Have you sometimes felt that just a few little things could make your life easier? Or nicer?
I have a list, but please send an email to Finn (finn@seniorsmagazine.org) and let him know your ideas.
1. Clip-on not flip-up magnifying glasses on top of prescription glasses. My prescription glasses do fine until I get to those tiny directions on how to put something together. It’s awkward to hold a magnifying glass and a screwdriver at the same time, so I need magnifying glasses attached to my glasses. The fliptops are more awkward to put on my glasses. The clipons are easy. Just pull them apart a little, and they clip right onto my glasses. Great!
2. Auxiliary Wide-Angle Side View Mirror. As time goes by, the neck doesn’t turn quite enough, and peripheral vision gets a little less good. Was that a car overtaking? What? You didn’t see it? So get two extra little (half-moon) mirrors and fix them on top of each side view mirror on your car. They are wonderful! You may need help putting them on because the directions are not too good. But they greatly add to safety.
3. Get ahead of the snow and ice. Put a bag of kitty litter and a snow shovel in the back of your car. You may not do the shoveling, but when a good Samaritan comes by, you are ready!
4. Non-round door handles and faucets. We changed a few faucets from the old-fashioned round handles to an easier-to-use lever-type of handle. It’s too bad that one can’t do the same thing to the tops of jam or mayonnaise jars!
5. Enjoy the lovely smell of herbs. These can be grown inside or outside. You don’t have to use them for cooking. But there’s nothing nicer than walking by one of these plants, pulling off a leaf, squeezing it in your fingers, and then inhaling the great smell.
6. Take a free course!! Yes, it is fall. It’s time to go back to school. And you can take online courses for free. Here are two places: Coursera where there are hundreds of courses of all kinds, and EdX which also has many courses. Yes it does make your life easier to take a course: your mind is in gear, and you learn something new. What good be better?