As I opened a new box of toothpaste the other day, struggling to get it open because of the glue that held the box flaps sealed, I had to get the scissors to cut the box open. While struggling with this silly contraption, I wondered when the date was that the FDA decided to step in and protect us consumers from ourselves.
I looked it up, on http://uclue.com/?xq=845 , and found that it was back in 1970 when congress passed the Poison Prevention Packaging Act (PPPA) http://www.cpsc.gov/businfo/pppa.pdf requiring that poisons, some house hold chemicals like furniture polish should be sold in child resistant packaging. That was the year Doug and I got married, while we were busy adjusting to marriage, we didn't know that congress had plans to change our lives in other ways. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) was established in 1973 and they determine whether a drug or product falls under this act. The first drug which came under this act was aspirin. The CPSC was given the authority to establish child resistant packaging standards. These regulations subsequently required that prescription drugs with some specific exceptions be dispensed in packaging that met the child resistant requirement.
When our daughter ingested the grape flavored benedril medicine in 1977, the bottle had an easy open cap. She just drank it right down, because it was yummy to her. Of course we spent the rest of the afternoon in the ER getting her tummy pumped and she got a taste of the nasty charcoal and 'epecac'. So it must have taken a while to legislate the act. Well in my research I found that by 1982, the CPCS required tamper resistant packaging, on all products, and I guess the rest, as they say, is history.
Packages of chips, crackers, cereals, medicines, and toothpaste all have been made tamper resistant, to the frustration of some senior citizens who then decided they wanted a choice in 'child' safety caps and lids. So now, if we remember to ask the pharmacist, we can get easy open lids. Maybe it was always available, who knew to ask?
Now I want to switch gears for a minute, hang with me. My mother-in-law was a very vibrant, lively, adventuresome woman. After her husband's death (20 years before her own) she took a job in San Antonio, Tex. at the Buckner Home for Teenage UnWed Mothers www.buckner.org/about . She flew to Salt Lake City, Utah to visit us while we lived in Wyoming. She took care of a friends cat because her friend had decided to move to a retirement village and couldn't have animals. That friend didn't sell her house or close it up, so the cat stayed with the house. As my mother-in-law began to age, however, she became fearful, finally afraid to live alone any longer.
I fell down at the grocery store one day awhile back. I stepped off the curb, twisted my ankle in a hole which was the opening to a grease trap next to the curb, and fell. I landed on my knee ripped my pants, skinned my hands catching myself, and bruised my hip. I am fine now, but here's the thing, I was wary if not a little frightened to step out of the front door for about a week after that happened. I didn't like that feeling if fear.
As a 'Boomer' who is entering this life transition and tsunami of change called retirement, I wonder what else the FDA or some other concerned committee, administration, or organization is going to enact to protect us seniors like they did to protect our children. Oh wait! We have AARP for that don't we? http://www.aarp.org .
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Too Little to keep, too much to throw out, so the happy housewife eats it, and that makes her stout!
I was going to introduce my husband in this my third blog post. Most of my readers know him already, but I have changed my mind, as I reserve the right to do, and will instead talk a little bit more about us, the "Baby Boomers" instead.
That is what I have been blogging about, my goal in starting this blog was to talk myself through a challenging transition of becoming a "retired" baby boomer. My husband, is not a 'boomer', he is just one year shy of our social trend.
I am an Avon Representative, I have enjoyed the role of "small business" woman for a long time. I have not only been in Avon for 15 years, but I have been a Home Interiors Decorator, and a Tupperware Dealer in my efforts to be able to have an outside job, and still be home when the girls got home from school, make dinner and as they say.."bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and never, ever let you forget your a man, 'cause I'm a Woman...W O M A N"...huh! Yes, well, enough of that!
As I was saying, I have tried many different forms of work in an effort to please almost everyone in my family; my Dad, whose philosophy was 'a woman shouldn't work at all outside the home, ever', my Mother, who found the direct sales way of life interesting and rewarding and who also recruited me into the home interiors and Tupperware companies, my children, of course, and my husband. I had a home business because I was trying to help with income taxes and because I was told by well meaning others, that if I were to work and make real money, I would only be placing my husband into a higher income bracket and therefore would make him pay more in taxes.
In my experience with Tupperware Products we were told, "Tupperware seals in the freshness", 2 weeks longer than any other product at the time, which was like, foil over a bowl in the refrigerator, or at best a lid that went over the proctor silex bowl, or the corning ware bowl, what did we ever do without Tupperware! So we thought, and many people still do, that Tupperware was the end all, solve all to our food spoiling problems.
There was the cereal keeper, the lettuce keeper, sandwich keepers, bread keepers, square storers, round storers, oh, and let's not forget the square/rounds, butter keepers, cheese keepers, etc. etc. ad infinitem... My favorite was the pickle keeper/server. It stored and kept the pickles crisp while providing a way to pull the pickles out of the pickle juice so you could remove them to put in your salads, or to eat all by themselves.
Then there were the serving pieces. My husband remarked recently while we were having dinner with one of our daughters, that he was so used to having plastic serving bowls, he didn't know how to use glass ones. We had so many serving pieces, the Cake Taker, the pie Taker, the beautiful colors in the Wonderlier Bowls with the snap on lids that matched and the Servelier Bowls, with matching lids.
Then speaking of the lids or seals, there was a seal for every bowl and every bowl was stamped with a specific letter in the alphabet which coincided with the seal. The cereal bowl was stamped with a big C and the cereal bowl seal was stamped with a corresponding C. Or the small storage bowl was stamped with a S and the seal was also stamped with a S, etc. Don't forget about the "burp", the seal 'burped' out the air to seal in the freshness! I had to explain the Tupperware conundrum to my husband just this week. We were emptying the dishwasher, a chore which he has started helping with now that he is retired.
The old Tupperware circa 1975, I explained, wasn't Microwave safe, nor dishwasher safe. However, the new Tupperware is stamped on the bottom with icons stating whether they are dishwasher safe, or microwave safe. You must know these things, and you would if you had been using Tupperware for over 35 years! If you 'nuke' Tupperware it will cause it to bubble and then it isn't guaranteed. It came with a lifetime guarantee! If you washed it in the dishwasher it would warp. I must confess, I put mine in the dishwasher on the top rack for a long time, but I didn't 'nuke' it because it melted or bubbled in the microwave.
We swallowed the sales pitch hook line and sinker, that food stored in Tupperware would keep fresh for a loooooong time, to the detriment of our health, perhaps. That food that has been in the refrigerator for two weeks sometimes looks like something that has started growing in there and who knows if it will multiply once opened and leap out of that cereal bowl, or storage bowl, or wonderlier bowl!
We sold tons of Tupperware! The parties, ah the parties, you carried this suitcase full of Tupperware products and a table cloth and set the stuff up in your hostesses home. Then you had hostess gifts, games, prizes, and gifts for each guest. Those prizes, some of them were worth more than the party and the Tupperware itself. Like the little bitty tiny bowls with seals, or the towel or recipe hangers, or the orange peeler so many cool prizes.
Then if you were a top sales Dealer, you received lots of incentive gifts. You'd be awarded with lots of Tupperware, cookware, and if you were really great, you recruited and became manager and then you got a car, a Ford Station Wagon. The one my mom got was blue. She sure was proud of that car.
phenomena in America. The fact that Tupperware, their products and all things plastic, was produced from oil and oil byproducts. My husband worked for and retired from a company whose main purpose was to take the gas from the oil, compress it and send it down the line to be used by consumers like you and me.
So Thank you Tupperware for using the oil and byproducts, because in a way Tupperware kept my husband and thousands, maybe millions of other people. employed through the years.
Thanks for listening, ya'll come back now,
A.
That is what I have been blogging about, my goal in starting this blog was to talk myself through a challenging transition of becoming a "retired" baby boomer. My husband, is not a 'boomer', he is just one year shy of our social trend.
I am an Avon Representative, I have enjoyed the role of "small business" woman for a long time. I have not only been in Avon for 15 years, but I have been a Home Interiors Decorator, and a Tupperware Dealer in my efforts to be able to have an outside job, and still be home when the girls got home from school, make dinner and as they say.."bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and never, ever let you forget your a man, 'cause I'm a Woman...W O M A N"...huh! Yes, well, enough of that!
As I was saying, I have tried many different forms of work in an effort to please almost everyone in my family; my Dad, whose philosophy was 'a woman shouldn't work at all outside the home, ever', my Mother, who found the direct sales way of life interesting and rewarding and who also recruited me into the home interiors and Tupperware companies, my children, of course, and my husband. I had a home business because I was trying to help with income taxes and because I was told by well meaning others, that if I were to work and make real money, I would only be placing my husband into a higher income bracket and therefore would make him pay more in taxes.
In my experience with Tupperware Products we were told, "Tupperware seals in the freshness", 2 weeks longer than any other product at the time, which was like, foil over a bowl in the refrigerator, or at best a lid that went over the proctor silex bowl, or the corning ware bowl, what did we ever do without Tupperware! So we thought, and many people still do, that Tupperware was the end all, solve all to our food spoiling problems.
There was the cereal keeper, the lettuce keeper, sandwich keepers, bread keepers, square storers, round storers, oh, and let's not forget the square/rounds, butter keepers, cheese keepers, etc. etc. ad infinitem... My favorite was the pickle keeper/server. It stored and kept the pickles crisp while providing a way to pull the pickles out of the pickle juice so you could remove them to put in your salads, or to eat all by themselves.
Then there were the serving pieces. My husband remarked recently while we were having dinner with one of our daughters, that he was so used to having plastic serving bowls, he didn't know how to use glass ones. We had so many serving pieces, the Cake Taker, the pie Taker, the beautiful colors in the Wonderlier Bowls with the snap on lids that matched and the Servelier Bowls, with matching lids.
Then speaking of the lids or seals, there was a seal for every bowl and every bowl was stamped with a specific letter in the alphabet which coincided with the seal. The cereal bowl was stamped with a big C and the cereal bowl seal was stamped with a corresponding C. Or the small storage bowl was stamped with a S and the seal was also stamped with a S, etc. Don't forget about the "burp", the seal 'burped' out the air to seal in the freshness! I had to explain the Tupperware conundrum to my husband just this week. We were emptying the dishwasher, a chore which he has started helping with now that he is retired.
The old Tupperware circa 1975, I explained, wasn't Microwave safe, nor dishwasher safe. However, the new Tupperware is stamped on the bottom with icons stating whether they are dishwasher safe, or microwave safe. You must know these things, and you would if you had been using Tupperware for over 35 years! If you 'nuke' Tupperware it will cause it to bubble and then it isn't guaranteed. It came with a lifetime guarantee! If you washed it in the dishwasher it would warp. I must confess, I put mine in the dishwasher on the top rack for a long time, but I didn't 'nuke' it because it melted or bubbled in the microwave.
We swallowed the sales pitch hook line and sinker, that food stored in Tupperware would keep fresh for a loooooong time, to the detriment of our health, perhaps. That food that has been in the refrigerator for two weeks sometimes looks like something that has started growing in there and who knows if it will multiply once opened and leap out of that cereal bowl, or storage bowl, or wonderlier bowl!
We sold tons of Tupperware! The parties, ah the parties, you carried this suitcase full of Tupperware products and a table cloth and set the stuff up in your hostesses home. Then you had hostess gifts, games, prizes, and gifts for each guest. Those prizes, some of them were worth more than the party and the Tupperware itself. Like the little bitty tiny bowls with seals, or the towel or recipe hangers, or the orange peeler so many cool prizes.
Then if you were a top sales Dealer, you received lots of incentive gifts. You'd be awarded with lots of Tupperware, cookware, and if you were really great, you recruited and became manager and then you got a car, a Ford Station Wagon. The one my mom got was blue. She sure was proud of that car.
phenomena in America. The fact that Tupperware, their products and all things plastic, was produced from oil and oil byproducts. My husband worked for and retired from a company whose main purpose was to take the gas from the oil, compress it and send it down the line to be used by consumers like you and me.
So Thank you Tupperware for using the oil and byproducts, because in a way Tupperware kept my husband and thousands, maybe millions of other people. employed through the years.
Thanks for listening, ya'll come back now,
A.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
"You can't have your cake and eat it too"
Yes, I'm a baby boomer! Big Surprise! It seems like that is all we ever hear about are the Boomer's and what they are or are not going to do. Growing up, I don't remember ever being categorized as a 'boomer' or as anything important in the world's view. I just did what I thought I should do in order to get through school and life. I remember being in Mrs. Carter's sixth grade classroom when the Principal, Mr. Miller, came on the loud speaker (which is what we called it, not the P.A. system), to announce that President Kennedy had been shot and killed. Mrs. Carter was crying and wringing her hands and her poor old head was wagging as though the end of the world was coming soon. For the rest of the afternoon, we listened to the broadcast by Walter Cronkite about the events unfolding in Dallas, Texas. I don't remember ever being in Dallas before this event, although I had an Aunt and an Uncle who lived in the area and who raised their families there.
I know lots of you remember where you were too on that unfortunate event, but I just needed to get that off my chest. We baby boomers have lived through some remarkable events and changes, and we have had a hand in causing some of those changes! We were specifically targeted by the world of merchandising to test their products. I didn't know that! I was just a kid, but I do remember feeling envious of my friends who perhaps had more money, and could buy new clothing, records, and magazines. Of course I grew up with three sisters, and a brother, so what little we had, from my dad who worked at the "City Water Department" (and we all know that civil servants didn't and probably still don't get paid very much) had to go a long way.
My clothing was hand made or hand me downs. Since I was the first child (how did you like the way I said I was the oldest?) in the family, I had hand me downs from my older cousins. There were, however, special times when I got a new hand made dress, birthdays or Christmas. I never had "spending money". My dad didn't believe in an allowance, so I was never able to get records, or movie magazines to keep up with the latest in the movie world, or go very frequently to a movie for that matter! (boo hoo, don't you feel sorry for me!)
Records, now that's a blast from the past! We boomers have seen the start of hard vinyl records and players, through the 4-track tape players to the cassette tape players and now a whole new world of digital. Records brought a whole new way to enjoy music. It was clear, not staticy (if that's a word) with the radio signal interferance like when we listened to the radio. Living 15 miles from the nearest town didn't help that radio signal, but records put the Beatles, the Raiders and Gary Lewis and the Playboys right in our bedrooms, (which is where our record players were because they were "portable"). Oh and I forgot to mention, "The Archies".
Before the portable record player, I remember Dad's old phonograph player. It was a piece of furniture and played two speeds, 78 RPM and 33 1/3 RPM. When I got my brand new 'stereo record player', stereo, because it had two speakers, I could put it anywhere in the house and it played all three speeds, including 45 RPM. This was all about information, we were beginning the information age. The 78 RPM records only held one song on each side, but they were huge, thick, heavy records. The 33 1/3 records held whole albums on the two sides, they were big records, 12 inches maybe in diameter, then came the little 45's which again held only one song, but it was smaller (about 6 inches in diameter) and it may even had had a better song on the reverse side!
As I grew up, going on through Jr. High school, and then High School, I did what I was supposed to do. Started dating when I was 15, memorized Bible passages, played the organ and piano at church, graduated high school in the Honor Society, made good grades. However, being a girl, my only choices encouraged by teachers, parents, pastors, etc. was, going to college to become a teacher or nurse then getting married and of course having children. The world of women executives was just formulating, and of women in the military was only by way of the medical field and was again only being formulated by those willing to pave the way ahead of me.
Now for some other "facts"...
We 'boomers' didn't want to be like our parents were. According to the wikipedia a baby boomer is someone who was born between the post world war II years 1946 to 1964. It seems that over seventy six million babies were born during that time in America alone. No wonder our generation is so influential, sheer numbers alone makes it so. When you look at the fact that various marketing companies started out pitching their product at boomers and their parents "almost from the time they were conceived", it makes sense that we, the "boomers" should "control over 80% of personal financial assets and more than 50% of discretionary spending power. They are responsible for more than half of all consumer spending, buy 77% of all prescription drugs, 61% of OTC medication and 80% of all leisure travel." I fit the norm for the average "baby boomer". We kind of rejected or redefined traditional values, some of us going so far as thinking we were a 'special' generation.
Me, I got married at age 18, I loved my husband, had my children, felt guilty for not going to college. Then felt guilty because I didn't have an outside the home job, or career, like so many women who entered the work force. When I eventually found work outside the home, I felt guilty because I was leaving my children at a day care! Oh, and I did my fair share of rebeling, still do from time to time.
My mom once said to me "You can't have your cake and eat it too." I know that statement may not make much sence to some, but it meant that in making a decision, I couldn't get both sides of the decision. So when I found a job I was good at, I had to feel guilt about being away from my children. Or when I went to college, I had to feel guilty about taking family income to afford my class, etc. etc. etc.! That's what Being Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place is like for me.
I know lots of you remember where you were too on that unfortunate event, but I just needed to get that off my chest. We baby boomers have lived through some remarkable events and changes, and we have had a hand in causing some of those changes! We were specifically targeted by the world of merchandising to test their products. I didn't know that! I was just a kid, but I do remember feeling envious of my friends who perhaps had more money, and could buy new clothing, records, and magazines. Of course I grew up with three sisters, and a brother, so what little we had, from my dad who worked at the "City Water Department" (and we all know that civil servants didn't and probably still don't get paid very much) had to go a long way.
My clothing was hand made or hand me downs. Since I was the first child (how did you like the way I said I was the oldest?) in the family, I had hand me downs from my older cousins. There were, however, special times when I got a new hand made dress, birthdays or Christmas. I never had "spending money". My dad didn't believe in an allowance, so I was never able to get records, or movie magazines to keep up with the latest in the movie world, or go very frequently to a movie for that matter! (boo hoo, don't you feel sorry for me!)
Records, now that's a blast from the past! We boomers have seen the start of hard vinyl records and players, through the 4-track tape players to the cassette tape players and now a whole new world of digital. Records brought a whole new way to enjoy music. It was clear, not staticy (if that's a word) with the radio signal interferance like when we listened to the radio. Living 15 miles from the nearest town didn't help that radio signal, but records put the Beatles, the Raiders and Gary Lewis and the Playboys right in our bedrooms, (which is where our record players were because they were "portable"). Oh and I forgot to mention, "The Archies".
Before the portable record player, I remember Dad's old phonograph player. It was a piece of furniture and played two speeds, 78 RPM and 33 1/3 RPM. When I got my brand new 'stereo record player', stereo, because it had two speakers, I could put it anywhere in the house and it played all three speeds, including 45 RPM. This was all about information, we were beginning the information age. The 78 RPM records only held one song on each side, but they were huge, thick, heavy records. The 33 1/3 records held whole albums on the two sides, they were big records, 12 inches maybe in diameter, then came the little 45's which again held only one song, but it was smaller (about 6 inches in diameter) and it may even had had a better song on the reverse side!
As I grew up, going on through Jr. High school, and then High School, I did what I was supposed to do. Started dating when I was 15, memorized Bible passages, played the organ and piano at church, graduated high school in the Honor Society, made good grades. However, being a girl, my only choices encouraged by teachers, parents, pastors, etc. was, going to college to become a teacher or nurse then getting married and of course having children. The world of women executives was just formulating, and of women in the military was only by way of the medical field and was again only being formulated by those willing to pave the way ahead of me.
Now for some other "facts"...
We 'boomers' didn't want to be like our parents were. According to the wikipedia a baby boomer is someone who was born between the post world war II years 1946 to 1964. It seems that over seventy six million babies were born during that time in America alone. No wonder our generation is so influential, sheer numbers alone makes it so. When you look at the fact that various marketing companies started out pitching their product at boomers and their parents "almost from the time they were conceived", it makes sense that we, the "boomers" should "control over 80% of personal financial assets and more than 50% of discretionary spending power. They are responsible for more than half of all consumer spending, buy 77% of all prescription drugs, 61% of OTC medication and 80% of all leisure travel." I fit the norm for the average "baby boomer". We kind of rejected or redefined traditional values, some of us going so far as thinking we were a 'special' generation.
Me, I got married at age 18, I loved my husband, had my children, felt guilty for not going to college. Then felt guilty because I didn't have an outside the home job, or career, like so many women who entered the work force. When I eventually found work outside the home, I felt guilty because I was leaving my children at a day care! Oh, and I did my fair share of rebeling, still do from time to time.
My mom once said to me "You can't have your cake and eat it too." I know that statement may not make much sence to some, but it meant that in making a decision, I couldn't get both sides of the decision. So when I found a job I was good at, I had to feel guilt about being away from my children. Or when I went to college, I had to feel guilty about taking family income to afford my class, etc. etc. etc.! That's what Being Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place is like for me.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Not Getting Older, I'm Getting Better!
Having a bran new blog is like having sex for the first time, I'm so inexperienced and nieve, that I haven't a clue what's going on! But that's ok, because I intend to learn and thanks to my ingenius, good looking, smart, and dear husband, I have the opportunity to learn. He was the first person to interest me in sex, and he is the first person who got me interested in blogging. (tehehee!) This is a blog I have created from the folks at Google. I use gmail as my email, and they have lots of other good stuff too.
No joke, ya'll, he got into computers over a score of years ago, (lets see how many of you know that number!) and he started learning, investing in, and building (in our own home, mind you), computers way back in 1997, or so. I say, 'or so' because we started out with our first computer way back in the '80s with the "VIC 20" by Commodore, "the Friendly Computer", it says on the box. How many of ya'll remember it? It had a keyboard, and in order to use it, it had to be connected to the television. As I remember, it had cassette tapes to insert into it to give it commands. My dear daughters loved playing a game on it about being lost in dracula's castle. I don't think they ever solved to that game.
He bought these big old computer books then (the '80s), huge things they were. They were red in color, and about 15x11x4, I'm guessing, and all about the early years of computing. You know the feeling that if you'd only been at the right place in the right time, it could have been you? Well he got the computer bug, probably about the same time Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs got the bug, but...the rest, as they say, is history. I remember that he worked in the library of the Trinity University in San Antonio when the computer was a huge monstrasity and he had punch cards to insert some way. It could have been then that he got an interest in computing.
However it happened, it is because of his interest in computers that every member in our family now have access to a computer, he either built or recommended in some way. I'm talking about in-laws and out-laws. He built these cute little "Barbie" computers for our two oldest granddaughters. They were painted a pretty silver with pink "Barbie slippers" appliques and stickers on them. They were just small gaming computers, but he specially built them with his granddaughters in mind. Just the way he built the play houses and doll houses for his daughters as they were growing up, he designed computers for his grandchildren too. The grandsons' computers had all the blinking lights, high speed, and bells, and whistles, that boys want too. We probably have close to two dozen computers, or more that he built over the past eleven years! (Did I say he is generous!) That's a lot of computers!
I'm saying all this because as my title suggests, I'm approaching retirement age, and my husband has already retired, as of May 6, 2011! I'm getting all this nice stuff out of the way so I can refer to it later on when I need to vent about how 'our' retirement is going. I dreamed about having a blog, no really, I had a dream about it last night. It was going to be about retirement from the view point of a baby boomer. However, when I clicked on the link to start up this blog, I didn't know it would ask me all kinds of questions about adding gadgets and extra links, or photos or what ever, so again have patience with me as I learn, and by the way, if you have links you'd like me to add or mention, let me know, I'll sure do it!
So that's about it for now, my husband just woke up from his afternoon nap, and we talked about going fishing this evening. Ahhh, this is the life, well we'll see...
Ya'll come back now!
AnnieOakley
No joke, ya'll, he got into computers over a score of years ago, (lets see how many of you know that number!) and he started learning, investing in, and building (in our own home, mind you), computers way back in 1997, or so. I say, 'or so' because we started out with our first computer way back in the '80s with the "VIC 20" by Commodore, "the Friendly Computer", it says on the box. How many of ya'll remember it? It had a keyboard, and in order to use it, it had to be connected to the television. As I remember, it had cassette tapes to insert into it to give it commands. My dear daughters loved playing a game on it about being lost in dracula's castle. I don't think they ever solved to that game.
He bought these big old computer books then (the '80s), huge things they were. They were red in color, and about 15x11x4, I'm guessing, and all about the early years of computing. You know the feeling that if you'd only been at the right place in the right time, it could have been you? Well he got the computer bug, probably about the same time Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs got the bug, but...the rest, as they say, is history. I remember that he worked in the library of the Trinity University in San Antonio when the computer was a huge monstrasity and he had punch cards to insert some way. It could have been then that he got an interest in computing.
However it happened, it is because of his interest in computers that every member in our family now have access to a computer, he either built or recommended in some way. I'm talking about in-laws and out-laws. He built these cute little "Barbie" computers for our two oldest granddaughters. They were painted a pretty silver with pink "Barbie slippers" appliques and stickers on them. They were just small gaming computers, but he specially built them with his granddaughters in mind. Just the way he built the play houses and doll houses for his daughters as they were growing up, he designed computers for his grandchildren too. The grandsons' computers had all the blinking lights, high speed, and bells, and whistles, that boys want too. We probably have close to two dozen computers, or more that he built over the past eleven years! (Did I say he is generous!) That's a lot of computers!
I'm saying all this because as my title suggests, I'm approaching retirement age, and my husband has already retired, as of May 6, 2011! I'm getting all this nice stuff out of the way so I can refer to it later on when I need to vent about how 'our' retirement is going. I dreamed about having a blog, no really, I had a dream about it last night. It was going to be about retirement from the view point of a baby boomer. However, when I clicked on the link to start up this blog, I didn't know it would ask me all kinds of questions about adding gadgets and extra links, or photos or what ever, so again have patience with me as I learn, and by the way, if you have links you'd like me to add or mention, let me know, I'll sure do it!
So that's about it for now, my husband just woke up from his afternoon nap, and we talked about going fishing this evening. Ahhh, this is the life, well we'll see...
Ya'll come back now!
AnnieOakley
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