Speaker 1
Good Saturday morning to you and welcome to your next chapter production of the Heights at Avery Heights, a one of a kind senior living community centrally located near the most entertaining and historical spots in Connecticut. Folks, it is never too late to grow and enjoy new realms of the mind and heart. Your next chapter, it delves deep into topics that will improve the way we think about aging, senior living, and the retirement years.

It is time to celebrate our seniors and give them wholehearted encouragement to bravely step up to new experiences with optimism, inner peace, and the courage to never give up on growing. We’re going to discuss exciting opportunities, important resources for older adults, financial well-being, senior living communities, and emotional health, along with Siobhan Mattingly. I’m Gary Byron.

Siobhan, good morning. Good morning. How are you?

Speaker 2
I’m awesome. You didn’t read my title. Oh, I’m sorry. Senior living specialist. I keep giving myself titles.

Speaker 1
Oh, okay. Pardon me. You know why?

I crossed it out. I crossed it out. No. I didn’t mean to cross out your title.

I crossed out hosted by Gary Byron because I don’t like to talk about me in the third person. So I just crossed out that line and it went into your line. I’m sorry.

No malice here. No malice.

Speaker 2
This makes me into like what do they call it? The thought leaders, right? Is that what they call them? Thought leaders?

Speaker 1
Those are the people that. Sure. You can call yourself.

You’re all of it, girl. You’re the complete package. Senior living specialist.

What does that mean? I knew you were going to ask me that. You know, you opened up that can of worms, so I’m going there.

Speaker 2
It means that, well, I’ve been in the industry for probably about like 15 years now. So I feel like, and I’ve been in hospice. I’ve been in home care.

I’ve been in senior living communities. And I’ve been around, you know, most of the other stuff. So I feel like, I mean, you know, I just feel like I’m more than just, you know, the heights marketing person.

I feel like when people come to me, I can give them more information, you know, even if we’re not possibly right at that time, the right place for them.

Speaker 1
Are you able to take and draw upon your experiences from all of your previous employment, including hospice? Yes. And bring it to the heights.

You know, I have a friend of mine. Actually, he was the pastor that did my wedding. He is, he worked for hospice for a while.

And he says, and he’s been a pastor for nearly all of his adult life. And he says, Gary, you never, if there’s not a day that you do that job where it doesn’t impact you.

Speaker 2
Yeah.

Speaker 1
And because I’m like, is it just after a while where it’s just faces that people you don’t know? He goes, no, no, no. This is someone’s family. This is someone’s father, mother, brother.

Speaker 2
Exactly.

Speaker 1
Son, daughter. Yep. You know, it’s never an easy job.

And he says, people, you can’t even do it for a long period of time. You maybe go back to it years down the road, but to do it all the time permanently, it drains on you. And I would imagine that if you worked in hospice that.

Speaker 2
Yeah, I did it for about four years and it is challenging. And it’s hard. I mean, especially when you’re meeting with the person who’s passing, you know, when they’re signing them self signing themselves in or their own person is what we call it.

And that’s challenging when someone’s signing themselves on to hospice because, and they’re there, they’ve resolved and they usually are very, you know, there’s some emotional moments and so forth. But for the most part, you know, they’re very, you know, they’re accepting, they’re there, they’re, you know, they’ve decided to move forward with this. But it’s hard because, you know, to watch them and to know that, you know, I mean, you get to a point where you’re kind of, you know, you’re laughing and you’re telling stories.

And then but you always go back to remembering the fact that I’m signing you up for hospice. And, you know, hospice doesn’t always have to mean death. You know, you have a six month diagnosis.

But most of the time when you’re signing yourself up, you’ve made the decision to stop treatment. And usually that does ultimately go that route.

Speaker 1
So you’re really seeing somebody of sound mind up front and then gradually, you know it’s inevitable because they wouldn’t have contacted you in hospice. But that’s challenging.

Speaker 2
It’s like how do you get there, though? Yeah. How do you, you know, even in life now, I mean, there are days where you’re just exhausted and you’re like, oh, I can’t wait till it’s over.

And then there are days where you’re just like, you know, you want to see your kids. You know, my daughter’s 13. I want to see her graduate and have her own kids and get married.

I want the, you know, but then it’s inevitable. I mean, you know, I’m almost, you know, I’m almost 60. So when you’re looking at age, you know, how much more time do I have?

You know, maybe, maybe 50 years if you count, you know, a lot of people are living older now. I mean, we have people in our community. Oh, yeah.

We have people in our community that live.

Speaker 1
Well, the law of averages, though.

Speaker 2
I don’t know if I want to live 110. I don’t know if we have quite a few people that are older. Like, well, you met Alan.

He’s going to be 100 in July. So, and it’s neat to see people that are getting older and they’re like, like Alan. I mean, he does his own laundry.

I mean, he does his own everything.

Speaker 1
I’m going to be 30 in March. I can’t. Yeah. The big 3-0. Yeah.

Speaker 2
Something-0, but it’s not.

Speaker 1
No, it’s not even-0. I’ll be, it’ll end in three. Yeah. It’ll end in the number three.

Speaker 2
60, 70.

Speaker 1
30, 33. 33.

Speaker 2
33. Can you imagine? My son’s going to be 30 in March.

Speaker 1
Don’t let the gray hair fool you, Siobhan.

Speaker 2
Some people are really gray. I put it there. Some people, yeah.

Speaker 1
I put it there. I have, yeah, to make myself look more distinguished.

Speaker 2
Distinguished. There you go.

Speaker 1
Because it’s really jet black.

Speaker 2
People take you seriously. Or you could do an accent, too.

Speaker 1
You could have done an accent.

Speaker 2
Hello.

Speaker 1
Hello. Hello.

Speaker 2
Hello.

Speaker 1
I wanted the George Clooney look. Oh, yeah. So I figured it works for him.

Speaker 2
That guy, him and Brad Pitt, what is with their aging? Ageless. Right? But they age, and the age makes them just look better, in my opinion.

Speaker 1
How was your Christmas, by the way?

Speaker 2
It was phenomenal. It was really good. I went to go see my grandson.

He’s so cute. He’s just, he does this little thing with his nose now. Like he smiles at you and then he does that little scrunchy nose thing.

So like his personality. No, but his little personality is coming out. Like he’s not just like smiling because, you know, I don’t know, he’s got gas.

He’s like smiling because, you know, he really wants to smile at you and it’s so neat.

Speaker 1
I smile only when I have gas. So you know when I have it. When I’m winking at you, that’s a disguise.

Speaker 2
You know, that’s little kids, though. That’s what they do. But he’s so cute.

He’s so smart. Like, we got him this little toy, and he learned so quickly. Like, he figured out.

We got him this little thing. It’s almost like a Connect Four with animals. And he figured out where to put it, how to open the doors.

I mean, he’s just very. And he’s only one. He just turned one.

Wow. Yeah. Pretty bright for one, huh?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He’s a smart kid. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1
Well, that’s good. And tell me a little bit about Avery Heights during the Christmas weekend.

Speaker 2
Oh, my gosh. It was so cool, actually. I actually worked late on Friday.

On Festivus? You did? I did.

I should have got myself out of there, which I finally did. But I’m glad I did. They actually had a sing-along.

They do a social hour every Friday. But this was around the tree. It was a social hour with holiday songs.

And a girl was playing the piano. And it was so cool. They tried to sing that song, Oh, Christmas Tree.

This was hysterical. And she passed out words, but then people started requesting songs, and no one knew the words. So I’m in my office, and I printed them off from Google, and I started handing them out.

But it was so pretty. It was really pretty.

Speaker 1
That’s me on the 12 days of Christmas. I never get… All right, so I know the partridge in a pear tree is the first day. Five golden rings. That’s all I know.

Speaker 2
Oh, wow.

Speaker 1
Two turtle doves. Two turtle doves. All right, so I know those three.

Speaker 2
I think it’s… Is it three calling birds? French hens? Four calling birds.

Speaker 1
See?

Speaker 2
Three French. But now do this backwards from 12. Some ladies are dancing. Figgy pudding.

Speaker 1
And then there’s people pifing.

Speaker 2
People five, 12.

Speaker 1
I don’t know. Piper’s piping? Piper’s piping. Lords of Leaping.

Speaker 2
Lords of Leaping. And then there’s geese-a-laying. You got to do geese-a-laying. See? I don’t know what’s up with me.

Speaker 1
I don’t know neither.

Speaker 2
I get confused. Yeah. We actually, when I was with hospice, actually, during COVID, we actually formed, what do we call ourselves?

I think the Caring Connection Carolers or whatever. And what we did was we went to the windows. It was freezing, but it was so much fun.

And we went outside of the nursing homes or assisted livings and we actually sang songs. And it was really fun. And we dressed in silly costumes and hats and we danced around.

It was really cool. And, yeah, and that’s how I actually I used to know the 12 Days of Christmas perfectly. But it was funny because a lot of the group, they were like, oh, let’s not do the whole 12 days.

Let’s skip around. Well, we went to this one place that had memory care. And this guy was standing there going like this, like with his numbers.

And we were like, okay, we can’t skip. I looked at the group. I’m like, we can’t skip because this guy is like counting down.

Speaker 1
That takes like, you know, 10 minutes to sing that song.

Speaker 2
Yeah. What a crazy time, COVID. I remember we had tears.

We had this one guy. The next year we went inside and we had our mask on and so forth. And it was one guy’s, it was his birthday.

And so we’re just messing around and we sang him happy birthday. He started crying. We had so many like doing that, like so many tears.

Even when we were singing Christmas carols, people would start crying like, you know, Silent Night and stuff like that. People would get emotional.

Speaker 1
Yeah. So here it is. Today is New Year’s Eve.

Any plans? Any plans personally? And then tell me a little bit about what’s like at the Heights.

I would imagine the ball drive. People are going to watch. You’re going to have the.

Speaker 2
Yeah, she’s actually going to have the ball drop in the movie theater and then we have a screen in the lobby. But I forgot to mention too for Christmas, actually Hanukkah, which was the 18th, Christmas and New Year’s, he does an amazing buffet. I mean he did for Hanukkah, he did brisket and different things like that with the Manischewitz, I think it is.

The wine? The wine, yeah. He did that.

And then for Christmas, he did, I think he did lamb, asparagus. And I mean, it was like a whole menu. And then for New Year’s, he’s doing a whole big thing as well.

I mean, and it’s funny because he comes to my office and he shows me this menu. Sometimes I’m running around, so I miss lunch. And I’m like, why are you showing this to me?

It was like, yeah.

Speaker 1
Don’t rub it in.

Speaker 2
Yeah. But he does a great job. I mean, Tim, as we know, our dining manager, he does an amazing job.

Dining director, he does an amazing job of putting things together. So that’s part of our New Year’s Eve. And the ball dropping.

Of course. And then, you know, obviously Friday we’ll have our little social hour. And I’m sure she’ll do something, you know, funny with that.

That was yesterday. Huh?

Speaker 1
Friday.

Speaker 2
Friday. That was yesterday. That was yesterday. Yeah.

Speaker 1
So a big to-do tonight.

Speaker 2
A big to-do tonight. I’m glad to hear that. Yeah.

It should be amazing. Yeah. They do a great job.

Speaker 1
What are you doing? You watch the ball drop?

Speaker 2
My daughter is actually doing a lock-in with the church that I go to. So basically they haven’t done it in – well, my son actually, they did it with him. The teens, they have a big teen ministry.

So they did it with him and he’s 30. So they did it back then. And then they stopped doing it during COVID.

So she actually has never done one. And basically what they do is at 930, we drop her off at the church. She brings her sleeping bag and all this stuff.

They have to stay up till midnight. And then they get to, we pick them up at 9 a.m. the next morning. And they do like lessons.

They’ll have music. They’ll have games. But it’s a whole, and teens are coming from all over New England.

So like Maine, Vermont, Boston. Yeah. And she goes to teen camp.

So she’s got friends from all those areas. So she’s, yeah, she’s excited. How old is she?

My plans are dull. That’s why I’m mentioning her plans. How old is she?

She’s 13.

Speaker 1
Gotcha.

Speaker 2
That sounds fun for a 13-year-old. She is so excited. Yes, yes.

Speaker 1
Does she have friends from all over the place too?

Speaker 2
She has friends from all over because she goes to teen camp and they come from all over for teen camp. And they go to teen camp up in Maine. And it’s a sleepaway camp. It goes for seven days.

Speaker 1
You think she’ll make it till midnight?

Speaker 2
She will. Oh, gosh. My daughter. She’s my kid. My kids don’t like to sleep.

Speaker 1
So she’ll pass out after that. She’ll have her sleeping back. I’ll make up for them. I wish I had more time for sleeping.

Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, they like to sleep during the day. They don’t like to sleep at night.

Speaker 1
They’re nocturnal.

Speaker 2
They’re nocturnal. Both of them were. Both of them were like.

Speaker 1
Typical teenage.

Speaker 2
Yes. And luckily my pediatrician is very like, you know, forward thinking. So she was just like, you know what?

As long as they’re able to get up in the morning, get their work done, do what they have to do, don’t, you know, force them. So they usually went to bed at like 10 o’clock. You know how people are in a family makes a big deal.

Your kid’s going to bed at 10 o’clock. and they’re also on an honor roll. And your kids are what?

Speaker 1
If it ain’t broke? Exactly.

Speaker 2
That’s my pediatrician.

Speaker 1
So my plans are boring.

Speaker 2
I don’t actually know what we’re doing. I think my sister’s going to come over and we’re probably going to play games and have a nice dinner and just kind of chill. I think that’s what we’re going to do.

I try to make it to midnight. I’m so old now. I usually pass it off.

Speaker 1
Oh, you can do it. Come on.

Speaker 2
I can do it when she’s there. When she’s there, I can do it. But when she’s not there, you know. And when you’re watching those shows with the ball dropping, those just get kind of…

Speaker 1
only put that on a quarter of. I don’t watch the whole show. It’s like, all right, it’s a quarter of. I’ll watch it.

And then once the ball comes down, I just turn it off. You don’t need to watch. There’s nothing else on after that.

They’re not bad. Although you can watch the ball, I guess,

Speaker 2
in every time zone. Yes, which is really kind of cool. I wonder how that works.

And then Pacific. Exactly. So I guess I could watch it early.

Pacific would be like five hours, right?

Speaker 1
That’s three hours.

Speaker 2
Five hours? Not five? California?

Speaker 1
I think it’s three hours.

Speaker 2
Yeah. Is it three hours?

Speaker 1
There’s Eastern time, right? Or in the Eastern time zone. Eastern time, yeah. And then there’s Central, Mountain, and Pacific.

Speaker 2
Yeah. Those are early Central and Mountain, right? Like an hour or two hours?

Speaker 1
I think it’s one hour each. Okay. Each time you cross the…

Speaker 2
Got it, yeah. Actually, I had an appointment the other day where someone sent it to me in Central time. So I’m sitting there at three o’clock on this appointment, and the appointment’s actually for four.

Speaker 1
You know what I did one time? I was at the Hoover Dam. and I leaped. I’m like, right now it’s 1 o’clock. Too much fun.

Speaker 2
I went there. 1 o’clock. Too much fun.

Speaker 1
It’s 2 o’clock. Too much fun.

Speaker 2
I kept doing it too. I kept on jumping over. People were getting mad at me. It was so much fun.

Speaker 1
It’s simple things in light that may entertain us.

Speaker 2
What’s going on over at the Heights? Lots of stuff actually. Tell me what’s new for 2023.

Speaker 1
What is new for 2023?

Speaker 2
I made notes. Got to look at my notes. You’re allowed.

I know because there’s a lot going on. So we’re actually going to be doing a celebrity cooking competition with local celebrities. I haven’t started getting the celebrities, so don’t ask me who yet.

But I’m hoping to get like Gino because I know that he cooks from UConn. Okay. I’m hoping to get some of the – Does he cook?

Yeah.

Speaker 1
I know he’s got a restaurant, but I don’t think he cooks at the restaurant.

Speaker 2
You know, I’m making an assumption, but I’d like him to be there still. Oh, I’m sure.

Speaker 1
Ask him.

Speaker 2
So I’d like to get him. I’d like to get – we’re going to have the charity. So it’ll probably be for Alzheimer’s, the Connecticut Alzheimer’s Association.

We’ll do that. I’m hoping to get some people from TV. You’re going to be there to host it because I’ve already asked you that once.

Speaker 1
Do we have a date on that?

Speaker 2
We don’t have a date on it. Okay. We’ll have to talk about it after.

You’ll tell me the date because I haven’t said it yet. Whoa. But it’ll be in June.

Speaker 1
Oh, in June.

Speaker 2
Oh, okay.

Speaker 1
I’m thinking, oh, my goodness, my January is pretty booked. Yeah. So I’m like, oh, okay, good. June is fine.

Speaker 2
I am so excited. So we’ll have groups of two. Tim will all compete against Tim.

And then whoever wins it, they’ll have appetizer. They’ll have the main dish. They’ll do in the dessert.

And then each winner of those three sections, those will be on our menu. And we’ll have that on our menu. Yeah, I’m so excited.

I’m a big foodie.

Speaker 1
Are you pairing people up? Please tell me. I don’t have to cook this myself.

Speaker 2
No, no, you’ll be hosting.

Speaker 1
Oh, I’ll be hosting.

Speaker 2
Yes, you’ll be like, hey, this is going on. Oh, look over there. So then when they’re cooking, you’ll kind of keep it flowing. All right. Yeah.

Speaker 1
Even I don’t eat my cooking. No, I’m teasing. I’m sure I’m not that bad.

Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. So I’m excited. I’m really excited about that.

I love cooking and I think it’ll be neat. We’ll do it outside. We’ll have little stations and stuff like that.

And I think it’ll be a blast. I think people – I was actually – yesterday I was watching the American Bake Off. You know how they have the great American British Bake Off?

This is the American Bake Off. I’ve seen the British one. Yeah.

Now they have an American one with celebrities. It’s really good. So who’s a good cook then?

Who is – well, the celebrities, they weren’t like major celebrities. They were kind of like –

Speaker 1
Yeah, Pacino’s not doing the Bake Off.

Speaker 2
No, no, no, no. It was like a football player. I can’t even think of any of like – there was the girl that was in that – I can’t even think of the name of the show. She was in a sitcom, but it’s not.

It’s like second or third. That’s how big these celebrities are. They weren’t big.

Yeah, they weren’t. But you know them. Like if you see it, they’re like supporting actors and actresses. And yeah, that level of celebrity.

Yeah, because when I first saw Celebrity, I was thinking like, oh, you know.

Speaker 1
These are like C-level celebrities.

Speaker 2
No, B-level. B? B, I would say B. Yeah, there was like a social media influencer.

There was a girl from Saturday Night Live. Different people like that. But yeah, I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell you their names.

All right. Yeah. But it was really neat to watch.

So that’s what we’re doing for that. We’re doing a Dine and Dash in March. So that’s where you can come and grab some of our delicious food, bottle of wine for two people.

But you take a tour. So it’s called a Dine and Dash. You grab the money.

Dine and Dash. Grab the money. Grab the food.

And then we’re doing a rock painting with For All Ages. I think we had them on last year. We had them on our podcast.

So that nonprofit organization, we’re doing a rock painting. And they’re basically the teens are going to come in and paint rocks with our seniors. And then we’re going to take those rocks and put them around Hartford and West Hartford.

And when someone sees one, they can take a picture of themselves on Facebook. They’ll be inspirational. Nice.

So we’re doing that. We’re starting our memory cafe.

Speaker 1
We talked about that last week.

Speaker 2
Yeah. It’s going to start. The first one’s going to be a drum circle.

And then we’re also going to have a wonderful Irish singer for March is coming in. And then in April, we’re doing the gentleman from the People Plant Connection. And he’s going to come in and he’s going to do a planting activity for April.

And then for February, we’re doing a Valentine’s activity. And so this is where the caregiver and the person that has Alzheimer’s or dementia or a memory challenge can come in. It’s totally free.

They have some nice refreshments and some, you know, some nice food and they can sit for a free activity. And it just, you know, a lot of times people can’t get out when they, you know, when they’re taking care of someone. It’s a lot.

And in this environment, you know, they can, you know, they can enjoy them.

Speaker 1
Totally action-packed, my friends. Yes. Folks, you are listening to your next chapter of production of The Heights at Avery Heights.

Yep. Along with Siobhan Mattingly. I’m Gary Byron.

Talk to me about these podcasts that you’ve got coming up in 2023.

Speaker 2
So, back to the notes. So, we have some really cool stuff. So, our next show, I’m going to be talking about healthy resolutions for older adults and why they work.

I truly believe, as you know, never stop setting goals. Just because you’re older, that doesn’t mean you’re done. So that’s important as well.

Good point. Yep. We’re going to have Kathy Frieda from Sage Solutions on.

She’s a geriatric care manager. She’s going to be on pretty frequent next year. So she’s going to come in and talk about all sorts of fun topics.

Her topic for in a couple of weeks is going to be solo agers. I don’t even know what that means. But we’re going to find out.

We’re going to find out. Something to look forward to. On January 10th.

All right. Listen in. All right.

Cool. Yeah, she’s amazing. She just sent out – she sends out these newsletters that are just – the last one she sent out, it had a test to see how purposeful you are, how driven you are.

And I took the test. I actually scored pretty decent. Not great, but decent.

I could see that. Decent. You’re pretty good.

So she’s amazing. We love working with her. We’re going to be talking about how to pay for senior living services.

So, yep. That’s a great one. We’re going more in depth.

We’ve kind of like gone around the fringe on that more in depth because I think that’s important. We’re going to have more incredible people on our series called Living Your Next Chapter, Life on Purpose. So we’re going to have a gentleman who’s a photographer who goes all around the world.

And he started in his 60s or 70s. And he takes amazing, like, breathtaking photos. And he just goes around, like, Alaska, like, all around the country, all around. And he takes these beautiful photos.

And he shares them. He comes back and shares them. Is he published?

He is, yeah. So he’ll come back and talk to us, which is fun. We’re going to have a barbershop quartet on.

Yep. Yep. Which you can participate in.

Speaker 1
You don’t want to hear me sing.

Speaker 2
Doobie doobie doo.

Speaker 1
I can do that.

Speaker 2
You can’t do acapella?

Speaker 1
I can barely speak. You want me to sing? Right.

Speaker 2
The 12 days of Christmas. You couldn’t even do it.

Speaker 1
When I sing, the glass shatters. That’s how terrible. That’s not a bad thing, right?

Because that. Oh, that means you hit a high note. Right.

Is that what you do? That’s me when I step on a tack in this room. Yes.

Is there anyone that you’re looking forward to the most or maybe a couple? The Barbershop Cooker Tent.

Speaker 2
I love stuff like that. I love stuff like that, believe it or not. I love like acapella stuff.

That’s going to be really good. That’s tough. And they’re actually going to be coming to the Heights as well to perform for our residents.

So what we’re trying to do is kind of get the folks on, on the podcast, you know, living your next chapter, and then have them come to the community and kind of encourage our older adults to kind of keep going. You know, this is, you know, it’s your journey. You’re still here, you know, so you got to keep living.

That’s what that whole series is about, is older adults who have kind of taken on that next chapter and really taken it seriously. We’re also going to hopefully have a gentleman on that started his own food truck business. And he retired.

He started in his 60s. And he was his son. And he goes all over. And I know it’s like a simple thing, but that’s so cool.

Like I actually, that’s one of my retirement goals is to have a food truck and to go around.

Speaker 1
What would be yours?

Speaker 2
I don’t know. My husband and I have been talking about a couple of different things. Something definitely with chicken.

But then we’d also do breakfast too. We do like breakfast sandwiches and stuff like that. And then we do lunch.

Just breakfast and lunch we do. And then every once in a while we do a pop-up restaurant where we’d have dinner and stuff like that. But I love to cook.

I love to cook.

Speaker 1
I would do ice cream.

Speaker 2
Oh, yeah. Right? Oh, with the little music?

Speaker 1
Oh, like an ice cream. Whatever. Whatever.

I don’t even care about music. I just love ice cream. I eat ice cream on the coldest day of the year.

It doesn’t matter. Yeah. I got a cup.

I mean, you want to talk about fattening. It goes right. I might not even eat it.

I’m about to just put it right there. From the lips to the hips, right? From the lips.

You got that right. Just like I can drink a hot piping cup of coffee on the hottest day of the year. I don’t drink iced coffee.

I don’t even like iced coffee. I will drink hot coffee when it’s 95 out and the humidity is to the point where my hair looks scary. I become Scary Gary.

Hey.

Speaker 2
For Christmas, I got my daughter a – well, it’s supposed to be a hot chocolate maker. But it turns out you can do steamed milk in that as well. And so last night, I made my husband a macchiato.

Yeah. Yeah. A macchiato.

I was just thinking. So cool with the foam. And then I put the whipped cream.

And then I took some cocoa powder and sprinkled it on there.

Speaker 1
Boy, you are a creative. Right? In the kitchen here. Look at you.

Speaker 2
I know. I love it. I love to cook.

I love to decorate the house and host people. And then we’re going to be talking about grief as well. So we’re definitely going to be talking.

We have a couple of people coming on. this awesome book to teach people how to deal with people when they’re grieving. We actually read it when I was at the hospice company, and it’s called Don’t Sing Songs to a Heavy Heart.

And it’s how to relate to the people when they’re suffering. So not the platitudes, not the he’s in a better place, or the person’s not suffering. We all go to those, but a lot of times when someone passes, that actually makes it worse for people.

And this gentleman is amazing. He has a whole ministry where he teaches people how to deal with people when they’re grieving. And it takes thought.

Like you have to like pause yourself because you want to just give those. Like I said, he’s in a better place. He’s not suffering anymore.

At least in the end, he wasn’t in pain. You know, all these things that some reason he took a poll and he did all this research and he found out that this wasn’t comforting people.

Speaker 1
You know, we could all learn from that one. What about the Living Your Next Chapter, Life on Purpose series?

Speaker 2
Yes. So that’s what we were just talking about. So different people we’re going to have in.

So we’re also going to have an author. She wrote a book called Oh Hello Alzheimer’s. And that was a book that she wrote. Her husband actually got Alzheimer’s. And she wrote a book.

Speaker 1
Did she send me the book?

Speaker 2
She sent you the book. So yeah, it’s a big book.

Speaker 1
I got this book one day and I’m like, I don’t know who’s sending me a book. And why are they sending me this book? So I put it off to the side. Actually, it’s on my desk right now.

Speaker 2
So she’s not going to be on until February. All right. Yeah, but it’s neat.

She wrote a whole book to help people kind of. And it’s neat because she talks about the journey too, the different stages. And she talks about what happens in these different stages.

Because with Alzheimer’s, there’s different. Obviously, unfortunately, you’re declining. And so she talks about, goes in depth with her thoughts of what she experienced through those different stages.

So she’s going to be on. We’ve got some good stuff. And we also have our own Harvest Healthcare.

It’s the company that we use. They’re out in Avon, and they’re the people that come in and do our Jerry Psych work. So those are the folks that come in and work with our people that have Alzheimer’s and dementia.

And they actually help to take care of them. So I figured we’d have them in as well because to me it’s important, you know, in talking about the Heights, that people have a full understanding of all the people that we work with, all of our vendors, and kind of get to know them on a different level.

Speaker 1
It’s incredible. I can’t believe – I shouldn’t even be surprised knowing you. You’re busy.

Speaker 2
Yeah.

Speaker 1
I mean, and the Heights – This is exciting.

Speaker 2
Yeah.

Speaker 1
This is full. This is a full. You just went over the next half a year. I know.

Speaker 2
Yeah. We just actually hired a wonderful lady, Anna. She met her.

She was in here a couple weeks ago. She’s wonderful. And she has just taken this show to a whole incredible level, which I’m really excited about.

I’ve never had it booked like this far out. And so it’s exciting. And it’s important.

You know, this show is all about giving seniors the information that they need.

Speaker 1
Folks, you have been listening to the latest edition of your next chapter, Senior Living, with Siobhan Mattingly. Now, the Heights, she’s the Heights, hold on, Senior Living Specialist. Yeah, yeah.

Did I get that right? Yes. Thanks.

Avery Heights is a beautiful senior living community nestled within 43 acres of nature, right in the heart of the junction between West Hartford, Newington, and Hartford. And those who live there have access to a full continuum of care, including independent and assisted living to memory care and a whole lot more. You got to visit AveryHeights.org, A-V-E-R-Y Heights.org, or call them for a tour.

And the beauty of this tour is there’s no pressure. Just say you want a tour. They don’t whip anything under your nose and say, here’s a pen.

Just say you want the tour. You want to take it all in and observe. You’re going to find a lot of happy people.

Write this number down. 860-953-1201. I’ll give it to you one more time.

860-953-1201 to learn more about their own special brand of community, unlike any other in Connecticut. For Siobhan Mattingly, I’m Gary Byron. Thank you so much for listening.

Until next weekend, Happy New Year, and have a good one, everybody. So long.