- Terry BallantynePlanning AheadMay 1, 2017PLANNING AHEAD Looking ahead to our “golden years” is nobody’s idea of a great conversation starter. If you are under 40 you may be inclined to stop reading here, but DON”T. Likely you have parents, aunts, older cousins and they need your wisdom about thinking ahead, and as surely as the sun rises in the east, you are aging. (Shocking, I know.) I am finally hearing conversations at open houses about folks who are spry and active in their mid-60s saying “I Know,” with...
- Terry BallantyneDirty Little SecretsDecember 7, 2015Our culture tends to romanticize things or speak in euphemisms about the hard stuff. Nobody tells new mothers just how challenging the 24 hour presence of a newborn is. It would sound ungrateful. We soldiered on in relative silence, and unless you have the luxury and the joy of a family nearby that consists of supportive women: loving and wise aunts, grandparents and a trusted mother, it is a daunting stretch those first months and then really the first years. Spreading the responsibility helps both...
- Terry BallantyneStuck about making the big move to a smaller house?March 30, 2015You know it's time, you want to want to do this , but you're stuck. This is a big deal. It's the outward expression of your inner acceptance that you are, well, moving on in life. Looking carefully at the quality of your daily life. No deferments, no 'wait till later', no 'I'll get around to it'. If you want to do anything different, you sense, like a bird anticipating winter, that you better fly. Everyone is getting the message. Take only what you need. Resources...
- Terry BallantyneWhen Moving Forward is Really Really HardFebruary 13, 2015For the person selling the family home in their 70s, 80s, or 90s, it represents so much more than a change of residence. And this group has a limited voice and not much say over what happens when adult children step in to be "practical" or "realistic". It is rather like looking at the folks who endured the dust bowl phenomenon in Oklahoma. "Why didn't they just leave?" Why endure that horrific dust and wind and loss and devastation year after year? Because it was...
- Terry Ballantyne
- Terry Ballantyne