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A pie chart is the perfect metaphor to visualize almost everything in your life. A round circle, you can divide it into any number of different-size pieces to display the relative size of various data. It might showcase your income and how you typically spend it—the biggest slice for housing, a smaller one for food and yet smaller ones for clothing, travel and entertainment. Seeing all together in one visual can help you to grasp how if you spent less on your home-related costs you might be able to retire sooner or take a long wished for vacation. A pie...

Americans are a pie loving people. It’s part of the American myth to say that something is “as American as apple pie.” But pie is Protean. It’s pretty and geometric. A perfect circle. It’s used in math for fractions: “We can all share a piece of the pie.”  And there are also all the sayings about pie: “Fractions are as easy as pie.” To a busy body or someone who is involved in too many things we might say: “She has her finger in every pie.” We do pie charts (which we flesh out in next week's blog), and use...

Need a new friend? Each of us does after we reach age 50-plus as our long-time or even relatively newer friends get busy, become ill, perhaps move away to retire or be closer geographically to their children and grandkids. Although it’s easier to maintain contact with friends in faraway places in today’s virtual world, there’s no substitute for human contact.   Friends come and go. Losing friends for whatever reason has happened to each of us multiple times. Some friendships are casual or even temporary; coming and going like a stomach cramp. Others are long-term. But we’re each always open to...

I’m in love. It’s a completely superficial kind of adoration. And it’s not with a person this time. Actually, I am as red as my newly-picked tomatoes admitting this but… I have completely fallen for my new refrigerator. It’s not like I can say hey, it’s so smart, funny, fit or interesting. But I love it!  I went to a favorite appliance store and interviewed a salesman. I ogled the Sub-Zero, a model I had previously owned twice, but now felt too expensive--and big--with its huge dimensions and two compressors, since I wasn't sure how long I would stay in...

We're getting older and much to our chagrin are we ever learning more about illness and how to cope. There are the typical daily aches and pains and then there are the real problems from broken bones and bad backs, to auto immune diseases and, heaven forbid, cancer. Dealing with illness, losses, failures, and disappointments can also stretch people’s outlook and spur them to do things they’ve always wanted.  How you deal with a diagnosis has a big impact on healing. Do you shut down--go to bed, throw the quilt over your head and sulk in self-pity? “It’s my pity party,”...