Guest – Page 5 – Disney Leadership Keynote Speaker

Spring cleaning, by guest blogger Lorie Sheffer

This year Spring came early to the Susquehanna Valley. In some ways I feel as if this has given me a heads up on warm weather chores. I’ve started pulling weeds before they can produce seeds, and I have thrown open every window in the house. With that comes the annual ritual of Spring Cleaning.

This week found my husband and I digging into long forgotten boxes that were tucked away into the dark recesses of our basement. We had no clue what most of them contained until we opened them. I found a very horrible Halloween decoration that our daughter crafted when she was about 12 years old. I felt sad about getting rid of it, but when I showed it to her she laughed and asked why I had kept something so ugly for so long. My husband found athletic ware from not only college, but also high school. When our grandson saw a pair of “Grampy’s” old track shorts, he asked, “Were they yours when you were a baby?” We filled our dumpster and the garbage man hauled it away this morning. We are thrilled to have disposed of or donated so much stuff.

My parents are starting to watch their friends sell homes and move into retirement communities. Their new favorite thing to keep saying to my brother and me is, “Some day you’ll have a job cleaning out this house!” They fret over adult children who hire professionals to do the job when parents pass away, and wonder what will happen to their stuff when they are gone. My father has always been so organized that he literally woke from a month long coma and was able to direct me to things in his house and garage from his hospital bed. It takes me an hour just to find a screwdriver in my own house. Yet he and my mother have lived in their home for almost 60 years and organized as it is, labeled and boxed and shelved, they have accumulated lots of stuff.

The new subject of Schedenfreude seems to be compulsive hoarding. There are TV shows and books on the subject, and it seems to be all the rage; the trend du jour. I have seen actual, severe hoarding close up and personal. In comparison, it makes my disorganized basement and garage look like a page from Martha Stewart Living. After the hoard was professionally cleaned and sorted and laid out in an auction house, I went to see it; rows and rows and rows of stuff. Not only the stuff from my own relatives’ hoard, but also the stuff of so many other people. There were collections that must have taken years to amass. There were rooms filled with furniture, appliances, toys, clothing, gadgets, artwork, dishes, silverware, glassware. Stuff that the owners “needed”. Stuff that held memories and emotions. And yet, it was now just stuff. We all have it. We all hang on to things that we feel holds some magical memory for us. If a famous person touched it then it is worth more, monetarily. If someone we loved once owned it or gave it to us, we sometimes find it irreplaceable.

One woman, who is a compulsive hoarder, said that her possessions help her to relive past events. And I wondered, isn’t that why all of us hang onto our stuff?

It’s A New Year, By Guest Blogger Lorie Sheffer

It’s a new year. Well, almost. This year I am making small changes that shouldn’t be that difficult to implement, but will have big payoffs for my mental and physical health. For anyone who reads these Mid Life posts, maybe some of my small changes will be ones you can try as well.

I hate to eat in the morning. Always have. Coffee is about all I can stand. Even though I always cooked breakfast for my family, I rarely ate any of it. I know this isn’t healthy, but until recent years it didn’t seem to matter. I know I am not alone in this, because I know many people who view a travel mug of coffee as breakfast. It’s not.

Over the past year, I noticed a lack of energy and sometimes a dull headache in the early afternoon. Not feeling hungry, I didn’t link it to the fact that I hadn’t eaten all day. Not that I am one to not eat; I just happen to start feeding myself after, say, 4 PM. Then one day the TV was on as background noise to my cleaning the bedroom. A doctor was on, saying that you should feel hungry in the morning. If you don’t then it probably means you aren’t used to eating breakfast. Your body doesn’t know the difference between starving and stupid eating habits, so your metabolism slows down in an effort to hang on to those calories. Humm…… when I thought about that it dawned on me that if I skipped breakfast I didn’t feel hungry all day, but on days when I did eat something I was hungry by lunch time. I also notice that on those rare days when I eat before late afternoon I have more energy.

My New Year’s resolution #1 is this: Eat breakfast. I am going to have to see what I like and don’t like. I am going to start small, maybe a hard-boiled egg or some yogurt. My goal is to work my way towards a more healthy meal. Some days I find myself rushing out the door, and on those mornings I will at least have something portable to grab on the way out. Even if that is a Ziplok bag of Cheerios or a handful of dried fruit, I am going to eat something before noon. Not too big a goal, but one that has the potential to make me feel much better throughout the day.

Choose Your Battles, By Lorie Sheffer, Guest Blogger

As I look ahead at the New Year, I can’t help but glance over my shoulder in an effort to see if I have learned anything. I’m not one of those people who can set large resolutions. I know me, and it’s not going to happen. What works for me are those small changes that honestly do make a difference in the long run; the attainable goals. Not that they are easy, mind you.

My goal for last year was to try to laugh in the face of stress. I have so many serious things in my life that if I sweat the small stuff I can easily become overwhelmed. I think it’s called Choosing Your Battles. Not only have I done well, I have also discovered that those previously stressful situations can now provide some much needed comic relief.

I love to cook, but I hate shopping for food. I’m not entirely sure the employees of my regular grocery store are thrilled when they see my car pulling into the lot, either. In November I had the Unfortunate Clam Chowder Incident. Who knew that those new pop top soup cans fly open if the can is accidentally dropped onto the floor from the top shelf? Clean-up in aisle 5! Then there was the Christmas Eve Shrimp Tragedy. In an effort to try to learn new things, I went through the self-check aisle. All was well until I got to the large party platter of steamed shrimp at the bottom of my cart. The lid wasn’t on tight enough. Or something. When a party platter starts to flip, well, there’s no recovering. There was a time when these incidents would have pushed me over the edge. But no more! Now I find them to be hilarious. I even had to laugh last summer when I fell out of my sandals into the parking lot during a downpour. Sure I was soaked and my knee swelled up like a cantaloupe, but really…. Getting angry wouldn’t have provided me with cat-like reflexes, nor would it have suddenly turned me into a less klutzy person. It turns out that laughter really IS the best medicine. Another surprising side benefit to laughing off your mishaps is that people around you will seem to become less stressed as well.

What it all boils down to is this: You can be stuck in an embarrassing or stressful situation and you can freak out about it, or you can try to laugh about it; your choice. But either way, the situation will remain the same. I choose to laugh. Life is too short to worry about a few spilled shrimp (or 5 pounds of them!) at the bottom of a shopping cart.

Adapting, By Guest Blogger Lorie Sheffer

Photo: Lorie Sheffer, Baltimore Museum of Industry

The holiday season afforded me the chance to visit with two very special members of my family. The first visit was with Aunt Ruth, who will turn 101 in a few weeks. My second visit was with Aunt Betty. She will celebrate her 90^th birthday in March.

Both of these amazing ladies live at home, and both are almost shockingly fit, mentally and physically. What I most wanted to try to see was if there was some common link the two of them shared. Being from different sides of my family I knew there was no genetic link, so I reasoned there had to be something they were doing that was contributing to their longevity.

A sense of humor was one of the first things that jumped out when I spoke to my aunts. They also both like to get out of the house and remain active. Granted, Ruth’s exercise is going to watch her daughter’s aquatics therapy, but still; at 100 years old, getting out of the house, into the car, into the pool area and back requires some maneuvering. She enjoys going out to dinner, too. Ruth was stunned when an anonymous person paid for her and her daughter’s dinner. “We must have looked pathetic, her with her cane and me with my walker”, she chuckled. Aunt Betty, being almost 10 years Ruth’s junior, still drives her car and attends quite a few social functions. Her arthritic knees seem to be the only thing that slows her down. As a retired registered nurse, she takes great pride in the fact that she keeps up with medical news and reads monthly newsletters from several institutions of higher learning. She has never lost the desire to learn and to remain interested.

Perhaps what stands out the most about both of them is their ability not only to adapt to change, but the fact that they almost seem to thrive on it. Instead of moaning about what they can no longer do, they almost brag about figuring out new ways to do things. For example, Aunt Betty told me that while she can’t carry her laundry basket down the basement steps to the washer and dryer, she has figured out a new way. She puts her laundry into a pillow case and tosses it down, then goes down holding onto the railing. When it’s done, she carries the basket up a step at a time, placing the basket onto the steps in front of her as she goes. Aunt Ruth, who is tiny and can’t reach into her kitchen cupboards without the now-forbidden step stool, has also found a solution to her problem. She no longer uses the cupboards, and instead keeps the dishes and cups she needs on the counter where she can easily reach them. Neither of the ladies seems to be concerned about what they can no longer do the old way, and instead seem pretty darned happy with their ingenuity.

I suppose what these women have taught me is that there really is a sort of evolution to aging, and those who learn to accept and adapt will thrive and be happier than those who get stuck and refuse to change. Recently, they were sitting in a waiting room, someone asked Ruth’s daughter, “Are you sisters?” Ruth said to me, “I know it hurt Phyllis’s feelings, but I LOVED it! And hey…. I feel great. I don’t feel a day over 85 and I must not look it, either!” Then she laughed and slapped her thigh.

Good Will To All, By Guest Blogger Lorie Sheffer

My grandson is a perfect example of why this country is called a melting pot. His genetic makeup includes Hispanic, German, Italian and Austrian. He’s got a Jewish branch of the family a Methodist branch and a Pentecostal branch. There are family members who are very conservative right wing, and those of us who are hard-core liberals. He seems, as most children do, blissfully unaware of any differences. He just loves his family and friends.

Last week I thought it would be nice for him to learn a bit more about his Jewish ancestors by celebrating Hanukkah. I have some memories of celebrating Hanukkah many years ago, in New York City. I also found that you can Google anything, including recipes for brisket! AOL has a radio station that plays a stream of Hanukkah songs. Ironically, the commercials were for Christmas deals at major retailers. I asked Carter if he had ever heard any of the songs (Adam Sandler’s “classic” doesn’t count!), and he said he had not. When I asked him if he’s sure he’s never heard them when he turns on the radio or TV or walks into a store any day between Halloween and New Year’s Day, a look of understanding showed on his face.

When I sat the hot, crispy latkes on the table Carter, true to his Puerto Rican lineage, asked for the Goya hot sauce. He also hot sauced the brisket. He decided that he loves Hannukah food, with a slight Hispanic flavor.

We discussed how people who celebrate differently do not covet our holidays, nor do they wish to stop our celebrations. They have their own beliefs and their own traditions, which they hold as dear to them as we do ours. Most of all, we talked about the common link. That is the spirit of this season. My daughter invited an old friend of hers, who is Jewish. He gave his perspective of what it was like to grow up in a predominantly Christian area. Very different than when I went to New York and as someone who was raised in a Christian home, found myself to be the minority. Mostly I found that the beauty of another religion fascinated me. I saw much of the same of what I experienced at home, which was family and friends coming together. They didn’t long for a Christmas tree any more than my family wished to be spinning dreidels. This should be a time when we put aside our differences and join in the wish for peace on Earth and goodwill to all. No matter how we choose to say it or what language we are speaking, all that matters is that we somehow find the willingness to be kind and respectful to one another.