Joan’s Boomer Blog

The holidays are around the corner and coming up with a gift idea for someone who uses a walker or is confined to a wheel chair can be challenging. Giving the gift of health is especially important in these circumstances so here are a few ideas:

• Clip-on Cup Holder for Walkers, Wheelchairs Drinking lots of water is very important for health and with this clip on cup holder, someone confined to a wheelchair or using a walker will always have water handy.

• Walker Basket with Beverage Holder Tray - Walker Accessory This handy basket clips onto the front of the walker to keep water bottles, magazines, medications, just about anything, always within easy reach.

• Walker or Wheelchair Insulated Cup Holder Another cup holder, but insulated to keep drinks hot or cold.

• Carry-All Walker Pouch - Navy Carryall that attaches to the front of the walker in various colors.

• Lotions and bath salts to soothe tired muscles.

• Bain D’esprit - Vanilla Almond Spa Bath and Body Gift Set Relaxing bath and skin products - all put together in a beautiful basket.

• Sloping Orthopedic Seat Cushion - Medium Firm - Arthritis Product for comfort when sitting for long hours.

• A massager for sore, tired muscles.

• Case Logic Lap Organizer for Wheelchair to keep many items within easy reach.

These are just a few healthy gift ideas for someone using a walker or confined to a wheelchair.

Here are more healthy gift ideas suitable for anyone on your list.

Here are some terrific healthy gift ideas from Dr. Andrew Weil.

I just discovered a terrific website where you can find out, not only what happened in your birth year, but in the decade of your birth. I was born in 1950. All About Eve won best picture, Judy Holliday won best actress for Born Yesterday and Jose Ferrer won best actor for Cyrano de Bergerac.

Beat the Clock and Jack Benny were on TV and the song Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy topped the music charts in my birth year.

The credit card was invented the year I was born too. In the 1950’s people mostly lived on the cash they had, which wasn’t always much but they weren’t in debt either.

In 1950, Snoopy the cartoon character, Jay Leno and Stevie Wonder were born the same year as I was too.

There is some info about the decade of the 50’s too when the economy was on the upswing and the Cold War and Anti-Communism consumed the news.

Reading about what happened in the year and decade I was born brought back some great memories! Not the Cold War part, of course, but looking back, even the Cold War seems kind of tame compared to terrorism. At least we knew who the “enemy” was then.

I look at the 1950’s as the last time of innocence for young people. I was a teen in the 60’s and by the end of that era, there was the Viet Nam War, drugs and a social revolution going on that forever changed that youthful naivete we used to have.

What happened the year you were born? Just click here and type in the year you’d like to revisit.

If you’re a baby boomer, your kids have left home and you have a dog, you know you’re getting older when

We have photos of the grandkids in the bluebonnets too so why not our dog?

your dogs become your “kids.” We always had a family dog when the kids were growing up. She was a great dog and we loved her but she was always just kind of “there.” In our household though, as the kids progressively left home, we started filling it up with rescued dogs and cats, until, at one point, we had 4 cats and 2 dogs. I even volunteered at the local animal shelter.

When I started volunteering, my husband told me specifically, “Don’t bring any animals home with you!” I did a very good job of ignoring all those hopefully doggy faces until our youngest daughter left home for college then I got hooked by this one little wall-eyed puppy, the last of a litter of six puppies which had been at the shelter for a month. In that county shelter, dogs and puppies who had been there too long were routinely put down on Fridays, which was the worst part of volunteering there. I never helped with that, of course, but I knew about it, which was bad enough.

As a reporter for an Oregon online new website, I’d attended a seminar on pet therapy and I thought that would be a great way to spend my time now that the kids were gone. Surely adopting a puppy was a good way to get into this, although you couldn’t be sure you’d get a dog with the right personality for this type of work.

Who could resist this little face?

Anyway, with the best of intentions, I decided to take this one little puppy home for the weekend, telling myself I just wanted to socialize it and see what happened - or if my husband would make me take her back to the shelter:)

Needless to say, my husband not only fell in love with the puppy, Molly, he was soon out buying her her own bed, toys and other things the other dogs sure hadn’t gotten when they moved in! We always said Molly was our daughter’s replacement when she went off to college.

Fast forward 5 years and the rescued pup is still with us. During that time, my husband, daughter and I even moved lock, stock and barrel to Texas from Oregon with the four cats and now, three dogs. Would never want to repeat that trip! Also, in that time, one of our dogs and two of our cats died of old age and we somehow acquired another kitten.

Back to my original premise though - You know you’re getting older when your dogs become your babies - My husband and I aren’t the only ones in our age group to start acquiring dogs that we pamper tremendously once the kids are gone. In fact, most older baby boomers we know have some pretty lucky dogs as part of their households.

There are some negatives about adopting a dog when you’re facing retirement. If you want to travel or if you

Playing with your dog is good exercise too!

have to live on a tight budget, having a spoiled dog can sometimes be difficult. Our dogs eat high quality dog food, go to the vet regularly and have even had their teeth cleaned (never thought I’d admit that.)

On the other hand, dogs offer companionship, they love to be walked, which gets you out to the park or out to exercise on a regular basis, and you can take them traveling with you quite easily if you want to. We’re even getting an RV to travel with, just so the dogs will be comfortable!

You know you’re getting older when your dogs become your babies, yes, but in our later years we also have lots of time to devote to a dog, which we didn’t have when the kids were young and life was more hectic. Everybody needs a smiling face to greet them expectantly whenever they come home and having pets is a proven factor in healthy aging.

Do you have a dog you love like another child? I’d love to hear about it. In the meantime, if you love dogs, you might be interested in Molly’s Dog Blog. You can read about her journey from being alone and forgotten in an animal shelter to being a pampered pooch in a loving home.

How can green smoothies help prevent glaucoma and eye disease like macular degeneration?

As we age, we become susceptible to eye problems like glaucoma, macular degeneration, cataracts and other eye diseases. However, it is possible to help prevent or reduce the effects of eye disease and vision problems by consuming an eye health foods in our daily diet.

For instance, the National Eye Institute has found that taking zinc and high doses of antioxidants, such as those found in fruits and veggies, can reduce your chances of getting macular degeneration by as much as 25%. Antioxidants such as Lutein and zeaxanthin are vital to continuing eye health and you can get these from eye health foods.

Rather than taking supplements, which may be synthetic and not real food at all, the best way to get enough antioxidants in your diet is to eat at least 9 servings of veggies for eye nutrition. To make sure you get the most out of these veggies, eating them raw, blended into a green smoothie, provides eye health nutrition that your body can easily absorb and make use of. In a green smoothie recipe, it isn’t hard to get these eye health foods daily.

My husband and I started drinking green smoothies about a month ago. I had to take a break for 2 weeks when I visited family, but have been back on the green smoothie diet for nearly a week. My husband has glaucoma in his family and suffers from high eye pressure and I was told on my last eye exam that I had the beginnings of cataracts, plus I’ve had various floaties and flashes in my eyes, which happens as we age and the fluid in our eyes becomes hardened.

When we started drinking green smoothies, I was especially interested in recipes with eye health foods and eye health nutrition so perhaps we can keep these eye conditions from worsening.

The key to staying healthy with green smoothies is to vary your intake of fruits and veggies. The nutrients you are looking for are zinc, beta carotene, vitamin C, vitamin E, lutein and zeaxanthin and omega 3 fatty acids. If you are seeking veggies which are eye health foods, here are a list of veggies to include in your smoothies which contain valuable nutrients for preventing cataracts, glaucoma and macular degeneration:

• Beta carotene foods: cherries, carrots, sweet potatoes, kale, cantaloupe, apricots
• Vitamin C foods: bell peppers, Brussels sprouts, oranges, strawberries, kiwis and brocoli
• Vitamin E foods: wheat germ, almonds, avocados, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, peanut butter
• Zinc foods: chick peas, oysters, ostrich (a very lean meat), turkey, pumpkin seeds
• Lutein-Zeaxanthin foods: spinach, Swiss chard, corn, watercress and persimmons contain both.
• Omega-3 fats: wild salmon, sardines, Atlantic mackerel and omega-3-fortified eggs. If you’re making a green smoothie, you can add 1 tsp of flax seed oil or add flax meal to your smoothie.

If you want to prevent cataracts, studies have shown that foods rich in riboflavin also help:

• Riboflavin foods: skim milk and low-fat, eggs, mushrooms and almonds
• Niacin foods: chicken and turkey breast, wild salmon, kidney beans and natural peanut butter

To make a green smoothie with eye health foods, here’s one sample recipe:

1 cup water
One whole carrot, peeled if not organic
1/2 cup strawberries
1 dozen almonds
1 tsp flax seed oil
1/2 cup chick peas, canned
1 cup spinach
1/4 cup kefir or yogurt - (Learn to make Kefir at home and save money!)

Blend all of these ingredients on high in your Vitamix. for 30 seconds.

If you prefer your smoothie a little sweeter, add a few drops of stevia or organic agave nector or throw in more berries.

To make up your own green smoothie recipes to benefit your eyes, just choose a different eye health food group and vary your smoothie each day. The precise measurements aren’t that important. You can adjust your smoothie recipe to your personal taste.

Can green smoothies cure eye problems such as cataracts, glaucoma and macular degeneration? If you suffer from these conditions, it’s important to follow the advice of your doctor. However, proper eye health nutrition and eye health foods, especially if you begin consuming them early, can go a long way to help preventing or controlling these health issues.

Read more about green smoothies and get some free recipes from Vitamix.

Click on the banner below and receive free shipping on your Vitamix - a $25 value.

Vitamix for Green Smoothies

More tips to prevent eye diseases:

Always wear sunglasses and a visor or hat to protect your eyes from sunlight.

If you smoke, quit.

If you’re overweight, lose some of that weight. (Green smoothies can help!)

National Eye Institute Information on Eye Diseases, their prevention and treatments.

Joan’s Boomer Blog - Joining the Green Smoothie Revolution

Recently my husband and I joined the Green Smoothie Revolution and I wanted to blog about how Green Smoothies can help baby boomers. Many people I’ve met who are passionate about Green Smoothies are young mothers who want to improve their family’s nutrition. Boomers and seniors like me are concerned with healthy aging - maintaining optimal health as we get older. We are experiencing health issues such as arthritis, high cholesterol and maybe diabetes.Maybe we don’t maintain our weight as easily as we used to.

As we age, our bodies don’t take in and use nutrients this they did, leaving us vulnerable to a lowered immune system and results of aging. Can green smoothies help us aging boomers get more out of life?

Why Drink Green Smoothies?

What is your normal daily diet? Do you eat processed foods (foods that come in a package and are full of unpronounceable ingredients?) Do you eat lots of cooked foods, with maybe a small salad for dinner to get your “greens?” Do you have health issues?

Believe me, the health issues are intimately tied to you daily diet. Green smoothies can offer whole, raw veggies like broccoli, kale, Swiss Chard, and mustard greens. You can even throw beet and carrot greens in to your green smoothie recipe so you waste less food. AND these foods are uncooked which is important because cooking often destroys many of the nutrients in our veggies.

Since the foods are blended, the super nutrition is more readily available to your body to increase energy, boost your immune system, help you lose weight and be healthier. Green Smoothies are quick and convenient too, once you get your foods and a powerful blender. They keep for up to 48 hours in the frig so you can make them ahead of time.

Since I decided to start making Green Smoothies for my husband and me, I wanted to blog about the experience, offering recipes and tips to get you started and to let you know what Green Smoothies can do for healthy aging.

Many of my friends already are green smoothie converts. They’ve told me they experience:

• more energy
• improved digestion, including more regular bowel movements and soft stools
• fewer cravings for sugar and processed foods
• improved, more stable moods
• weight loss - an average of over 17lbs!
• increased desire to exercise (couldn’t we all use that!)

Others report less pain from arthritis, improved sex drive, less stress, shinier hair, stronger fingernails and smoother, clearer skin tone. All this after only 30 days on green smoothies!

How Much Green Smoothie Do You Need to Drink?

Optimum consumption is about one quart a day, four or more days per week but you can start with less.

Green smoothies are a lifestyle change. I’m going to start growing sprouts, making kefir, growing spinach and making lots of dietary changes. Check back in coming days to see how the green smoothie revolution is working out for this baby boomer.

Once I decided to embark on the Green Smoothie lifestyle, my next step was to research blenders. Green smoothies do require more power than your average smoothie blender. I look at all of them, read reports and asked friends who are already making green smoothies. Find out tomorrow which blender met the challenge.

More Green Smoothie Information and Recipes

Remodeling Your Bathroom Increases Value, Function for Boomers

Not only does remodeling your home’s bathrooms increase the value of the property, but, for baby boomers, a bathroom remodel can increase functionality as well. Wouldn’t you love to have a beautiful, luxurious bathroom that would fit your needs as you get older?

Large, tiled showers and Walk In Tubs For Elderly offer safety and convenience as we get older and they are available in a a great variety of colors to fit your bathroom remodel. It’s easy to add a grab bar for safety as well.

Besides getting walk in Replacement Bathtubs a whirlpool or soaker tub is wonderful for those with arthritis or sore joints. Today’s new materials make cleaning easier too.

Boise Bathroom Remodeling offers a unique feature on which allows you to “build your own bathroom.” Computer generated images add different features like walk in tubs or showers, and allow you to see different styles and colors in tile or whether or not you have grab bars, soap dishes or shower caddy. Want to test colors in the bathroom, or trims like wainscot or a chair rail? Using this web page, you can literally design your own bathroom remodel and get a sense of what it will look like when you’re finished.

If you’re considering a bathroom remodel, check into the features you can add to keep living in your home as you get older. You’ll end up with the luxurious, beautiful bathroom of your dreams.

My Favorite Reading Among the Boomer Blogs

As a baby boomer myself and the owner of Tips For Your Boomer Years, I love a good boomer blog. I subscribed to Google alerts for “baby boomer” and get a listing of half dozen or so boomer blogs every week. Some are a wealth of great information on retirement, senior discounts, senior and boomer issues and more.

Here are some of my favorite among the popular boomer blogs:

Baby Boomer Insights by Marilynn Mobley. Lots of great articles of interest to boomers - aging, retirement, finding new careers and more.

Baby Boomer.com has a cute feature. You can click on the year you were born and find out what happened. When I was born in 1950, Hopalong Cassidy and antihistamines were newly popular, the movie All About Eve came out and Joseph McCarthy warned of communist infiltration of the State Department - plus there were more great tidbits. One article I liked was “Call us ‘Girls’ or ‘Women over 40′ (or 50), Just Don’t Call Us Seniors!

Boomer Living.com I used to have a blog called Easy Boomer Living and was threatened with a lawsuit by Boomer Living for stealing their name so I had to change my blog to Tips for Boomer Years. However, this boomer blog does have good info on careers, finances, travel, health and more for boomers.

Retrovision TV isn’t a blog in the strictest sense but a listing of classic TV and movies from the 1930’s forward. If you click on an episode listed, you can watch the episode, find links to others in the series, and then comment on it in blog form. If you love classic movies and TV, you have to check out Retrovision.

Time Goes By - Boomer blog with various authors. There are also links on the site to an extensive list of other boomer and elder issue blogs that you might want to explore.

A wonderful boomer blog recommended to me recently by a friend is MyBoomer2Boomer. On this blog boomer entrepreneurs support each other, telling you about boomer friendly businesses, job hunting info and more.

When you start searching boomer blogs, it’s terrific to see how many of us have turned to blogging as a creative expression. It’s great to see boomers and seniors embracing technology and offering up their thoughts, knowledge and experiences to benefit others.

Do you have a favorite boomer blog? If so, send me a link. I’d love to check it out.

Observations on Growing Older

~Your kids are becoming you…and you don’t like them
…but your grandchildren are perfect!

~Going out is good.
Coming home is better!

~When people say you look “Great”…
they add “for your age!”

~When you needed the discount you paid full price.
Now you get discounts on everything …
movies, hotels, flights, but you’re too tired to use them.

~You forget names … but it’s OK
because other people forgot
they even knew you!

~The 5 pounds you wanted to lose
is now 15 and you have a better chance
of losing your keys than the 15 pounds.

~You realize you’re never going
to be really good at anything …. especially golf.

~Your spouse is counting on you
to remember things you don’t remember.

~The things you used to care to do,
you no longer care to do,
but you really do care that you
don’t care to do them anymore.

~Your spouse sleeps better on a lounge chair
with the TV blaring than he does in bed.
It’s called his “pre-sleep.”

~Remember when your mother said
“Wear clean underwear in case you GET in an accident”?
Now you bring clean underwear in case you HAVE an accident!

~You used to say,
“I hope my kids GET married …
Now, “I hope they STAY married!”

~You miss the days when everything worked
with just an “ON” and “OFF” switch.

~When GOOGLE, ipod, email, modem …
were unheard of, and a mouse was something
that made you climb on a table.

~You used to use more 4 letter words …”what?”…”when?”

~Now that you can afford
expensive jewelry, it’s not safe to wear it anywhere.

~You read 100 pages into a book before you realize you’ve read it.

~Notice everything they sell in stores is “sleeveless?”

~What used to be freckles are now liver spots.

~Everybody whispers.

~You have 3 sizes of clothes in your closet …
2 of which you will never wear.

~But old is good in some things:
old songs
old movies
And best of all OLD FRIENDS!

Add These AntiAging Foods to Your Daily Diet

As much as 90% of how well we age is related to lifestyle choices that we make every day. An AntiAging Diet can keep our minds and bodies functioning at peak capacity well into our senior years. Antiaging foods keep our muscles, joints and bones in good repair so we suffer less from arthritis and lack of balance. Antiaging foods keep our memory sharp and help ward off diseases like cancer and heart disease, which can be debilitating, if they don’t kill us, that is.

Here are some antiaging foods that you can add to your daily diet. You’ll notice the difference in the way you feel very quickly.

1.  Water - Sounds strange doesn’t it? That water is an important antiaging diet ingredient? Water keeps toxins and cancer causing waste materials flushed from your body. Joints which are well hydrated function better too. Drink 6-8 glasses of water daily.

2.  Nuts - Nuts contain heart healthy omega3 fatty acids, protein and fiber. It doesn’t take many nuts either. Sprinkle walnuts or sliced almonds on your salad or cereal daily. Contrary to popular opinion, even thought nuts have fat, it is a source of good fats that actually help our heart and cholesterol levels.

3.  Ginger - Ginger is a great anti-inflammatory food and inflammation is believed to be the cause of many illnesses and diseases people get as they age, such as arthritis and heart disease. Ginger is good for the digestion and is a good cure for indigestion. It works better than taking antacids and other medications.

4.  Garlic - Garlic helps lower cholesterol and is also an anti-viral, anti-bacterial food. Eat fresh, crushed garlic when possible. If you’re coming down with a cold, crush some garlic, let it set a few minutes and then mix it with butter and put on toast. Don’t heat the garlic. This is my go-to remedy for colds and sore throats and it works every time.

5.  Cruciferous Vegetables are among the best anti-aging foods around. Brocolli, turnips, cauliflower, and cabbage also are anti-cancer foods. Slice up a few turnips into soup or sprinkle chopped cabbage into your salad or steamed veggies.

6.  Berries - Blueberries top the list of nutrient rich, antioxidant packed foods but all berries contain antioxidants. Keep bags of them in the freezer to use in cereal, smoothies or mix with yogurt as a dessert.

7.  Chia Seeds These seeds are so tiny that 1/4 teaspoon is considered a serving. Make Chia Gel for smoothies or sprinkle chia seeds into cereal, yogurt, stir fry or just about any food.

8.  Green Tea - contains lots of anti-cancer and anti-aging ingredients. Drink 4-5 cups per day. If you aren’t fond of green tea, try some flavors mixed with fruit. Black tea is a good substitute. It doesn’t have all the antiaging properties of green tea but it does contain lots of antioxidants. Add a slice of lemon as this boosts the power of green tea by about 20%.

If you’re on an anti-aging diet, skip the sugar and processed foods. Sugar causes many of the illnesses and diseases that go along with aging and processed foods contain chemicals which can cause cancer, obesity and other health issues.

Read more about anti-aging foods you can easily add to your daily diet.

Read More about Being Healthier with Superfoods

Take Me Back to the Fabulous Fifties

Fabulous Fifties

I grew up in the 1950’s and vividly remember the “fabulous fifties” - drive-in movies, blackjack gum and riding my bike downtown to get a cherry coke for a nickle. A friend sent me this video montage, Take Me Back to the Fifties, and it really did take me back to my childhood.

When we used to go to the dime store, where things really cost a dime, and agonize over which penny candy to get with our allowance, which was, I think a dime. Back when Ricky Nelson was my first crush and I couldn’t wait for Ozzie and Harriet to come on each week.

Visit Old Forty-Fives.com and find montages of growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s, plus Growing up in the Fifties, What we Drove in the 50’s and 60’s, Old Westerns, Do you Remember These, When Life Was Black and White and others that are well worth a trip down memory lane.

Life was simpler in the fabulous fifties - at least for kids. We lived on a farm in Oregon and we could disappear in the morning, going down to the creek near our house, up on the mountain behind our house or take a bike ride downtown. We showed up for lunch, then took off again and my mom never once thought someone would kidnap us. Party lines and one telephone meant we couldn’t talk long to our friends - we’d ride our bikes to visit them instead.

Nobody had much money, our mom made our clothes and canned our food and everybody we knew lived pretty much like us. Nobody’s mom worked and none of my friends parents were divorced. Nobody seemed to worry what kind of education we got and all our free time was “unscheduled.” I know my parents worried a lot about “making ends meet” but living on a farm, we always had good healthy food to eat and healthy air to breathe.

I’d be the first to admit I love my computer with the Internet, connecting with old friends via Facebook, having my cellphone (now with text messaging because all our kids use it!), being able to DVR my favorite TV shows. Still, when I look at my young grandchildren, I feel sorry that they will never know the carefree freedom we had, learning to use their imaginations because that’s the only toys have, being on the run outdoors all day without anyone worrying about them.

I watch the grandchildren glued to videos, unable to go out their front door without supervision, going from activity to activity with no time to just lay out in the grass and watch the cloud shapes take form. I guess that’s why, when either of my 3 year old granddaughters comes to spend time with me, we always sit in the big swing out back and look at the trees and the birds and talk about things.

Just as my own parents were my link to the past which included World War II, the depression and life in the 30’s and 40’s, I guess I’ll be that link for my grandchildren to a simpler time to grow up-life in the Fifties.