I am very interested in keeping my thighs in shape.  After overseeing my parents in a retirement home for 8 years, I learn one important fact.  If you’re thighs are not in shape and you can’t move from a sitting position to a standing position, you have lost your freedom.   Those thigh muscles are your bathroom muscles.  And if they don’t function well and you can’t get to the bathroom by yourself, you’re stuck in a nursing home or dependent on someone else to help you sit on the toilet.

So…..every morning I do the stand up and sit down exercises to keep my thigh muscles moving and in shape.  At 62, I thought I better get a good start on the process and put it into my morning routine before I move into the next stage of life.  I have no interest in sitting in a wheelchair and someone helping me through the daily bathroom routine. 

Voting is a privilege that we all enjoy in the United States.  Many, many, many people in the past have given their lives for this privilege.  I always vote because I respect what the people before me did to secure this privilege.

And this past election, for the first time in 37 years my vote for a Democratic President counted!  Colorado went Democratic for the first time in years and years and years and years.   During the past 37 years, I always kept voting, knowing the the state would go "republican", but I voted anyway because I wanted to exercise my support of the special privilege of voting. 

What is amazing is that the generation who really need to face the consequences of their future experiences are in denial.  Everyone is going to die.  We don’t get off the planet any other way.  

I would think that everyone in this country would like to be consulted on how to complete the process of living the best way they can.  So the great fear of the "death panels" is absolutely fascinating.  And a fine example of how political operatives are using some very sophisticated psychological techniques to motivate the public forum to do their dirty work for them.  I’ve observed this technique in action since the Presidential campaign of 2000.  

Time is not a field, to be measured in rods

Nor a sea, to be measured in miles

It is a heart beat. 

Kazantzakis

Love this quote.  I submitted this quote for my college yearbook.  

To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human can fight and never stop fighting.

ee.cummings 

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

The Beatles 

Sally - I met you in 1973, when you were in Denver for the KHOW Radio Morning Show.  You were in the process of re-inventing yourself and you took on the role of a substitute DJ for one week.  I was the quiet girl with long brown hair who worked in the front office and brought you coffee in the morning during the show.  You were staying at the Hilton, across the street, and I remember all of us helping you and "Miss Quick" make plans for you to entertain your sons in the afternoons.  You had such enthusiasm and star power way back in those days.  It was such a delight to be in the same room with you.   You sparkled!.  

You are right, we do create who we are.  Meeting you, way back when, helped me mold myself for a spectacularly creative life experience. We must re-invent ourselves at every turn and every time life dishes up something we hadn’t planned to experience.  You had a "go for it" zest, and I’ve taken my experience of you during that week, and have become one of the "go for it" girls since I’ve been 26 years old.  

I just finished recreating myself again at the age of 60 after having a heart attack.  I took on the creative venture to re-vision myself and let go of thinking of myself as having the physical stamina I always had, and creating a person who has less physical stamina but still has the great interest in life and other people.

I lived in the San Luis Valley, which is a high mountain desert, and I had tall grasses in my front area (couldn’t call it a lawn, since I didn’t have the usual green stuff).  I loved watching the tall, native grasses blow gently in the wind with the small birds swaying as they grabbed the seeds from the top of the stalks.  The baby rabbits would hide out among the mounds of grass roots that held the sand in place, until the next sand storm.  There was a majesty and beautify in the stark brown stalks as the deer walked through the area.  And the setting sun, turned the green seed tops gold against the dark blue sky in the evenings.

Now I live in a suburb of Denver with green grass everywhere and everyone watering their lawns every morning at 5 am.  The sprinkler systems wake me up each morning (since I sleep with the windows open, instead of keeping my air conditioning humming with white noise.)  The birds love the water and dance around in the morning puddles preparing for the day. And sometimes when the setting sun is just right, the grass turns golden.

I have a budget, consequently a road map for how to use my money.  

I don’t think in terms of "spending" or "saving".  It sounds so so so dualistic and appears that you could get caught in a "right/wrong" mentality with this approach.

I think in terms of taking care of necessities, investing in my home, finding the best return on my money that I have invested and having a sensible fun along the way.