New Jersey Baby Boomer

It’s time to remember the birthday of Elvis Presley, his 75th.  We can only imagine what Elvis would have looked and sounded like at that age…or better yet, let him remain forever young in our memories.

I tried to dig around and see what I could find to connect Elvis with our fine state of New Jersey, this Baby Boomer remembers him well, and remembers how heartbroken some of my girlfriends were when he died.  I mean really heartbroken, you’d have thought they lost a family member or someone they knew personally and very well, when the closest they had been to him was to put together scrapbooks, listen to his music, watch him on TV, or if really fortunate, attend a concert.

Last year in New Jersey, they had the first ever Elvis look (and sound) alike competition in Rahway, NJ, here’s a video for you…these guys aren’t Elvis, but they aren’t bad either:

I was also able to find an interview…listen close, it has some rough spots, but not too bad…it was supposed done at Fort Dix in 1960:

And these are some personal favorites of mine:

Always on my Mind - not “polished”, but nice:

The Wonder of You

Can’t Help Falling In Love With You (sing along)

Amazing Grace (with picture montage)

There’s a few of my favorites. I can’t help but notice, looking at him and his pictures in retrospect, he seems unhappy, often as if he doesn’t really look well or “into” what he’s doing, but his voice was always beautiful.

What a surprise it was to be called by Sid Johnston from the Suburban Trends, a local/regional paper, to ask me questions about my blogs and websites. As much as I share in writing, verbally, I’m relatively quiet (some may disagree, but it’s true, I promise LOL!) by nature, so just say that I live in Northern NJ on most of my sites to maintain some privacy, but Sid was persistent, and tracked me down, and then put together this wonderful article…thank you so much!  Actually when you think about it, there isn’t a lot of privacy when you post to blogs and on the web, your audience is huge, hmmm. Well anyway, never expected a full page article, and very much appreciate it.

Everything is true in the article…well, almost…I guess since I have a blog for Work at Home Grandmothers, and a small but growing network of Work at Home Grandmothers one would imagine that I’m a grandmom…not yet, but maybe one day.  Most if not all of my other blogs and sites will be listed in my blogroll as soon as I finish typing this.

One thing I wasn’t “savvy” enough to do was figure out how to make the images so that you could click on them and bring up a bigger image, so if you’d like to be able to read the article, email me at claudiascorner[at]gmail.com and I’ll send you larger images, or if you live locally, stop by the store and pick up a copy of the Trends, and for more information about the paper, or to subscribe, click here.

3/19/09 Update:  Suburban Trends has added the article to their site, and IZEA did a post on their blog, you can click here to find the post.  Thanks to both of you!

Just last week a friend of mine stopped by to say hello who is a nurse, and has been out of work for months, so when this website came across my path, it was hard to resist posting about it….I’m going to share this with my friend.

This is about job opportunities in the Travel Nursing field. There is a staffing service called Procare USA that provides registered nurses with assignments throughout the United States, and has been doing so since 1990. Assignments can last up to 13 weeks, or may be more permanent, depending upon the job requirements.

If you’re lifestyle is flexible enough to take advantage of a job opportunity like this, you can look forward to good pay, travel, and the can choose from hundreds of nursing jobs throughout the USA.

There are also benefits beyond just receiving good pay, they include free housing that is private, medical/dental/health insurance, 401k with company match, immediate vesting, expense reimbursement, and a lot more, so please do take a look at the procareusa.com site and see if this is for you.

Now I’m off to email or call my NJ Baby Boomer nurse friend to tell her about this opportunity.

With the increase in job loss, or fear of job loss in the present recession, there are support groups beginning to form in New Jersey. I just received an email from a fellow NJ Baby Boomer, and thought I’d share the content with you. If you know of other support groups forming, please leave a comment:

UMDNJ-University Behavioral HealthCare to Provide Free Support Groups for People Affected by the Economic Crisis

NEWARK - Panic over job loss. Fear of unemployment. Profound worry about meeting mortgage and tuition payments. Unfortunately, these are the realities of this severe recession.

If you are experiencing any of these kinds of reactions to the current fiscal crisis, it is important to know that you are not alone; there is a place you can go for assistance.

Beginning March 3, UMDNJ-University Behavioral HealthCare (UBHC), a statewide mental health and addiction services network, will offer free 90-minute support groups, run by experienced counselors, for those affected by the economic downturn. Sessions will be held weekly at the following locations on the days and times specified:

-Newark: Wednesdays at 12:30 p.m. at UBHC, 183 South Orange Avenue;
-New Brunswick: Wednesdays at 3 p.m. at 303 George Street, 2nd Floor;
-Edison: Thursdays at 3 p.m. at 100 Metroplex Drive, 2nd Floor, Suite 200;
-Monmouth Junction: Tuesdays at noon at 4326 U.S. Highway 1.

• Sessions are open to the public and no appointments are necessary to attend. Participants may remain anonymous.
• People interested in attending may call (800) 969-5300 for more information.
• Members of the media interested in more information about this new initiative should contact Zenaida Mendez at (973) 972-7273.

PLEASE VIEW THE COMMENT(S) BELOW if you are viewing this as a single post, or click the “comments” link under the title of the post, for more support group information that has been added since this post was published.  Thank you.

We’re all pinching pennies these days, and here’s another way to do it!

You can now pay NOTHING to make a call to any land line or cell phone anywhere through CallingAmerica.com Free USA Calls!, all you have to do is watch a short ad before you make your call. This service works domestically and all over the world….you can call the United States free from any cybercafe or Internet-enabled computer virtually anywhere.

If you’re a registered caller, your call can last for up to 15 minutes. If unregistered, just to give the service a try, your call can last a couple minutes. I look forward to registering and experimenting with the service…there are times when this will come in handy, like when I want to make a daytime call and don’t want to use my cell minutes (we don’t have a land line), or…well, take a look for yourself and see what you think by clicking CallingAmerica.com Free USA Calls!.  The “totally free” part of it is very appealing!

Thanks for reading.

I feel like doing a personal post today, no NJ history, or places to visit, or any of that, just some things that are happening in the lives of two Baby Boomers in NJ, my husband and I.

As you know if you read my blog(s), we live in a rural lake community. Because we have lived here for about 25 years, we had gained a nice bit of equity in our home. We have a mortgage still…would be nice to have that paid off, but the equity came in handy when we had a couple of emergencies and refinanced to cover the bills as well as reduce our interest.

Then when hubby joined the many who have lost their jobs at the age of 50something after working for a company for 30 years, and had to change jobs a few times in 4 years, we found that we had to dip into the equity of our home to make it by a few times.

Then to top it off, this year, the equity went down on our home along with every other home in the Nation. Yes, we still have a chunk left between what we owe and what we might get for our home if we sell it, but I’d say it’s been cut almost in half. That’s a tough pill to swallow if you’re hoping that the equity in your home was going to help you in your retirement one day. Or be something that you can leave your children.

The times are challenging ones, for sure, and there are no easy answers. They are times that can cause worry and fear, or can put us on our knees in prayer, hubby and I are doing the latter and counting of the promises that God has given us to provide all our NEEDS. Even though we live relatively simply, like many, we have our priorities a little off balance in some areas, bad habits developed when it seemed like the money would always be coming in at the same rate forever…ha! We bear some of the responsibility for where we find ourselves.

So here’s to the future, and hopes that things are going to improve, and faith to know that no matter what, we’ll be okay.