Hello everyone:
There are several sets of ideal readers for Suddenly Single. They include widows and widowers, new fathers whose wives die during childbirth, divorcees, long-term caregivers, the terminally ill, and relatives of widows and widowers. With the exception of new fathers, the bulk of these readers are Baby Boomers in their 60s and 70s.
Many of them are retired, having planned on spending the rest of their lives with their spouses. They are unexpectedly alone and may be feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work that they will now be required to do. If they are a long-term caregiver, statistics show that they did not chose to take over this role, but felt obligated to do so.
Widows and widowers may have had a brief period of time during their spouse’s illness where they became aware that they might end up alone, but the illness may have been brief and left them little or no time to prepare. If they planned their finances carefully, they may be financially secure, or they may be like a divorcee who suddenly realizes that her husband wants to jettison her for a younger model.
The new father who suddenly loses his wife will most likely not be prepared for this situation at all, thinking that he would have many years with his young wife before they had to consider death and dying.
Likewise, divorcees may find themselves suddenly ousted from their seemingly-secure marriages, finding themselves in need of information on how to maintain their homes.
The serious illness of a parent or loved one can add stress as individuals try to juggle the demands of managing more than one household and family. Terminally ill individuals may wish to plan ahead by practically preparing their families for their eventual demise. The relatives of widows and widowers may wish to provide their loved ones with the guidelines for effective household management.
According to the American Community Survey Report, their statistics state that “the majority of widowed males and females were 65 years and over (70 percent and 66 percent, respectively)” (7). Widow’s Hope states that “800,000 people are widowed each year in the United States. Nearly 700,000 women lose their husbands every year and will be widows for an average of 14 years” (para. 1). Widow’s Hope further states that “there are 13.6 million widows in the United States” (para. 2); over half of the women in America who are over 65 years old are widowed (Widow’s Hope, para. 19).
The problem will only increase over time, since the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that there will be 88.5 million people over the age of 65 in 2050 (Profile America Facts for Features, para. 3).
Now you know!
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
Do you have long-term care insurance? It is extremely expensive to get long-term care; yet you really can’t afford to be without it. Long-term care insurance (LTC), an insurance policy, helps provide for the cost of long-term care beyond a predetermined period. LTC covers care not generally covered by health insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid.
To get into one quality long-term skilled care facility in my area, you are expected to give a one-time “facility gift” of $50,000. The care then runs between $10,000 and $11,000 per month, depending on the level of need. That is a substantial chunk of change, so I hope you can see the need here. Where would you get the money to pay this kind of bill?
The pool of insurance for long-term care usually plans on the costs running about $125,000 per year. However, keep in mind that a joint plan provides this for you and your spouse; if one of you has used it up, there is nothing left for the other spouse to draw on. Folks usually last about four years in one of these facilities. If they stay home and get care, the lifespan is usually 15 years.
Do you qualify for long-term care? If you have pre-existing medical problems, the answer may be “nope.” You have to plan on using long-term care insurance or you could end up in a Medicaid facility. The interesting thing about these places is that, if the treatment you need is not available locally, they can ship you off to the nearest place where it is available.
I heard a horror story lately where an elderly woman who was not insured needed specialized care. One day when her daughters came to visit her, the daughters found out that their mother had been shipped some other place three weeks before their visit that day (they really needed to visit their mother more often!). It took a while before they could even learn where their mother was, since folks had forgotten by then and they had to look it up. As it happened, the mother was shipped from Maryland to Pennsylvania. The daughters, who apparently had not seen fit to visit their mom very often when she was local, now had to drive a distance to check on their mom.
I hope you find this information helpful. It is not meant to provide legal information, but simply to provide a guide towards preparing you for long term need ahead of time.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
I met up with a former high school teacher a few years ago, running into him at the mall. After asking what he was doing now, he told me that he was back at the same high school after a five-year break.
He immediately (and voluntarily) launched into an explanation, telling me that he had met a wealthy, older widow a few years before and that she had taken him into her home (and her pocketbook).
Over a period of a couple of months, she began giving him lavish gifts; her financial advisor cautioned her repeatedly that she was running through her estate very quickly, but she told him to mind his own business. One day, she asked her counselor if she should marry her much-younger boyfriend and she was told, “You might as well. You’re spending all of your money on him.”
They got married a short time later and their spending increased. He told me that they thought nothing of taking friends to Paris for the weekend or going to New York City for lunch.
He said that they had spent money like drunken sailors on shore leave, until one day when they found out they were broke. They were forced to sell her gorgeous house and their numerous expensive cars.
When I ran into him, they were living in a very modest home with economical cars. He said, “I spent all of her money and now we are back to where I was before I met her.”
To his credit, he did not divorce her and move on, he was actually taking care of her, albeit at a considerably lesser lifestyle than they had become accustomed to. His hard-earned advice: Be careful with your money and spend carefully!
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
While you are in the grocery store, do you go to the self-scan or the line with a cashier? If you are efficient, you may find it faster to scan the grocery items yourself (the register people are lovely individuals, but they are paid by the hour to be there). If you are interested in socializing, see a cashier.
A huge waste of time in the self-scanning line is those folks who do not bag their groceries as they scan. In some grocery stores, you have to place your purchases on a weighted platform as you scan. There are bags there; go ahead and put your items in a bag. Some people put their items on the platform, scan their entire shopping cart full of food, pay, and then bag the groceries. Not only are you placing your stuff on a possibly-germ-infected platform, but you are wasting your own time!
You have to put each item in the bag with enough force that the system picks up the fact that you put your item in the bag (it doesn’t take much pressure to do this), but you can get through the register in half the time if you bag as you go. Some platforms have poor sensors on the outside edge of the platform, so try to stick to placing your newly-bagged groceries in the center of the platform so that you won’t need to wait for customer assistance (voice of experience here!).
Other stores do not have platforms at all; they just have belts that take the purchases to the end of the checkout. Bag some of the items as you go, if there are no baggers to help you. Waiting till the end sometimes means that the next customer in line will begin scanning while you are still bagging and your things can be trampled by their things (there is a large divider available in some stores, but they don’t always get used by people who are in a hurry).
If possible with that type of setup in the store, scan some items, bag some items, scan some more, bag some more, and finish up pretty quickly. If you have too big a backup, the computerized register will tell you to bag some items before you continue scanning. I try to beat her to the punch and bag before she asks.
As you bag items, keep similar items together. If something requires refrigeration when you get home, put it with something else that also needs to go into the freezer or frig quickly. Don’t over-bag- if your items are too heavy, they will break through the plastic or paper bag, usually at a very inconvenient time. This happened to me! Once I had a small cart absolutely filled with groceries. One of the bags burst and the items went rolling away as I walked down the slopped parking lot. As I reached for the fallen items, the cart took off. I seized my fallen purchases and raced after the cart, grabbing it right before it crashed into someone’s vehicle. A nearby customer (he was too far away to do anything but laugh) yelled at me “nice catch, lady!” Lesson learned: don’t overstuff the bags or you will be sorry! I keep the empty plastic bags to use as garbage can liners in my bathrooms.
Another reason it is a good idea to keep similar items together is because you might get distracted when you get home and forget to put something away. Later, it may come to you that something is missing from your shopping order and you can go look for it.
My dearly beloved deceased aunt had a loaf of bread in her shopping one week, but she brought it in with the mail and forgot about it. When we found the loaf of bread years later; it was as hard as stone. She apparently thought she had forgotten to buy it; she never went into the room where she had stashed it, except that day when she came home from the store. You don’t want your heirs to find the bread (or anything else that is perishable) years after the fact.
Want to have a bit of fun at the register? Push the Spanish language button on the machine and then scan the membership card from a different store. The polite lady in the computer gets really testy really fast when you do that! (Well, maybe it’s just that I am easily entertained, but her blood really gets boiling!) My Spanish is not fluent enough to understand what she’s saying but it sure sounds like she’s mad!
Have a great day!
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
This week I was preparing to balance my checking account when I noticed a very large charge against the account, one from a place I had never heard of. I immediately went to my bank (I had laryngitis so talking on the phone was not an option) to find out what had happened.
The bank informed me that the money was given to an apartment complex that is about 30 minutes from my house. A phone call to that complex confirmed that a man and woman had rented an apartment and offered my bank account number as the source of the money to pay the rent. More news: a second payment had gone through and my account was now out by almost $3,000.00. Additional news: the withdrawal was set up to happen every month from there on out.
The gal had walked into the manager’s office, said that she was me, and told the lady that she wanted to pay her friend’s rent. I do not know if she was required to show any identification, but, when I asked the rental agent for my money back, she commented, “File a police report.”
They apparently plan on letting the man continue to live there, though the rental agent said, “well, we won’t accept anything except cash or a cashier’s check from him in the future.” They would not be taking any action against him, though she was going to call him right then.
Long story short, I filed a police report but do not know if they will ever serve time for their crime. My bank is investigating the situation and I might get my money back….in a couple of weeks.
Here’s the bottom line: stay on top of things with your bank account. Question anything you find unusual….and jump right on any discrepancies. Three thousand dollars is a lot of money, but it would have been worse, if I hadn’t caught them.
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
A friend once told me that she was married to a certain point, but that this is a new season of her life, just like it is for yours. You may not have chosen this experience, if it had been left up to you, but here it is.
You have a choice: stay home, eat bonbons and watch soap operas, get old, and die alone or make it so you help someone less fortunate than yourself.
The hardest step will be the first one you take outside your own front door. Maybe you can’t travel a lot but how about volunteering at the local veteran’s center? Your past interest in history could make you a natural tour guide; if you lived through that history, so much the better! How about teaching one other person how to read? How about working with one teen that is on the wrong road?
There are so many prospects for this stage of your life! Look at every day as an opportunity and you will be surprised at how good it feels to focus on others. This is a new season of life for you, and I wish you the best!
Take care,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
Here is another blog from Pearl Nsiah-Kumi. Today, she shares what it is like to move from divorcee to widow:
Widowhood, as we all know, is the loss of one’s husband or companion. The accompanying feeling of loss is usually quite intense. I know, because I just went through that experience; it was not pleasant, and the reality takes time to sink in. My widowhood is a bit different; it’s not a traditional widowhood because I had gone through a divorce a few years prior to my husband’s passing. It was a divorce of convenience, because I left home for safety reasons, and kept hoping and praying that situations would change. Unfortunately, that change never came. Needless to say, my loss had been going on for a few years, but his passing brought finality to the loss. How about you? How long have you been a widow?
We are widows. Now what? The reality is we’re back to being single. Wow! That’s going to significantly impact our lives from now on and into the future. Since I left home prior to his passing, I’m a bit more settled than I would have been if he had passed when I was still living with him. Nevertheless, the void is still there but the anticipation that things could change has evaporated. I will continue to cope with life as I’ve been doing for the past few years—God my Maker has been my husband. He has provided and protected me in ways I can’t explain. He’s used friends and family and even strangers in my life beyond my expectation. He fills me with joy unspeakable; I commune with Him as friend with friend.
God Himself promised to be a husband to the widow (see Isaiah 54:5). From experience, I know He’ll do that for all widows who will call on Him. His plans are not going to be the same for each one of us going forward, but I know He has a plan. Remaining single for the remainder of your life, re-marrying , or getting more involved with ministry, He will lead us. No matter how He leads, He’ll make sure you’re well taken care of and blessed. I’m sure it will take time to get used to the idea of being single. Allow me to encourage you to embrace God as your husband; He’s an amazing husband.
Thanks so much, Pearl!
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
Have you ever noticed that sometimes you flush the toilet and the toilet just keeps running and running and running? It’s not supposed to do that.
If you do what I usually do, you juggle the handle to get it to stop. This is a temporary fix. You need a long-term solution or the water will keep running with future flushes.
What should you do? The first thing to do is to take the lid of the water closet off (this is your water tank). There is a chain on the contraption in the tank. Is it slack? If so, you need to unhook the chain and then re-hook it so that the chain is not pulled so tightly. If the toilet still continues to run, that is not the problem.
You should then look at the round piece of rubber that covers the drain in the bottom of the tank. Push on it a few times, to see if it is sealing well. It may be shot and may need to be replaced.
You will probably want to empty out the tank before you remove the round rubber cover, so turn off the water next to your wall and flush the toilet. This will make the toilet empty and it won’t be able to re-fill itself.
The rubber piece comes off pretty easily, so take it off and then take it to the hardware store to get a replacement. Bringing the piece with you will ensure that you get a new one that will fit your toilet. When you get back home, replace the rubber piece by reattaching it to the toilet. Turn the water back on at the wall and the toilet will refill. Flush it again, to make sure that it will stop.
If neither of these issues is the problem, you may need to replace the entire flushing mechanism; you can either pay a plumber about $100 minimum to make a house call or you can take a picture of your toilet, bring it to the hardware store to get a new mechanism, and then (following the directions on the package) replace the mechanism yourself. This will take a couple of hours and will require a wrench, a screwdriver, and a bucket.
I hope that this helps solve your running toilet problem!
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
I met up with a former high school teacher a few years ago, running into him at the mall. After asking what he was doing now, he told me that he was back at the same high school after a five-year break.
He immediately (and voluntarily) launched into an explanation, telling me that he had met a wealthy, older widow a few years before and that she had taken him into her home (and her pocketbook). Over a period of a couple of months, she began giving him lavish gifts; her financial advisor cautioned her repeatedly that she was running through her estate very quickly, but she told him to mind his own business.
One day, she asked her counselor if she should marry her much-younger boyfriend and she was told, “You might as well. You’re spending all of your money on him.”
They got married a short time later and their spending increased. He told me that they thought nothing of taking friends to Paris for the weekend or going to New York City for lunch. He said that they had spent money like drunken sailors on shore leave, until one day when they found out they were broke.
They were forced to sell her gorgeous house and their numerous expensive cars. When I ran into him, they were living in a very modest home with economical cars. He said, “I spent all of her money and now we are back to where I was before I met her.”
To his credit, he did not divorce her and move on, he was actually taking care of her, albeit at a considerably lesser lifestyle than they had become accustomed to. His hard-earned advice: Be careful with your money and spend carefully!
What tales of financial woe can you share with everyone?
Best,
Dr. Sheri
Hello everyone:
There are some fellows whose wives either always bought their clothes or always gave them advice on what to wear. They may find themselves in the dilemma of not knowing what colors to pair up or what tie to put with which suit. If this is your situation, there are several solutions.
The first is to go to an upscale department or clothing store and ask for help. The problem with this is that the sales people may be very helpful but they are there to sell you more new clothes. Many of them are on commission and they don’t make money by helping you match clothing you already have.
The next solution is to ask your friends for help, specifically those with an interest in fashion. This might be a good short-term solution but then you might end up wearing clothes that are their taste but not necessarily yours. The final solution would be to learn how to match clothing yourself.
I spoke recently with a friend who works as a personal stylist at Nordstrom. Jen told me that men whose wives have always selected their clothing should start with a few basics. She suggested wrinkle-free khaki pants, no-iron shirts, and comfortable shoes. The pants should be in neutral colors because that is the easiest way to match ties to the clothing.
Shirts should be white or blue; she especially cautioned that the blue should be an Oxford (light) blue rather than a French blue. When you are shopping for clothes (whether male or female), you should keep in mind that different vendors design for different body shapes. You can, therefore, be in great shape but you still might not be able to wear a certain designer’s clothing.
As far as whether to wear pleats or no pleats, pleats are sometimes not as becoming to some men while other fellows look much better in them than in a flat front pant. Try several styles on from a variety of designers and see which pant accommodates your body type the best. If you are not sure, take an honest friend with you to try on clothes.
Some men prefer to not wear a belt, but if you like having one on, pick one that is reversible and you will have two belts in one. As you add to your wardrobe, keep in mind that you don’t need a lot of clothes in your closet, but you should have more tops than bottoms.
One mistake-proof way to purchase pants is to take the Garanimal approach to clothing selection, and one manufacturer is helping you out. Bonobos offers a different color khaki pant for every day of the week. The label tells you which day of the week to wear which pair of pants. If you are willing to invest in seven or more pairs of pants, the fact that the pants are all in the same color palette means that you will not make a mistake when pulling out a shirt and a pair of trousers when you get dressed in the morning. These are all no-iron, tailored pants that range in color from light gray to blue to brown to black, so you might find them attractive. One thing to keep in mind is that your body changes through the years and it is a good idea to go to a high-end store and get measured to make sure you are wearing the right size!
If you enjoy wearing sweaters, here is the scoop on having the best style for who you are. Crew-necked sweaters (round neckline) appeal mostly to younger men. The V-neck sweater is the best bet for older men because it is more flattering on them. V-necked sweaters can be dressed up or down. Add an Oxford blue shirt and T-shirt and you look dressy. Remove the Oxford shirt and just wear a T-shirt under the sweater and you will be more casual and hip.
Quarter-zip sweaters also look stylish and are a good selection if you have shoulder issues or mobility problems. They are also nice for transitional seasons. Cardigan sweaters give you the, well, Mr. Rogers look. However, they can be helpful if you are older and frequently chilly. They can be much easier for your caregiver to help you into, if you are unable to dress yourself.
Jen also said that every man needs at least one pair of jeans. If you are the type of man who would wear a sports coat, make it a navy blue one, since that will go with everything. Before buying one, ask yourself where you would wear it. If you can’t answer the questions, you don’t need the coat.
Coats are also a way to look “together.” North Face coats are hip and trendy, and their 3 in 1 coat is especially good. Denali also makes a good fleece coat and Burber is another good quality jacket. If you do not have a “forever” watch, Hermes, Michael Kohr, or Rolex watches have an excellent reputation.
Best,
Dr. Sheri