The Ethel, a newsletter produced by AARP, is not perfect for everyone (is anything?), but it does speak to the challenges/opportunities we are likely to face as we age.

So, with credit to a recent The Ethel, here are four things that “promise” to make us happier:

1. Sit or stand up straight. When I was young, I was unusually tall, at 5’10”, towering over all my girlfriends and most boys. My mother used to whisper in my ear “SB,” her signal to put my shoulders back as I slumped through adolescence.  I still hear that voice, and I still have imperfect posture. But if it is going to make me happier…
2. Have fresh flowers. I don’t need The Ethel to tell me flowers make me happier. Peter always knew that a bouquet of daisies would cause me to forgive any of his rare transgressions.
3. Be near water. Lake, river, ocean—it doesn’t matter—Being near water is my default cure for feeling blue.  Does it always work?  Nope, but it’s worth a try.
4. Clear the clutter. I probably wouldn’t put this in my top four ways to be happy, but I do feel a certain comfort when my “to do” pile on my desk is under control.

How about you?

I don’t “do” sick. It’s never on my agenda.  But things can go wrong.  And have.

This is my 8^th day of not leaving my apartment because I am sick with a mysterious--not Covid--something.  Even worse, I am home and not being productive because when my body says “lie down,” I lie down.

I’m on the mend, and I hear that it’s not much fun outside in this very cold spell anyway. 

But I’ve had enough of me.

I began to blog twice-weekly at 70-something.com seventeen years ago this month in order to “process” my aging.  Of course, I knew that there would be good times and difficult times, but I never expected to lose the home and community that were such a part of my happy life.

At 80-something, disruption has been a little harder to take as is the uncertainty of whether I’ll be renewing a lease in my hastily found apartment, or once again be packing up for a move in twelve months.

One thing I know for sure—my mother’s two-dozen crystal stemmed dessert dishes that I have never used and the kids don’t want will soon be donated to the closest church’s thrift shop, never to be wrapped for packing again.

It’s never too late to learn… 

It is true that as we get older, the years go faster, probably because they are a smaller percentage of our age.  So welcome to 2025.  It came very fast.

Of course, I am not in the business of predicting, but I hope that this year will be better than I anticipate.  I am basically a worrier.  I worry about global warming.  I worry about our divided country and more.  But I hadn't worried that I would have to move myself and my possessions out of the place I expected to live for what I hoped would be a long time.  And that’s been hard.

I’ve been in my new place almost four weeks now.  It’s smaller, but I was able to cram in all but one bookcase. It is a bit of a challenge to walk between the end of my bed and my dresser. It helps that I am thin.  On the upside, this building has a gym, and I am back on an exercise bicycle for the first time in several years.

Of course, the downside is a loss of a community that I loved. 

Onwards.