Dear Boomerlady, My Life is Not Turning Out the Way I thought it would...

I know, I know, theBoomerlady's life is not as she planned it either. But remember, we are baby boomers and we can recreate ourselves as often as we need to.

Get your journal, or laptop and open a new page and write down all of the things that you are unhappy about. Then check each one and consider if they are things that you have any control over.

Think about how your destination. Where do you want to be in your life that you are not? "Begin with the end in mind" (Steven Covey) and work back from there.

You've got to love a gal with a plan and this is one of our strengths.

Many Baby Boomers are struggling with:

• Aging Parents - Elder Care
• Adult Children - Still at Home
• Retirement Planning - Life Choices and Financial Resources
• Staying at Work Longer Than Planned? What Retirement?
• Losing Dear Friends to Illness - Facing our own Mortalilty

Then there are relationship issues, divorces, new family configurations, social etiquette, who gets invited to what?

Stay tuned for articles to address the issues above!!!

Couragio!

The Common Cold - My Body's Self Ordered Time Out!

Since I was a child, whenever the world seemed to get too much for me, I took a bad cold. I stayed home from school and my grandmother looked after me - a special bed set up on the couch, so that I could watch Captain Kangaroo, the Friendly Giant and I Love Lucy on TV, drink fresh squeezed orange juice, and be cured with her homemade soup that she would make for me with such unabashed love and care.

By my early 20's it became apparent that if I got overtired and was trying to do too much invariably, my throat would get sore and I would start to sneeze and then I was off to the races. This pattern has been consistent throughout my life.

Today, one week before Christmas Eve, in my early 50s, I am sitting with $53.84 worth of traditional and homeopathic over-the-counter remedies. My grandmother is long gone. My head is full of congestion and the colour of my very raw nose would put Rudolph's honker to shame. I am feeling more than a bit sorry for myself and none of my many dear friends wants to come near me in case they get sick too (I get that and would do the same if I were them- but this blog is about me - after all).

When I was in high school, I chose the common cold as a subject of an essay. Here is what I remember, and still believe today, from, oh, so long long, ago:

• it takes 3 days for the cold to "come on",
• then 3 days for you to "have it" fully,
• then 3 more days to get "over it".

So, for me this started last Friday, I was fatigued on Saturday again on Sunday, fully committed by Monday, Tuesday (yesterday) was the run to the drug store, which brings us to today, Wednesday. By my calculations, things should start to reduce by tomorrow, be better Friday with most of it gone by Saturday the 20th of December - just in time to get caught up and be ready for the the Xmas events.

By now, you would think that I would be better at managing the stress of day to day activities and not allow myself to get to this point. Especially over the holidays...NOT. Apparently, I still have some boundary work to do!

Here is what I mean, if I were better at saying no to things that I don't want to do, I might not have to get sick in order to have a time out. If I had the discipline of others in self care - resting - taking time for myself - exercising. I have a good friend who regularly will decline an invitation that she must return home to have a quiet day for herself. She is so advanced. So much more advanced than myself. But I can aspire!

I believe that what happens when we are sick is that we are excused from regular obligations, or performance, from showing up at things we secretly did not want to go to in the first place. A real sickness gives us permission to just "opt out" for a bit.

Another friend of mine believes that "when you get a cold, (in addition to the physical symptoms, there is this other thing going on), our physical body and our energetic body are collaborating to "slough off" the old, no longer needed, vibrations so that you can move on to a higher vibrational place."

If you are comfortable with this bit of what I call "woo - woo" insight, as I actually am, it can ease some of my frustration being shut in and cut off from my "peeps". This sickness means that my higher self knows more than me, (hence the term, higher self) and if I don't have the sense to stop, my body does and will bring me to a grinding halt.

I am always aware by the conclusion of my bout of common cold, what the thing or things were that I was battling and end up learning more about myself - it forces me to be more authentic with myself.

My favorite new place to begin research for many things is wikipedia which provide 12 printed pages of thoughts on the "common cold" I have included the link below should you wish to read more. So if you want to know stats and scientific theories there are lots of those provided at that link.

So on this one week before Christmas eve I will go to my own kitchen and prepare my best remedy, one that truly does comfort all of me - my own chicken soup and memories of my Nana's loving care.

I am grateful for my comfortable life and the knowledge that my instructional illness will likely have diminished by Saturday, and I wish you all a warm, happy, safe season followed by a prosperous 2009.

achoo!

the boomer blogger

p.s. if you have your own theories of illness or special remedies for the common cold, please post your comments here at http://theboomerway.blogspot.com


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold

"MAD MEN" - it was as bad as all that!!!

Recently I have been watching the TV show called "MAD MEN" about the advertising business in New York in 1960.

I turned 4 in 1960 and spent a significant amount of my formative years as a female in North American culture. Today, in 2008, it is an unrecognizable world that we live in, yet the announcement of appointments to the business section in my national newspaper still reflect an inordinate proportion of male executives to female.

The writers of this show should be applauded for their ability to so succinctly capture the mindset of this time. In one episode, an adminsitrative assistant (secretary-female) proposed an ad headline to one of the creative people (male). When the creative recounted this incident to his boss (male) - they both marvelled - "it was like listening to a dog play the piano".

I cannot get this scene out of my mind and am reminiscent of the early feminists who were ridiculed for challenging the status quo of the time.

In my own working life I have seen this discrimination against others and and felt its chilling effects personally.

In spite of this women (including myself) have made great strides and taken much ground, it is a different world - with new challenges - some of them as frightening - some of them less so than the characters on Madison Ave.

Fellow baby boomers, what awareness do you have of your experience of this past? How has it impacted you over the last 50 years? Are you conscious of the influence - does it affect your children?

I will stay tuned to this show - til next time

thanks for visiting

Google Baby Boomers - What do you get?

This evening at 7:43PM EST on June 17th 2008., I "Googled" baby boomer and found that there 6,930,000 references - that's an awful lot of information. More than I expect that I will ever need - certainly too much to hold my focus for very long.

On this same day, as a point of interest, apparently baby boomers fall behind the number of references quoted for "Gen x "and "Gen y" who post 14,100,000 and 9,620,000 items each. These numbers are so staggeringly high that to me they become meaningless. I know that hours will be needed to drill down to extract relevant information for any practical or directed purpose.

A look back...

When I attended public school in the 1960's we had encyclopedias.

Some families had their own set of encyclopedias. There were encyclopedia salesmen. In retrospect, that had to be one tough way to feed your family.

My frugal Scottish mother accurately pointed out that every suburban school I attended (newly built to accommodate our large cohort) was stocked with not one set but multiple versions of the worlds of knowledge we would require to complete our work assignments. Needless to say there were no expensive sets of encyclopedias coming into our home only to be outdated before the school year was out.

In many of our assignments, we would look to "get" information about a certain subject. I seem to recall being directed to use more than one source but often falling short of the mark. I recall that it was generally agreed that the Encyclopedia Britannica would have the last word on any subject. So if you were able to obtain information from that source and presented your report in some legible fashion you would pretty much have the job done. As a young student, it felt to me that there was some comfort knowing that there was a limitation of information that we might be required to know. I guess as an adult I would describe this as an exercise in defining or containing scope of information.

But now there are almost 7 million references about baby boomers that are identified in Google's search engine. Now I know there is too much information. So my exercise is to distill it into a conversation - a lens if you will that others may wish to look through and share their perspectives.

As a student, I loved to read, (still do) and spent a lot of time in our public and school libraries. I learned the Dewey decimal system much to the delight of my high school librarian. Apparently, this was not a common occurrence among students, so resulted a pleasant co-existence with the librarian.

Online Shopping for books...
A great interruption for home office workers :-)
Today, I learn about what books to read by receiving emails from Oprah's book club lists or special sales online at chapters/ indigo or amazon.com.

This winter I ordered two of Ken Follet's books on line, one hard copy and one in paperback. The hard copy was so heavy I swear I developed tendinitis but still could not put it down.

I love that the books come to my door and am still excited to open the fresh pages of my newest collection for my own private library. I don't really like to lend books my books and am always surprised at people who, without hesitation, ask to borrow the book when I am finished. To me, books feel like very personal items and I am always amazed that people do not feel the same way as I do.

Library searches are now much a thing of the past for me as I use Google or industry sites to get information for presentations or market information.
Personally, I always use online 411 for phone numbers and order food online for home delivery wherever possible. I swear I will never buy another CD as I am an ipod girl now!

I adore that I can find so many thing that I need online. Like many of you I am time crunched - so the time saved alone is a tremendous value.

I am somewhat of a late adopter of technology - but have taken to it like a duck to water. I will be sharing in a future blog my recent journey through personal technology.

The last 24 month period that the digital camera, ipod, blackberries that can work around the world and create maps and traffic advice for me, electronic picture frames, Big Screen LCD and home theatre all came under my one roof has been a discovery of delight and pure joy.

And now I am blogging.

Next on theboomerway blog I will share with you my adventure in purchasing my treasured golf clubs on e-bay!

Write often - thanks for visiting - come back soon
;-) Publisher of http://www.theboomerway.com

....it really is all about us!!!

"The boomer way" - A New Site!

Toronto, Ontario.
June 2, 2008.

http://www.theboomerway.com
it is all about us!!!

Announcement
This week watch for a fun new site about boomer lifestyle trends and preferences!

Visit http://www.theboomerway.com and experience this light hearted site devoted to the phenomenon of the most powerful demographic group in modern North American culture: those born between 1946 and 1964! Are you a boomer? If you are somewhere between 44 and 62 years of age this year (2008), then this site really is all about you!

Areas of Interest
The site will begin by casting a large net covering: shopping and consumer trends, health care, education, workforce resources and retirement and lifestyle options. Over time, the subjects will be grouped by discussion area for faster visitor access.

Online Shopping Links
Links to major online shopping sites will be featured. Are you crunched for time? Let us know if you are looking for something in particular and we will do some searches and post the results for you.

Have your say!
Visitors will be invited to post comments or suggest additional resources via the site's blog http://www.theboomerway.blogspot.com

Take a moment to reminisce...
In the site nostalgia department, visitors will be invited to send photos of themselves as children or students...Share the story that goes with your picture. Don't have a picture? That's ok -share your story without a picture.

Growing up, did you imagine then what your life would look like today?

Do you remember when you realized that you were part of a larger demographic that was shaping the life that you were growing into?

Thanks for checking in - see you at www.theboomerway.com- hope you enjoy it!


Publisher
;-)