I happened on to some disturbing statistics recently.  Go learn more.

I watched a good movie yesterday called How to make an American quilt. It’s basically about Finn Dodd, a 27 year-old woman (played by Wynona Ryder) who feels a lot of indecision in her life, and so she goes to spend the summer with her great aunt and grandmother.   During the summer she learns much about her elders’ lives and the lessons they have learned.

The story centers on the stories of several women in a quilting bee as they work together to construct a wedding quilt as a gift for Finn.

Finn is a Berkeley graduate student visiting her grandmother Hy (Ellen Burstyn) and great aunt Glady Joe (Anne Bancroft) in Grasse, California.  During her stay, all of the women share their life stories with her, which leads her to reflect on her own life and where it is headed.

There is much midlife wisdom in this film, lots about the choices we make when we’re young and where they can lead us.  Lots of about the important decision points we reach and how we decide what’s next in our lives.  I loved this quote from the movie:

“Young lovers seek perfection.  Old lovers learn the art of sewing shreds together, and seeing beauty in a multiplicity of patches.”

This is the wisdom we gather as we age, much like the gathering of patches of cloth we enjoy, some of which remind us of important times in our lives.  This is what I realized when I met my new (and improved!) husband Mike five years ago. …..my idea of love had changed dramatically!

Love had become less a seeking towards a perfect union, and more a gathering of all I had learned.  Now Mike and I piece together our lives day-by-day into a quilt of varying shades and hues.  It changes all the time, but it is always a thing of beauty!

Go read some great new posts from the latest Boomers Blog Carnival!

CBS Sunday Morning just had a story about this. It’s real and can be a very serious problem for millions who live in the northern parts of the U.S.  But there are different types of light therapy available to soothe it!    Read more about it in my article published last year.

Here’s more about this recent controversy.

Often I am inspired by my coaching clients to write a post.  Today I am thinking of one in particular when I say to you all, don’t ever give up on finding your passion and re-igniting that spark in your life!

Life can most certainly take it’s toll on our mind, body and spirit.  Perhaps in the past you’ve given your all to a certain relationship, job or personal passion, and things didn’t work out.

So now you feel depressed and cheated, because you made a commitment, tried so hard to follow through, and now it all feels like a failure.   That’s exactly what divorce, the death of a parent, or job loss can feel like, especially later in life.  And if these misfortunes come at you one after the other, how could you not feel defeated?  Of course you feel depressed and ready to give up.

Why should you even think about trying again?  You gave it your all and you failed, so there is really no point in trying again.  Besides, who has the energy for all that?

YOU, AND ONLY YOU DO! You will only know you’re on the right path when you begin to manifest a life full of love and passion, and when you start doing this, IT WILL BE OBVIOUS! And in case you were wondering, that previous relationship or marriage or job wasn’t it!  If it was right for you, why did everything go so wrong?  Why was it such a struggle to maintain?

Time to go back to the drawing board, literally, but the good news is you have the freedom and power to create anything from scratch now.  Dream your very best dream and then go for it!  This crisis is your BEST opportunity to make your life better than you could even imagine before this misfortune happened.

What’s the first step?  Begin to believe in your own future. If you cannot imagine it, the likelihood of it happening is slim to none.  What you focus on grows, so start to grow your vision today!  Write it all down, better yet, create some vision boards of every wonderful thing that could happen to you.  Keep those images before you at all times.

Make time for yourself in the midst of all your worries and woes!  Love yourself fiercely and respect all the wonderfully unique traits that are you.   Acknowledge the fact that YOU are uniquely equipped to offer up what you are about to contribute to the world.  No one else has the genetic makeup and life experiences you possess.  Now get behind yourself and get to work!

This comes from my own experience of getting divorced in 2001 and then hitting rock bottom in 2004, when I lost my job and career.  Nobody has ever felt more like a midlife loser than I did then.  But I didn’t give up.  I got up, dusted myself off and started all over again!  I then re-defined loser in my own mind to only include those who give up on themselves and their dreams.

Did you know  J.K. Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression and contemplated suicide before her writing became wildly popular?   Here is her advice to you:

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation I built my success on.”

I rest my case!

A mask from the Venice Carnival!

Spring will be back soon!  It’s almost time for carnivale in Rio, New Orleans and Venice!

Let’s celebrate with a blog carnival especially created for the elite among us….the BABY BOOMERS!

Wes over at LifeTwo.com presents what marriage and family counselor Jed Diamond tells clients who want to know how to prevent an affair as they deal with issues of sexuality, infidelity, and betrayal as well as intimacy, honesty, courage, and integrity.

It’s All About Aging wants to know if you’ve ever wanted or needed to go standing up? She looks at GoGirl, a new product that allows you to do just that.

Barbara Weibel at Hole In The Donut Travels has set out on her grand four-month backpacking adventure around Mexico, Central and South America.  From Mazatlan, Mexico, she tells us what it’s like to settle into the rhythm of long-term travel.

Most Baby Boomers believe that they will still be working during their retirement years.  SoBabyBoomer presents some retirement tips for boomers who are becoming aware that they are experiencing a different type of retirement than previous generations.

The Boomer Chronicles explores what it’s like to not pass on your handiness to your kids.

If you ever had a tete-a-tete with a diva, or made a “faux pas,”  you’ll enjoy this article from Vaboomer.com on foreign words in everyday English.

The use of marijuana amongst retirees is increasing as we boomers get older.  Find out more over at Contemporary Retirement.

Andrea Stenberg at The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur is always trying to find new ways to save time. She shares her latest efficiency time in How I Cleaned Up My Inbox and Learned to Love RSS

And now a word from our sponsor:  The Midlife Crisis Queen wonders (out loud, of course!) why we Americans feel so generous to Haitians in need, but still refuse to offer much needed health care to our fellow citizens.

She would also like to encourage you to take advantage of her new blog called: Healthy Aging: Body, Mind & Spirit, especially her latest post about older single American women, many who suffer greatly when they cannot afford access to proper health care.

Since the earthquake there, the American people have contributed at least one billion dollars worth of aid to Haiti.  That is an amazing show of generosity to those with great and immediate needs.  I think it’s wonderful when those who have, help those who are in dire need, and can see no way out of their misery.

But I see this fine show of generosity to be a strange and ugly contradiction in a people that apparently do not believe that their fellow Americans in similar circumstances deserve access to decent health care.

At least 45,000 Americans die every year, one every 12 minutes, because we as a people do not offer health care to every American who needs it. If those of you who dutifully sent your money away to Haiti would instead offer financial support to your fellow countrymen, these 45,000 Americans wouldn’t need to die alone, feeling like nobody cares about them.

Roughly 46.3 million people in the United States lacked coverage in 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau reported last week, up from 45.7 million in 2007.  There are fewer places for the uninsured to get good care. Public hospitals and clinics are shuttering or scaling back across the country in cities like New Orleans, Detroit and others.  Without proper care, uninsured Americans are more likely to die from complications associated with preventable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

Do we offer health care to those who have recently lost a job or are too ill or disabled to work, as well as the rest of the world?  You decide!  The American people need to take back control over their own Congress, and change this embarrassing and despicable situation.

Shouldn’t we show the world we choose to offer proper health care and compassion to ourselves BEFORE we try to save everybody else?

“Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”  – Plato

Are you all working on your “bucket list”?

Well, Charlene Anderson sure is!  Go read her great midlife essay over at the Boomer Cafe today. There she shares with you her own experience with pursuing her long-held dream to learn how to play the violin.

I LOVE her conclusion:

“The violin has taught me many things: the beauty in precision, the value of patience, the reward of perseverance. Most of all, it has taught me never to let go of my dreams.   Easy or not, they are worth fighting for, especially as the hourglass sands run a little thin.”    – Charlene Anderson

There’s an interesting report over at the Boomer Cafe today by Tom Brokaw on younger boomers and their apparent increasing willingness to move greater distances than previous generations during their retirement years.

A 2009 AARP research project found that “only 79 percent of Baby Boomers want to stay in their current homes as they age, with older Boomers (83 percent) more likely to say they want to remain in their homes than younger Boomers (76 percent).”

Compared to the 1990 and 2000 census data, these numbers demonstrate a fascinating trend:  The later in the 20th century that a member of the population is born, the more likely they are to move (or want to move) their primary residence in retirement.

My sun room at my old house

I’m a middle boomer born in 1955.  My husband and I hope to move further south when we retire, perhaps to New Mexico from northern Colorado.

Not just for the warmer weather though.  We dream of building a home almost off the grid, powered by solar and wind energy.  Mike works in solar technology now so we know of what we speak!

I suffer from SAD, so I’m a total sun worshipper.    I miss my old sun room terribly.  We both HATE the way most homes in Colorado take NO advantage of the great solar exposure we have here.  What a tragic WASTE!