Aging Well January 7th

The free 2014 Passport to Happiness Calendar is now available and if you don’t receive one in the mail in the next week, you can stop by the Center or OSU Extension office at CGCC and pick one up. And thanks to the suggestions from many folks, the 2014 calendar has a few changes to make it even better than 2013.

This year there will be quarterly Passport to Happiness events instead of monthly - focusing on three components of health: social, physical and cognitive health. The events will start at 1:00 at the Center, so you can have lunch provided by Meals-on-Wheels and then stay for the presentation. The first event will be on January 15^th from 1:00 – 2:30 at the Center - once again featuring guest speakers, useful tips, informative handouts and more healthy recipes.

At this first event you can also pick up your 2014 Passport which can be stamped at each of the quarterly events as well as other sponsored events offered by Parks and Recreation, OSU Extension, the Center and other organizations promoting healthy aging. And then at the end of the year Celebration in December, you can redeem your Passport stamps for special prizes and gifts.

This year the calendar is smaller: 8 ½ by 11, so it will be easier to hang on your wall. But it does not include a resource guide, so don’t throw away the resource guide in your 2013 calendar. And the many activities in the area are now listed in the back of calendar, so there will be room on each month to add your appointments and other important events you don’t want to forget.

But still included are the monthly seasonal recipes from OSU’s www.FoodHero.org website. And outstanding photographs of local folks engaged in healthy activities from quilting at the Center to volunteering at the Chamber of Commerce and the Habitat ReStore Store (who are always looking for volunteers), once again taken by Ray Perkins at Ray Perkins Photography.

But the calendar would not be possible without the generous financial support of the following sponsors who are committed to supporting older adults: OSU Extension, Hearts of Gold Caregiving, Rebecca Street Physical Therapy, Mid-Columbia Medical Center, Flagstone, PacificSource, Regence and BiCoastal Media. As well as several monthly sponsors including Area Agency on Aging, LINK Transportation Network, Mid-Columbia Community Action, Columbia Basin Care Facility, Mid-Columbia Senior Center, and Jim Bishop at Westcorp Mortgage.

And finally, the Calendar was a collaborative effort of the Wasco County Network on Aging whose members are working together to improve the health and wellbeing of older adults. The Network ‘s key partners are OSU Extension, Mid-Columbia Community Action, MCMC, Area Agency on Aging, Oregon Department on Aging and People with Disabilities, Northern Wasco County Parks and Recreation and the Mid-Columbia Senior Center.

It’s time again to challenge that three pound organ taking up space between your ears by seeing if you can decipher the scrambled letters in the Center’s music announcement. (Researchers have found we don’t read letter by letter but by the whole word, so it isn’t usually that difficult - if the first and last letters are the same.)

On Jaunray 14th Matrin and Feidnrs will be pckniig and sumimnrtg your old time corutny fivaroets. Doros oepn at 6:00, dcannig sattrs at 7:00 and the band starts pakincg at 9:00. Eovyrnee is welmoce and datonnois are ataerpciepd. 

For fifty years at the stroke of midnight (if yoiu were still awake) you could listen to Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadials playing Auld Lang Syne from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. (And the winner of a Saturday Breakfast on March 15th (write that down on your new calendar) is Bill Van Nice.)  But since the 2014 Passport to Happiness Calendar is now available, it only seems appropriate to ask a "Remember When" question related to calendars, right? So this week who was the Americal pop singer, pianist and composer who sang and co-wrote the hit single "Calendar Girl" that reached #4 in 1961? (He also recorded "Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen" and "Breaking Up is Hard to Do.) Email your answer to mcseniorcenter@gmail.com, call 541-296-4788 or send it with a picture of this performer "laughing in the rain" im 1975.

Well, it has been another week trying once again to recalibrate my brain so I will start writing 2014 instead of 2013.  Until we meet again, be well, be kind and be amazing.

”To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.” Oliver Wendell Holmes