Living Life Retired

Staying connected

April 2, 2020 by Sherry

I have always been a big fan of Shel Silverstein’s poetry and drawings. They were great little quips to add to my tutoring sessions years ago with middle school students and I even used them once on a bulletin board in my high school classroom. My favorite Shel Silverstein book is Where the Sidewalk Ends.

During this time of social isolation and stay at home orders, staying connected is even more important than it was before. Since my three young grandchildren are staying home from school and community activities I decided to pull out some of my favorite books and share a couple of pages with them every day through snail mail. Kids especially love to receive snail mail. They think it’s pretty cool and it is something for them to look forward to.

You remember snail mail. That’s the kind that takes a couple of days to send/receive. It includes an envelope, a stamp and a return address. Oh, and a bit of moisture for closure.

How to Stay Connected Through Snail Mail

We all have old envelopes around. I have boxes of them. Even the kind you used to mail your check for the house payment works. I add pictures and jokes on the back of the envelope to dress it up and make it more fun.

Then find short stories, color pages, scavenger hunts, or poems to put in them. If they are old enough to read, write them a letter telling about some of your old memories of school, etc. I add math problems or words for my grandkids for practice since I am a teacher. Today, I cut one of the poems into four pieces to make it into a simple puzzle.

As long as you don’t put in more than three sheets of paper, one stamp will be enough on the envelope. You may even want to mail some stamps to your grandchildren so they can send you pictures or write a letter back to you. What a fun way to stay connected. Share how you are staying connected below.

“There is a place where the sidewalk ends and before the street begins, and there the grass grows soft and white, and there the sun burns crimson bright, and there the moon-bird rests from his flight to cool in the peppermint wind.”
–Shel Silverstein

Where are your old family photos?

March 18, 2020 by Sherry

old negatives — Photo taken at antique store by slc

My daughter and I enjoyed shopping together in antique stores when she was younger. Once she saw some vintage family photos in a booth and said she thought it was sad the photos weren’t with the family they belonged to. She wanted to find the families and return their photos to them. Lofty goal for a young girl. Vintage family photos, slides and negatives are valuable but only to the family they belong to. Where are your old family photos?

In May, I found hundreds of priceless old family photos and negatives from the early 1900’s in my Mom’s shed. Some of the envelopes have tiny teeth marks left by the shed’s inhabitants. With Mom’s blessing, I took them home and couldn’t wait to see what images would appear.

Just a simple haircut or is it?

January 7, 2020 by Sherry

How often do you get your hair cut? When I’m not growing my hair out, I get mine cut every six weeks. Simple right? Well, it’s not if you are in a nursing home under someone else’s care (or should I say thumb).

I have called the nursing home where my Mom is living out her final days every six weeks or so since June to set up a simple haircut appointment. I speak with Mary and I’ve been told she would set up the appointment for the following Friday.

However, I visited my Mom in November and she had not had her hair cut in months. I could not believe it. My Mom’s care is self-pay until her money runs out. She definitely has $20 for a simple haircut so what’s the problem you ask?

It seems Mom’s non-family member power of attorney doesn’t think she needs a haircut and won’t authorize it or use her money to pay for it. So, I sent a check for $20 on November 12th to the nursing home with a nice card asking them to schedule an appointment at their earliest convenience. Afterall, it’s just a simple haircut.

It’s now January 2020 and I checked my bank account the other day to see if the check I sent had been cashed. It had not. So I emailed the nursing home to inquire about the check and the haircut. They replied that their stylist had quit and the replacement was sick throughout December. Since they now have a new stylist my Mom will finally get her hair cut this Friday the 10th. Six months after I thought I scheduled Mom’s first haircut. A haircut is not so simple after all.

Pre-medicare insurance premium keeps going up

January 2, 2020 by Sherry

I just received my new statement of earnings, taxes, and deductions for 2020. While I have received zero increases in my educator’s pension since I retired in 2015, my pre-medicare insurance premium keeps going up. From 6% of my pension in 2015 to over 18% in 2020. Happy new year!

In the May 2019 Fidelity Viewpoint we read, “According to Fidelity’s Decision to Retire research, conducted with the Stanford Center on Longevity,¹ people retire an average of 4 years sooner than they had planned. For many who do have gap years between when they actually retired and when they had planned to retire, it can be a mad scramble to find affordable, quality health care coverage until they are eligible for Medicare at age 65.” I hadn’t planned to retire at age 55, but circumstances made it difficult for me to continue being a full time educator. I also felt I could scrape by working part time given my income and expenses at the time.

I receive $2,055.87 a month from the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association and I receive a health care subsidy as part of my retirement benefits. Since retiring, these are my out-of-pocket monthly premiums for identical coverage for one person with a $6,000 deductible:

$131.00 beginning August, 2015
$131.00 in 2016
$170.00 in 2017
$210.00 in 2018
$334.00 in 2019
$384.00 in 2020 ($4,608/year)

Since I am only 60, I have five more years before I can receive Medicare. I already work part time as a substitute teacher but I may have to get another job to keep up with the increase in health care. For instance a recent visit to the dermatologist for minor skin cancer treatment cost me over $800 and they want me to come back in January. I have already decided to cancel this appointment.

What options do we have if we aren’t 65? We could save our premiums and put them in a self-pay fund or maybe look into Medi-Share or Liberty Healthshare. “Medi-Share is a healthcare sharing ministry where members share each other’s medical bills and pray for each other’s medical challenges.” Liberty is similar. The Fidelity Viewpoint article cited above offers other possibilities.

The silver lining is my pension is eligible for a 1.25% cost of living increase in July. Let me see, that comes to an increase of $25.70/month. Wow! I guess it’s better than nothing.

What is your health care situation like? I would love to hear from you about what you are doing to offset this cost. Please leave me a comment and do have a Happy New Year!

Cabin Update: Sherry’s She Shed

June 27, 2021December 4, 2019 by Sherry

If you have been following this blog for awhile, you know I purchased a small mountain property with an old dilapidated cabin on it. A year ago August upon the advice of my lawyer, I had to break the contract with a structural engineer I just signed due to a lawsuit my ex-husband was threatening. Since that time the lawsuit has not materialized, so I went with Plan B, or was it Plan C?. This new plan called for a she shed to be constructed on the property as a writer’s cabin, much like Thoreau’s . The shed would be somewhere I could stay while working on the property, savoring its solitude and using it as a place to write. It would be aptly named Sherry’s “she shed.”

After doing some research I found out I could build a 10′ x 12′ shed without a county building permit. Electricity would also require a permit so I decided the shed would not have electricity. I contracted Tuff Shed to build my shed once I designed it. On July 10th I ordered it online and the build date was scheduled for August 20th, just two days before my 60th birthday. Perfect. I was excited.

Nursing home phones keep families connected

October 15, 2021November 13, 2019 by Sherry

Alexander Graham Bell’s dream was for there to be a telephone in every major city. My dream is one day there will be nursing home phones or a similar device in every resident’s room so families can stay connected.

Monta Fleming wrote in her blog post, The Importance of the Phone for the Elderly, “Reliable communication is such a common, ordinary thing that we do not even think about it anymore. The invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 revolutionized the way we think about communication. Now, today, we have cell phones and email as well as landlines. But, to many of the elderly, a phone is their only source of communication with the outside world.” This is the case with my Mom who is currently in a nursing home under hospice care.

After Mom entered the nursing home for skilled nursing care on May 17th, I learned she did not have access to a phone in her shared room. Something I did not even consider when I toured the facility and three others. I have since learned that by federal law, nursing home residents have certain rights; one of them is the use of a telephone.

Where are your old family photos?

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Just a simple haircut or is it?

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Pre-medicare insurance premium keeps going up

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Cabin Update: Sherry’s She Shed

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Nursing home phones keep families connected

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How to Stay Connected Through Snail Mail

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