Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor the painter stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds

The common area face-lift and refurnishing is underway!!

Field trip to the Recycler

Member M.E. traded steel, brass, wire (mostly Christmas tree lights), and aluminum for just short of $100, destined for the Activity Committee's fund.

Have you been throwing away money?

r r R

Friday's Lunch and Learn featured a recycling discussion led by resident M.E.

We are doing well - but, as usual, we could always do better.

Pitch in!

Co-op Pool

When will it melt?

Get your tickets from member MB while they last

Ahead of the curve

http://www.minnpost.com/cityscape/2013/03/great-senior-sell-our-next-housing-crisis

And, even though many surveys show that seniors say they want to age in place, Nelson predicts that as they travel through the old age portion of the python, they will want to sell their three- and four-bedroom homesteads and move to a condo.

 ...
How might this play out in the Twin Cities?
Tom Melchior, director of market research for CliftonLarsonAllen, a business accounting and consulting firm, who has a specialty in senior housing, believes that prices will depend to a great extent on location.
"Most of the action now is in Minneapolis and St. Paul's downtowns and Uptown,” he says. “Also in the inner ring suburbs."

Nelson predicts that all of this will hit the fan around 2020. At that point, he says, seniors will be trying to offload 200,000 more houses than there will be families coming into the market to buy them. A lot of people won't be aging in place but stuck in place. And, presumably, prices would drop, enabling younger folks with less change in their pockets to get into a house. [emphasis added]

All we have to do is sit and wait  :)

Presented without comment

Working together

Short videos on youTube are one way we have to help prospective members find us.

Here's one:

All together now

The Wellness Room is stocked with a good sampling of exercise implements known to health clubs and present/former enthusiasts.   And enthusiasts we have; residents pop in and out to use various machines–with TV for company, if wanted.

Above, a group moves through its twice-weekly, seated aerobics session, led by a TV instructor who seems never to get tired.  

Seated aerobics, you say?  What good can come from that? 

Plenty!  From the top of the neck down to the toes, every non-weight-bearing system is urged along–eventually driven along so that a genuine workout is realized.  (And, if some residents take part in only certain segments, that’s OK, too.)

From the neck up, it’s therapeutic as well:  sharing with neighbors a healthy time, with friendly commentary thrown in.

Townhouse? Not so much

According to http://www.bringmethenews.com/2012/12/23/interest-in-townhouses-tumbles-in-todays-real-estate-market/, townhouse sales are not going well in the metro area

Townhouses in the suburbs and small towns ringing the Twin Cities have long  held special appeal for first-time buyers and empty nesters. But today’s younger buyers appear more interested in single-family homes and the older ones are renting or remaining in their existing property.

What can we learn from this to help spread the word about the co-op alternative?

Group work

To commit or not to commit; that is the question.  Happily, at our cooperative, the answer is positive, which results in . . . COMMITTEES.

With a foundation of basic housing legislation, internal by-laws, and managerial and maintenance staff,  what makes our home thrive are the many residents who regularly gather to share and put into action ideas to benefit the whole: Resident Board, Building, Marketing, Decorating, Security, Activity, Communications, Finance, and various ad-hoc groups see to maintaining a safe, affordable, comfortable, attractive, and sociable community.

This allows us to be individuals with our own space and way of spending time while relying on a cohesive system of governance and association with neighbors.

We’re lucky.  It works!

The parable of the Bleu Mississippi burger

Looking for the best tasting black and bleu burger can get to be a hobby, the latest entry enjoyed at the Cherokee Tavern as part of a two hour lunch with old friends.

$9 can sound high for a hamburger, but it's a moderate price for a lunch delivered by attentive wait staff to a booth we occupied for over two hours, not to mention the choice of potato, or just how good it tastes.

Meanwhile, the 9 billion sold cheeseburger is now on the Dollar Menu along with the competition. Now that it's there, they will never be able to sell it for more than a dollar no matter how hard they try. Worse, we usually need a coupon before we'll go there.

Silver Tsunami

In the December 2012 issue of the St. Paul Voice, staff reporter Mary Diedrick Hansen brings us up to date on the activities of the Living Longer and Stronger Initiative (West St. Paul braces for the 'Silver Tsunami', embraces senior living program). The group meets at 1:00 PM on the third Thursday of each month at the Thompson Park Community Center.