Category Archives: Aging and Life Lessons

6 Things My Still-Young Mind Can’t Fathom About My Aging Body (Plus New Releases!)

by Kassandra Lamb

I recently turned 66. My mind is amazed by that. It feels more like it’s 35.

But more and more my mind gets daily reminders from my aging body—it may THINK it’s still relatively young, but oh boy…

Years ago, a friend of mine, on the occasion of her 50th birthday, said, “How did my 25-year-old mind get stuck in this 50-year-old body?” That totally captures how I’m feeling these days.

Here are six things that absolutely boggle that young-thinking mind of mine regarding my aging body:

This sign has a whole different meaning for me and my aging body! (image from photo by Rob Farrow CC-BY-SA 2.0 Wikimedia Commons)

1. I waddle for the first few steps when I stand up after sitting for a while.

It takes a moment or two for my hip joints to remember what they’re supposed to do.

I sometimes consciously try not to waddle. I can do that by walking very stiffly with my legs sort of pinched together. But as soon as I stop doing that, guess what… I waddle for a few steps.

2. I can’t say “Hold, please,” when I hear the call of nature.

Used to be if I was in the middle of something—writing a scene, feeding the dog, fixing my lunch—I could wait until I was done that task before heading for the bathroom.

Nope, not anymore. Old lady bladders do not wait!

3. I can’t eat rich food without paying the price.

a filet mignon, yet another food that my aging body can't quite handle

(photo by Robspinella CC-BY-SA 4.0 International, Wikimedia Commons)

And the definition of rich food is getting narrower. A few weeks ago, We went out to one of the nicer restaurants in town to celebrate our anniversary. I had Caesar salad, filet mignon (almost melted in my mouth!), and mashed potatoes, for Pete’s sake! And for dessert, cinnamon beignets with dark chocolate dip.

Even the beignets weren’t all that rich. They were these light little cinnamon pastries, mostly air really, and I dipped just a corner in the chocolate. Delish!

I left the restaurant feeling pleasantly full and pleased with myself that I’d resisted the much richer dishes on the menu.

Yeah, about that… To avoid going into TMI territory, let’s just say that my system was not happy and it let me know about it. (I decided the steak and dessert were still worth it.)

And speaking of the dessert…

4. I can’t do ANY caffeine after 5ish if I want to sleep that night.

Sleep becomes more fragile as we age, the multiple reasons for insomnia increasing geometrically with every half a decade over 45.

Used to be I couldn’t do coffee or strong hot tea (the only way I like it) after 5 p.m. Then I could only have them in the mornings. But I could drink iced tea or colas well into the evening.

Then it was one cup of hot tea in the a.m. and iced tea until 6ish, but I could still eat chocolate in the evenings.

Yeah, you guessed it. Even that little bit of dark chocolate in the dip was too much. I was up every hour or so all night. (Again, still worth it!)

5. When I look in the mirror, my mother is staring back at me.

My mom laughing; despite her aging body, she never lost her sense of humor

I love this pic of my mom laughing over a gag gift at my sister-in-law’s baby shower. She’s 63 here.

I’ve looked more like my father’s side of the family for most of my adulthood. That was a good thing. They’re slimmer with higher metabolic rates than my mother’s clan.

Also, I don’t really remember what my mother looked like when I was a kid. Your mom is just your mom. You don’t actually LOOK at her.

So most of my memories of my mother’s appearance are from my teen years and beyond, when she was middle-aged… and beyond.

And now I am “beyond” and I look a lot like she did at my age. Don’t get me wrong. I loved my mom. But I do not want to BE her.

6. I have no reserve tank, energy-wise. When I’m done, I’m done.

I used to be a very active person. I still am, I guess, “for my age.” I walk or do Zumba almost every day.

My cute new sideboard that it took three days to put together. The mind was willing, but the aging body, not so much.

But I also have five chronic health issues that cause fatigue. (Yup, five!) I’ve learned to pace myself, and I’m pretty good at it, most of the time. But there are times when I start something I can’t finish.

I bought a new piece of furniture recently. It came in pieces. It wasn’t that hard to put together, but I had to do it over three days, a couple of hours a day.

Okay, other oldsters out there, what aspects of your aging body tend to startle your still-youngish mind?

AND we have a new release for you, from Kirsten Weiss.

This is a really fun read!! And Kirsten will be posting later in the month with more about UFO sightings and such.

Planet of the Grapes book cover

Planet of the Grapes, A Doyle Cozy Mystery (A Wits’ End Mystery #2)

Aliens, fairies and murder, oh, my!

In small-town Doyle, California, UFO abductions are a budding tourist attraction. So when Susan Witsend brings a UFO festival to town, she’s ready for some well-deserved time in the sun.

What she gets instead is the corpse of a UFO conspiracy theorist, brained with a bottle of local wine.

Susan may be the owner of a UFO-themed B&B, but she doesn’t wish on stars to get what she wants. She’s a woman with a planner. Plan A) Milk the UFO festival for all it’s worth. Plan B) Stop lusting after her best friend turned security consultant, Arsen Holiday.

But murder isn’t the only thing threatening Susan’s best-laid plans. Beset by alien protestors, aging nudists, and hidden secrets at every turn, Susan’s nearing her wits’ end. And now Plan C is to stay on the good side of a grumpy local sheriff.

Susan may not have a clue, but she knows she wants a certain security consultant at her side when the killer goes supernova.

Planet of the Grapes is book 2 in the Wits’ End series of cozy mystery novels. If you like laugh-out-loud cozy mysteries, you’ll like Planet of the Grapes. Buy the book to start this hilarious caper today! Breakfast recipes at the back of the book.

Available NOW on: AMAZON APPLE KOBO NOOK

And I have a Cover Reveal for you!! Tada! (Releases next week.)

Legend of Sleepy Mayfair cover

Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kass is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She is the author of the Kate Huntington psychological mysteries, set in her native Maryland, and the Marcia Banks and Buddy cozy mysteries, set in Central Florida.

We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

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Laugh Lines Make the Best Wrinkles #BOAW2018

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by Kassandra Lamb

This would normally be an “off” week for our blog, but I’m participating in the Beauty of a Woman Blogfest VII this week, as I’ve done each year since its inception (or maybe I jumped in at year 2; I can’t remember for sure). This wonderful celebration of women is sponsored by the beautiful-inside-and-out August McLaughlin.

So here’s a short and hopefully amusing post in honor of humorous women. Please hop over to the BOAW site when you’re finished reading and check out the excellent posts listed there. (And maybe win a great prize or two!!) The blogfest is from today through March 9th.

Not Barb’s book; it is below.

The late comedienne extraordinaire Erma Bombeck had a birthday a few of weeks ago (she would have been 91). Meanwhile, a very much alive friend of mine, Barb Taub, released a new humor book last month.

These two events got me to thinking about humor, aging and beauty.

In my review of Barb’s book I called her today’s version of Erma Bombeck. I hope that compliment will keep her from killing me for what I am about to say. Erma was no physical beauty, and Barb can best be described as a middle-aged plump person who smiles a lot.

Barb Taub ~ for some of her great humor, check out her latest blog post, My House Makes Me Sick

But I believe they are two of the most gorgeous souls ever to walk the earth, because they find humor in EVERYTHING. Everyone around them is smiling or downright laughing out loud. Talk about spreading sunshine in the world!

Erma was particularly good at poking fun at false standards of beauty or perfection around less-than-important things like housework. But she rebelled so hilariously that she got away with it, even in the 1970s and 80s, when feminism was still somewhat of a dirty word.

Erma on dieting:

“Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.”

“It is my theory you can’t get rid of fat. All you can do is move it around, like furniture.”

“What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?”

Erma on the fashion industry:

“Sometimes I can’t figure designers out. It’s as if they flunked human anatomy.”

Erma on housework:

“My theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?”

“Cleanliness is not next to godliness. It isn’t even in the same neighborhood. No one has ever gotten a religious experience out of removing burned-on cheese from the grill of the toaster oven.”

And finally, on laughter:

“When humor goes, there goes civilization.”

“Laughter rises out of tragedy when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage.”

And yet another quote, this one from a reviewer of one of Erma’s books:

“Erma liberated women from guilt of imperfection”
(by domestic diva, the title of her review on August 30, 2015)

Barb’s new book. Available on AMAZON US and AMAZON UK.

My life certainly hasn’t been one big laugh, but humor has always been one of the tools—a prominent one on my tool belt—that I’ve used to keep going. And perhaps more importantly, it has made the “keeping going” worth doing.

I can’t begin to imagine life without laughter.

I’ve been blessed with oily skin (although in younger years I considered it a curse). Oily skin doesn’t wrinkle very readily, so even though I’m 65, I don’t have wrinkles.

Or at least I believed that, until I happened to smile while looking in the mirror the other day. That’s when I realized I’m starting to develop laugh lines around my eyes.

I’m so happy that they, in particular, are my first wrinkles.

And I’ll leave you with one last quote, most often attributed to Oscar Wilde:

“Life is too important to be taken seriously.”

How about you? Do you have laugh lines yet? How do you feel about them?

P.S. Don’t forget to check out the other BOAW blog posts (and maybe win a prize!)

We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )

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Medicare and Me, Oh My!

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by Kassandra Lamb

OMG, I’m on Medicare! How did that happen?

They sent me this thick booklet. Have I read it? Well, um, no.

As a friend of mine once said on the occasion of her 50th birthday, “How did my 25-year-old mind get trapped in this 50-year-old body?”

For me, it’s more like my 45-year-old mind is caught in a 65-year-old body. I definitely feel like a “mature” woman mentally, but not OLD!!

But my body has a different perspective. When I first get out of bed or stand up from a chair, I waddle. I don’t want to waddle but I do, until my legs and hips get unstuck from their resting position and actually start working again.

I look in the mirror and my mother is staring back at me. Instead of the long, lean face of “Kass” I see the round, slightly jowly face of “Marty.”

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my mother. But I don’t want to BE her. And yet more and more, I am.

And then there is the crepey skin and varicose veins. I’m keeping the cosmetic companies’ sales figures up, at least for firming creams.

What amazes me is that I can still rise to the challenge physically when I have to, although the recovery is longer and rougher than it used to be.

In August, I helped my son drive his and his wife’s cars from Philadelphia to their new home in Texas. The trip did not go well timing-wise. We got away late and ran into multiple traffic delays. Somehow I made it through three and a half days of driving. Then I slept for ten hours, helped unload the storage Pod, and then flew home to Florida.

And did nothing pretty much for three days. 🙂

Then Hurricane Irma happened. And I discovered a whole new reservoir of something…not sure what to call it: grit, fortitude, survival instinct.

I posted about this last week. We decided at 8:15 at night that we needed to evacuate. We drove all night. Except for about an hour and half, I was the driver (my husband hates to drive and I, normally, like it.) He did a great job of “riding shotgun,” staying awake himself and engaging me in conversation.

I was shocked that I was able to stay alert for so long. It wasn’t even all that hard when it felt like our survival depended on it.

Yes, I was dragging for a couple of days, just barely perking up in time for the trip home, but I did it.

I could tell you more stories, of friends even older than myself who are taking care of ailing spouses. And others who are still working for a living because pensions are insufficient or nonexistent, some doing physical jobs such as cleaning houses and mowing lawns and fixing roofs.

More and more I’m reminded of how fortunate I am. I watch on the TV the devastation wreaked by Mother Nature—in Texas and South Florida and now Puerto Rico. It brings home to me how easily one can lose so much.

I’m not sure I have a moral to this post, unless it is to count your blessings—and to remember that they are blessings and not take them for granted.

How has the passage of time changed your perspective on life?

Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She is the author of the Kate Huntington psychological mysteries, set in her native Maryland, and a new series, the Marcia Banks and Buddy cozy mysteries, set in Central Florida.

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )

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What Is An “Ex-pert?”

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by Kassandra Lamb

I was asked this week to present at a local marketing workshop for authors. It was suggested I could present on either “kickoff” parties or how to get reviews.

Since I’ve never done an in-person “kickoff” party, I quickly ruled out that topic. I was about to dismiss the suggestion regarding reviews as well, since I’m hardly a PR expert, when my fertile mind started constructing a lecture on the subject.

You see, I used to be a teacher. I taught college-level psychology for 17 years.

And one of the things I learned during my tenure in academia is that how much you know about a topic, while important, is not THE most important thing that makes you an “expert” who can educate others on the subject.

Technically, the definition of expertise is “possessing a high level of knowledge and an intuitive understanding of a particular subject.” But here’s MY favorite definition of an expert:

“Ex” is an unknown quantity and “spurt” is a drip of water under pressure. Therefore, “ex-pert” is an unknown drip under pressure.

So what is the most important thing that makes one an expert worthy of presenting your knowledge to others? IMHO, it’s whether or not you can convey what you know on the topic in a clear way.

Part of Marcy’s incredibly good Busy Writer’s Guide series.

My editor, Marcy Kennedy is, in my opinion, the best editor in the world. Does she know everything there is to know about plot arcs and grammatical constructions?

I don’t know (probably not).

But what I do know is that she is superb at EXPLAINING why something doesn’t work and what I need to do to make it work. And she gives excellent examples. She knows how to convey what she knows to others, and that, for me, makes her an expert.

Academia is full of teachers who can’t teach. They are “experts” in their fields, and that’s wonderful from a research perspective, because often those “experts” are good, sometimes brilliant, researchers.

But why are they expected to teach our youth?

This is a serious flaw in our higher level education system. Those who are “teaching” in our colleges and graduate schools are all too often mediocre to horrible teachers.

When I interviewed for my first college-level teaching job, I asked the person who would become my department chair if getting a second masters degree in secondary education (I already had one in my field) would help me advance.

He laughed (an ironic laughter; he got the issue here). “This is academia. Nobody cares if you can teach.”

The last time I presented to this group, I actually DID know what I was talking about…lol (How to Incorporate Social Issues in Your Fiction presentation, April, 2017)

I taught for that university for 9 years. It was the best job I ever had, because that institution did care about teaching. But sadly, they are the exception to the rule among universities.

So I made a first draft of a list of “do’s and don’t’s” for getting reviews for one’s books… And lo and behold, I think I do know enough about the subject to do this presentation for my local authors’ group.

Does that make me an “expert?”

I’m not sure, but I agreed to present at the workshop. Because what I do know is that I know how to teach.

What’s your area of expertise? Are you an “expert” at presenting the information to others?

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )

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Love Mellowed

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by Kassandra Lamb

Love, like cheese and wine, tends to get better with age, in a mellow kind of way. Oh yes, it can go in the direction of moldy or potentially turn into vinegar, but more often than not, it mellows into a very deep friendship.

My favorite model for understanding love (if one can ever understand love) comes from a psychologist named Robert Sternberg. He put a whole new twist on the concept of a love triangle.

First he distilled love down into three components: passion, intimacy and commitment. You might assume that these terms are self-explanatory, but when I was teaching psychology I was amazed at how many college students had never really thought about their definitions.

Passion: physical attraction (this one is obvious)
Intimacy: closeness through self-disclosure (sharing who you are, your feelings, your past, etc.)
Commitment: making the effort to maintain the relationship

The ideal love, that’s strong enough to base a marriage on, is consummate love, according to Sternberg—a fairly equal balance between these three components. A triangle with equal sides.

So what happens when the relationship “ages?”

(public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

Often the passion slows down. (Why do you think we have all those ED medications out there?)

Even if there are no physical problems, our energy levels go down with age. The number of nights when one or both partners are too tired to even think about sex increases.

The passion rarely goes away completely, although it can, especially if there is some medical reason why the couple can’t have sex.

But even then, a relationship that had a strong base to begin with will usually still be deemed a happy one by the partners. Why?

(photo by Mike DelGaudio-Flickr, CC-BY 2.0 Wikimedia Commons)

Because the commitment and the intimacy have grown over the years. The couple knows each other, and trusts each other, like no one else does. And they have many years of shared experiences.

So the triangle has become skewed, with two long sides and one short one, but it’s still strong. Sometimes stronger than ever.

Aging and love mellowing are subplot themes in my new release, Book #9 in the Kate Huntington mysteries. The main character, who was in her 30’s when the series began, is now dealing with menopause and an angst-ridden pre-teen daughter.

But that doesn’t stop her from chasing down leads to unravel the latest mystery!

Official release day is this Saturday, 2/18, but it’s now available for preorder.

Just $1.99 during preorder and for 5 days after the release! (Goes up to $3.99 on 2/22)

ANXIETY ATTACK, A Kate Huntington Mystery, #9

When an operative working undercover for Kate Huntington’s husband is shot, the alleged shooter turns out to be one of Kate’s psychotherapy clients, a man suffering from severe social anxiety. P.I. Skip Canfield had doubts from the beginning about this case, a complicated one of top secret projects and industrial espionage. Now one of his best operatives, and a friend, is in the hospital fighting for his life.

Tensions build when Skip learns that Kate—who’s convinced her client is innocent and too emotionally fragile to survive in prison—has been checking out leads on her own. Then a suspicious suicide brings the case to a head. Is the shooter tying up loose ends? Almost too late, Skip realizes he may be one of those loose ends, and someone seems to have no qualms about destroying his agency or getting to him through his family.

AMAZON APPLE KOBO NOOK

Your thoughts on the mellowing of love with age?

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!

Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She is the author of the Kate Huntington psychological suspense series, set in her native Maryland, and a new series, the Marcia Banks and Buddy cozy mysteries, set in Central Florida.

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )

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Reassessing Where We’re Going: 4 Careers I Opted Not To Pursue and Why

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by Kassandra Lamb

When the year is new, our minds may turn to evaluating our careers. And sometimes we decide we need a change. This can be a good thing, but only if we choose wisely.

I’ve had four careers in my lifetime—clerical worker in human resources (striving for but failing to break the glass ceiling), psychotherapist, college professor and fiction author.

Choosing a career is both complicated and life-changing, and yet I believe that we as a society give people far too little guidance in making this important decision.

When I taught psychology, I always included a unit on career choice. I emphasized that you really needed to walk not just a mile, but a whole year, in the moccasins of another. I suggested that students interview someone in the career they wished to pursue and ask them about a typical day, a typical week and a typical year in that field.

Here are 4 careers I opted not to pursue after checking them out.

Elementary School Teacher:

As a teen and young adult, I loved small children. I entered college with the intention of majoring in elementary education.

In my junior year, as I started taking more courses in my major, I realize that K–12 schoolteachers had very little autonomy. There are principals and vice principals and curriculum supervisors looking over your shoulder at every turn.

This could have been my work setting (photo by bakztfuture CC-BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia Commons)

Being a cussedly independent person, this did not sit well.

I dropped out of college and got a clerical job to support myself while I tried again to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I discovered that I actually liked the administrative tasks involved in running an office, but eventually I got frustrated by that whole glass ceiling thing (this was in the 1970s).

Daycare Center Owner:

Still enamored with small children, I took several night courses in child development while investigating what was involved in running a daycare center.

What I discovered was that the owners of such facilities were buried in paperwork and administrative duties and spent little time interacting with the children. And the teachers in such centers—while they did get to spend all day with the kids—tended to not make a living wage.

This was a no. I was already struggling on a secretary’s salary (this was before they were called administrative assistants).

Having my own little one cured me. (He turned 37 yesterday 🙂 )

Fortunately having a child of my own seemed to shift my desire to spend all day with other people’s toddlers.

My maternal instincts satisfied, I moved on.

Lawyer:

Several years into my career as a psychotherapist, I became fascinated by the legal field. I’d encountered a few cases where my clients were dealing with legal issues—divorces, lawsuits, etc.

The law appealed to my analytical brain. And I certainly had the people skills, grasp of language, and chutzpah to do trial work.

Another potential work setting. (photo public domain Wikimedia Commons)

But I also had a couple of clients who were lawyers. Their descriptions of law school and the long, tedious hours they had spent in law libraries doing research as junior associates soon disabused me of any desire to change to a law career.

I do not deal well with tedium!

Antiques Dealer:

This one actually made it to the business-cards-are-printed level—“Antiques by Kassandra” they proclaimed—and my basement was piled high with old furniture and glassware.

Ironically, the law was a big part of what burned me out as a therapist. Over the course of three years, I had four clients who ended up in legal battles, each one nastier than the one before. I went to court with them and held their hands, and in two cases, ended up testifying. It was the final straw. I didn’t want to hear about nor watch people going through misery anymore.

I appreciated antiques, so I decided to become an antiques dealer. Fortunately, I tested the waters before closing my therapy practice.

I had no desire to open a shop, but I could buy and sell—I’d always loved flea markets and yard sales and such. I soon discovered that being the middleman in the antiques business was not a great role. The owners of retail shops wanted to tear down the quality of what I had to offer, in order to get it at a cheaper price and then resell it for more.

Do people think no one ever sat in this chair? (Museum of Fine Arts, Toluca, Mexico, photo by Alejandro Linares Garcia CC-BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia Commons)

I loved old things. I did not want to hear, day in and day out, how these things were practically worthless because they had a scratch or a ding in them, especially since I knew the person denigrating my stock was only doing so to get a better deal. And to me, the scratches and dings enhanced their value!

Fortunately, around that time, I landed my first teaching gig at the college level. I soon discovered that I loved being a professor, and I was off and running in that new career.

And then of course, after retirement, I had the time and financial security to finally pursue my life-long dream of writing fiction.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every one of my careers, and I’m grateful that I managed not to go too far astray down these other paths.

What career changes have you considered? Did those pursuits turn out good or bad?

Also, today is the LAST DAY in our 7 Free Mysteries for 7 Days giveaway! Click HERE to grab your free books!

freebie banner

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )

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Life Is What Happens While We’re Making Other Plans

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by Kassandra Lamb

Hubs and I went to his 50th high school reunion this last Friday.

Wow, just wow!

Back in high school, we didn’t really get that we would someday be 50 years old, much less 50 years out of high school.

Hubs’ high school

The reunion committee had a rather cool idea. They passed out black and white pics of people’s faces out of the yearbook as everyone registered. Your task was to find the person in the picture and give them their photo.

My husband has a good memory. He was pretty sure he knew who the woman was in his picture, but try as we might we couldn’t find her. She was a pretty dark-eyed blonde, with a thin face.

Tour of the school — inner courtyard

The exercise brought home to us how generic old people look. Most had added a few pounds, some quite a few pounds. Most had gray or white hair. And if they didn’t, it was with the help of hair dye, so hair color was now irrelevant.

We walked around that big room full of old people and stared at name tags until our eyes crossed. We finally concluded that the woman whose picture he’d drawn had opted not to attend the reunion.

Then the mostly overweight, gray-haired cheerleaders and majorettes took over the dance floor and twirled their batons to the old school fight song.

And there was another thin-faced, blonde woman (not the one in hubs’ picture) who had won the genetics lottery for aging. She was still thin, still full of pep, and with no varicose veins spoiling her shapely legs.

Oh, her face had her fair share of wrinkles when she turned our way, mostly crow’s feet around her sparkling eyes and smile lines around her mouth. “Look at Kerry Ann!” rippled through the auditorium. But everyone seemed happy for her.

It was obvious her well-preserved self was not the product of plastic surgery or anorexic-type dieting. She’d just gotten lucky regarding her gene pool. And perhaps her positive attitude toward life had helped.

But even though she seemed to have more energy than those around her, she didn’t seem to have any more spirit.

And that was the other thing that struck me about this crowd of aging people. They were full of joie de vivre. They were happy.

Of course, some of that happiness had to do with the party atmosphere and the cash bar. But I was reminded of how inaccurate the myth of aging is – the one about how old people are grumpy and discontent.

Most aren’t.

Their lives hadn’t always gone in the direction they’d expected. Some had married young and divorced almost as young, only to remarry the loves of their lives. While others had stayed divorced, or had divorced multiple times.

Others had married their high school sweethearts and were still married 48 years later! Indeed, there were quite a few long-term marriages in the crowd.

Many had gone into predictable professions–like my husband, the French linguist, who was greeted more than once as Mr. Frenchie. And the guy from the automobile mechanics vocational program who now owned his own dealership that he was about to pass on to his son.

meme made with imgflip

Still others had become something entirely different than anticipated.

I met one particularly interesting woman who had planned to marry and raise children. That hadn’t quite worked out so she’d devoted her life to her profession and her nieces and nephews. She seemed pretty content with the whole thing.

Indeed, I didn’t detect any of the angst that had been just beneath the surface for some of the people who’d been at my own 30th reunion (the last one I attended before we left Maryland). And there was a lot less of the posturing I remembered from that reunion.

No one seemed to care anymore about what others thought of their success or lack thereof. We were just a bunch of old people who’d gotten together to reminisce and have a good time.

I concluded that, by the time we’ve reached our sixties, we’ve come to grips with our dreams. Either life has turned out as we planned or we’ve adjusted the plan. Sometimes life has actually taken some interesting twists and turns for which we’re downright grateful.

Indeed, life is sometimes what happens while we’re making other plans. And that isn’t always a bad thing.

How about you? Have you had times when life took you in some unexpected direction that turned out better than anticipated?

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

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4 More Things To Do (or Learn) by the Time You’re 64

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by Kassandra Lamb

Sunday I turned 64 — the age that the Beatles made famous… “Will you still need me, will you still…”

Two years ago, I posted about 15 Things We Should Do (Or Learn) by the Time We’re 62. I re-ran that post recently. Now I am adding four more things to that list.

1. Learn to make life easier by letting others help.

I’m a cussedly independent person, but at the same time, nothing makes me feel better than helping out a friend. That dichotomy in my personality always reminds me of one of my grandmother’s sayings (I’m pretty sure she coined it because of me):

Tis more blessed to give than to receive, but it’s dang hard to give when no one is willing to receive.

If people volunteer to help make your life easier, make them happy. Let them!

2. Make a bucket list of places you want to see and check off at least two of them a year (more if you’re able).

One of the saddest things about my mother’s death was that she never saw Alaska. Not because Alaska is the be all and end all of travel destinations (although it is very interesting and absolutely gorgeous).

What made it so sad was that she really wanted to see it, and never did.

Great Wall of China (public domain)

After she died, my stepfather started traveling like crazy (he and my mom traveled; it’s just they didn’t realize there was an expiration date).

For a few years there, he went on at least four or five trips a year. Short trips and long ones. He’s seen the Great Wall of China and the penguins on Antarctica. (Seriously, he has.)

There will come a day when travel is too hard, and therefore not fun anymore. So don’t put off that bucket list!

3. Find a form of exercise that you enjoy, or at least tolerate well, and then do it regularly.

For me this is Zumba and brisk dog walks. Nothing does more for our health than exercise. And it energizes us.

Come on, Mom. What are you waiting for?

Insomnia is a common problem as we age, and on days when I didn’t sleep well the night before, I’m very tempted to skip exercising. Instead, I tell myself I will “go easy on it.”

This helps convince me to put in the Zumba DVD or get out the dog’s leash. Sometimes I do “go easy,” but other times I get into the rhythm of dancing or walking and forget I’m supposed to be going slower.

Afterwards, I almost always feel better (not to mention self-righteous 😉 )

4. Embrace aging.

You might as well, because fighting it does no good. If you try to fight it, you will just spend your last few decades on this planet fluctuating between denial and frustration.

Aging sucks. The list of things we can still readily do is shrinking and the list of things that are a distant memory grows longer. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy life and squeeze every ounce of delight out of the days, weeks, months, years we have left.

One great thing about getting older — everyday is Saturday. You get to choose what you want to do on any given day…

Here’s what I’ve been up to lately. I wrote another Marcia Banks and Buddy book. 😀 And today is it’s official release day!! Woot!

How about you? What’s on your bucket list?

Last day at $1.99 ~ ARSENIC and YOUNG LACY, A Marcia Banks and Buddy Mystery, Book #2

book cover

Sweet, adorable Lacy has stolen Marcia Banks’ heart, but money is tight. Like it or not, the service dog trainer needs to complete the human phase of the training and deliver the dog to her new owner in order to get paid. But the ex-Army nurse client turns out to be a challenging trainee. On top of her existing neuroses–which go beyond the psychological damage from a sexual assault during her second tour in Afghanistan–the veteran is now being stalked.

When Marcia receives a bizarre warning to stay away from her client and Lacy is also caught in the stalker’s malicious orbit, Sheriff Will Haines steps in to investigate. Marcia finds this both endearing and annoying, especially when he expects her to stay on the sidelines. The training fee would make her solvent again, but how can she put her dogs at risk?

Maybe Marcia should be more worried about herself, since the stalker has decided to pay her off in a very different way.

Available on: AMAZON US AMAZON UK AMAZON CA AMAZON AUS

APPLE KOBO NOOK

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

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15 Things We Should Do (or Learn) by the Time We’re 62 (encore)

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by Kassandra Lamb

I’ve been at a writer’s conference all weekend, so no time to write a blog post. It was an incredible and very different kind of conference, and I’ll tell you all about it next week, but right now I’m resting up.

So I thought I’d offer up this older post that was quite popular. I wrote it around my birthday two years ago and I’m planning to do an updated version in a few weeks.

15 Things We Should Do (or Learn) by the Time We’re 62

This was inspired by a Huffington Post blog post my daughter-in-law shared on Facebook recently, called 30 Things That Will (Probably) Happen in Your 30’s. I highly recommend it.

So having just turned 62, I thought I would share the things I think are most important to do in life. I figured 62 things would be a little much, so here are 15:

woman's bare legs with bikini on pier next to her

photo by Gisele Porcaro from Brasília Brasil CC-BY 2.0

1. Go skinny-dipping, at least once.

Do it again if you enjoy it.

2. Buy something expensive that you don’t need but you really want.

Enjoy it without guilt!

3. Enjoy sex! (Enough said.)

4. Love passionately at least once in your life, even if you get your heart broken!

5. Learn not to listen to negative people or those who put you down–ignore them, walk away, tell them to f**k off, if you must. Do not hit them; they are not worth going to jail for.

6. Hang on through the bad times; they will pass. Savor the good times; they will pass.

7. Hug your children and tell them you love them every day; if you don’t have your own, hug somebody else’s kids at least once a month (with their permission so you don’t get arrested).

As a matter of fact, hug the adults in your life as often as possible. Hugs are the vitamin C of the heart.

photo by Mark Sebastian CC BY SA 2.0 Wikimedia Commons

8. Acknowledge that you are angry at your parents for some of the things they did or did not do when you were a kid. Get some therapy about that, or at the very least, yell at an empty chair pretending it is your mom or dad (or both) sitting there.

9. Don’t talk to them about it unless you really think it will make your relationship better in the here and now. DO talk to them about it if you DO think it will make things better.

Then, work on forgiving them. They did the best they could with the parenting skills they learned from their parents. You will probably do better, but your kids will be angry with you for something different.

10. Take care of your body; indeed strive to love it. It’s the only one you’ll get. So do the best you can with what you’ve got and then don’t worry about how you look.

A watercolor painter in Italy (photo by Dongio, public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

11. Find a career doing something that will make you glad to get out of bed in the morning; if your job doesn’t do that for you, pursue your passion through an avocation.

Life is too short to not spend at least some of it doing something that thrills you!

photo by Johntex, CC-BY-2.5, Wikimedia Commons)

12. Along those lines, be creative! Paint pictures, write stories or poetry, carve duck decoys, knit scarves for people who won’t wear them–you don’t have to be great at what you’re creating, but there is something about being creative that feeds our souls.

13. Learn not to say anything if you don’t like the person your son or daughter is dating. After the break-up, stifle your own anger and be a good listener/counselor (this will become your role more and more with semi-grown and grown children).

If they marry the person you don’t like, definitely keep your mouth shut! If they marry a good person, tell your daughter/son-in-law how glad you are that they’re part of your family. Repeat some variation of this message at least once a year. (Are ya listenin’, Gina? 😀 )

photo by Mathias Klang from Göteborg Sweden CC-BY 2.0 Wikimedia

14. Cherish your friends. At the end of the day, you will count them amongst your greatest treasures.

15. Laugh with them often, for laughter is a healing balm for the heart.

Anything you think should be added to the list?

Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series. And she now has a new cozy mystery series out, the Marcia Banks and Buddy Mysteries.

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

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Creativity and the Baby Boom Woman

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by Kassandra Lamb

I recently became more active in an online writers group for women of a “certain age.” I’m noticing some interesting psychological trends there.

If you read the bios of the members, your mouth will hang open in awe. These are very accomplished women! I’m honored to be a part of their group.

And yet as our lives have often changed due to divorce, death of a spouse, and just plain aging, there’s a tendency to slide back into the insecurities we thought we had left behind.

Creativity, by definition, requires thinking outside the box – being innovative, taking risks and trying new things. But our generation of women was taught to conform, to listen to authority, to make nice-nice. Conformity and creativity make strange bedfellows. Indeed, they don’t get along very well at all.

(Barbara Billingsley, Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers, “Leave It to Beaver” — public domain)

Our role models were Donna Reed and June Cleaver — who woke in the morning without a hair out of place, vacuumed her house in pearls and pumps and always knew just the right thing to say or do to make her boys feel better (unless of course discipline was involved, and then her husband Ward took over).

These lessons of childhood, many of us are finding, haven’t die; they just went underground.

So when we are faced with tragedy, a crossroads, or just feel ourselves burning out, while our innate feminine resilience usually kicks in, so do those old messages. We get up and brush ourselves off, but we’re much more vulnerable in those moments to the old recordings in our heads.

Be self-effacing.
“Nobody likes a stuck-up woman,” echoes in our brains. Except the definition of “stuck-up” as it relates to females – taught to us in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s – is not true arrogance. It’s being confident that what we produce is good, and that we are good people, with sound judgement.

In other words, good self-esteem equals being uppity.

Please others.
Other people’s approval of what we do is more important than our own. We will stay in jobs that “eat our souls” because others think we should. We will not follow our dreams because others think they are silly or unreachable.

We will allow editors or agents or publishers to dictate how our stories will be changed, even though we know in our hearts that the story was fine to begin with, maybe even great!

Another role model — Lucille Ball, who was constantly doing dumb things either to please or impress her husband, so he would let her pursue her dream of performing in his club. (public domain)

Others’ needs are more important than our own.
I was about eleven when the first bra was burned, and I’ve considered myself a liberated female ever since. So when a student interviewed me for an assignment in her Gender Studies class and asked me if I had ever sacrificed my career for my husband or family, I immediately said no. Then I stopped and thought about that.

I found my first true vocational passion (and my second career) a bit late, after I was married with a small child and a large mortgage. When I was looking at educational options to get the credentials I needed to become a psychotherapist, I discovered that to get a PhD in psychology I would have to go to school full-time and might have to move elsewhere in the country to get into a program. “Well, that won’t work,” I thought. I couldn’t uproot my family, ask my husband to give up his good-paying job, etc. So I settled for a masters degree I could get locally and part-time, while still working full-time to help pay the mortgage.

I can’t say that I’ve regretted that choice. I had a good career, even though I didn’t make as much money as I would have with the classier credentials. But one thing blew my mind as I recalled all this when that student was interviewing me.

I had never seriously discussed the “move to another state so I can get my PhD” option with my husband. I never gave him the opportunity to sacrifice for me (and for the ultimate greater well-being of the whole family if I ended up making more money). I just assumed it was my job to make the sacrifice.

Not only was June rarely without her pearls, but Ward was rarely without his tie. Not even all that realistic for the times, much less today. (public domain)

The day of that student’s interview was the first time I realized how subtle the lessons of our youth still are for women of my generation. We can think we’re being all liberated and modern, while our knees are jerking away, following the old patterns without our conscious awareness or approval.

When I first joined this writers group for middle-aged and beyond women, I wasn’t all that active. I was already a member of an online writers group that is awesome in its level of support and encouragement.

But now I’m realizing that these women of a “certain age” can offer a different and more specific support – the recognition of these old patterns and the kick-in-the-butt/cheering section needed to break out of them.

Something women writers of my generation may very well need, again and again, in order to remain creative, and sane.

Your thoughts? Are you a woman (or man) of a certain age, still fighting those old messages?

And now I’m totally not going to act my age as I give you all a sneak peak of the cover for my next Marcia Banks and Buddy mystery. Squueeee!! (In case you hadn’t figured it out, I love this cover!)

ArsenicAndYoungLacy FINAL

COMING SOON!!

And this is the last week to get 75% off of Vinnie Hansen’s book, Black Beans & Venom, during the Smashwords’ Summer/Winter Sale.

This is a fabulous story. Hop on over and get yourself a copy.

We blog here at misterio press once (sometimes twice) a week, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.

Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )

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