Joan’s Boomer Blog

Colonial Williamsburg is one of my favorite places to visit. If I could, I’d just move there and take
myself back to 18th century Virginian life. When I got the chance to review an advanced copy of a new book, Vegetable Gardening the Colonial Williamsburg Way by Wesley Greene, I jumped at it.

The Gardens of Colonial Williamsburg are some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. Greene, the author of the book, founded the Colonial Garden in Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area in 1996. As with everything about Williamsburg, the gardens were painstakingly researched for authenticity. The subtitle of the book is 18th Century Methods for Today’s Organic Gardeners because, in the Colonial era, organic gardening was the only way of growing a garden. For those interested growing veggies organically, the methods used by our Forebearers is still relevant.

I’m not sure if any of my readers know about historic plants but most of our seeds today are hybrids, which were “invented” by combining different plant species into one seed. If you save the seeds from a hybrid plant and plant it next year, you won’t get a plant true to the original. Historic, or heirloom plants, produce seeds which can be saved and used again because the offspring will be true to the original.

Many people are dedicated to preserving these heirloom varieties and Colonial Gardening the Williamsburg Way discusses 50 of these colonial heirloom vegetable varieties, including historical commentary and complete growing instructions, and seed saving techniques.

Poppies Creative Commons License photo credit: animalvegetable

Whether you’re a history buff or a gardening buff (I’m both), you’ll enjoy Greene’s book. The introduction offers background information on the colonists, who arrived in Virginia in 1607. In those days, of course, if a person wanted to eat and feed their family, they had a garden. Early Americans, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, were very interested in researching and raising vegetables and herbs.

Reading Vegetable Gardening the Colonial Williamsburg Way is like getting a personal tour from Greene himself. The book is divided into chapters such as Beans and Peas, Salad Greens, Squash, Pumpkins and Gourds, and Tomatoes, Peppers and Eggplants. Historical background is given and the Gardener’s Assistant explains how each is raised in Colonial Williamsburg, with photos and explanations of the techniques used.

Colonial gardeners made and used compost, much as we do today. Besides explanations for growing plants, there are also instructions in the book for building “hot beds” used as composting containers and cold frames for new seedlings.

The photos are terrific as each gardener is in historical garb and all implements used are historical as well. At the end of each chapter contains the names of heirloom varieties mentioned in 18th century literature and which ones are still available today.

Creative Commons License photo credit: Anita363

One thing I loved reading about were Colonial “pest” solutions. In many gardens today, people sprinkle
pesticides around their vegetable plants to kill caterpillars, which also destroys butterflies. Butterflies are very sensitive to pesticides. In Williamsburg, parsley is loved by the caterpillar of the black swallowtail butterfly and a plant will quickly disappear when the caterpillars attack. Instead of killing them off, our Colonial gardener suggests planting parsnip nearby and placing the caterpillars on the foliage. The caterpillars will eat the greens from the parsnips instead, without harming the edible portion of the plant.

The gardener is rewarded with beautiful black swallowtail butterflies later on.

Creative Commons License photo credit: happy via

I also loved the historical tidbits. Did you know that asparagus, celery and artichokes were only found in a
“gentleman’s garden” and were thought to be only for the wealthy, partly because they required special techniques to grow. There are also lots of quotes from the gardening books of the day, such as James Garton’s The Practical Gardener and Gentleman’s Dictionary, published in 1770.

The vegetables produced with Colonial gardening methods are huge, healthy looking and no doubt contain many more nutrients than any commercially grown variety. I grow Swiss chard each spring and my plants are about half the size of those grown in Williamsburg, if the photos are evidence.

If you’re interested in reading more about the Colonial Gardens at Williamsburg, they have a wonderful website and blog about the Colonial Nursery. If you’re interested in purchasing heirloom seeds, visit Rare Seeds.com

For those who have never visited Colonial Williamsburg, it is a 301 acre historic area where you leave the 21st century behind and enter the world of America in the Revolutionary War period. The restoration began in 1932 and since then, over 100 million people have visited the gardens and restored homes. I used to live in Virginia and went to Williamsburg many times. More recently a couple of years ago, I had the chance to return.

One tip, if you plan to visit and you are a veteran, go on Veteran’s Day weekend. Veterans get free entrance into the Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown historic areas, which make up the Historic Triangle.

Vegetable Gardening the Colonial Williamsburg Way will be available February 14, 2012 and is available for preorder on Amazon.com.

My thanks to Rodale Books for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book for review.

When I heard that Linda Evans had written a new book, I couldn’t wait to read it. Like most people, I’d seen her on the Big Valley in the 60’s and, of course, Dynasty inj the 80’s. Her new book, Recipes for Life, kept me company on a long day flying back home from an emotionally draining trip to see my parents. My dad’s mild stroke following hip surgery had been upsetting and exhausting, to say the least. Reading Recipes for Life was the perfect anecdote for my trip home.

In the 60’s, Linda Evans was everything most young girls wanted to be, me included, and it was fascinating to read the behind the scenes memoir of those years. Nowadays, Linda Evans is everything the baby boomer woman wants to be. She’s had a terrific life and she wears it well, still looking as beautiful as we all wish we did. Instead of slowing down in the second half of her life, Linda is involved with life, has many passions she enjoys and seems in a much better place spiritually than when she was young.

Recipes for Life takes a unique approach to the writing of a memoir since Linda loves to cook and believes “one of the greatest gifts you can give to someone is to prepare their favorite meal.” Interspersed within the pages of her book are recipes she’s used and loved for years, many from famous friends like Barbara Stanwick’s Hobo Fillet, John Wayne’s Crab Dip, which also makes a terrific omlete the day after a party, and Dani and David Janssen’s Cesear Salad Recipe, plus many others.

I especially loved the recipes from Yanni’s family in Kalamata, Greece. His mother Felitsa’s Appetizer Meatballs and Yorgo and Linda’s Pesto sounded so delicious my mouth was watering.

If you’re looking for a tell-all book where Linda Evans dishes on her co-stars or ex-husbands and bears her own secrets and everyone else’s, you won’t find that sort of book here. Admirably, Linda has not one bad thing to say about anyone she’s known, including two ex-husbands and their previous wives, or her boyfriends, who include Greek musician Yanni, whom she was with for nine years.

Linda Evans certainly had reasons in her life to be bitter. When husband John Derek famously left her for 15 year old Mary Cathleen Collins, later known as Bo, she was devastated. However, instead of letting this define her life, she see his betrayal as a blessing because if she’s stayed married to Derek, she’d never have starred in Dynasty. She even counts among her friends Bo Derek and Ursula Andress, John Derek’s first wife as well.

What I did found most fascinating in Recipes for Life were the stories Linda Evans has to tell about working with Barbara Stanwick, who took the young girl under her wing, Lee Marvin, Paul Newman, David Janssen and other great stars of the past. Married to filmmaker/photographer John Derek and later to Stan Herman, she also became friends with the Hollywood elite and hosted many a party for them, cooking her favorite dishes.

One story really showed the kind of person Linda Evans is. While on Dynasty, she was supposed to share a passionate kiss with Rock Hudson, but after many, many takes, Rock just could not give her more than a peck on the lips. Linda and Rock Hudson had met years before and they were casual friends, running into each other at parties and social events, and no one could figure out what was going on.

A few weeks later, it came out that Rock Hudson had AIDS and in refusing to give her a passionate kiss, he had been trying to protect her, as back then, no one really knew how AIDS was actually spread. Even though some of Linda’s own friends avoided her after it came out, in case she now had AIDS too, she continued to be supportive of Rock Hudson and others who had the disease which caused such fear in Hollywood.

In Recipes for Life Linda Evans comes across as a genuinely likable person who seems content with the twists and turns of her life, having arrived at a place where she’s happy.  It’s ironic too that in using delicious recipes to tell the story of her life, Linda is appearing not only on talk shows to discuss her book but cooking shows, like Rachael Ray, where she recreates some of the dishes from the book.

If you’re looking for a light-hearted cozy read to curl up with by the fire this winter, or perhaps a gift to give someone in your life who likes nostalgic Hollywood, pick up a copy of Recipes for Life: My Memories by Linda Evans.

If you read just one book this coming year about health, diet and healthy aging, I would highly recommend The Baby Boomer Diet by Donna Gates. Baby boomers expect to live longer, and they probably will, but will they also be healthier? Are baby boomers focusing on the wrong things in their search for eternal youth, like anti-wrinkle creams or the latest vitamin supplement? The Baby Boomer Diet brings the anti-aging discussion back where it can really do some good - to improving our health from the inside out so we either don’t ever get the degenerative diseases so common today, or we can improve the ones we may have.

I’ve read many books on health, diet and fitness and I truly believe that The Baby Boomer Diet is a groundbreaking book, packed with information you’ve probably not read in other books on anti-aging, such as:

• Natural anti-aging remedies that honestly make you look and feel younger from the inside out. Did you know that if you get indigestion often and take antacids, you might be doing the opposite of what your body needs. Instead of too much acid, you may have too little. The solution? Apple cider vinegar in a little water. This is just one of many easy solutions to different health issues.
• The Baby Boomer Diet supplies one vital piece missing from most traditional
  
  

  anti-aging diets, building up the good bacteria in the gut. This book tells you how to get your digestion and your health, back on track.

• This book is packed with information about how we got where we are today, with degenerative diseases at epidemic proportions, and what we can do to overcome it. The Body Ecology Diet gives real answers, however, which will lead to real improvement.
• The Baby Boomer Diet is based on principals of Donna Gate’s other nutrition and healthy diet book, The Body Ecology Diet. The Baby Boomer Diet focuses on how to apply Body Ecology’s seven universal principles to the health challenges associated with aging
• Superfood recommendations for increased energy, vitality, and disease prevention
• As we get older, our bodies can’t absorb the nutrients in the food we eat and we lack the digestive enzymes for proper digestion. The Baby Boomer Diet explains how to eat and what to eat so we can absorb and make use of the nutrients in our food.
• The Baby Boomer Diet explains the difference between our bodies being acid and alkaline, why an acidic body fosters degenerative diseases and how we can get our bodies back to an alkaline state.

Baby boomers want to stay young-looking forever, as evidenced by the multi-million dollar

anti-aging industry. Cosmetic surgery, knee and hip replacements, wrinkle creams, diet fads, vitamin fads and more fuel this industry. But, even with this intense interest in looking younger, baby boomers’ bodies are falling apart. They suffer from degenerative diseases such as degenerative diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, nerve disorders such as Parkinson’s and dementia,  and arthritis.

Have we been focusing on the wrong things in our quest to retain our youth? Is there hope that we can really fundamentally change our body’s internal world and get to the cause of the ailments we have, rather than just addressing the symptoms?I believe the principals of the Baby Boomer Diet can do this.

After reading the Baby Boomer Diet, I embraced the principals and after a couple of months now, I have to say, I do feel more energetic, both mentally and physically. I’ve also lost weight, I think because my body is actually using the food I eat and digesting it better.

I suffer from osteoarthritis, the beginning of cataracts, and some form of neuropathy which causes tingling and numbness. Are these all gone by using the principals of The Baby Boomer Diet? Not yet, but I have hopes that these conditions will improve. However, it took me a lifetime to get my body into this condition, even though I do focus on being healthy, so I don’t expect any health issues to disappear overnight.

If you follow the Baby Boomer Diet, you will have to change your eating habits, I won’t lie to you about that, but many of the changes are simple and don’t cost a lot. Donna Gates does sell digestive enzymes capsules and probiotic drinks, etc but you don’t need to purchase these to eat the Body Ecology way. I did purchase some of these recently to use when I was traveling, because I was not eating as I do at home, and they really worked well, but you can get your probiotics many other ways too.

Donna Gates, is also the author of The Body Ecology Diet and is a renowned lecturer and nutritional consultant.  Donna combines the best of modern medical science, ancient Chinese medicine, and naturopathy to help people improve their immune system and beat candidiasis. The Body Ecology Diet is her own system of health and healing. Donna regularly appears on radio shows and conducts workshops to educate the public on medicinal foods.

My thanks to publisher Hay House for giving me the advance copy of The Baby Boomer Diet for Review.

One for the Road by Lynne Marshall is the first romance novel I’ve read in many a year, I must admit. Because the topic of my blog is boomers, Lynne graciously sent me a copy of her book to review and although my last exposure to this genre was 30 years ago, I was curious to see if older heroines just might start a welcome trend.

One for the Road by Lynne Marshall

The heroine of One for the Road is D’Anne Palmer, a recent widow who found out her dead husband was up to some suspiciously dangerous things. The two of them had taken off on a trip across country in their new deluxe 40 foot motor home, when Reese died suddenly, an apparent suicide. D’Anne was left stranded, alone far from home, and broke. How would she get back to California without any money?

Hiring out the RV with herself as driver seemed like the perfect answer. She was less than happy though when the first person to approach her was a has been country singer, Tyler White, who needed transportation for his band to a series of appearances, ending up in Las Vegas. Could an uptight, 40-something California woman with two grown sons find true happiness with a washed up country singer trying to make a come back?

I have to admit, after years of reading about reed thin beauties who find love with handsome (and of course rich) hunks, it was a bit disconcerting, if refreshing, to find a heroine who worries she’ll have a hot flash at an inopportune moment or feels self-conscious because of her crow’s feet or a couple extra inches around her middle.

The hero of the book is also in his 40’s, suffers from high blood pressure and is a few pounds overweight. He examines his hair to see if a suspicious spot on his head is showing scalp and sucks in his gut, resolving to skip breakfast.

His view of D’Anne is “for an older gal, her curves are holding up real good” and she sees him as a “little over the hill, creased and broken in like a favorite chair.”

Still and all, romance and passion for the over 40 set is still alive and well! Sparks fly and we are given a good reason too why D’Anne the recent widow could so easily fall for a broken down cowboy on the comeback trail.

One thing I liked about the book was Marshall’s handling of the reality that the characters came from two different worlds. When we’re young, we tend to think love conquers all but as we age, we know that to keep a relationship going, we really do need to have many things in common. When D’Anne meets up with her two grown sons and a good friend at the end of the road in Las Vegas, she sees Tyler through their eyes and wonders if she’s crazy to even consider falling for him.

It’s easy to see why D’Anne’s sons thought she’d lost her mind. When a normal middle-aged mom hooks up with an aging country singer and his band and travel the road with them, it might just give the kids some moments of worry! It’s very real too, to think that a mother might look at herself through her grown children’s eyes and suffer doubts about what she felt and what she was doing.

Lynne Marshall has a very entertaining style and her middle aged characters’ romance is wonderful to read about. I think the story appeals to all of us who ever  think about packing up and taking to the road, living a different life and finding love along the way. If you like romance novels but you’re tired of beautiful, thin heroines and hunky rich heroes, pick up a copy of One for the Road.

On her blog, Lynne says she didn’t seriously pursue writing until age 50 and got her first book sold shortly before her 56th birthday. What an inspiration to all the baby boomers out there who think it’s too late to pursue a dream.

Visit Lynne Marshall’s blog to learn more about One for the Road and her other contemporary romance novels.

Create Retirement Income with Affiliate Marketing

Have you ever thought about starting your own blog or website, dreaming of piles of cash you could earn?

The Super Affiliate Handbook

Perhaps you already have a blog and you’ve considered affiliate marketing as a way to bring in extra income. Rosalind Gardener’s ebook, The Super Affiliate Handbook, describes how she made nearly $500,000 a year with affiliate marketing. Will everyone have this type of success if they read her book? No, they won’t. But if you are new to affiliate marketing, this book can give you all the basics you need to send you on your way.

I bought this handbook because, although I’ve had my own blogs and websites for several years, and I do have affiliate products on them, I’m certainly not making $500,000 a year. I was hoping I could take my business to the next level with The Super Affiliate Handbook’s information.

So let me begin by saying, after I read the handbook, I asked for a refund (and got it promptly and pleasantly). I did decide, however, that I wanted to promote this book because I think if you are just starting out in affiliate marketing, or if you are considering it for extra income, or if you’re really struggling and wondering why you aren’t making more money as an affiliate, this book will save you time and frustration. It does contain valuable tips and I have to say, if I’d read it starting out, I would probably be much more successful now.

Rosalind’s clear, concise style is very easy to read and understand, even if you’re new to affiliate marketing and building an internet business. Her focus is on choosing affiliate programs carefully, building simple but professional sites, writing compelling text and building trust from your visitors. As an ebook, it is available for instant download too.

So what does the Super Affiliate Handbook cover?

• Overview of affiliate marketing and the many ways you can earn money with it
• How to set up your own website or blog - include everything from how to choose a domain name to how to install a Wordpress blog and design tips.
• Search engine optimization tips and how to add valuable content to your site.
• Then - detailed, step by step information about how to monetize your site. Where to find affiliate programs, how to choose the right ones for your site, how to set up accounts and install the ads on your site.
• Mistakes and how to avoid them-I have to admit I was doing some of these and promptly changed course!
• How to write reviews to sell products and other sales tools.
• 31 ways to promote your website - traffic equals sales and earnings.
• How to organize, manage and grow your business.

The Super Affiliate handbook makes it very clear that you have to get the details right first time, every time – which is how she’s generating over $1,000 a day in affiliate income.

This book isn’t about magic tricks or get rich quick schemes. What you will find is a detailed and precise process that has worked for the author, and it could make all the difference for you.

They used to say, everybody has at least one good book in them. Nowadays, that has probably been amended to “everybody has at least one good blog in them.” If you’d like to take a passion of yours and turn it into profits to fund your retirement, the the Super Affiliate Handbook is a great place to start.

Learn more about The Super Affiliate Handbook

Who wouldn’t like a Four Hour Work Week? Make all your money in just 4 hours a week, then use the rest of

The 4 Hour Work Week

your time to do all the things you enjoy? If you’re a 20-something with your career ahead of you, or approaching retirement but still need or want to work part time, or perhaps you’ve lost your job in the recent economic downturn and fear you won’t find another, the book The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated could very possibly change your life.

In The 4 Hour Work Week, by Timothy Ferriss puts forth the idea that there really is no “fulfilling” job. The best job, and the one we all really want, is the one which takes the least time and makes us the most money. Just imagine, if you someone offered you a job you could do anywhere in the world, paid you the amount of money you desired to support your lifestyle and took only 4 hours a week, wouldn’t you take it? The beauty behind Tim Ferriss’s book is that no one has to offer you this job, you create it yourself and he tells you how.

The first part of The 4 Hour Work Week pertains to employees who are currently working 80 hour weeks and want to escape the rat race. Tim tells you how to do that. The part of the book I was most interested in, though, was the part that told you how to build your own 4 hour work week business. Every single resource you could possibly need is there and the entire process is laid out for you with steps to follow. This is the part of the book you could use to finance a permanent retirement, working minimal hours but still having the income to enjoy life in any way you choose.

In Timothy Ferriss’s best life, he travels, living in different countries for months at a time, operating his business remotely using just 4 hours a week of his time. He even offers tips and guidelines for anyone who wants to do the same. Instead of working for years and then retiring, he says you should take “mini-retirements” all through your life.

While I would love to travel and spend maybe three weeks or a month in England or France, living abroad for months isn’t really on my list of things I want to do at this stage of my life. However, my husband and I do want to travel the US in our RV and it would be nice to have a income from something that only took 4 hours a week.

I got a Kindle 3G Wireless as an early Christmas present because I was going to spend nearly 3 weeks with my parents and my husband thought it would be great for the trip. I subscribed to the 14 day free subscriptions of USA Today and my hometown newspaper and bought a nice book of fiction to occupy me on the trip. While shopping the Kindle store, (from my Kindle!) I stumbled on The Four Hour Work Week. I thought, “This has to be too good to be true,” or some other type of come on.

I love reading reviews of books or other products before I buy and this book has an astounding 911 5 star reviews and 112 4 star reviews. Out of over 1,000 reviews, there were only 24 1 and 2 star reviews. I read all the negative reviews first and the only hesitation I had in buying the book was that it sounded too good to be true. However, I decided to go with the majority and buy the book. I am so glad I did!

You don’t have to be an exec working 80 hour weeks to build a 4 hour work week with this book. The process is simple really. You invent or find a product to sell, test it thoroughly and then market it and Tim explains how to do this. If you want to invent a product, you might think along the lines that I am and come up with an information product to sell - audios, a guide book and other materials. If you choose to find a product or build a store, Tim offers resources for that as well. They drop ship the product for you an the entire process is automated.

One thing I love about the Kindle is that you can highlight and bookmark different parts and then review them later. I have lots highlighted in this one.

I’ve seen that this remote business management work in my own business on a small scale. I have blogs and Amazon affiliates and earn money from Google Adsense. When I am home, I spend about 5 hours a day on various computer tasks, writing articles, promoting my blogs, etc. When I travel, I spend one hour, 5 days a week or less, and the money still comes in, without me doing a thing. I can put my business on remote control for 2-3 weeks without affecting anything.

If I can do this on a small scale, I can see how it would also work on a large scale and I am eager to try the steps laid out in The 4 Hour Work Week. I still have a week or so before I return home but the ideas are already working as to what I can do and how. I intent to follow Tim’s steps letter for letter and see how it turns out.

Even if I don’t become a citizen of the work and take tango lessons in Brazil like Tim Ferriss, I have some great ideas about how I would like to spend my time (The first step in the process is deciding how you’d like to spend all the free time you will have.)

I’ll keep you posted on how the process is going for me but in the meantime, get The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content for yourself, try the process and let me know what you think of it.

This book is going to be in my daughter’s Christmas stocking this year!

I love signing up for free newsletters and ebooks. I’ve gotten lots of great information on retirement and simplifying and enjoying life from them. Here is a list of some of my favorite ebooks relating to enjoying our retirement years. I know there are others and I’ll post them as I find them.

You will probably also enjoy the blogs which offer these free ebooks as well.

From Love Being Retired - Navigating the Retirement Jungle

Dave at Love Being Retired has written a terrific free ebook that covers lots of the issues faced by those approaching retirement. Some of the topics include evaluating when we can afford to retire, identifying and pursuing our passions in retirement, health, finances, travel, frugal retirement living and more. Dave’s blog and ebook have a very friendly, readable style and give you lots to think about.

The Positivity Blog offers a free ebook The 7 Timeless Habits of Happiness

You would think that the words “happiness” and “retirement” would be synonymous. Often, however, that is not the case. Our retirement years bring many challenges, health problems or physical limitations, worrying about our children or our finances, losing that zest for life we had when we were young, just slowing down generally. In other words, although the challenges are different than when we were young, retirement still brings it’s own share of cares and worries. The real challenge in retirement, as in any part of life, is how to be happy no matter what life throws at you.

The Seven Timeless habits of Happiness gives you sound tips on being happy, no matter what your age. Don’t put off being happy until some vague, distant time when your life is perfect, choose happiness now.

If you stop and think about it, if you don’t choose happiness in your retirement years, when will you do it?

The 437 Best Things Ever Said about Retirement by Ernie Zelinski

Ernie Zelinski, the author of How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free, offers free ebook download of the ebook listed above and The 1001 Best Things Ever Said about Work, plus excerpts of other books he’s written.

This ebook is full of great quotes about retirement and getting older. It’s a quick, fun read.

For those of you interested building retirement income from your passion in life, get Rich German’s free ebook Monetize Your Passion. This 234 page ebook is packed with great information on how to identify your passion, build a business and make money from it.

If you choose to make a donation to Rich for this ebook, he is giving all proceeds to programs to help homeless children in the USA. He’s managed to raise thousands of dollars with this project to donate back.

Zen Habits Guide to Simpifying Your Life

This isn’t exactly an ebook but the Zen Habits website offers a complete list of links to their articles on simplifying and decluttering your life. Many retirees have “been there and done that” in regards to big houses, lots of possessions and buying the next new thing. They long for peace and simplicity in their retirement. Zen Habits offers lots of great tips in this area.

If you’d like a source for free ebooks on any topic imaginable, check out Free-ebooks.net. Just register and download ebooks on hundreds of topics.

If you’ve downloaded any good free ebooks lately in the areas of retirement, simplifying your life or finding happiness, please let me know or post it in the comment section.

If you love reading blogs, you may already have a blog of your own. If you don’t have a personal or business blog, but you’d like to, it’s easy to get started witht his simple guide “Create Your Own Blog.”

There are many, many books on blogging out there and I own many of them! When you’re starting out, it’s a good idea to have one or two blogging reference books to help you get through the initial process of setting up and publicizing your blog, helping you avoid beginner’s mistakes. A good book on the basics, like Create Your Own Blog, really simplifies the process for you and from then on, it’s simply a matter of creating useful content and doing some social marketing to reach a wider audience.

I’ve been reading many retirement blogs lately which are entertaining and give me lots to think about as far as retirement issues. Whatever your stage of life or whatever your interest, there is an opportunity to share what you know and what you think with a ready made audience.

Author Tris Hussy is a long-time professional blogger and gives many workshops and classes on blogging. His book guides you through every step, from getting started to building a worldwide audience. No matter what your purpose in blogging, whether you want a personal blog or a business blog, you want it to look professional and meet your goals. Hussy’s book got 39 four and five star reviews on Amazon, out of 44 total reviews.

Create Your Own Blog covers:

• How to find free or low cost blogging tools
• Portfolio blogs for artists and hobbiests
• Blogs for podcasting
• Video Blogs
• How to make money with your blog
• How to build an audience and publicize your blog
• Lots More!

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Book Review Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a 6 Figure Income

Recently I saw this list of bloggers’ salaries which is topped by Markus Frind with over $3,600,000! Never heard of him? Markus Frind owns a free dating website called PlentyofFish.com. I think every blogger dreams of making a six figure salary, just like nearly every actor dreams of winning an Oscar - But how do you begin?

There are millions of bloggers out there today, writing away, wondering why the big bucks eluded them. What are they doing wrong and what could they do better?

What is your level of blogging expertise? Are you:

• blogging as a hobby and not making a dime
• Are you facing retirement and looking for supplemental income?
• Are you unemployed and really need to start generating income?
• Are you in a job you don’t care for and would like to start a blog as a part or full time venture?
• Do you already have a blog that generates income but you would like that blog to make more?

Wherever you are in your blogging career, ProBlogger can help guide you to a higher level.

Authors Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett cover:

• How to choose a (profitable) subject for your blog
• How to handle the technical parts of blogging
• Different ways to generate income with your blog
• How to evaluate your blog’s success
• How to keep your content fresh and interesting to readers
• How to use your blog to generate income indirectly

ProBlogger offers a complete how-to on blogging from from two top-performing bloggers. If you’re one of thousands of aspiring bloggers who launch new blogs every day hoping to boost their income or someone who already has a blog, you can benefit from ProBlogger’s advice. Without solid advice from experts, most will fail. This best-selling guide, (more…)

Review of How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free

Retirement should be a time to enjoy life to the fullest and How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free offers inspirational advice on just the way to do that.  A creative and fulfilling retirement is about more than just money, and author Ernie Zelinski covers how to put money into its proper perspective so you don’t need millions to retire.

How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free also offers advice on other retirement topics, such as:

• How to get up the courage to retire early.
• Find purpose and fulfillment in your retirement - That sounds easy but it takes some thought.
• How to follow your dreams and not get sidetracked by what others think you should do.
• How to take charge of your mental, physical, and spiritual health.
• Setting retirement goals — including whether or not you should relocate.

When you’re thinking about the retirement years ahead, making them the best of your life probably seems like a no-brainer. Actually, though, the earlier you begin planning for the many different aspect of retirement and setting some goals, the more prepared you will be to take advantage these years.

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