Caitlin Manner

“The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.” 
― Mark Twain


Photo by Judit Peter on Pexels

About Me

I am a freelance journalist based out of Yorktown, Virginia. When I'm not working, I'm busy raising my three rambunctious boys, attempting questionable DIY home improvement projects,  and trying to find time for running, gardening or crafting.

Featured Articles

Explore a featured selection of my writing work below.
55+ Life •

Wellness Tourism is About Going Away to Get Well

Vacations are all about recharging, unwinding, relaxing. But too often we return home exhausted and burnt out from trying to see and do and eat and cram a year’s worth of experiences into a whirlwind weeklong trip.What if instead of needing a vacation after your vacation, you came home refreshed, energized and revitalized, feeling better than ever? It’s possible, thanks to a multibillion dollar travel trend that promotes maintaining or enhancing one’s health as the primary objective for travel.W...
55+ Life •

Smarter, Calmer, Healthier: The Positive Impact of Pets

We all intuitively know that animals can brighten our days. The interactions we have with our four-legged family members play a surprisingly large role in our mental and physical well-being, but it can be difficult to pin down the science that proves it. Nancy Gee knows this better than most: She’s the head anthrozoologist and director of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Human-Animal Interaction, which studies human-animal relationships.Gee started out in cognitive and neural scienc...
55+ Life •

Hormone Replacement Therapy: What You Need to Know

Approximately 6,000 women in our nation enter menopause each day, usually during their 50s. For some, it’s no big deal; for others, though, “the change” can be debilitating. Menopause can be more than just inconvenient hot flashes and mood swings (although those are common symptoms). It can also cause intense bouts of anxiety, depression, changes in skin conditions, difficulty sleeping, discomfort during sex, weight gain, chronic fatigue, thinning hair, vaginal dryness and feelings of a loss of
SevenPonds Blog •

How to Know When to Say Goodbye To Your Pet

An interview with Dr. Dani McVety, veterinarian and founder of Lap of Love Veterinary Hospice and At-Home Euthanasia

If you’ve ever had the privilege of loving a pet, you are probably familiar with how emotionally draining it can be when they get old. Because as a pet owner, you are inevitably confronted with the question of whether or not it is time to ease them through their final days with humane euthanasia, or to engage in medical interventions that would prolong their stay.

As it stands i
55+ Life •

This Year, Make a Micro-Resolution

The new year is almost here with its promise of fresh starts and opportunities for personal growth. The pressure to come up with a fresh resolution is all around us. And at this point, it might be practically habitual to make a New Year’s resolution with the best intentions, only to have those ambitious goals fade into obscurity by February. If you’ve given up making New Year’s resolutions entirely, though, you’re not alone. According to DriveResearch, people over the age of 55 are three times l...
55+ Life •

Magic Mushrooms Making Way into Therapy

The possible benefits, risks, and what you should know

You may have heard that “magic mushrooms” are making a comeback, but this time, they’re medicinal. Instead of a recreational drug utilized for colorful, otherworldly hallucinations, they’re the latest innovative treatment being used for major depressive disorders.

Psilocybin, the hallucinogenic chemical found in magic mushrooms, has been effectively criminalized since the 1970s, when it was deemed a Schedule I drug (high potential for misu
SevenPonds Blog •

Understanding Collective Grief - SevenPonds Blog

Collective grief happens when a community, society, or nation all experience extreme change or loss. It is common to experience collective grief in the wake of major events such as wars, natural disasters and other tragedies, even if you didn’t experience them firsthand. The past few years have seen countless events that would qualify: Entire swathes of North Carolina have been washed away by Hurricane Helene. Florida has been rocked by a succession of record-breaking hurricanes. In the west, en...
SevenPonds Blog •

Death Culture in America is Demonstrably Changing - SevenPonds Blog

How people choose to honor the rites and rituals surrounding death can be a helpful metric in measuring cultural attitudes towards the subject. In recent years, it has become apparent that cultural norms and new technologies have been slowly changing American’s relationship with death, as shown by the development of innovative funeral practices and a newfound focus on aesthetics.

According to an article in the Tampa Bay Times, customs around death are changing dramatically. Just 30 years ago, t...
SevenPonds Blog •

D-Day Veterans Seek To Keep Their Stories Alive

Why it is so important for all of us to remember the lessons we learned from D-Day and those who fought in it

On June 6th, 1944, land, air and sea forces of the allied armies embarked upon the largest amphibious invasion in military history. Commonly remembered as D-Day, the daring invasion was instrumental in finally bringing German Nazi forces to its knees. This year marks the 80th anniversary of this infamous battle, and the few remaining veterans who were there are feeling compelled to shar
SevenPonds Blog •

The Tragic Death of Nex Benedict

Controversy surrounds the death of a young, nonbinary Indigenous student in Oklahoma

Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old nonbinary Indigenous student from Owasso, Oklahoma, died on February 8th, 2024, just a day after they were assaulted in a school bathroom. Although the medical examiner’s preliminary report found that their death was likely the result of a lethal combination of two medications and not the injuries sustained in the attack, questions remain about the accuracy of the initial incident re
55+ Life •

Quick Getaways: Mardi Gras in New Orleans

Celebration gets a bad rap but it’s actually a great party

Over the years, proposals to visit New Orleans’ bacchanalian Mardi Gras celebrations have earned disdain similar to that of seeing the ball drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Once considered items for a fun bucket list, both have reputations of being more trouble than they’re worth.

Mardi Gras in New Orleans gets a particularly bad rap. Yes, Bourbon Street is renowned for its displays of public drunkenness and other, ahem, risqué
SevenPonds Blog •

The Human Brain 'Shields' Us From Grasping Our Own Mortality

Scientists are just beginning to understand this evolutionary phenomenon

Death is a universally shared fate. With the rare exception of lobsters (seriously!) all creatures will eventually die of old age if they haven’t succumbed to another means of demise. And while everyone knows in some vague sense that they will die someday, too, it turns out our brains actively shield us from contemplating that notion too closely.

Why Can’t We Grasp Our Own Mortality?

In a study conducted at Bar Ilan Univ
55+ Life •

How to Travel with Friends...and Remain Friends

Anyone who has traveled anywhere will likely agree with this: travel can bring out the best — and worst — of everyone. Going on an extended trip with friends or other couples seems to exacerbate this universal truth. If you want to plan a trip with a group, then, avoiding these common missteps can help make this a trip to remember in all the best ways.

We cannot stress this enough: a calm but awkward discussion is always better than a fiery argument. The best way to stave off disagreements is t
55+ Life •

Up Close with Jean Remy-Monnay

Jean-Remy Monnay, 59, has held many roles over the years: HR representative, actor, director, and producer, to name a few. He has appeared in over 200 plays, films, and commercials, and he’s been in a documentary on the History Channel. He’s also directed a slew of critically acclaimed plays with his company, the Black Theatre Troupe of Upstate New York.

But Monnay’s true calling — the passion that gets him out of bed on cold and snowy mornings in Albany — is education. Not education in the con
55+ Life •

Making Friends (After 50!)

The importance of rebuilding your social circle

If you are looking around you and wondering, “Where did my friends go?” you’re not alone. Perhaps you’re an empty nester, a retiree, or recently bereaved or divorced. Whatever the reason, you feel like you finally have some free time, but the circle of people who used to surround you is shrinking.

In our younger years, making friends just seemed, to some extent, to happen without thinking. We met people on the sides of the soccer fields or at PTA
55+ Life •

Forest Bathing: What Is It, and Where Can I Try?

How taking time out in nature can help your heart and mind

During the height of Covid lock-downs I often found myself stepping into my yard to find a patch of sunlight, raising my face to the sky, and taking deep, purposeful breaths for little five-minute breaks. I would concentrate on listening to the bees in my jasmine bushes, smelling my treasured plumeria tree, and tuning out the chaos that was barely muffled by my backdoor. I was homeschooling two rambunctious young boys, and felt overwhel
55+ Life •

QUICK GETAWAY: Cooperstown, NY

A short drive from the Capital Region, Cooperstown has something for everyone

Described as a “proud one-stoplight town” on almost every municipal website, Cooperstown has a surprising number of draws for people looking to absorb a dose of pure Americana. Situated in the foothills of the Catskills Mountains, this “small” town is known by many as the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, but it has other notable cultural institutions as well, including The Farmers’ Museum and Glimmerglass Opera Fest
55+ Life •

Up Close with Casey Bernstein

Nia is a sensory-based movement practice that draws from martial arts, dance arts, and healing arts. Through a specific choreography to music, it helps people of all shapes and sizes connect their bodies, minds, emotions, and spirit. Created by Carlos and Debbie Rosas in the 1980s, Nia was developed as an alternative to the period’s fascination with aerobics and the high-intensity/low impact fitness crazes that left them feeling unsatisfied. It is a practice that is amoebic in nature, flowing fr
55+ Life •

Giving the Gift of Time

How to give your grandkids memories instead of Legos

Listen: We know how hard it is to keep up with the changing interests of grandchildren, which toys they already possess, and which ones they’re going to take one look at before it’s relegated to the bottom of a toy bin. It seems like playrooms these days are positively overflowing with toys and gadgets, and the kids still walk around moaning about how bored they are. (The nerve!)

We also know that when it comes to gift-giving occasions, it i
55+ Living Guide •

Best Podcasts for Boomers (aka 55+)

Now that you’ve figured out how to listen to podcasts (i.e. whenever you want! Wherever you want! So convenient!) the next challenge is to find some to listen to. While everyone will have their favorites, we did some trolling to offer up 10 we consider worth checking out in what we’ll call the “General Topics” category. These podcasts can be enjoyed by anybody but are loosely aimed at the 55+ demographic, and kind of defy categorization beyond that. Nevertheless, these channels are guaranteed to
55+ Living Guide •

Surviving Family During the Holidays

5 tips to help make your family gatherings a little less fraught

Ahh, the holidays: That wonderful time of year when families are brought together in the spirit of joy and grateful celebration. When generations can bond over lovingly prepared food and participate in traditions that hark back to the times when things were simpler.

Sometimes, though, the reality is that we don’t live in a Hallmark movie. We don’t all have matching pajamas (despite what Facebook tells you), and we can’t always pa
55+ Living Guide •

Considering Cannabis?

What you need to know before you visit your first cannabis dispensary

No longer relegated to angsty teens getting high in their parents’ basement, cannabis is becoming more mainstream as many states legalize both medicinal and recreational use.(New York State voted in 2020 to legalize cannabis, while Massachusetts and Vermont have been legal for several years.) With more and more adults realizing that cannabis can be a favorable alternative to alcohol, this burgeoning industry will only continu