I am inspired by Miss Norma, age 90 who had a year of adventure

I bought this book about a 90 year old lady who sets out on a grand adventure. I had lots of smiles and some tears while reading "Driving Miss Norma: One Family's Journey Saying YES to Life", many of the tears being happy tears. Does anyone else cry when they hear about a beautiful moment?
Now that I am a senior citizen, and have had close family members die in the past few years, I find myself thinking about mortality and this book hit the spot for me. Norma's last year was beautiful and full of good things and experiences.

Miss Norma is 90 and when her doctor gives her a terminal diagnosis she tells him “I am 90, I'm hitting the road”, whereupon she sets out to travel for a year to places she chooses with her son and his wife in their thirty six foot mobile home. 

They have five star adventures everywhere and her final year was filled with fun and things new to them all, including a balloon ride, eating oysters in New Orleans, a zip line ride in North Carolina and riding a horse for the first time at age 90. Instead of a few months of harrowing treatments followed by death Norma had adventures with her loved ones and gained a bit of fame with TV interviews and official welcomes. They visited places she chose including Bar Harbor, Mackinaw City, the Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone. It turns out her family had ties to President Ford and they got a personal tour of the USS Gerald R. Ford in the shipyard as it prepared to be launched. Tim and Ramie live in their RV year round and consider Baja California, Mexico, the closest thing to a home, and Norma visited there too.

For a shy lady she truly blossomed and Tim and Ramie were glad they chose to take Norma with them in her year of being 90. And don’t forget their standard poodle Ringo who cherished Norma too. Tim contrasted his mom’s happy final year to the tough final months of his dad who a year earlier chose painful treatment and stayed home.

I bought the hard cover book and enjoyed the many color photographs.The cover is a photo of the real Norma and Ringo.

Hats off to Norma and to Tim and Ramie as they spent a year making many dreams come true. Tim wrote that he got to know his mom in ways he never had before. This journey was a gift for each of them, and I enjoyed it too.
This book reminded me to think about how I spend my day. Am I kind, thoughtful, prayerful, with some fun or adventure sprinkled in? Am I trying new things? That is my aim. Now that I am retired and a widow it is easy to me to get stuck in my comfortable rut, so this book offers a good inspiration for me. How about you? Are you trying new things?

Senior Citizens in New Novels

Now that I have achieved the much wanted (ha ha) title of senior citizen I am finding some novels that have older main characters ranging in age from late fifties to age 100.
Here are a few I have read recently.

"Old Age Private Eye" by A.W. Blakely. The first in the Old Age Pensioner Investigations series about Stanley, a pensioner about 68 years old who is so bored in retirement that on a whim he posts a notice that he is a private investigator. He is amazed when he is hired for a job and finds he needs to hire help so he hires his daughter who is newly divorced and job hunting; the other team member is his trusty dog, Roobarb. The setting is "the heart of England."

"The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules" by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg. The first book in the League of Pensioners series, all the main characters use Zimmer frames or as we call them in the USA, walkers. The main gal, Martha is 79 and decides to begin a life of crime to free her from her home from the aged, which she compares to a prison. The setting is the Netherlands and she recruits four friends from the home where she lives to form a gang. They pull off some dramatic crimes, and attempt jewel, bank and art robberies. They are so inept sometimes they succeed. After all, who could believe these harmless oldies could steal priceless Impressionist paintings?

"A Man Called Ove" by Fredrik Backman
Ove is a curmudgeon, a widower with a short fuse and he is a mean and prejudiced neighbor to people trying to be helpful. I don't know why Ove is a mere 59 in this novel, he seems like 69 or older. Against his will he is befriended by the young couple who move next door. You will find humor, despair and hope here, and the novel deserves the description of "heart warming." The author is Swedish. I love this book and plan to read the others Backman wrote.

"The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared" by Jonas Jonasson. Alan has no plan except to escape out a window in order to miss his 100 year birthday party at the retirement home. Wow, does he have adventures. He finds stolen money, there are murderous thugs chasing him, he meets a friendly elephant and makes friends along the way. The author is a Swedish journalist. I read that there is a sequel to this book and Alan is 101 in it.
Are there other books you can add to this list? Please add them in comments, I think we would all like to hear about more books featuring senior citizens.

Volunteer visitor to senior citizens

Sometimes the above photo shows how I feel when I think of seniors stuck in a nursing or retirement home and who have no visitors.
I am posting this to give other bloggers an idea about a volunteer opportunity.
I am a senior citizen myself and have long heard about people living in retirement homes who have no visitors and are lonely. That sounds SAD beyond reflection to me.

For the year 2016 I decided to find a lonely person in one of those homes who I could visit and bring my version of sparkle and joy to. I have a nice collection of fun socks to wear, and bought these for one of the ladies I visit.

You can find a person to visit through your church, or through a volunteer center in your county or city. I signed up with a county program, was fingerprinted, interviewed, and sent to a retirement/memory care home. I think memory care is a upbeat way of saying Alzheimers or Dementia.
The neatest thing happened. The activities director introduced me to two ladies. One had a stroke and can't talk, and the other lady is active in all ways, and deals with Parkinsons disease successfully.
For the lady who had a stroke I bought some fun children's books and read them to her. Her favorite which she points to is about teddy bears and picnics. Since she visited Africa some years ago I bought a book about animals of Africa and she likes this book too.
The other gal and I do some volunteer work in the home's library, putting the books back on the shelves in the right places, and adding new books. We also sit and chat, I help her with her laptop, and we check on the two tomato and cucumber plants they let her grow. Last week she gave me a hug and said thank you for coming, you are a bright spot in my day. I said that she is a bright spot in my day too. Today I surprised her with the socks, and she said she had been wishing for some like this. She put them on and showed them to two people while I was visiting.
Let's spread the joy around.
"We can not all do great things, but we can all do small things with great love." Mother Theresa.

Wordless Wednesday Camellias at Church and Retirement Volunteer

I took these photos of camellias growing at our church on February 5, 2016.

I saw this camellia on Sunday and couldn't resist bringing my camera with me a few days later to take photos to share with you blog friends.
Linking with Wordless Wednesday

I am starting my new volunteer path, being a visitor to one or two ladies at a retirement home. One I met on Wednesday February 24 and one I will meet today, March 2. I am looking forward to this new venture, and any tips you have on visiting with retirees in assisted living are greatly appreciated by me. The activity director said the gal I will meet today might enjoy me reading short stories to her.
I have a great book of compiled poems, "Poems to Learn by Heart", edited by Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of JFK, that could work.
Any other ideas?