General

Guide created by Lighthouse Autism Center

Retiring can be a little bewildering. After decades of following a corporation’s rules and regulations (if you worked for a company, or trying to measure up to your client’s expectations) or if you ran your own business, you might feel a little disoriented because you have nothing much to do anymore. You suddenly find yourself in an unfamiliar phase of your life. Now comes the new challenge of learning how to deal responsibly with your freedom. Here are three suggestions on how to enjoy life in retirement:

Enjoy the Benefits of Assisted Living 

If you need some assistance with daily living, you might discover that an assisted living facility offers many more benefits than you might have realized. Besides the obvious benefits of getting help with daily tasks, getting your meals prepared, reduced stress about self-care, and a feeling of safety, you’ll also enjoy the pleasure of an active social life. Many senior living facilities even have innovative technology, like Entertain360℠, a retirement home TV with a selection of the best channels at a lower cost. 

Find a Hobby You Love

If you’ve always wanted to learn how to be a marvelous cook but were always too busy with your career to pursue this hobby, now is the perfect time to begin. Cooking your own food from scratch will allow you to make healthier meal choices. If, say, you are gluten intolerant, you can learn to cook delicious dishes like the Gluten-Free Homemade Peach Cobbler Recipe. 

Also, consider creative crafting hobbies to take up. If, for example, you like to work with textiles, you could try weaving, embroidery, macramé, appliqué, knitting, crocheting, lace-making, tapestry art, felt-making, or quilting. You could also try your hand at paper craft, woodcraft, or glass crafts. Crafting isn’t just an enjoyable way to spend your time, it also offers some unexpected benefits:

1. Crafting provides cognitive benefits: Following instructions on how to design something provides cognitive benefits because it stimulates various regions of the brain. 

2. Crafting gives therapeutic benefits. Many seniors take up crafting as art therapy–because crafting lifts your mood, reducing feelings of loneliness, anxiety, or depression.  

3. Crafting supplies social benefits: Crafting offers opportunities to create new friendships because you can spend time sharing your latest craft work with other people who enjoy this hobby. 

 

Some hobbyists even become famous. After carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders for many years, President George W. Bush is now an excellent project painter and has acquired some fame for his paintings to honor veterans. 

 

Practice the Art of Yoga 

Exercise is essential to maintain health, and one of the best forms of exercise for seniors is yoga. Yoga can help you reduce stress and mitigate aches and pains. These gentle exercises can pick up your mood, too, reducing anxiety or depression. Yoga can also strengthen bones, enhance balance, improve mobility, increase flexibility, and build strength. After a few weeks of practicing yoga, you’ll notice how well you sleep at night and how much more energized you feel during the day. 

Although it’s possible to learn yoga from books or by watching videos, it’s usually best to go to a class to get in-person instructions. This will reduce the risk of injury caused by choosing the wrong exercises, doing them incorrectly, or trying too hard to push your body to perform an exercise that you’re not flexible enough to assume.  Many retirement communities and senior centers offer yoga classes. If you can’t find a yoga class for seniors where you live, then sign up for a beginner’s class at a health studio.  

All things considered, retirement can be fun. You don’t have to feel isolated, bored, or listless. In fact, if you make the right living arrangements, take up an interesting hobby, and practice yoga, it might surprise you how enjoyable your retirement can be. These are great ways to enjoy life in retirement.

It is now possible to organize gatherings as long as the group does not exceed 6 people. That means you can now organize barbecues for your family and friends. This is great news for barbecue and food enthusiasts as they can return to grilling the old way. The only difference is that they have to maintain a six foot distance from one another at all times. This law is only effective for people from different households. People from the same house can mingle naturally. Regardless of the stipulations, we now have the opportunity to party with some sumptuous meat, while  practicing social distancing.

Read on to know about what you can and cannot do to throw a safe barbecue party at your house. 

Guidelines of The Barbecue

The big question every law-abiding, summer-loving, meat-eater is asking now is, “can we do it”? The answer is yes, you can have a barbecue as long as you follow the safety guidelines.

The following Guidelines are for your good and you should follow every one of them

• Use clean cutlery and crockery
• Don’t share tableware
• Maintain social distancing if from different households
• Don’t share food or drinks
• Avoid going inside your host’s house unless to the bathroom
• Don’t host the barbeque in a garage, cabin or shed
• One person does all the cooking
• Don’t host the barbeque at a playground or outdoor gym
• Refrain from sharing chairs and tables at the party
• Don’t stay over at your host’s house
• Guests should avoid public transportation

 Shopping For Your Barbecue

Now that you have the green light to organize a barbecue, shopping is number one on your to-do list. You must remember to be in order and uphold supermarket etiquette. You know the first rule by heart by now. Always practice social distancing and maintain a distance of six feet from others in the supermarket. If there is a big crowd in a certain aisle, it’s best to avoid it. The area should clear out soon, so be patient while roaming emptier spaces.

The next thing that you have to keep in mind is that you should not touch what you won’t buy. Only engage with products that you are going to purchase. This simple courtesy reduces the chance of corona spreading. Another thing to be kept in mind is not to make people wait behind you for a long time. They are probably after the same product that you are looking at.

 That person might forget to maintain the six foot distance if he is waiting for too long. It’s best not to test that person’s attention span and social distancing manners. Lastly, be extra courteous to the employees who work in the supermarket. They are the true heroes in this global pandemic.

Now that you know how to shop, get yourself some A-grade meat, spices, and sauces. Other than the content of the menu, also get disposable cups, plates, and cutlery.

Get Disposable Tableware

You don’t want to use your cutlery, plates, or cups for the barbecue. So, while you are out shopping for meat, get plastic ones. Remember to get more than you need. After all, you never know if one of your guests could drop their plate or fork accidentally. Also, before the guest comes over, pre-arrange all the plastic cutlery and crockery. This will eliminate the need for guests to line up to get them.

Even if you pre-arrange all your disposable cutlery and crockery, there is still a chance of sharing. This cannot happen regardless of the circumstances. For this reason, instruct your guests accordingly before the event. Finally, wear gloves to dispose of everything and then get rid of the gloves too. There is no shame in being cautious when lives are at stake.

Who Should Do The Cooking?

When it comes to cooking, one person is enough. Do not allow anyone other than the cook to come in contact with the grill. In this case, too many cooks will inflict more damage than just spoiling the broth.

Who Can I Invite?

According to the new Guidelines, only six people can be at the same place at the same time. However, the rule is lenient about who you can be with. You can invite people from multiple households.

Although you can have people gathering from different households in the same place, they will have to follow the Guidelines. You can come in contact and be intimate with people from your home but you have to maintain a distance of six feet with people from other households. Practicing social distancing keeps everyone safe.

 Don’t be sad, love surpasses any obstacle. Think of Romeo engaging with Juliet leaning from the balcony.

The Ideal Location For The Barbeque Get together

You can plan the barbeque in most outdoor locations. Hosting the party in parks or yards are within your right as long as you follow the Guidelines.

Other than public places, you can also have your barbeque on your front lawn. This is much better as it will eliminate the chances of strangers coming into the scene. I recommend that you have your get together in your front yard instead of your backyard. The reason for my suggestion is very simple. Your guests won’t have to enter your house if it’s in the front yard.

Remember that your actions are out of order if you barbeque in a playground or an outdoor gym.

Going Inside The Home of The Host

It is not at all a good idea to allow guests to enter your house. It does not matter how far they have come from or how close they are to you. Allowing them to enter endangers your entire family. You simply can’t let this happen.

There are only two exceptions to this rule when you may allow guests inside your house. The first rule is going to the bathroom. It would be inhumane not to allow your guest to use the bathroom.

The second exception is passing through your house to get to the barbeque location. However, even this rule should be on the NO list. You should not organize your barbeque party in your back yard or a similar location.

Should Guests Come From Far Away?

You should not invite any guest who has to travel too far. The reason behind this is, they have to stay over for the night. Furthermore, if they use public transportation, they might be potential carriers.

So, your guests should drive to your location. As for the people who live near you, walking or cycling is fine.

Final Thoughts On Practicing Social Distancing

Yes, you can have a barbecue and yes, you can have guests but you must follow the guidelines. Don’t try to take advantage of the guidelines.  Be safe, enjoy sumptuous and tender barbeque meat, and have a great time with your family and friends. You can get together and have fun, while practicing social distancing to be safe.

 

 

As news updates and official advisories continue to evolve, it might feel overwhelming to look beyond the now and consider planning for the next phases of the crisis and of your life. With so much information and a lot of it vague and confusing, it can make it hard to know where to start. So if you want to get on in planning your life and prepare for your future, what can you do?

Look back at the history

While it is difficult to determine what will happen in the future as Coronavirus has caused unprecedented times, the only thing we can do is to look at what happened in the past when there were similar pandemics. Whatever it is you want to do in the future, you can see if you can find out what happened in the past. Did the economy suffer? What were the benefits? No one can predict the future, but you can learn from previous global crises and the impact they had. What is definite is that we will learn from this pandemic. It has highlighted the flaws in the healthcare systems all over the world; it has meant that we have seen problems with governments and leaders and shown us what we could have been doing better to prepare and prevent any future pandemics. Looking back, there are likely to be more lessons that we should have learned from already, and while we missed those, it is important that we don’t miss anymore. Look back at how the world recovered in the past and take lessons from that. Prepare for your future by looking at the past. 

Consider a range of possible futures.

There are a number of different ways that things could change once the risk of COVID-19 has reduced, so it’s important that you think about a range of possible futures for now. It might be that you put off university for another year, and there are many positives of this; for example, at least you won’t need to worry about making FAFSA mistakes. But it also means that you will have more time, time to save money and time to really think about what it is that you want. Perhaps you weren’t on the right course, so not being able to continue as planned will be a blessing in disguise. You may find that you are made redundant from your job as the company you work for won’t survive. While this is very worrying for everyone right now, it’s important to know that it won’t be forever. The world will simply take time to adjust, but what will come out of this will be different. As restaurants have started delivering more food, people have had family parties on Zoom; perhaps these things will stay, and if so, there will be new businesses opening up new ways of working, and new opportunities to grab. Prepare for your future by thinking about new jobs or opportunities.

Avoid the temptation to try and predict the future.

It’s important that you don’t try to predict what will happen and work off that. If you do, it is likely that you will end up feeling disappointed as nothing ever works out exactly as you think it will, and that is what makes life interesting. Be prepared for different things, but otherwise, try to relax and go with the flow. Right now, there’s not a lot you can do, so take control of what you can. If you’re in lockdown with your family and it’s driving you mad, change your way of thinking and make the most of it instead. You probably won’t get the opportunity to spend so much time with your family again, so appreciate it, value it, and make some memories. This could turn out to be such a special time, and not only that but what happens now could make a huge difference in how the future looks for you.

Don’t expect to revert back to ‘normal.’

You cannot expect to revert back to your usual life as you know it. However, there will be a point at which life will begin to adjust to a new normal, whatever that may be. Things are going to change, and that is something we can be sure of. Whether it’s a change to how we shop for clothes, a change in how we visit the doctor, a change in how we eat at restaurants, life will be different. You might not like it at first, and that’s understandable, however, as long as you don’t expect everything to go back to the way it was, you will limit your disappointment.

Appreciate People

If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s how important people are to us. When looking to the future, think about the people in your life and ask for their thoughts and opinions. Also, consider how the future will change for them. If you have children, how is this affecting them, and how will it affect their future? It might be that you’re looking at your parents and how things will change for them. Think about how life will change for everyone and not just yourself and appreciate that. We are all in this together. However, everyone is on their own journey and experiencing something different. But one of the only things we can control right now is our relationships without friends and family, so make sure you nurture and appreciate them.

Reflect

Take the time you have been given to look back at what you were doing before this all started, were you happy? If not, why not? While the whole pandemic has been tragic and many lives have been lost, it’s important to make the best of a bad situation, and the lockdown has given people a chance to reset and reflect. Use your time wisely now with what works for you. It could be that for you, this means making the most of time to rest and sleep; for others, it is the opportunity to exercise and to get fit, and for others, it’s a time to learn a new language or start sewing. Whatever ‘wisely’ means for you, this is the way to use your time.

Think about your purpose

Is it still the same as it was? Perhaps this pandemic has made you realize that you want to do more to help people, perhaps you’re now considering a career in healthcare or charity work. Perhaps you wanted to move away from your family and friends, and this situation has made you think twice about doing this. Perhaps you had grand plans to travel, but since the pandemic, you might be feeling uneasy about this, or you might have considered the effects that this will have on the environment, so have changed your mind. It is normal for your priorities and perspectives to change in times of crisis, so give it some thought. What was once important to you may not be now, and it is okay to change your mind. Prepare for your future by going back to school. 

The new normal

In the new landscape which will emerge after the COVID crisis, you need to make sure that if you are going back to what you had before, it is the right option. It may have prompted you to revisit what you were doing and what course you were on. Whether it’s a new normal for your job, your business, or your family, things will change one way or another, and while it may take time, there will be a new normal, and we will adjust sooner than you think. This new normal may even be better than the old normal; it will certainly be safer and healthier for everyone.