Life Is What We Make It! – And we each create it differently.

Meet my AgeEsteemer friend, Amy Andersson, who just rappelled down 31 stories of a building in Philadelphia, USA!

She loves to push her comfort zone. During the past few years Amy has driven a dogsledding team in subzero temperatures in Canada, climbed trees and rocks in Pennsylvania, and bicycled in Europe. She says with each new adventure, she gains unique insights into problem-solving and operational processes that she then can apply to her business and those of her clients.

It will not surprise you to learn that Amy also created her business, Andersson Productivity Solutions offering virtual CFO services, at a time in her life when most colleagues of her age were retiring.

Bonnie Fatio

Pumpkins And Squash For Healthy Aging

Pumpkins and squash come in various deep orange and yellow colors, and these colors are the secret to their very nutritional value.

Rich in vitamins B and C, pumpkins and squash also contain manganese, which is an antioxidant mineral rich in beta-carotene.  Beta-carotene is the ultimate component of nutrition, and the deeper the color, the more beta-carotene the vegetable contains.  It is important to eye health and also an aid to fighting cancer.  As it regulates insulin in the body, it is helpful for diabetes as well.

The omega-3 fatty acids contained in these vegetables provide anti-inflammatory effects adding to their other virtues.

This autumn take advantage of a wide selection of pumpkins and squash to adorn your dinner plate as well as to decorate the table.

Grandma Nature

Your Life’s Book

Age Esteem

(This poem’s theme)

Begins at any age.

It’s how to be

Yourself and see

Your Life’s Book page by page

Chapter one

(Already done!)

The Volume grows with Time.

Chapter Three

Begins with glee

Esteemic, like this rhyme.

Chapter Five

You’re still alive

And confident, at last!

Chapter Twelve

It dips and delves

With lessons from the Past.

Chapter Twenty

There’s a-plenty

Pages still in Reams.

The end remains in formament

Rewarded and Esteemed.

Written by Alexandra Taylor † for AgeEsteem®

On A Gray Day

Despite seeing the sun shining, one of my friends said she was having a “gray day” when we spoke on the phone one morning. She was normally bursting with age esteem and enjoying the opportunities surrounding her. However, on this particular day she felt like Scrooge and yelling “Bah, humbug!” and that was exactly who she sounded like as she decided to be miserable.

One of the antidotes for a miserable day is to get out and do something for someone else. Share your talents and focus outward. So I sat down and wrote this Age Esteem rhyme for her.

 On A Gray Day

When you are down and out

Sit alone, sigh and pout

Feeling down, out, really low

Shake yourself! Get up and go!

Step out of your gray, sad mood

Look outside and do some good

There are those who need you there

With your talents, smile and flair.

It is time to stretch, try something new.

Realize a dream; realize a few!

This is your time to reach out and give

Your time to sing, dance and really LIVE!

You are one of God’s chosen blessed

Why you are down, I could not have guessed.

When I look at you or hear your voice

I think you must be God’s first choice.

He gave you talents, oh, yes he did

(You I would never dare to kid.)

Talents in you overflow

And new ones await to grow.

So what if you do feel low and listless on this day so gray?

A precious resource you are for your feelings today

So replace those blues, with a colored rainbow display!

And grabbing its brilliance, find happiness on your way!

 Bonnie Fatio

Growing Pains

“Growing Pains”

That does explain

Our ever-changing moods –

We way and wane

From Bright to Broods

A pattern we entrain.

How to seem

In Harmony

With Age Esteem

And synchrony

Of Painless Qualities?

“No pain, no gain”

a wise refrain!

Just aim for Joy

Don’t get annoyed

With fruitless “frivolities”!

Written by Alexandra Taylor† for AgeEsteem®

Hospital Poetry

Doctors and nurses and

Agreeable showers

Perfusions and pink pills

Almost every hour.

The scenery is wheel chairs

And blue-sheeted beds

With plumped up white

Pillows for all patients’ heads.

There’s never a moment

For making up poems

That’s why it’s much better

To write them from home!

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®

while waiting to be discharged from the hospital.

An Impatient Patient

 I’m an impatient patient!

Yes I am!

I want to leave now,

In a moving van!

I’m impatiently here

In a Hospital Bed –

Patience is out there

Waiting for it to be “fed”!

With calmness and coolness

And positive thoughts

(All of those attitudes which

Bonnie has taught!)

Patient and Patience

The one wants you to stay

In clinical care (patient)

The other says practice it,

No matter where! (patience)

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®

Bonnie Fatio and Leonie van Daalen-Röell

Go, Not Knowing Where!

What a blessing to have friends who are true age-esteemers and continue to contribute to our world! Leonie van Daalen-Röell is one of these friends. Leonie, who is Dutch and living in Geneva, Switzerland with her husband of 60 years, originally wrote Go, Not Knowing Where! for her American grandchildren.

Leonie’s happy childhood days on her family’s sugar plantation in the Dutch East Indies colony quickly becomes the story of terror, separation and internment during World War II in Indonesian, a war area we seldom hear about. This is followed by the difficult return to Holland and readjusting to normalcy. It is her personal record based on memory and a multitude of personal letters.

Go, Not Knowing Where! is a captivating, real, and informative story about one girl’s life during the transformation of the Dutch East Indies colony into the independent country of Indonesia.

Do you also have a story worth telling? Your story might also represent a precious contribution to convey history as it was lived, just as this age-esteemer‘s has.

Bonnie Fatio

The Feast Of Life

 Think of Life as one long Feast,

From the “oven” of your birth

To your souffléd rise (like yeast!)

(A fine recipe for Mirth.)

Don’t ever think your “goose Is cooked”

(There’s many “fish to fry”!)

So plan a life-long Menu Book,

With Relish in supply.

Every day can be “baked” or “steamed”

(Depending on your Age Esteem!)

This “aspic” may seem a little trite

But wishes you a Good Appetite!

 Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®

It Is Never, Ever Too Late

 Get well wishes

Are welcome words indeed,

They sound almost delicious

And satisfy your needs.

How swell to be remembered

With cards and plants and food,

Cheer dwells in one’s heart chambers

And quells more somber moods.

Fare thee well oh injured “mal-mate”,

Go on a mending spree!

It is never, ever too late

To be well as well can be.

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem