Community and Society – Susie Strauss

October 30, 2015

Assisted Living: Pros and Cons

There comes a point in life when many people have to decide on whether to continue living independently, or transitioning to an assisted living facility. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, and it’s best to consider these before making what can be a life changing decision. Weighing the pros and cons is important.

Assisted living services for seniors can provide a number of benefits. One of those is flexibility. As we age, our bodies change, and so do our needs. Properly staffed facilities can help us at any stage of life. These facilities often have staff on hand that can make expert decisions on our health and give proper advice on conditions that could be considered ‘red flags.’ This staff is available full time, which means in emergencies, people can trust that they will receive critical attention.

There are a few cons, of course. The biggest concern people have is costs. Assisted living requires early planning on the part of a person so that they can afford the month to month costs. These costs can also increase as a person’s needs increase with age. For these reasons, it’s best to start making economic preparations sooner rather than later.

October 29, 2015

Throwing a Halloween bash

My friends and I are having a Halloween bash!! The place is all decorated in spooky stuff, have a hay ride through a spook trail, bobbing for apples, and a best costume contest to boot. It all starts at dark and the whole community is invited. Well most of it anyway.

I’m Scarlet O’Hara of course, Grace is a clown, Celeste is Snow White and Little Joe is one of the seven dwarfs, Happy!! He’s always smiling so Happy fits him perfect. All the adults have to bring a big bag of candy to help with the candy we give out to the kids that come by Trick-or-Treating and other than that, the party is free.

Hey, if you’re in the mountains of North Carolina, stop by and see us. I promise you’ll have a blast. Don’t forget to come in a costume!!!

October 6, 2015

Pumpkin Patch Hunting

Today I went to the local Pumpkin Patch and hunting the most perfectly round big pumpkin I could find. I had a large one last year that was taller than it was round and it carved really nice. But I wanted something different this year.

The pumpkin patch had the pumpkins grouped by size. The really big ones were $40! Wow! I couldn’t believe that people are willing to spend $40 on a pumpkin that they don’t even eat – they just carve it and set it outside to decorate their porch.

The one I decided to buy was beautiful and I only paid $25. I think I could have found one cheaper, but this is a charity sale for the church youth group. I figured that since Halloween is supposed to be a holiday for the kids anyway, that supporting a youth group with my money was the right thing to do.

September 13, 2015

Sometimes you need a little bit of help communicating

I was quite interested to hear my friend Linda talk about her experiences working as a pharmacy technician at a local Rite Aid store. She had learned a bit of Spanish back in high school (she took two years of Spanish) but then shortly after graduating from high school she moved to Maine, where nobody spoke Spanish. People either spoke English or Canadian-French where she lived for twenty-nine years.

When she moved back to Virginia, she started working at Rite Aid, and found that a lot of customers were Hispanic, and did not speak English at all. She tried to brush up on her high-school Spanish, but it had been over thirty years, and although she managed to help most of the customers, there were a few times when she had to call the store’s translation company and put the customer on the telephone to facilitate the communication that was important.

When she was taking pharmacy technician classes, she learned that the second-most popular language spoken in the city where the classes were being held was Farsi! Clearly, the need for translation services will continue to grow for many decades to come.

July 4, 2015

Happy Independence Day!!!

Family watching fireworks (free clip art)

I love the 4th of July!! We really go all out to decorate, well we do that for every holiday but there’s just something about Independence Day that I love!! We always have a huge community picnic type party with grilled hot dogs and hamburgers with all the fixin’s and of course potato salad, baked beans and we can’t forget the banana pudding and homemade ice cream.

Then there’s the fireworks display. I love all of the laughter, ooohhh’s and aaahhh’s from the children when the fireworks start. It’s just a wonderful time for all!!! I hope each and every one of you have a wonderful 4th of July and remember what the celebration is all about, our independence!!!

May 10, 2015

Happy Mothers Day

Happy Mother’s Day everyone! I know that you may not BE a mother, but chances are you know someone who IS a mother! So, Happy, Happy Day to all!

February 17, 2015

The Internet offers consumers different ways to order things

I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I go shopping online I am uncomfortable filling out an order form that requires my credit card information. With all of the recent publicity about hackers getting into systems through the Internet, I find more and more that I would appreciate finding the item I want to purchase, and then actually placing the order with a phone call. So I was relieved when I was thinking about buying something from the musician’s friend website to see “To place your order, call us toll-free at 800-449-9128” as an option for ordering. I think in this day and age, this is a little bit more secure than sending the information electronically. What do you think?

November 21, 2014

The Yule Log

I am always interested in historical information about Holidays. When I saw the Yule Log for sale at department 56 dickens village I was interested to read the description that explained that it was thought to be good luck to have a large log burn during the twelve days of Christmas, which ends on January 6th. Supposedly if the log would burn that long it would bring prosperity and health to the household.

I never knew that was the thought process behind it! I wonder who created that story!

October 22, 2014

Shop Smart

Whenever making a purchase of an item that I plan to use for a long time, I try to perform what my engineering son likes to call “due diligence.” By that, I mean I will spend quite a bit of time finding out as much as I can about the product. I want to “shop smart” so as to not waste my money on a product that will not perform the way I want it to perform. I will try to find, and Read Full Review material on the product, do some comparison shopping online for it, and even check and see if there have been any complaints or recalls on the item.

In this day and age, I also try to buy American-made products, to support our economy. If we don’t help keep our country working, our taxes will end up going up to support the unemployed! And between you and me, I’d rather not join the ranks of the unemployed, so I always try to keep that in mind as well!

October 18, 2014

Warranties Are Important

Sometimes when I talk to my friends and family about things they are buying online, I get the impression that they don’t even take the time to view fine print about warranties and whether or not they can purchase a maintenance agreement. Such was the case when Marcel was telling me that he was thinking about buying a dbx ZonePRO 640 Speaker Processor from an Internet retailer. I asked him if he had checked out how long the warranty was on the product, and he told me he had not. What is wrong with people nowadays? You should always find out that information!