Category: Family, Faith and Fitness

Posted in Family, Faith and Fitness

Wait. When did 55 become the new senior citizen age?!

Posted on by Lucretia Cahill

Lenten Reflections #12

I was wading through my email today and received a random email titled “Top Senior Discounts in 2019” that piqued my interest…for my parents. I was just about to press delete but remembered I come from a long line of bargain hunting, frugal family members, so I opened the email with the sole intention of letting my parents know where they could find a deal.

After clicking…the list of discounts went from teeth whiteners and walk-in bathtubs to cheap cruises (wonder why) and a free donut at Dunkin Donuts, the list went on and on. Then I saw the restaurant heading and even though my parents don’t eat out often due to dietary restrictions, I thought I’d take a peek…and there it was:

10% off for ages 55+.

Wait. What?!?

55????

That’s just mean.

No, I’m not 55 or even that close to it, BUT who has ever thought about being a senior citizen at 55?

Nonetheless, there they were…all those discounts. So tomorrow I’ll call Mom and Dad and give them the scoop.

In return, they’ll give me the pan comment, “Well, we can’t take it with us.” Which of course means they can’t take their money up to heaven, because, well, it’s heaven and the discounts are endless.

They’re the best. Smart, good, honest, loving parents who respect hard work and always appreciate good discounts and respect reputable businesses.

Well, at least when I’m 55, we can go shopping together and enjoy all the bargains!

Thanks for reading and remember to go for a walk, pray for others and WASH YOUR HANDS.

 

Here are some of the restaurants they listed, just don’t forget your AARP card:

Back Yard Burgers has a 10% senior discount for your order at participating locations, reasonably certain the age is 55 and over…

Burger King has a 10% discount for ages 60+, and additional discounts on coffee and soft drinks. As of Oct. 2015, though, Burger King may be like Denny’s, i.e., some stores give discounts and some don’t.

Chili’s is 10% off for ages 55+.

Denny’s gives 10% off for age 55+. They will make it 20% off if you are an AARP member. As of 2014, each franchise owner was making his/her own decisions regarding this, so your results may vary.

Dunkin’ Donuts does 10% off for ages 55+. Or a free donut (doughnut) when buying coffee.

IHOP is 10% off for ages 55+.

Jack in the Box has a 20% beverage discount for seniors age 55 and over. Though again, as of August 2013, the Jack-in-the-box discount may not be a sure thing.

KFC will give you a free small drink with a meal if you are 55+, although again, it’s reported some KFC’s will and some won’t.

Long John Silver’s has various discounts for 55+. It depends on location, so your results may vary.

McDonald’s has discounts on coffee and soft drinks for the 55+ crowd.

Outback Steakhouse has a 15% senior discount, age demarcation unknown.

Roy Rogers Restaurants gives a 10% discount for seniors, age demarcation unknown.

Sonic gives a choice of free beverage or 10% off for folks 60 and older.

Subway is 10% off for ages 60+; though at least occasionally, a store owner will deny the discount, either because they are uninformed or because of individual franchise policy.

Taco Bell is 10% off, apparently up from the former 5%; plus free beverages. Age requirement is 65 and over. Discount may be franchisee specific.

Wendy’s is 10% off for ages 55+, though at least one Wendy’s in Topeka, Kansas gave a free drink in place of the 10% discount. Not known if this is the new policy or a franchisee-specific incident.

Posted in Family, Faith and Fitness

Six-year-old chatter

Posted on by Lucretia Cahill

Lenten Reflections: Day #11

I’m teaching a first-grade class while their regular teacher is on maternity leave. When I was considering taking the job, the teacher told me about 37,000 times, “there are 26 kids, it’s a lot.” I thought about 26. Heck, 26 letters in the alphabet and I can rattle that off in seconds. 26 is just two more than two dozen eggs, simple math. 26 is even less than the shortest month of the year.

Turns out 26 little six-year-old lives come with 26 powerful voices, 26 passionate opinions, and at least 26 different stories they HAVE TO share RIGHT NOW!

In that spirit, I will include as many lessons, questions, comments or statements shared by these kiddos.

After all, we should all hear about life from a child’s perspective.

Enjoy!

Posted in Family, Faith and Fitness, Parenting/Running/Pets

“Best Lent Ever”

Posted on by Lucretia Cahill

Lenten Reflection #10

The last three years I’ve watched many of the “Best Lent Ever” episodes by Mathew Kelly, a Catholic Guru.

Here’s a snippet from his first reflection this Lenten Season:

In our journey with God, there are many different seasons. There are some times in our lives when we’re hungry to pray, we’re hungry to learn, we’re hungry to be with God. There are other times in our lives when we’re not. There are times in our lives where certain types of spirituality engages us, and there are other times in our lives where those very same things that brought us great enthusiasm and great passion leave us dry and desolate. And so it’s important to recognize the seasons in our spirituality.

What are your spiritual seasons?

May they be fruitful and plentiful.

 

 

Posted in Family, Faith and Fitness

After 18 years, a mom’s job never ends – even when our children journey from home

Posted on by Lucretia Cahill

Lenten Reflections: #9

“I clock out in 90 days.” her words hung in the air as we watched her son play one of his last high school tennis matches before entering college. With one son graduating from college, a daughter prepping for an exchange program to Europe and now her youngest son graduating in 90 days, her full-time mom job seemed to be winding down, if that is at all fathomable.

I remember when her eldest started college and she told us their family’s 5-top at a restaurant became a 4-top…no chair to place at the end of a booth, no hassle of pushing two tables together, no reservations needed. Their five became four, then three and is gradually circling back to the once newlyweds that started at the altar.

This dear mom has been my sage. She’s a friend who has helped me maneuver from elementary school sock hops to middle school PTSA fundraisers…parlaying my way to high school sports and now she serves as my go-to for all things college.

I often think about the advice I received from SO many experienced mothers years ago when they announced: “enjoy your kids while you can…time flies.” At the time I wanted to hand them my crying son, ask them to change my newborns’ diaper, and have them read Dr. Seuss’ Go Dog Go to my daughter for the 3,468th time. But instead, I logged their words into my mom-brain, apparently, so I could blog about it years later.

Our kids will be graduating from high school soon so it’s natural (to me) to catch myself wallowing every now and then. But this time, dug a little deeper. I thought about the content of our children’s character.

Who were they becoming?

Would they hold the door at church for the family running late or help someone’s grandmother grab her luggage off the carousel at the airport? Would they pick up trash when no one was looking or continue to write thank you notes to their grandparents?

I know they’ll be moving on, finding their passion, and God-willing, loving their lives. And for the first time, ever, I felt a sense of relief, a comfort, a joy that our three children are REALLY good kids.

No need to clock out moms, although the memorable nurturing years are waning, new chapters will reveal joys we never dreamed of…

as George Bernard Shaw said,

“A happy family is but an earlier heaven.”

Posted in Family, Faith and Fitness, Parenting/Running/Pets, siblings

Teenagers: 6 funny reasons for bad grades

Posted on by Lucretia Cahill

40 Days of Lenten Reflections

Day #7

I’ve read numerous articles about why we should let our kids fail. So I gave it a try.

For a few months, I was the hands-off mom. The cool, “Study…um…or not…up to you” mom. Turns out, it worked. The failure part, that is. 

Some parents regard any failure by their children as a crisis. James Lehman, MSW with Empoweringparents.com said,

“In a crisis, parents see the danger part very clearly, but often don’t see the opportunity part. They don’t see that their child has the opportunity to learn an important lesson. The lesson might be about the true cost of cutting corners, what happens when he doesn’t do his best at something, or what the real consequences are for not being productive.”

Or in some cases, the lesson may be to craft clever reasons for why they failed. Here are some popular examples I compiled based on experience and research:

1.  “SHE didn’t give me a study guide.”

Typically teachers give students tools and strategies to study for tests, but there are those kids who think their teachers should hand deliver the said study guide to their home, place it on the kitchen table, and maybe even complete it for them.

Trust me, under the crumpled paper, broken pencils, and PE clothes in their backpack lie a study guide.

2.  “EVERYONE did bad on the test.”

To be executed correctly, this excuse should be said with backbone. Stress on the word EVERYONE while holding onto evvvvvvv——eryone should help their case. Teenager’s pre-frontal cortex has convinced them that if the masses failed, it clearly wasn’t their fault.

Maybe the class is full of slackers or maybe, well, nevermind.

3.  “He hasn’t put in the grades for the work I did REALLY WELL on yet and he takes FOREVER to grade!”

(except for tests, apparently)

This excuse is usually coupled with “There’s only one grade in the grade book, so that’s why it seems like such a bad grade.”

Nope. It’s actually a bad grade.

4.  “I had THREE OTHER tests to study for!”

Helping students develop good study habits is insanely hard. Teaching them to prioritize and manage their time is even worse. Ultimately it’s up to them what they study for first if at all, but if this is their excuse, make your follow-up the classic:

“Well, you should have started studying earlier.”

5.  “It’s not my fault the teacher doesn’t know how to teach!”

Once your kids get into the harder subjects, like AP Calculus and Physics, using the ignorance of the teachers bodes well as an excuse and is surprisingly convincing…I mean the reason for not doing well is coming from a child who qualified to be in the class, so…

NOPE! Don’t fall for it! They should have studied.

6.  “I THOUGHT I did well, but I didn’t.”

This is my son’s favorite. It’s the moment when parents have two choices: admit their child did not study enough or at all; or worry they don’t understand any of the content and cancel the family’s summer vacation.

So it turns out failing is an important ingredient in life, but learning from failure is a natural consequence we can all benefit from.

 

 

 

Posted in Family, Faith and Fitness, Parenting/Running/Pets

Puzzles: why seniors benefit from these brain boosters

Posted on by Lucretia Cahill

Lenten Reflections #6

Nowadays, the thump of a newspaper hitting porch steps is about as rare as hearing the beeping drone of a telephone’s busy signal.

Up until a few months ago, you could hear both sounds at my parent’s home. (They have caller ID now which they completely ignore).

Every morning, nestled under coffee cups and bowls of Cheerios lies the Albuquerque Journal spread across the large table (which once sat six) as if poised for a large art project. Dad takes the front page, Mom pores over the local news, and they both rotely read through the obituaries. Then Mom starts “the puzzle” as they call it. She nearly completes her half of the daily crossword effortlessly (depending on the day) and passes it to Dad. Inevitably they finish it together.

Crossword puzzles, jokes, riddles, and intermittent episodes of Jeopardy are a huge part of my parent’s lives.

According to wordwealth.com,

“When it comes to senior people, the daily crossword puzzle is a game-changer. The benefits of solving puzzles for the elderly are innumerable, including enhanced memory, better cognitive skills, improved concentration, and much more. It can even reduce the chances of dementia and Alzheimer’s in the elderly.”

Mom and Dad are no exception to this rule. So when my sister sent the above picture of our parents with a beautiful puzzle they had recently finished, I had to share it with you all. The text attached, read “FINISHED!” Yet another successful puzzle solved and completed by Mom and Dad.

These jigsaw cardboard conundrums remind us to take time to sit and search for the tangible corner pieces, edges and crazy pieces we try so hard to force-fit into a spot, but also, help us to weed through our own lives and piece together who we are, what we are destined to do, and how we can gracefully arrive where we belong.

Thank you kindly for reading.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Lenten Reflections #5

Today is the official holiday to celebrate the birthday of the beloved, Theodor Seuss Geisel – best known as Dr. Seuss. In 1998, in an effort to celebrate, the National Education Association advocated for a day to celebrate reading all over the United States. In 1998, it started Read Across America and decided to hold it on the same day as Dr. Seuss’ birthday.

As I read about wockets in pockets, Sam-I-Am’s finicky taste in breakfast foods and the Cat in the Hat’s rainy day, I marveled at how engaged the first graders were.

“It just doesn’t make sense…they’re not real words!” said one strong-voiced girl.

“His books don’t have to make sense!” said a giggly guy, “that’s why they are so funny!”

I thought about this exchange while I went on a short run this afternoon.

I pondered how life can easily parallel any Dr. Seuss book. From the flat out refusal to try new things like stubborn Sam-I-Am and those green eggs — to exaggerating the minutia and “turning minnows into whales” like on Mulberry Street. Too often we forget to take chances and just pile all those Apples Up on Top and if they must, just watch them drop.

Dr. Seuss had a deep respect for his readers, saying,

 “I don’t write for children, I write for people. Once a writer starts talking down to kids, he’s lost. Kids can pick up on that kind of thing.”

So if you rest your head in Whoville or Wisconsin, let your heart grow three sizes and love your neighbor.

Status• Posted on by Lucretia Cahill
Posted in Family, Faith and Fitness

Leap Year Baby 1936

Posted on by Lucretia Cahill

Lenten Reflections #4

Mi Madrina

On February 29, 1936, my Godmother was born.

IMG_1288.jpeg
This is my baby book given to me by my Godparents. The picture of me (above) was placed on the first page by my Godmother.

In Leap Year math terms, she’s had 21 true birthdays. So today is especially busy for her. Let’s just say if an angel got their wings every time her phone rang today, the halo business would be booming. I was among her callers who sang the traditional Happy Birthday and a few lines of Las Mañanitas, her favorite birthday song.

I filled her in on the kids and our treks from swim meets to tennis matches, and then baseball games. In lockstep, she reminded me to enjoy every moment of their childhood, because it goes too fast. “What are their ages?” she asked. When I said, 17, 15 and 14, she jumped in and as if reading from a mom script, said,  “Oh college is coming up, that’s expensive.” She continued, “It’s when they go away that’s hard.” I knew she was referring to the outrageous cost attached to out of state tuition, but

I also knew from our previous conversations that her statement meant more. She’s always been candid and honest about being a mom.

When we chat, her kind, subtle NM accent reminds me of home. I listen to how she recalls life as a mom…and I can hear how quickly life’s pages turn, the moment you’re suddenly not going to baseball games or PTA meetings anymore but airports to pick up your kids who are “just visiting”. I can’t help but think of how she felt the first Sunday morning when she stopped looking for a large section on a church pew, but instead, was able to slip in at the end of a row because she was alone.

She tells me she prays for me every night and every morning. When she says it, I feel my body relax. Somehow simply knowing someone whose faith is at their core is thinking of me, makes me feel cloaked in love. To me, she’s like one of the saints Catholics have for everything. We pray to them when illness, accident or a loss occurs and we know they have our backs. That’s my Godmother. I know her prayers for me are deep, no-nonsense, and true.

Chances of being born on a leap day are about one in 1,461, according to the BBC. In fact, some astrologers say leap-year babies may possess special talents and luck. I agree. When I look at the picture of the day I was baptized, I think about all my Godmother has taught me: to cherish time with my family, knowing they will eventually live under different roofs; keep faith at the forefront; and hope our kids will thrive with credence, compassion, and kindness.

Gracias, Madrina.

Posted in Family, Faith and Fitness

Lent’s alarm

Posted on by Lucretia Cahill

Lenten Reflections #3

I was thinking about the backstory of Lent. The “Why”.

Not how it all transpired. Moreso, how it changes us and makes us better. Or not.

So I turned to two of my favorite writers for words of wisdom: Pope Francis and Anne Lamott.

When writing about Ash Wednesday, Lamott said,

So God bless you all today, GOOD. Whether you celebrate Ash Wednesday or not, it is always a day for awakening. Don’t hit the snooze button. Wake up, right now, spritz yourself with a plant mister, look around, gape, give thanks, help the poor…

Pope Francis also connected Lent with an awakening:

“Lent comes providentially to reawaken us, to shake us from our lethargy.”

Our long winter nap ends as we embrace the change in mind, body, and spirit Lent freely provides. 

Make a change. Make it positive and make it now.

FAITH Challenge: say a quick prayer every time you hear a siren today.

FITNESS Challenge: Go for a walk or run.