Tag Archives: Millennials

It Ain’t Gettin’ Any Easier!

Caregivers, Humor, Medicare, , , , , , , , , ,

Pretty much every day, I am alarmed by little stories I find by scanning information about Elder issues.

My new friend Joanne Giardini-Russell, a true Medicare Guru, wrote an article this week about one of her clients who continued to go to work up to age 71. That, in itself, wasn’t a big surprise to me. If 60 is the new 40, working to age 70 or older,  is bound to happen more and more. Many of us actually like working.  Sure, many must keep working, and that is another article, for sure. But many people do work well into their 70’s and even 80’s. And those same hard-working people are often horrified about seemingly innocuous decisions they made (or didn’t make, by omission) and how they have placed themselves or their spouse into true fear of imminent destitution. Because of runaway health care costs.

You see, this guy’s venial sin was working too long and not retiring…..his mortal sin was not getting good information about how this affected his health insurance….more specifically Medicare. Suffice it to say that Joanne is trying to help this couple who have blown through more than $30,000…YES, THAT IS THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS…. of their own money, even though he had group insurance at work.

I don’t know this unfortunate couple’s story. But my guess is, they were not educated at work, they did not know how to use Medicare to their advantage at age 65, they did not take advantage of all the options at work for short-term disability and long-term disability, even if it required a contribution, and so on.

Those of us in this field are trying hard to get everyone to see the advantage of advanced planning instead of crisis planning. We are trying to work with your Financial Advisors,  your HR people at work, and quite frankly, anyone else who will listen, including you.

Find us. Ask us to come to your work and speak. Ask us questions on the internet machine!

Buy our books, yeah I said it. But let me ask you a question, if anyone could have saved thirty dollars, three thousand dollars, or thirty thousand dollars, by buying a book for fifteen dollars, would that be worth it? Yes, my friends, I think it would. #WhoMovedMyTeeth?

 

There is tons of good information out there. But you must find the experts, read things, ask questions and take action. Now is the time if you are a Baby Boomer, now is the time if your parents are in their 50’s and 60’s.

Oh, and to you Millennials and Gen-Xers….it’s never too late!

 

“You Just Have to…… Get Your Sh%$#@# Together…..and then you can Laugh all the way to the bank!”

Joanne doesn’t even know I’m telling you about her….so she will see this when you do.  If If you have any inkling that you want to discuss what you should do about signing up for Medicare:

Check out my friend Joanne at :

Boomer Health Group

Joanne Giardini-Russell, Medicare Guru

http://www.boomerhealthgroup.com/

 

 

Did We Actually Teach, Teach Them Well?

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I have to say, we Baby Boomers can be a self-satisfied lot. There are all kinds of posts out there about how we did just fine with spankings, wooden toys that didn’t do anything, no car seats or even seat belts for that matter. Bad TV, bad diets, flammable pajamas, DDT, baby oil instead of sunscreen, none of that had a deleterious effect on us, right? We’re just fine, you young whippersnappers.

And if you Millennials had had it a bit harder like we did, walking uphill in the snow to school both ways, you wouldn’t be so lazy, entitled and clueless.

But take a second look, my friends. Our blessed Millennials may be gurus you will want to be looking to in the future. Here are my top six reasons why:

  1. Millennials don’t work at a job for 30 years that they hate. They don’t even do it for 20 years, 10 years, or even 5 years. They know that’s stupid. If you have to work for that many years, you might as well try and be happy about going to work.

    They know what to do with this!
  2. They are saving more money than we ever did.   According to The Christian Science Monitor, they are better at saving and wiser about it. Money magazine agrees. You think you’re so smart? You will be happy when your Millennials can throw a few bucks to your home-health aide to keep you out of a nursing home because you didn’t save any money.  They will be too, because they don’t want to be your home-health aide.
  3. Our kids work pretty darn hard, harder than we did. According to the Boston Globe, Millennials are workaholics, probably because they are in jobs that they like. Since they are not willing to stay in a job that makes them miserable, they work harder when they find jobs they like. And they keep looking. So maybe that search for happiness isn’t so selfish after all.

    They really like babies!
  4. Millennials actually value their work-life balance, according to Forbes. Even though they may be workaholics on one hand, on the other hand, they are known for taking pay cuts to have a work life balance. When they have families they want to be with them. This is a big plus, especially since they are saving more than any other generation before them.
  5. They do and know how to embrace technology. Adweek tells us that they are ever-willing to learn new things. As technology is speeding us up every day, we better have someone to help us with it. I don’t know about you, but I try and find a 12-year-old every time a new app comes out or I can’t figure out how to use my iPhone.
  6. They’re pretty freakin’ smart. Even as we have bogged them down with unimaginable student debt, they listened to us about education. They are the most educated generation ever.  I like being surrounded by smart young people. Although just this week my daughter chastised me for ‘mansplaining’ something to her. I corrected her immediately: “I’m not mansplaing, I’m MOMSPLAINING.” That’s always acceptable.

So stop bad-mouthing Millennials. First of all, you raised them. Aren’t you proud of anything they’re doing? Secondly, look closer, they actually have their shit together. In many ways, much more than Baby Boomers. Finally, respect, people. Remember when you were 25 and your parents wondered if you had listened to anything they said? Millennials listened alright, and they took what they needed and left out the bad advice.

To Millennials:  We’re still your parents, don’t get all up in our grills, either.

“You Just have to Laugh……”

©2017 CathySikorski

 

The Fountain of Youth Sucks

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I have found the fountain of youth. And it just may kill you. I now know how to turn a 60-year-old into a 22-year-old.

I crashed my website. On purpose. It looks somewhat the same to you, but trust me, all this recreation makes me think I understand what God did in seven days. As so many are finding out, things we’be never done before, “are much more complicated than I thought.”

I also added a new page to my web address, with an additional WordPress Theme, new widgets, videos, photos, icons and things I don’t even know what they’re called.

I’ve had to contact my hosting company forty thousand times. By telephone. Which freaks them out because no one in this age group solves problems on the phone IRL (In Real LIfe…which also took some critical thinking time to figure out IRL).

Each time I call these poor guys, I explain to them that I am a Baby Boomer with no real skills.This conversation should be explaining how you’re going to teach a 5-year-old to do this. I don’t get a chuckle, a soothing response or an ‘atta’ girl’. They just jump right in going to

What I’m doing…

dashboards and domain thingies, and install buttons……. oh, good lord. And even when I have done every single thing they’ve told me to do, step-by-step, the problem we are trying to fix persists. In the meantime, I myself have figured out the following:

I have actually written HTML code with some help from my millennial kid to get cute icon doohickeys on my new web page.

After fighting with a widget for three hours, I just got ballsy and created my own custom widget that actually worked better.

Then, because either I think I’m invincible now, or I’m a glutton for punishment, I decided to try and create a 2-minute video for this website from an app I put on my iPad. It took me three hours to figure out that I couldn’t keep two minutes, I had to delete 58 minutes.

What I want to be doing….

Sixteen hours later, I called in the cavalry.

After crying to my daughters about the literal pain of technology (my headache was now slicing a rivulet through my cortex which met the pain searing down my neck and shoulders) they told me I was stupid. “Call your brother.  He does this for a living. He’s supposed to help you.” Which he did,  in no time. But I’m still taking credit for scrapping 58 minutes of unusable footage.

If I haven’t lost my mind by the end of this week, I’m sure I will live an earthly existence with all my marbles and some of other people’s marbles, too because I will know how to code them into my DNA.

I have not had one drink since I started because I have to create and finish a PowerPoint presentation for a client before I go to the Kentucky Derby.  If you watch the Kentucky Derby on TV, look for the red hat laying on the ground, I’ll be under it with a smile on my face and a mint julep in my hand returning to middle age with a big swig of gratitude.

Here’s the link if you want to see where all this has taken me…go ahead, you can be honest. In fact, send me an email from the “Contact” box, at least I’ll know it it’s working! You can’t say anything I haven’t already said to myself every single day.

www.cathysikorski.com/Speaker

“You Just have to Laugh…..”

©2017 Cathy Sikorski

My Yogi is a Bear………….

Humor, , , , , ,

I returned to the practice of yoga a few weeks ago. I can’t seem to get things right. I keep having to practice law and yoga.

I’ve done yoga for many years. I retreated for a time because, for unknown reasons, my neck and shoulders stiffened up. It was gradual but I wasn’t paying attention. Ultimately, I could barely turn my head right or left and started to lose the ability to raise my arms all the way.

My chiropractor, who happens to be my brother-in-law started the miraculous process of getting me back to normal (that’s a relative term… oh sure why not? pun intended!). I went on to find a physical therapist like no other through my masseuse, who is a genius unto herself. Yeah, I got a team you would die for.

So now that I can hear and see people talking behind my back, I returned to yoga to get as limber and balanced as possible, even though imbalance may run in my family. Yoga has magical properties.

Imagine my surprise when the yoga teacher confronted me at the door to the studio.

“Hi, I’m Lili, have you done yoga before?”

“Why, yes I have.”

I thought she was asking because often the yogi will want to know if you’re a beginner or have special physical needs that she should be aware of.

“Where?”

Wow. Why does that matter?

“Well, I started at the YMCA quite a long time ago.”

“With who?”

Geez, I’m thinking, do I need to qualify for this class? There are only 4 other women and every one of them looks older  and no more flexible than me based on the stretching going on on those mats. I think I’ll be okay.

“I studied with Sandy. And then she moved to a private studio down the street and I practiced with her and Sue.”

“Well, this is a special yoga class. We do %$^#% yoga ( I have no idea what she said, I never even pay attention to the names of the poses. I have enough garbage in my head. I just follow directions and look at the teacher)

She went on to tell me that she’s 80-years-old, has to wear her orthopedic shoes during the class because she hurt her feet and she introduced yoga to the YMCA in this area 21 years ago because she studied with some famous guru and Deepak Chopra.

And she still wasn’t letting me go put my mat down. I really was intimidated by now. What had I done wrong? Why can’t I go sit with the rest of the old ladies?  I JUST WANT TO DO YOGA!

What I think I look like doing yoga.
What I really look like doing yoga.

Breathe. Just breathe. Yoga. Breathing.

‘Look, I said, I’m not into Power Yoga. I’m over that. I have a big, stressful day ahead of me and I just want to get my head in the right place.” And you’re not helping, I  wanted to say.

“Okay,” she said, “well we better get started it ‘s already late.” That was my fault as well because I wasn’t passing the interrogation.

I’ve decided the whole fiasco was because I was wearing my new millennial-style, super chic, RBX yoga pants and Lili thought I was going to want guerilla yoga.

By the way, it was a great class. Very relaxing, goddammit.

“You Just have to Laugh…..”

©Cathy Sikorski 2017

 

Hey….I’m talkin’ here…….

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As a member of the Sandwich Generation, I assure you The Greatest Generation and The Millennials have more in common than you think.

Last evening, I was checking in on my 88-year-old mom. She lives in her own house, works out at a gym, belongs to a book club, drives her own car, gets her hair done every week, reads so much she thinks it’s a crime because she doesn’t get her chores done and has strong political beliefs. Based on all that, she should be checking in on me, her child. You know, just to make sure I’m okay.

A bit into the conversation she says:

Every girl needs green pants!

“Oh, I need to go to the mall. I really need new green pants.”

“Hey,” I said, “I have a coupon for your favorite store. I’ll drop it off tomorrow.”

“Oh,” she moaned, “I can’t go tomorrow. I’m too busy. I have no idea when I can get there. And I found this gift card. I don’t know how long it’s good for.”

“Mom, that gift card is good forever. There’s no rush.”

“Ugh,” she said, “I’m so bored with my wardrobe. I never pick out anything that I like.”

“MOM,” I stopped her. “I know what you’re doing.”

“You do?”

“Yes, I know what you’re doing. Why don’t you just ask rather than pussyfoot around?”

“Well, if you know what I’m doing then I don’t have to ask.”

“Okay, fine,” I say exasperated. ” I will take you shopping.”

As demurely as she can muster she says, “Aww, thanks, that’s nice.”

Not five hours later, my 20-something daughter calls on her way home from a long, long day at work. I love that she calls almost every night. She lives in the big city and she knows it makes me feel better when she chats with me while walking home from work.

At some point, we run out of chit-chat. It’s been a long day for both of us. It’s late. We are both tired. But she doesn’t seem to want to hang up.  So, I’m talking about her work, her roommate’s new job, her sore feet.

Okay, kid. Let’s wind this up. Mommy still has work to do.

She mentions a wedding invitation she received. She asks about a family friend’s impending grandson. She responds to my story that I should definitely take Nanny shopping for green pants because she needs new ones. This is getting ridiculous.

Her Dad goes to bed. I miss my favorite show. Oh. My. God.

And then it hits me and I say to her:

“I know what you’re doing.”

“What,” she mumbles, because I know by this time, she’s in bed and talking from there.

“It’s like when you were little. You want me to talk and talk and talk until you fall asleep.”

“Um hmm,” she says.

What I imagine she looks like while I’m talking.

At least that’s what I think she says because now it’s unintelligible and she may, in fact, be asleep already.

See, these grandmas and kids are still manipulating us at every turn.

But the joke is on them, they didn’t know what I was doing. I was spending time with them. They still need me!

“You Just Have to Laugh….”

©2017 Cathy Sikorski