There are many things that seem to just go together - like ham and eggs,bagels and lox and cheese and crackers.
The same applies to Retirement and Florida. Way before Disney World was even on a blueprint, retirees flocked to Florida to enjoy their retirement years leaving the city to spend the rest of their lives enjoying the tranquility of country living.
They sold their homes, and most, if not all of their belongings, to start a life extremely opposite of what they had been used to.
City life with the fumes of the buses and smoke from the chimneys that filled the air with pollution was soon to be a thing of the past.
Back then leaving the city, meant moving to Miami Beach, Florida. The houses, garden apartments and condos, were on one level with sunshine filling the rooms during the day, and the cool breezes from the beach cooling them at night.
Almost immediately smaller neighboring communities sprang up with a small town country feel. People shared their morning coffee on their patios, after walking together to the corner bakery for their rolls and bagels to enjoy with it.
Their lifestyle had changed from the hustle and bustle of the city life that they had been accustomed to, to the peace and quiet of country life.
Men enjoyed afternoon game of pinochle outdoors in the shade, and the women played a game of Mahjong sharing the same shade to enable them to each share the pitcher of iced tea with cookies on the side.
It was a peaceful existent with clear blue skies and cotton candy like clouds moving slowly appearing as figures of those they had once known, replacing the pollution of the city.
There were no schools thus no school children in the vicinity yelling and screaming for no apparent reason.
As the retirees continued to move to Florida it was apparent that there was a need for further expansion and soon many other larger Retirement Communities were built.
These, like the Villages in Lake County, Florida, have produced small towns within a big city with center court square dancing and small town type restaurants and using golf carts as local transportation, replacing the automobiles.
Florida is still one of the most popular places to retire for those who desire to leave the city, and yet, live near the city, to enjoy a country type atmosphere, with its sprawling green lawns, near by golf courses, and the quiet and peace lacking in the big cities.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Make a Theraputic Collage
Collages can be created for many reasons or many uses and with many and varied objects, pictures or fabrics. They can adorn our walls, become abstract art or can become the map of our lives revealing the dreams and aspirations of our youth that we still yearn for that never came true.
Creating a Collage for therapy can release our inner longings, missing dreams, or pain of having to accept a life much different than we had once yearned for or aspired to become.
We had visions of becoming an artist, a poet, an author or world traveler. We watched a movie and yearned to be the actress that everyone adored until we married and our dreams gave way to becoming the best wife and mother possible while our dreams and aspirations seemed to slowly fade away.
Each day seems to be a carbon copy of the previous until one day we wonder where ''our'' dreams went to. What happened to the person that we once wanted to become and what happened to the life we had envisioned but never attained.
Therapeutic Collages can help us all open up our creative and artistic sides to create a sense of peace or to define who we are, and who we were, as opposed to what we are at this moment.
Being creative is not only for children or young adults. It is also not only for the infirmed or the very old. Creativity comes in many forms.
We can write a story, paint a picture or stitch and frame a canvas. Learning who we are now and what our aims and goals were when we were younger can help us be happier and more content adults. Somehow we got lost along the way and feel that we gave up our identities and our dreams to please others.
Building a collage can help bring us back to the reality of what we want and where we wanted to go, how we wanted to look and to compare it with the now and then. Look through various magazines, and cut out pictures. Look for pictures that reveal who you are or who you think you are or what you would like to be.
Cut out pictures of people you admire; their hair styles, hair coloring, size and demeanor. Find pictures of what you look like now and how you had wanted to look. Do not look at prices or costs but instead select a house, an apartment, a boat, or a yacht you feel you would ''love to have''and then find a picture of where you live now.
Find a picture of a man you wished you wished you had married or even a dress you love. Perhaps a school you wished you could gone to or a job you never got and always wanted.
Be truthful and honest remembering that this is something you are doing just for yourself. Take your time as part of the therapy is looking, searching, and trying to find the person you seemed to have lost in the process of growing up.
Do not look with any particular image in mind. Keep turning the pages until you say to yourself..."Oh wow! I wish I looked like this" - then cut it out and save it. Be selective, be honest, and look from your heart and not your mind.
While searching, bring out the inner child within who had dreamed big dreams, and allow yourself to be guided from your imagination and memories of your past yearnings.
Place the pictures on a large cardboard and format it before pasting. This is your life you are pasting so keep that in mind when you organize the pictures.
By creating a collage of what you had wanted to be, you might find that you have been that person after all and that the imaginary person you are now making up is much like you are now.
Once that realization sets in the unrest and turmoil within you, the anger you might feel at yourself for not being what you had wanted to be, might cease, and you can be a happier and more content person.
Understand that even if you did not learn anything, creating a collage is fun and enjoyable and an inexpensive past time to remove you from the stresses of your everyday life.
Creating a Collage for therapy can release our inner longings, missing dreams, or pain of having to accept a life much different than we had once yearned for or aspired to become.
We had visions of becoming an artist, a poet, an author or world traveler. We watched a movie and yearned to be the actress that everyone adored until we married and our dreams gave way to becoming the best wife and mother possible while our dreams and aspirations seemed to slowly fade away.
Each day seems to be a carbon copy of the previous until one day we wonder where ''our'' dreams went to. What happened to the person that we once wanted to become and what happened to the life we had envisioned but never attained.
Therapeutic Collages can help us all open up our creative and artistic sides to create a sense of peace or to define who we are, and who we were, as opposed to what we are at this moment.
Being creative is not only for children or young adults. It is also not only for the infirmed or the very old. Creativity comes in many forms.
We can write a story, paint a picture or stitch and frame a canvas. Learning who we are now and what our aims and goals were when we were younger can help us be happier and more content adults. Somehow we got lost along the way and feel that we gave up our identities and our dreams to please others.
Building a collage can help bring us back to the reality of what we want and where we wanted to go, how we wanted to look and to compare it with the now and then. Look through various magazines, and cut out pictures. Look for pictures that reveal who you are or who you think you are or what you would like to be.
Cut out pictures of people you admire; their hair styles, hair coloring, size and demeanor. Find pictures of what you look like now and how you had wanted to look. Do not look at prices or costs but instead select a house, an apartment, a boat, or a yacht you feel you would ''love to have''and then find a picture of where you live now.
Find a picture of a man you wished you wished you had married or even a dress you love. Perhaps a school you wished you could gone to or a job you never got and always wanted.
Be truthful and honest remembering that this is something you are doing just for yourself. Take your time as part of the therapy is looking, searching, and trying to find the person you seemed to have lost in the process of growing up.
Do not look with any particular image in mind. Keep turning the pages until you say to yourself..."Oh wow! I wish I looked like this" - then cut it out and save it. Be selective, be honest, and look from your heart and not your mind.
While searching, bring out the inner child within who had dreamed big dreams, and allow yourself to be guided from your imagination and memories of your past yearnings.
Place the pictures on a large cardboard and format it before pasting. This is your life you are pasting so keep that in mind when you organize the pictures.
By creating a collage of what you had wanted to be, you might find that you have been that person after all and that the imaginary person you are now making up is much like you are now.
Once that realization sets in the unrest and turmoil within you, the anger you might feel at yourself for not being what you had wanted to be, might cease, and you can be a happier and more content person.
Understand that even if you did not learn anything, creating a collage is fun and enjoyable and an inexpensive past time to remove you from the stresses of your everyday life.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Why Do I Like Where I Live
I moved to Florida with my husband to retire. He died a week later leaving me in a strange State with no family or friends. Yet I never gave a thought to moving back North.
One of the things that brought me here to retire was the Florida skies. Looking up at the beautiful blue unpolluted sky and white cotton like balls of clouds that take on the shape and faces of loved ones, made me at once fall in love with this State.
There is magic here and I am not talking about the magic of Disney. I am talking about the magic of the weather, the seasons and the ability to do whatever you want to do at any given moment without worrying about being ''snowed in'' or the icy streets once outside.
I found the ability to do all the things that I always ''wished'' I could have done when younger. I returned to college, and graduated with honors. I visited the many nearby craft stores, and learned how to acrylic paint in abstract form and at a later date how to do ceramics.
I never had to be concerned about the snow making me miss a school day, or the icy streets keeping me from walking from my car to the craft stores.
I love waking up in the mornings, with the beautiful sunshine lighting up the Orchids or Christmas Cactus on my patio or the sun rays coming through the patio blinds that land on my living room floor.
Getting dressed is fast,easy and simply entails slipping on a pair of shorts, tee top, and sandals, grabbing my keys and getting into the car. No snow boots, woolen hats, or scraping the ice off the windshield.
Since the car has been in a cool garage all night, you never know how hot it actually is outdoors until you finally reach your destination and step out of the car. The heat however is short lived, and lasts only for as long as it takes to leave your air conditioned car and quickly enter the air conditioned destination.
Everything is magical here even the rain. It is not unusual to see it pouring on one side of the block while you bask in the sun on the other side. When driving, you can actually see where it is raining and where the sun once again starts. You can also drive into a torrential rain knowing that in a few minutes you will drive out of it into the bright sunshine.
The seasons are reversed in Florida than that of the North. Because of high the humidity, we tend to keep indoors during the summers and enjoy outdoor activities during the winter.
That does not mean that we stay inside our houses. No! Since everything is central air conditioned, we can attend movies, museums, indoor ice skating, bowling, any of the abundant shopping Malls, or any activity that does not require standing on line in the hot sun.
Everything is slower here and gives us time to even enjoy food shopping. It is not unusual to to see three strangers standing in front of their shopping carts in the center of the aisle discussing politics, or sharing tips, as if they were old friends.
There is only one thing that I do not like about Florida and that is not being able to share retirement and all the activities and beauty of Florida with my husband.
He wanted to bring me to Florida and he did. He died in Florida and I buried him in Florida. My children, grandchildren and my one great grandchild now all live in Florida and feel the same magic of the State that I do.
Now as I look up at the blue skies with the cotton like shaped clouds, I can see the face of my husband smiling, knowing that I am happy and content in a State where I made all my dreams come true.
Life is good!
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