Just print out the list below, add all the items on the list, and present them in a box or gift bag.
This is the perfect gift for the retiree’s party and will be the hit of the celebration. Everyone will be sure to enjoy it! These items could also be used as party decorations and party favors. Just use your creativity for a fun, memorable celebration! Items to include in the Survival Kit: Balloon: to start the celebration with a BANG! Gold Leaf: because you’re worth your weight in gold Love Heart Candy: to remind you to follow your heart Marker: retirement MARKS the beginning of a new journey! Elastic Band: try to stay flexible during your retirement years Candy Watch: to use your time wisely Marble: to help replace the ones you lost at work Tea Bag: retirement is just one long tea (or coffee) break! Seeds: For all the seeds of knowledge you have sown Starburst Candy: For a burst of energy when you need it! Straw: to have a drink & let your hair down Money: to help with your retirement fund Candle: to keep your future bright Toothpick: to pick out the best in every day Confetti: to remember that life is a party, and the best is yet to come! M & M’s (share size): share your M & M’s with your retiree friends Image Source…
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 Tips For Figuring Things Out! Do you often find yourself wondering what you are doing in life? Many people reach a point where they feel they lack direction in their lives. Instead of living life to the fullest, they simply go through the motions. If this sounds like you, there are things you can do to help you get out of the rut you are currently in. Below, you'll discover some fabulous tips for figuring out what it is you want from life. 1. Consider Your Passions If you want to know what direction to go in, it's helpful to think about the things you are passionate about. The things that motivate and inspire you will change on a frequent basis. For example, what you want today may look very different to what you wanted a few months ago. As we change, we adapt over time according to our experiences. Figuring out the things you are passionate about will help you to understand where to go next and what you need to do to get there. 2. Address Your Fears Even if you know what it is you want to do, you might be stuck because of fear. Known to be one of our most powerful emotions, fear can stop you from going after the things you truly want in life. So, if you are going to move forward and figure out what it is you are doing in life, you are going to need to address your fears. Identify your fears! Figure out where they are coming from. Then, be willing to work through them so you can stop them from controlling your life. 3. Assess Your Current Goals Do you have any goals you are working on right now? Chances are if you aren't sure what you are doing in your life, you won't have any goals to work towards. This can contribute to the problem. You need to set goals for yourself to keep your mind motivated and positive. When you have things to work for, it gives you a purpose each day. As you see yourself progressing through your goals, it generates more motivation to get you to where you need to be. Make sure you set small, specific goals that are easy to achieve. 4. You Don't Need To Have It All Figured Out Nobody has their life totally figured out. There will always be doubts and things you want to do better. You don't have to have it all figured out all of the time. In fact just going "with the flow" sometimes can present you with a lot of opportunities you would otherwise miss. Feeling like you don't know what you are doing in life can be lonely and frustrating. However, the above suggestions are just some of the things you can do to figure out what it is you want!  We’ve often thought about muscle as a thing that exists separately from intellect—and perhaps that is even oppositional to it, one taking resources from the other. The truth is, our brains and muscles are in constant conversation with each other, sending electrochemical signals back and forth. Thus, our lifelong brain health depends on keeping our muscles moving. Skeletal muscle is the type of muscle that allows you to move your body around; it is one of the biggest organs in the human body. It is also an endocrine tissue, which means it releases signaling molecules that travel to other parts of your body to tell them to do things. The protein molecules that transmit messages from the skeletal muscle to other tissues—including the brain—are called myokines. Myokines are released into the bloodstream when your muscles contract, create new cells, or perform other metabolic activities. When they arrive at the brain, they regulate physiological and metabolic responses there, too. As a result, myokines have the ability to affect cognition, mood, and emotional behavior. Exercise further stimulates what scientists call muscle-brain “cross talk,” and these myokine messengers help determine specific beneficial responses in the brain. These can include the formation of new neurons and increased synaptic plasticity, both of which boost learning and memory. In these ways, strong muscles are essential to healthy brain function. In young muscle, a small amount of exercise triggers molecular processes that tell the muscle to grow. Muscle fibers sustain damage through strain and stress, and then repair themselves by fusing together and increasing in size and mass. Muscles get stronger by surviving each series of little breakdowns, allowing for regeneration, rejuvenation, regrowth. As we age, the signal sent by exercise becomes much weaker. Though it’s more difficult for older people to gain and maintain muscle mass, it’s still possible to do so, and that maintenance is critical to supporting the brain. Even moderate exercise can increase metabolism in brain regions important for learning and memory in older adults. And the brain itself has been found to respond to exercise in strikingly physical ways. The hippocampus, a brain structure that plays a major role in learning and memory, shrinks in late adulthood; this can result in an increased risk for dementia. Exercise training can increase the size of the hippocampus, even late in life, protecting against age-related loss and improving spatial memory. Your mind is in fact an ongoing construction of your brain, your body, and the surrounding world. Further, there is substantial evidence that certain myokines have sex-differentiated neuroprotective properties. For example, the myokine irisin is influenced by estrogen levels, and postmenopausal women are more susceptible to neurological diseases, which suggests that irisin may also have an important role in protecting neurons against age-related decline. Studies have shown that even in people with existing brain disease or damage, increased physical activity and motor skills are associated with better cognitive function. People with sarcopenia, or age-related muscle atrophy, are more likely to suffer cognitive decline. Mounting evidence shows that the loss of skeletal muscle mass and function leaves the brain more vulnerable to dysfunction and disease; as a counter to that, exercise improves memory, processing speed, and executive function, especially in older adults. (Exercise also boosts these cognitive abilities in children.) There’s a robust molecular language being spoken between your muscles and your brain. Exercise helps keep us fluent in that language, even into old age. Source... When there’s a big game on TV, there’s sure to be lots of family, friends and food close by. People are always coming and going, cheering and yelling, munching and eating. Football season is full of excitement! Would you like to know how to make an epic wooden snack stadium? This is, indeed, a clever way to manage the snacks for the football game and at the same time no one misses any of the plays! Thanks to our friends at niftymom.com - you will find the instructions here: Snack Stadium For more food items: 1) Eat & Drink 2) Recipes  This is such a good depiction of the Expectations vs. Realities of Winter and what really happens in life. Don’t we all have great expectations of how things should be? And, then reality sets in but, hopefully, we can laugh and move on! Can you identify with any of these?  The Expectations vs. Realities of Winter
 Take the Baby Boomer Memory Test to see how well you remember the Baby Boomer Generation! Baby Boom Memory Test! NOT a pushover test. Get ready for 20 questions. Write down your answers so you will not forget! Answers at the end. No peeking! Good luck!
 No Peeking! Below are the right answers to the Baby Boomer Test: 1. D – Wonder Bread 2. G – Cassius Clay 3. B – He Is us 4. A – Good night, Chet 5. G – When you brush your teeth with Pepsodent 6. D – Maynard G. Krebs 7. C – Pants on fire 8. F – The American Way 9. C – It’s Howdy Doody Time 10. E – Oh my 11. D – Over 30 12. C – Joe Namath 13. G – A little dab’ll do ya 14. F – On Blueberry Hill 15. B – Mary Martin 16. G – John, Paul, George, Ringo 17. D – Who wrote the book of Love 18. B – Cause I eats me spinach 19. A – Smile, you’re on Candid Camera 20. F – Melt in your mouth not in your hand Thanks for taking the Baby Boomer Memory Test! Another Test: Memory Test Pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate and enjoy a little break from the busyness of Thanksgiving week. These Thanksgiving Poems are short and easy to read. The poems are appropriate for all ages. They are also thought provoking. They were selected to encourage you to truly think about the meaning of Thanksgiving. Share them with friends and family. Enjoy! Thanksgiving Poems Thanksgiving The year has turned its circle, The seasons come and go. The harvest all is gathered in And chilly north winds blow. Orchards have shared their treasures, The fields, their yellow grain, So open wide the doorway~ Thanksgiving comes again! ~Old Rhyme ~~~~~~~~ All in a Word By Aileen Fisher T for time to be together, turkey, talk, and tangy weather. H for harvest stored away, home, and hearth, and holiday. A for autumn’s frosty art, and abundance in the heart. N for neighbors, and November, nice things, new things to remember. K for kitchen, kettles’ croon, kith and kin expected soon. S for sizzles, sights, and sounds, and something special that abounds. That spells ~~~THANKS—for joy in living and a jolly good Thanksgiving. ~~~~~~~~  At Grandma’s House I like the taste of turkey Any time throughout the year But it never seems to taste as good As when Thanksgiving’s here. Could be it’s all the trimmings That are cooked with it to eat- But I think it’s eating at Grandma’s house That makes it such a treat! ~Author Unknown ~~~~~~~~ Song of the Pilgrims By Nancy Sue Krenrich Across the rolling, wind-swept sea For months we’ve sailed along, I see a land that’s new to me Against the blue horizon. Oh, beautiful land of freedom born, I’ve come across the sea To reap your fruits and build my home, And make my people free. ~~~~~~~~ Did you know? Jigsaw puzzles help you exercise both the right and left side of the brain. Working a jigsaw puzzle helps keep your brain young! Your left brain thinks logically and follows sequence while the right brain is creative, intuitive and emotional. When working a jigsaw puzzle, you harness both sides of the brain. Jigsaw puzzles engage the brain to retain information on shapes and colors in order to choose pieces that will fit together properly.This hunt for pieces requires your brain to memorize what each piece looks like or should look like and what kinds of pieces you are searching for in order to complete the picture. Doing this repeatedly reinforces short-term memory. This engaging activity:
Here are two jigsaw puzzles for you to work and enjoy! Click link beside each photo…   Interesting facts about jigsaw puzzles!
They were first created by an English mapmaker by the name of John Spilsbury in the late 1760’s. He made a puzzle by gluing a map of the world on a piece of wood and cut out the countries. Children would put the pieces together to learn to identify individual countries and their relation to one another. This was much like our puzzles of the United States that we all worked on when we were growing up. Thus, jigsaw puzzles were originally invented for education instead of entertainment. Jigsaw puzzles are now loved by people of all ages. Jigsaw puzzles became a form of daily amusement and activity for adults in the early 1900’s. However, they were quite expensive ($5 for a 500-piece puzzle in 1908). By the time of the Great Depression in the early 1930’s, they became more reasonable in price. In fact, 10 million puzzles were sold per week during this time in history. This was an escape from the troubles of the Depression years. Source... Autumn Leaves Changing Colors As summer ends and autumn comes Days get shorter, misty and cold And in this spectacular season Nature’s beauty graciously unfold Trees get ready to slow down And in autumn take some rest And show amazing colors of love That are all at their best  Green fades away quickly And yellow and orange appear To show off their vibrant hues And warmup their surrounding dear Sunlight and cool nights of autumn Help leaves to turn orangish red And combine all things smoothly To add magic in season’s lovely bed And all this shedding and replacement Of leaves continue throughout the year And trees only shed leaves in autumn To prepare for another winter dear This is God’s spectacular display Of beautiful colors of the fall During which many changes occur Including yellow, orange and red of all. ***Inspired by the changing colors of Autumn in Canada. Enjoy Autumn with these Pumpkin Dessert Recipes - Click Here We are sharing information from a website for seniors and retirees that they can go to when they need help. The "help subjects" include the following:
There are resources listed from all 50 states! If you live in Colorado but have parents, friends or other relatives in other states, this is a great resource. Articles on their blog include: Best Workouts for Seniors Best Gift Ideas for Senior Women Over 50 Best Gift Ideas for Senior Men Over 50 Best Online Meal Services for Seniors Seniors in Education Grants for Grandparents You will find all the above info & more here: https://grantsforseniors.org/ A Helping Hand!  |
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