The Grateful Dead
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Grateful Dead [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Are Tiny Houses Realistic for Seniors?
I love tiny houses. I LIVE in a tiny house, 416 square feet, right now! I’ve lived in many curious dwellings like a 16-foot airstream trailer without electricity, a Quonset hut, a pup tent for three months in a meadow near Mt. Shasta, a single-wide mobile home and now a studio condo in a nearly 100-year-old building. I GET SMALL! I have also lived in big suburban houses, smaller suburban houses, you get the idea. I prefer smallish.
I LIVE in a tiny house, 416 square feet, right now! I’ve lived in many curious dwellings like a 16-foot airstream trailer without electricity, a Quonset hut, a pup tent for three months in a meadow near Mt. Shasta, a single-wide mobile home and now a studio condo in a nearly 100-year-old building. I GET SMALL! I have also lived in big suburban houses, smaller suburban houses, you get the idea. I prefer smallish.
I love the tiny house movement and all it represents in regard to downsizing, consuming less everything, being more conscious about what you bring into your home or don’t due to space limitations.
The one thing that troubles me about all of the tiny house designs I’ve seen and granted, I’ve not seen that many, but most every photo or plan for a tiny house includes a loft and a ladder to access that loft, and THAT’s the part I’m not sure about.
Pad Tiny Houses has solved that with the Hikari Tiny House. Coming in at 184 square feet downstairs, with actual stairs instead of a ladder and sleeping up or downstairs, I think the Hikari House could be an answer for a shared senior community.
All that aside, I am so excited that in Portland, Oregon we have a wonderful Tiny House movement. Classes can be taken to teach you how to build your own tiny house. Watch this video by Pad Tiny Houses. Dee Williams and Joan Grim are the instructors who lead this weekend workshop, and there are other workshops that involve a tiny house actually being built.
Media & Politics: Do Facts Matter
From Facebook to politics, and television, does it seem like facts don’t matter anymore?
Do you remember when paying for things in cash wasn’t suspicious and asking questions wasn’t considered rude and combative? I do, and I miss them.
Have you ever had anyone get angry with you because you asked them where they heard something or if they could back it up?
Most of us can’t back it up, myself included. A good friend who is a journalist and fact finding genius has re-trained me to be more diligent in what I repeat as fact or truth by challenging me all the time. Fortunately, I like the challenge, but I find many people don’t like being asked on what they base their opinions or where they got their “facts.”
Another new barrier to critical thinking is the internet. I am guilty on occasion of “Liking” or sharing a web page that prints facts about science, celebrities, or politics, but provides no links or references to cite where the information they are authoritatively writing about came from.
Guilty, but I’m changing. I’m working on slowing down and before I “Like” someone’s post or share an article, I look for references that I can check. It all takes so much time, so I have to ask is this worth the time, and if the answer is no I move on.
FactCheck.org – Does the Fact Checking So We Don’t Have To
nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship and to increase public knowledge and understanding.
FactCheck looks at the information we see in the media and checks the facts for us. They take the content of political speeches and commentary and fact check them. You can even submit your own request for them to fact check an issue, maybe the one you bet $20 on.
And example might look like this:
Q: Did President Obama cut benefits for veterans by $2.6 billion to give the money to Syrian refugees? A: No. The Department of Veterans Affairs transferred funds to close a $2.6 billion gap in a health care program. The transfer is unrelated to Syrian refugee aid.
In a country that seems to value how you feel and how you look, over facts and reality, it worries me. That’s why I encourage you to pause before you Like and consider that even those with similar opinions and politics are just as capable to of posting misinformation Sometimes, ironically in response to an unsubstantiated opposing opinion or “facts.”
Hemp Inc. Offers Its First Product for Sale
Officials at Hemp Inc., announced they are ready to release its first product in the marketplace, an environmentally friendly super absorbent biodegradable material called SpillSuck™. The product is made from the core of kenaf and hemp plants, and is one of the world’s most absorbent natural materials used primarily for oil, chemical and other liquid spills. Expectations are that SpillSuck™ will be especially helpful in oil spill cleanups. Kenaf is a plant related to cotton, hibiscus and okra with its origin in Africa.
The company’s first 25,000 pounds of SpillSuck™ are in the final stages of packaging, after which the product will be ready for market.
Bruce Perlowin, CEO of Hemp, Inc said:
This is a big deal for Hemp, Inc. (OTC PINK: HEMP) because this is our first environmentally friendly product-to-market from our decortication plant in Spring Hope, North Carolina.
In the announcement they said twenty-five thousand pounds of SpillSuck™ are currently being processed for delivery to the market in the next few weeks. Further, they expect to have another 100,000 pounds of material ready and 2 – 3 weeks after that. Once in full production, the target goal is to process and ship one to three million pounds of SpillSuck™ per month, according to the announcement.
Congress Just Condemed Millions of Divorced Women to Poverty
When congress passed it’s new budget law that takes effect May 2016, millions of women who were entitled to take half the value of their ex-spouse’s social security and then switch to their fully vested social security at age 70, can no longer do this. For reasons that escape me, while congress (and yes, Obama signed it into law) wrote the changes to close a loophole for married couples where there are two social security incomes, they also thought it would be a good idea to condemn divorced women to accept a lower amount earlier dooming them to collect the lower amount for the rest of their lives.
For those now under 62, the bill extends deeming, which now ends at full retirement age (age 66), through age 70. Deeming is the requirement that if a) you take your retirement benefit and are eligible to collect your spousal benefit, you are forced to take both at once and b) if you take your spousal benefit, you are forced to simultaneously take your retirement benefit. Since Social Security effectively only pays the larger of the two benefits, being forced to take both benefits at once means that you lose one of the two benefits.
I had planned to begin collecting on my ex-husband’s social security until I turned 70 years old and then I intended to switch to my full amount, which hopefully would be more than taking his half early. Remember, you are not actually taking anything away from your ex-spouse’s entitlement. They still receive their full entitlement based on when the file. As long as you were married over 10 years and have been divorced for over two, you still can file but when you do, Social Security figures out the maximum amount you have coming to you based on when you file, sixty-two and a half, sixty-six or seventy years of age.
The earlier you file the less social security you receive, for life.
The earlier you file, the less you receive, and now that is for the rest of your days if you are divorced. This rule is not gender specific, it is not just for women, but the reason this rule exists is an acknowledgement that women earn less than men and frequently work fewer years due to child-rearing.
Now your choices are file and live with that amount for the rest of your life, or postpone filing until you are sixty-six, or seventy. With older women so de-valued in the workplace, and the natural demands of aging, where are our jobs? Target? Walmart? Where do you see our faces in the workplace?
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