A New Life! Retirement at its Best 2020-60

Life savers

Two life savers brightened my days last week! One is a set of two fast wireless charging stands for my cell phone; one for the desk in my office, one for the kitchen counter. Now my phone is always charged, and I can always find it, that is, if I remember to put it on the stand and not somewhere on the table or in a coat pocket. The other one is a set of Lock Laces. Hallelujah! What a wonderful discovery that was. For years, because I have been walking so much, I had the best hiking shoes I could find. They had round laces, and I had to tie them and then tie them again, otherwise they would come undone in no time at all. What a pain in the neck, or rather, more and more, what a problem for my aging hands! It was not good for my nails and it took extra long before the dog and I were finally out the door. Last week, I remembered seeing kids with funny shoe laces and I went to Amazon to see what was available. Bingo! Lock Laces! I received them in two days and now I don’t have to tie my running shoes again but I can slide right into them. An afterthought: in December, when I decided to take it easy, I walked on my regular Sketchers; and after a little while I got the problem with my Acetabulum. I am happy to say that I healed the rear ligament, but now the front ligament is hurting (there are three). So I will continue with my treatments, and I must say that rest and walking less were definitely important factors in the healing process. I even got daily notifications on my cellphone that I had reached my goal in reading! I did not even know I had a goal for reading! But reading I did!

More healing

Mike’s shingles are healing as well – thankfully, and probably because of the fact that we got shingles shots years ago. He is off the medication and Tylenol and we both sleep tight every night; for me it was an exhausting week.

Leadership change 

The Regional Director sent us all a notice of the departure of the current Executive Director, who had been here for only 14 months. We have gone through three EDs since we moved here. There was one good one, and he got promoted to Regional Director at Headquarters in Michigan. However, to his credit, the ED we had (who we think was fired, because it was such an abrupt leave) led us safely through a year of Covid threats, with only a few positive cases and only one or two deaths. We are still being tested bi-weekly, but there have not been any positive cases lately, so this week the dining room will be open for breakfast, and next week also for dinner: with a maximum of three people to a round table for seven. The salon will open again, still with only two people present at a time, but we will have to remain vigilant. And, since we feel a little bit safer, Mike went to the barber and the audiologist and I to the masseuse for my hip. The world is slowly opening up again. When I picked up breakfast Tuesday morning, the dining room was full and buzzing; the chef was preparing what looked like Eggs Benedict, and it was wonderful to see so many people again.

Valentine’s Day

For Valentine’s Day, I dropped off six boxes of girl scout cookies “from your secret Valentine”, and only one lady guessed it was me. And then we could order “love drops” consisting of a long stemmed red rose, a box of chocolates and a hand written note, to benefit the American Heart Association. They would be delivered for us, and all “from your secret Valentine”. What fun! I selected 37 men, women and couples as recipients, and nobody had any inkling who their secret Valentine was; 37 lonely people were pleasantly surprised on Valentine’s tine’s Day! And to make the day perfect: we received a box of  See’s Candy from one of the neighbors in the afternoon.

Tax Returns

We have started preparation for our tax returns, and since we hope to finish this project quickly, like last year, I am eagerly waiting for the final tax information to come in so we can finish and file! And guess what? This will be a short post again becauseI’m running out of time!

It’s a Wonderful Life!

Until next time,

Ronny

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