ALL THAT GLITTERS … MIGHT BE GOLD!

October 13, 2025 by 11 Comments

Two circles of my life have intersected like a Venn Diagram. The life of the retired senior who drives an aging Mini and tends to hold on to things “just in case” has overlapped with the life of the person who writes operations manuals for franchise companies. I don’t feel the need for a haircut when I write for a salon, nor the urge for a hamburger when I write for a restaurant, but the decluttering manuals were a call to action!

As I looked at the boxes that hadn’t been opened in years, including some with our parents and even our grandparents’ belongings, I realized that it wasn’t fair to leave three generations of “stuff” for our children to deal with.  And who knew what treasure might be hiding in those boxes that they wouldn’t recognize as “valuable.” Tracy McCubbin’s book Making Space: Clutter Free became my action plan! It was fun to read, and she didn’t make me feel guilty about keeping boxes labeled “Cyndee’s High School Memorabilia” or “Perk’s Navy Papers.”

THE GREAT PURGE

Perk and I started with the garage where we had golf clubs in cracked vinyl bags (we haven’t played golf in over thirty years), electric hedge trimmers (we live in a condo), empty boxes that we might need just in case we dropped Amazon Prime (highly unlikely). We purged, and we threw away, and we decluttered, and suddenly we had open shelving and empty storage bins! The good news was that we found no creepy-crawlies. The bad news was that we found no treasure.

A few weeks later, we tackled our walk-in closet. When was I going to wear a size Small beach coverup that I bought in Manzanillo thirty-five years ago? How many Hudson Bay blankets does one need in Florida?  Why was there a bin of Christmas stocking stuffers that no one wanted? We found blank checks from accounts closed years ago and a bin of 3.5 floppy discs with unknown data, but nothing of value. Going, going, gone!

We progressed through the linen closet, kitchen cupboards, shelves of books and games until the latest effort – my jewelry boxes filled with items that I no longer wear in this retired, casual, senior lifestyle.

PAY DIRT!

The price of gold has shot through the roof into the condo above us! Gold buyers throughout Florida distribute flyers and set up shop in local hotels to buy cast-off jewelry. Ads to sell gold pop up on social media feeds. Even celebrities hawk “cash in your gold” on local TV.

But how to declutter jewelry boxes? I decided to start with McCubbin’s first question: WHY are you keeping this? And then I added, WHAT are you going to do with it?

Should I keep the jewelry? Should I sell it as scrap?

I separated my jewelry into four groups:

  1. Jewelry with sentimental value that is priceless- literally
  2. Jewelry that I rarely wear, and might be willing to part with
  3. Jewelry that has no sentimental value, and if it’s worth its weight in gold, then it’s on the block!
  4. Jewelry that should go to a thrift store for a Halloween costume … or into the trash

I took groups two and three to Amore Jewelers in Bonita Springs. Bill Skidmore spent an hour helping me understand why certain pieces of jewelry had value and why I might NOT want to sell them. What was their history? Would I regret letting them go? What would I do with the gems if I sold the gold settings? By the end of the hour, I had several items to keep, and we had discarded a few costume pieces. Bill had a small pile of 14 karat gold jewelry and a small pile of 22 karat gold jewelry that he weighed separately; and those two small piles of glittering gold jewelry that I cared nothing about … turned out to be worth a surprising amount of money! Treasure indeed!!

A CHARMED LIFE

A gold charm bracelet, the first gift Perk ever gave me, was in group one – priceless. The first charm was a mortarboard celebrating our college graduation, followed by an engagement ring charm, a wedding disk, a trinacria from Sicily, children’s births, an abacus, a cartouche, a kangaroo — golden mementos of a lifetime together. I haven’t worn the bracelet in decades. It snags my clothes, disturbs other concert goers, and dangles too close to candle flames when we’re dining out.

I was keeping the bracelet, but what was I going to do with it? I wanted to share the memories, not let them grow even older in a jewelry box. And I came up with the perfect solution!

Bill removed the charms from the bracelet, restored them to their original glow, and secured the loops so that I could string the charms together on a golden chain of embroidery floss. I looped the garland through the lighted branches of a tabletop birch tree so the memories glimmer like dangling holiday ornaments. And I made a booklet recording each charm and its story for our children and grandchildren to read, should they ever be interested.

Unlike my mother’s Murano glass swan, great-grandmother’s Limoges china, and the wax records of my teenage aunts singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in 1943, our children will not look at the charm bracelet one day and say with exasperation, “What should we do with this!?” They can divvy up the charms of their own memories, put them back on the bracelet, or sell them for glittering scrap gold …

The moral of this story is, if you’re going to look for treasure while you’re decluttering your home, start small. Forget the garage. Forget the walk-in closets. Go straight to the jewelry boxes!

Filed Under: "Aging Process", Life in Florida, Retirement Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

AI KEEPS US ADORABLE

September 19, 2025 by 11 Comments

Nearly twenty years ago during a veritable monsoon in Houston, I drove our VW convertible through a puddle that turned out to be a pond. Water surged over the hood of the car which chug … chug…ged to a slow halt. I waded knee-deep to the curb where a sympathetic neighbor brought me an umbrella.

When I received a call from the repair shop, “Cody” sorrowfully reported that the car was totaled. Totaled? Our fun little convertible? I sputtered, “Can’t you do something? It wasn’t salt water. It was rainwater; my mother used to wash her hair in rainwater! It can’t hurt anything! Can’t you just dry out the sparkplugs with a hairdryer? What’s the big deal?” After a moment of silence, Cody drawled, “No disrespect, Ma’am, but just how old are you?”

When I didn’t reply, he explained patiently, “It’s the electronics, Ma’am. They got wet and they’re done for – like if you dropped your computer into the bathtub. Better check out your insurance.”

Young at Heart

Luckily the convertible was a second car, so we weren’t in a hurry to replace it. We finally chose a pearl white Mini Cooper S with a blue top and blue leather upholstery; it had all the “bells and whistles” of 2006 – cruise control and two side beepers if you came too close to another car when parking. Backup cameras, lane control devices, automatic brakes were Marty McFly accessories of the future. The car was small enough that our Texas friends could toss it onto the bed of one of their pickups if we ever ran into trouble!

Because the Mini was marketed to younger people and most Texans preferred oversized powerful vehicles, Perk and I often received surprised looks as we scooted through the traffic of Houston with the top down, driving it through the Texas Hill Country, going on jaunts to see fossilized dinosaur tracks in riverbeds and photographing the fields of blue bonnets. We felt young and carefree in the Mini. One day as we stopped at a red light, a pickup truck full of teenage boys sped by. One leaned out of the back of the truck and shouted, “Hey! Your car matches the color of your hair!!” And they were right, of course!

One evening when we were getting into the Mini, two couples in their thirties crossed the parking lot to ask about it. We were enthusiastic about the mileage, how fun it was to drive, that it had a low center of gravity and hugged the curves in the Hill Country, how we could squeeze into parking lots that were supposedly full.  As they walked away toward their pickups, we heard one of the women say, “Aren’t they adorable?”  Oops! Again we realized that although the car made us feel young, we didn’t look that way!

Retired, but Not Tired

A Mini is rarely seen in southwest Florida because it’s not comfortable for retired senior citizens: it’s hot to drive it with the top down, it’s difficult to get in and out of as your muscles tighten and your bones creak with age, mature women don’t like their hair blowing in the wind and mature men don’t want their bald heads to sunburn. But Perk and I refuse to give in. We’re young at heart and we’re driving a car that proves it!

We were in the technology education business and, hairdryers and sparkplugs aside, we have embraced the new technologies. I love all the safety features on the new cars. I love my smart phone, my tablet, my camera, my Kindle, my computer and its oversized monitor. And with retirement, I have had time to embrace all of them. When AI and Chat GPT became easily available, I was an enthusiastic adopter. I have used it for such diverse tasks as planning menus for friends who have chronic kidney failure, experimenting with apartment decor, valuing antiques, and troubleshooting why my oven quit working. AI is Alexa or Siri on steroids!

Got Gas?

No, I’m not resorting to a flatulence joke. A few weeks ago we opened the Mini’s garage and smelled gasoline! We hastily called REA Automotive owned by our favorite mechanic. Ryan has maintained the Mini for twelve years and the aging car is his joy almost as much as it is ours – after nearly 20 years, the engine still purrs and the car accelerates as if it just came off the showroom floor.

He ran tests for five days – every possible check from the EVAP hoses and charcoal canister to UV fluorescent dye detection. No test revealed a gas leak, but he could smell it. The leak was there – somewhere. At last Ryan called a “family council.” We sat in his office, mourning the next step. (It made me think of our children sometime in the future, trying to decide what to do with us!) Ryan advised taking the Mini to the dealership to sell it for parts because we didn’t want to endanger someone by selling it to them to drive. We reluctantly concurred.

Chat GPT: The New Anti-Aging Solution

But when we got home, Perk declared, “Let’s not give up. The Mini is US. It’s old, but fun to have around occasionally – just like we are! I’m going to ask Chat GPT.”

Opening the AI function he wrote, “What could cause a gas leak in a 2006 Mini Cooper S with 76,000 miles on it?” Within seconds, Chat GPT replied with a lengthy list of possible causes – all of which Ryan had already investigated. Until the very last one: a miniscule hairline crack in a part that could only be discovered by removing the back seat of the car and using a floodlamp.

And there Ryan found it. And fixed it.

And here we are, thanks to AI, driving the Mini with its top down, our white hair blowing in the breeze, and of course, still adorable!

Filed Under: "Aging Process", Life in Florida, Retirement, technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE

August 7, 2025 by 25 Comments

Because I was a dutiful fourth-grade student, my desk was at the back of the classroom – sixth seat in the row of six wooden desks with cast-iron legs. Bobby Arnold sat in front of me in the fifth seat. The troublemakers, of course, sat in the front of the room close to Mrs. Boomgarden’s desk and her ever-watchful eye.

One fateful morning, Mrs. Boomgarden had written our six-week math test on the blackboard at the front of the room. The test was hidden behind the pull-down map of the world and the pull-down map of the US; their cords swung ominously marking time as she paced in front of them giving the test directions. We had 30 minutes to copy and complete the problems. Blank papers and sharpened pencils lay on our desks; there would be no excuse to leave our seats during the test (and possibly sneak a peek at a neighbor’s work). She yanked the cords. With a crack like a starting gun, the maps snapped up and the test began!

After thirty minutes, Mrs. Boomgarden called “Time,” and started to collect the papers. When she came to me, she asked suspiciously, “Why aren’t you done?” And my reply of “I had to wait for Bobby to finish and give me his glasses so I could see the board” opened a new world! I was marched to the nurse’s office, told to read the eyechart (I could see the big “E”), and my parents were called.

The Eyes Have It

The snow was gusting across South Dakota as my father drove me to the ophthalmologist’s office, grumbling that this was a waste of time – he could see perfectly, my mother could see perfectly, and I always had my nose in a book, so obviously I could see perfectly. “No kid of mine needs glasses!” he fumed as we slipped and slid on the icy roads which made him even more grumpy. He sat in a chair behind me during the eye test, rigidly annoyed, but as the tests went on, he occasionally murmured incredulously, “You can’t see that?” And when the tests were over, his eyes teared as he said, “Why didn’t you tell us you need glasses!” Because I thought everyone saw the world through a gauzy curtain… except, of course, for Bobby Arnold!

And so began my visual odyssey – from the expensive clear plastic frames my father agreed to buy and that I hoped no one would notice, to my first pair of contact lens that were so big they covered most of my eyeballs, to losing one of my lens in the silk folds of my wedding dress as my father prepared to escort me down the aisle – and at last to yesterday’s astonishing result of having the first of my two cataracts removed!

Everyone assured me that my life would change. I was sure they were right, but I worried about HOW my life would change! I love my life! I play tennis, I write and edit franchise manuals, I take photos for wall art, I devour books – what if something goes wrong? One slip of the knife, of the laser, and my life would change irrevocably! But I reluctantly agreed … because I really needed to see better if I were going to continue playing tennis, writing, taking pictures, reading…

The surgery was painless, in and out of the office in a couple of hours, instructions received, eye-drops provided, and I went home to take a nap.

Rinso White! Rinso Bright! Happy Little Washday Song!

Yes, I am a Boomer. As a child I grew up listening to the radio with jolly commercial jingles.

“I’d walk a mile for a mild, mild Camel. They’re so mild, they suit me to a T’.”

“Double your pleasure, Double your fun, Doublemint, Doublemint, Doublemint Gum!”

And today I am living the Rinso commercial, complete with the before/after laundry detergent effect!

When I look out of my left eye with good vision provided by my contact lens, I see everything with a yellow, murky overtone caused by a cataract – the Before Rinso Look. When I look out of my new right eye, everything is dazzling and bright – like Rinso-washed laundry hanging on a clothesline in the sun!

The eyesight with the new lens is everything that everyone promised – clear, bright, and much better than the vision I was born with!

But the new brightness and improved vision did not come without a cost! I had been warned that I would suddenly be aware of dust bunnies lurking in corners, smudges on windows, and shocking facial wrinkles. Happily my house is cleaner than I thought and the once-creamy walls are still the gallery white I prefer. But then, I looked into the mirror … and instead of seeing a face with wrinkles softened by obscuring cataracts, I saw myself in a new light – literally!

Have a Good Day, Honey

No wonder salespeople tend to call me “Dear”, and strangers offer to lift my bag into the overhead compartment on a plane. Even though I can run around on the tennis court like the Energizer Bunny, I look really OLD! After I finished gasping at my reflection, I decided to face the facts; my mother had a ton of wrinkles, my grandmother had wrinkles, and my great-grandmother had wrinkles. No amount of Ponds Vanishing Cream was going to take mine away. Temporarily mitigate? Maybe. But genes are genes, after all.

Yet now I wonder – could there be future lens implants with facial softening software, like my phone app? Even if I couldn’t fool you IRL, at least I could go back to fooling myself!

Filed Under: Life in Florida Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

GRANDMA MOSES and ME

October 6, 2024 by 5 Comments

I’m not quite sure what I thought “retirement” was going to be, but I lasted six weeks! Reading my previous blogs has made me realize that I thought I was ready to enjoy endless days of bonbons, reading novels, being amused by the police reports of a retirement community and watching nature.

But in truth, how many times can you watch a rabbit hopping through your hedge? After a few weeks, even an early morning bobcat prowling the backyard or a 6-foot invasive iguana on the other side of the creek didn’t get my blood racing.

I dug out my racquet and headed to the community tennis facility to take up the sport again after thirty+ years. The pro took my racquet and asked, “Did you ever ski?”

Not knowing where this was going, I replied, “Not recently.”

He continued, “Were you ever in a ski lodge?” Yes.

“Did you ever notice what was above the fireplace in the lodge?” Old skis.

He handed the racquet back. “Do you have a fireplace?”

I loved his humor and got the message that I should upgrade my equipment! So I bought a new racquet and joined a tennis team.

Weeks later, my body was moving, but my brain was getting mushy. I could guess “who done it,” after the 3rd or 4th chapter in a book. I contacted a friend, who called a friend who offered me a job as a contract writer for FranWise, a company that produces manuals for franchised businesses.

I absolutely love my job! It combines my love of language, my experience in franchising, and my desire to learn about new things. (It also keeps me from foraging in the refrigerator!) I have explored diverse business concepts, ranging from QSR (I used to call it “Fast Food,” but it’s now “Quick Service Restaurants”) to eyelash salons. I have flirted with AI. I’ve learned to write in gender-neutral pronouns, although I admit that it’s tough to type “They is…”

But even with tennis and contract writing, I still had way too much extra time. When Perk and I went on a tour to China in 1979 (our only organized tour), he was the photographer. I was the pack mule carrying lenses, film, filters, and tripods. On that trip we learned that we see different things, and I drove him nuts saying, “ Did you get that? … Oh, take that picture! … Oh, no, you missed the shot of the baby in the embroidered jacket!” I was so annoying that one of the other travelers said, in a snide voice, “Did you ever think of getting your own camera?”

Thirty+ years later,  I got a great camera. I have learned that I love photography far beyond “recording the event.” I love seeing what others don’t see, looking for new angles, catching the light, and creating new art by combining elements of several photos. I have them printed on canvas, giving the pictures the look of paintings.

I often tilt over a pier to get an aerial view of a heron fishing in the shallows below; people step over me as I lie on the path photographing a lotus dewy in the morning light, or frown as I sneak too near an alligator sunning on the shore or a horned owl standing sentinel on the creekbank.

I’m thinking of renaming this blog “Pictures, Predicaments, and Perk,” because he’s the one who holds my camera bag and extra batteries, grabs my shirttail when I lean too far over the rail, and hoists me to my feet when I’ve been lying near a lotus pond.

But the best news is that a fun retirement hobby has turned into a mini-business! I’ve won a couple of prizes in a local art show, and have sold several pieces of large custom wall art. I’m the Grandma Moses of Photography!!

Click here to see some of the photos that I love most!

Filed Under: Life in Florida, Photography, Travel Adventures, Travel Tips Tagged With: , ,

A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

October 1, 2014 by 4 Comments

Leopard Correct 2

Leopard at Mala Mala

Nature has never been “my thing.” I’m more in tune with books and technology – a Kindle freak and a camera junkie. Our kids had the usual assortment of pets – from dogs and cats to rabbits and hamsters. Our family frequented zoos, of course, and even took a photographic safari to Mala Mala in Africa, but actually seeking out animals in the wild on my own was absolutely foreign to me. The closest I ever came to nature was when a wood duck plummeted down our fireplace chimney in Minnesota and had to be rescued.

Eventually we moved to Texas and I was forced to confront nature in the raw. When a wolf spider the size of my fist decided to explore my VW convertible, I exploded from the car screaming, “Ragno, Ragno –Aiuto! Aiuto!” I couldn’t think of “spider” or “help” in Spanish and reverted to Italian; the Hispanic groundskeepers at our office looked heavenward for spiritual succor and hastily backed away from the hysterical woman screaming in a foreign language!

At times baby copperheads slithered down the hall outside my office, fire ants found me particularly delectable, and once a Portuguese Man-o-War wrapped itself around my thigh at the Galveston beach. I learned to check out my surroundings in Texas.

But now I live in Southwest Florida. Sometimes when I sit on our lanai in the early morning, I feel as though I am channeling Walt Disney! As the sun brightens the treetops, baby bunnies and squirrels have been known to peer through the screen at me, owls hoot in the nearby nature preserve, anhingas pose on the creekbed rocks behind our condo and stretch their wings to dry. The setting is so idyllic that when I rouse myself to refill my coffee mug, I would not be surprised if bluebirds tied an apron around my waist and told Cinderella to get to work!

Not HONY, but AOSWF

Having lived mostly in “the North,” I am enamored by the Animals of Southwest Florida. My camera (a Nikon P600) has been key to helping me discover nature in detail. With its 60X optical zoom, I see things through the camera that I could never see otherwise. I love shelling at Barefoot Beach where osprey shelter their young 30 feet above me on nesting platforms.Osprey (Once a friend and I watched a young osprey learning to fly in fits and spurts; I was so mesmerized that I forgot to take pictures!) Sometimes I use the camera on my phone to photograph the shore birds as they snatch minnows and crabs in the ripples. Gopher tortoises poke their heads out of their burrows, then emerge to stroll to nearby grasses for a leisurely snack. Cranes, herons and pelicans eye fisherman and try to steal their bait.

Egrets fish and ibis grub in our back yard. Dolphins gambol in the wake of the pontoon boat ferrying us to an island beach, where even the jellyfish are Disney benign!Dolphin A couple of weeks ago, I saw the beach rangers  gently carrying platter-sized jelly fish from the shallows back into the waves. I could feel those burning man-o-war tentacles grasping my thigh as I remonstrated with the rangers – surely they should at least have gloves and shirts on their bare hands and arms! But, no, they patiently explained, these were moon jellies and not dangerous to humans.

Birds, dolphins, jellyfish were all good subjects, of course, but I was eager to photograph an alligator in the wild. Our neighbors regaled us with tales of eight foot gators sauntering down the road in front of our condo; but when pinned down, they confessed that it was five or six or maybe ten years ago – not recently. I went on lengthy walks, checked out ponds, looked in reeds for sleeping logs, but to no avail. The keepers at the Naples Zoo told us that alligators feed at night, that they were uninterested in humans unless someone had been foolish enough to feed them. Regretfully I concluded that gators were unlikely to be cruising my suburban neighborhood. I was ten years too late.

Call of the Wild

Our young grandson loves netting minnows in the creek behind our condo – hanging on to tree branches to get a longer reach into the brackish, murky water. Our son-in-law (he of intrepid driver fame in a previous blog) likes to cast for bass from the bank and has caught some big ones.

Late one afternoon I heard a call, “Cyndee, better get your camera!” I ran to the creek before the big one got away. A cast – SNAP! An unseen fish grabbed the shiny lure, then spit it back into the water! Another cast – another snap! Only this time the “fish” was visible – a log with sharp teeth, beady eyes and large nostrils. And it looked annoyed that the shiny lure was not a silvery bass!Alligator

I took lots of pictures of our creek visitor, but I confess that I am no longer quite so carefree about walking near the ponds and reeds looking for wild life in the neighborhood. I’ve photographed more gators lurking in the water and sunning themselves on the shore of the nature preserve during the day, but I remain reading my Kindle comfortably on the lanai at night. I’m still channeling Walt Disney, of course, but in the evening I’m more in tune with Peter Pan and the ticking croc, than with Cinderella and the bluebirds!

Filed Under: Life in Florida, Travel Adventures Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,