I Am Never TOO Old TO . . . CONSIDER A NEW PROFESSION

As the year 2008 was coming to a close I started considering the need for a new profession. I had just turned 60 yrs old.

Until I became a Hospice nurse in 2002 I had changed jobs about every 3 years. I would get bored after I learned all the ins and outs of the job. The challenge of learning something new and applying myself until I had accomplished my goal of doing what I considered to be the very best I could do with that job or position was the part I liked and that was exciting. The everyday same old same old was boring. So once the challenge was accomplished I started looking for another one.

I just don’t think God created me to work just to make money or to live from pay check to pay check. As I said in an earlier post, I also need to make enough money to be able to “play”. I’m so thankful that we are all created different, it makes life so interesting.

I’ve been employed by our hospital system since 1987 and in that time I’ve worked on 2 different nursing units (post-surgical and mental health); as an on-call house supervisor; then with home-health a case manager, triage nurse, liaison, visit nurse for hospice and finally a hospice case manager for Nursing Homes, assisted-living facilities and Alzheimer Units.

Now, do to some back injuries I’m unable to do active physical patient care, so this last job is perfect for me. That is probably why I’ve been in it so long, Oh and the hours (I work a week then I’m off a week).

Back to 2 years ago, I started looking into the future and realized I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of physically active kinds of jobs (although my back is so much better.) Plus I had to consider the fact that I hate SALES, even though I did try real-estate for awhile. As I prayed and thought several things came to mind. These I’ll describe in the next posting.

I Am Never Too Old To . . . CHANGE MY NAME!

I’m getting ready to change my 1^st name again. On my birth certificate it says SHARON, but no one in my family called me that except my mother when she was mad at me and it came out, SHARON RAE . . . Needless to say I’m not too fond of my given name.

So from babyhood I became SHERRY and I was called by that name all the way through High School. When I went to Cosmetology School I changed it to SHERI, I thought that had a more mature creative look to it, well at least creative. I used that name for 20 years but when I decided to go back to school to become a RN, on a whim and by now a tradition I changed it too SHARI.

It always intrigues me to see how other people spell my name when writing to me or about me and if you are one of those you probably have heard me say “It doesn’t really matter how you spell it, it isn’t my real name anyway (with a smile).” I get a lot of shocked, embarrassed or irritated looks for my effort of correction.

So, why am I changing my name again at this time of my life and at age 62? Well, because I’m starting a new career again and by now I’m traditional with this aspect of my life.

Tradition isn’t really a biggy in my life though. Like I never have turkey for Thanksgiving, mostly because I don’t like turkey and it seems like you can never eat all of it before it dies in the frig. One year my husband Neil and I decided to take my Mom out to dinner then to a movie on Thanksgiving. She thought we would go to a restaurant that served “traditional” Thanksgiving meals. Guess again Mom! We went to Mucho Gracias (Mexican) and I brought along a crafted turkey made out of paper-mache and sat it on the table during dinner.

Back to changing my name, I need a name spelling that will translate across several freelance ideas I have. Do any of you have any thoughts?

I Am Never Too Old To . . . WEAR LONG HAIR

Demographers define the baby boom birth years as 1946 through 1964. These are debatable years but that gives us a reference point, as to whether or not you are a Baby-Boomer.

I was born at the beginning of these years in 1948. So the 1^st Baby-Boomers are just now starting to become Senior Citizens if you use social security benefits as a guideline.

This last vacation to Colorado (2 weeks ago) really opened my eyes as to whether Baby-Boomers will continue to wear long hair or not. On Sunday I went to church with my sister & hubby where the pastor and wife had confessed they had gone through a “hippy” phase in their lives. Many of the men in the congregation (including the pastor) had long pony tails or loose longer than shoulder length gray hair and many had longish gray beards. Yes, quite a few of the women did also (minus the gray beards).

While visiting Sis we went on a ride to Rocky Mountain National Park, to get there we drove through a town called Lyons. Stopping at a public restroom downtown we parked across the street from a “Senior” complex. Again there were lots of long gray haired men and women but this time with motorcycles. In Estes Park we saw a beautiful marble sign that said:

MUSEUM and right under it on the same sign it said SENIOR CENTER. Wish I would of gotten a picture of that.

I stopped coloring my hair about 2 years ago when it started looking like I was balding as the red hair grew out and the gray showed up. So I cut it all off short and spiked it for a time now it is long shoulder length and gray. I’m OK with that! Maybe even more so after this last vacation to Colorado. LOL