life. I missed them terribly. It was decision time.

My husband and I started investigating our options. If we moved down to be closer to them what could we do? How about our own business?

So here we are in Florida. No, not to retire. We are starting our own business and yes, it involves art. (More on this later.)  Right now we're in a kind of limbo doing the prep work for our new biz while living with my youngest daughter. I miss having my own home. Hey! This is the first time in over 30 years I didn't have my own house to take care of. But things here are going good. We're crazy busy getting this off the ground and since we're starting from the bottom up it's going to take months to get from leases & lawyers through the build-out process to the Grand Opening.

For a while I felt a little panicked. What have we done? Sold our home, left everything we ever knew and now we're ... homeless?  Then I go back and think;

You're never to old to set a new goal or dream a new dream. 

Family Tree painted for a friend. 

If I'm 60, why don't I feel old?

I remember my mom at 60. She was overweight, grey and only went out to go to senior meetings. I'm not sure what they did at these meetings but I think it was maybe card games and snacks. Now, I'm 60 and although I need to lose about 30 lbs, I'm not very grey and do more. Is 60 really the new 40? Am I really in better health than she was at this point?

Mom always had a bad hip problem, but as young as I was, I don't know exactly what caused it. When I started having hip problems I did more stretches and exercises and when it does act up, I can usually "fix" it. Sometimes I wish I could go back and help her with her health problems with the science that exists now. It would have saved her a lot of pain and maybe given her a longer life. She passed at 65 from complications of a heart attack. She had type 2 diabetes which made her recovery more difficult. I think during my mother's time it was believed you didn't move forward after a certain age. You hit your sixties and it was all down hill from there. That believe was instilled by society and opinions of others. It was just the way it was. You'll go grey, get arthritis, just sit down and wait for it.

So, I'm 60 and determined to be in better health from here on in. I've joined Weight Watchers (for the 3rd or 5th time?) and decided it's way past time I took control.
Science tells us that weight training and cardio can keep you in much better health in your sixties and even seventies. Here are a few examples;

Eighty year old body builders;
Ernestine Shepherd

Dr. Jeffrey Life

Check out this guy's website. It's informative and inspiring!




So maybe age is just a number, 60 is the new 40, and we've got more mountains to climb and there are victories to be had. Let's go get 'em!

Packing Up Memories

Boxes, Boxes, Boxes! My life is going into plastic tubs and cardboard boxes with a prayer that it all makes it to Florida without getting crushed.

We're in the countdown. Four and a half weeks to go. Today, another lovely snowy day in New Jersey, I'm tackling my office. This used to be my youngest daughter's bedroom, but after she moved out to start her own life, it became my office. Desk, printer, file cabinets, and built in cabinets. Since we started de-cluttering when we listed the house, there's not a lot here to pack. Books, a few odd manuscripts from books published on Amazon, lots of notebooks filled with scribblings from the soul and story ideas, and a couple of decorative items. I could probably get this room done by noon.

Harder still to pack is the memories. Chunks of time nestled in my heart. Waking kids up for school, picking colors for their rooms, setting the furniture just so. Memories to hold and rooms to let go of so we can build new memories with the kids in Florida.

Tomorrow or the day after it will be another room. Another four walls of memories. Years ago my oldest daughter wanted to sleep in a hammock. My husband strung the thing across the room and there she slept, nestled in a neat macrame hammock with pillows and blankets and her dog. It was quite a sight but she loved it and it made that room uniquely hers. And mine in my memories and my heart.

We one time painted my youngest daughter's room pink with a bright pink rug that she picked out. When we put it all together the room practically glowed. My husband and I exchanged glances that effectively said, "What did we do?" But my daughter loved it so we kept it. It was her room and her joy to have so it was right.

Memories. Wonderful, warm memories of hammocks and pink rooms and a happy family. Now, at 60 I look back on all the years with a contented yet wistful feeling. I miss having the kids home. I miss family dinners and running to band practice and lazy days by the pool watching the kids play.

Packing is bringing back a lot of memories.

Suddenly Sixty

Funny, I don't feel sixty.
Except at work where I'm surrounded by coworkers the same ages as my kids. Yeeek!  The weird thing is, sometimes they talk to me as a coworker, sometimes as a mom. Yes, they want their cuts looked at and advice for how to handle that snarky so called friend, then they talk business with me. It's a very strange land I live in now.
Suddenly Sixty.

My kids moved 900 miles away and it broke my heart. I'm happy that they moved to a less expensive state and are doing great in their jobs, but they're 900 miles away. :(
Last week my dog went to Heaven. Another heartbreak. I cry every day now. I look to her spot on the couch and where she naps under the table as if I expect to see her. It was sudden. Wednesday fine, Thursday sick and rushed to the dog hospital, Friday gone. I can't stop crying.
I washed her beds and blankets intending to donate them to a rescue. They're still in my car. I can't let them go yet.


On top of all this, work sucks. Changes are being made and it's not what I signed up for. I told them I didn't want to travel. I never had a job where I had to travel and I don't like driving. Done.

List the house, move to Florida. Wish me luck.
Listing a house is like an opening night 24/7. Always be ready for the house to be "on" and ready to show. Its exhausting. Couple that with the fact we had to de-personalize the house, it doesn't even feel like our home anymore. None of my art is around the house, I don't have a workshop anymore (now it's a bedroom.) Boring beige bland house.

And I'm itching to paint something. Anything. Before I used to paint all the time. Now all my stuff is put away. Hidden in a box in storage. Blah.

I can't wait to move! Get me into my own home again with an art studio and family photos on the wall.


Sell this house and bring me to my new home in Florida! I will it to happen soon!  Please send positive vibes this way! Sell the house! Sell the house! Sell the house!

Young Bosses

As we move through life, sooner or later there comes a time when we out age our bosses. Mine is almost 20 years younger. Although there is a broad range of ages in my work place, half the people I work with could be my kids and sometimes its hard not to protect them as if they were my own. I see bright and energetic young women who are working hard to succeed.

Then I see some managers who treat these young women like teenagers and I want to scream. They want to mother them and, hey! Nobody wants their mommy at work. How do I say this without coming across like a mother myself?

I want to see everyone succeed. That's my curse. I believe that when people take a job, they want to do their best. They need to be given tools and encouragement. That the way you speak to someone will go a long way in helping them succeed. What you give out, you get back. This goes for every word and action from the manager.

Tell them they're appreciated and you get someone who wants to work.
Tell them they're not going to make it and you get someone who gives up and fails.

Tell them you know they can take on this project and succeed, and they'll find success.
Tell them you doubt their talent, and you'll find someone who doesn't want to try.

Problem? When you see a manager who doesn't know how to set a team up for success and you'll watch a department fall apart. What do you do then?

Sometimes I wonder if my age shapes my view on all this and think maybe I should keep my opinions to myself. What do you think? Leave it to the young? Or speak up?