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

My Work

Featured Articles

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

No-Frills Primal Fitness

In an era so reliant on technology, a surprising amount of people are looking to the past for solutions to some of society’s ills. You’ve probably heard of the “paleo” diet — an eating plan based on foods humans might have eaten during the Paleolithic era — and now a trend in exercise has emerged based on a similar concept: “primal” fitness. Essentially, advocates believe that we should exercise our body in the same way that our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors might have done by just performin...
SevenPonds Blog •

New Greenland Shark DNA Analysis and Longevity - SevenPonds Blog

An international team of scientists has become the first to map the elusive Greenland shark’s genome, sequencing about 92% of its DNA. Having released their findings as a preprint — a scientific paper that has not yet gone through the peer-review process –  the researchers are inviting more scientists to study the genome and conduct their own analysis, furthering our collective understanding of the shark’s DNA. 
The Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus) is the longest-lived vertebrate known,...
55+ Life •

Trending: “The Silver Wave”

Keen fashion aficionados spotted a trend on runways this spring, and it went beyond the bevy of slouchy suits and belted overcoats. In several of the Autumn/Winter 2024 Runway shows many designers chose to work with more mature models. What makes this stand out was that it went beyond having a few token older women scattered amongst otherwise teenaged representatives; some shows exclusively featured women over 40, and many of them had models who were well into their 70s and 80s. Typically, fashi...
SevenPonds Blog •

Burial Pods Might Not Be as "Green" As You Think - SevenPonds Blog

The death care industry struggles with some problematic ecological issues. Traditional burial methods waste tons of valuable nonrenewable resources, deposit millions of tons of chemical and material pollution into the ecosystem, and graveyards problematically occupy arable tracts of land. One proposed method, which has gained immense popularity over the last few years, is to memorialize loved ones in burial pods. 
Before you decide to utilize a burial pod for your loved one, there are a few impo...
55+ Life •

Train Trips Worthy of Your Bucket List

When it comes to planning a vacation, some people prefer trips that come in a nice, tidy package. Cruises, for example, are a popular choice because they present an opportunity to see more than one place, and the planning is all done for you ahead of time. But if boats aren’t your cup of tea, train travel can offer similar benefits from a slightly different perspective.

Journeys by rail often evoke a specific type of nostalgia, harkening back to the days when trains were the height of fashionab
55+ Life •

Quick Getaways: Tucson, Arizona

March is the most beautiful time of year to visit Tucson, Arizona. The cacti are beginning to bloom, the weather is warm but not yet oppressively hot (that will arrive by June,) and the mountains are the greenest they will be all year thanks to snowmelt running down from the peaks. It’s a gorgeous time to explore the desert and watch it come to life in a place that is overwhelmingly dry and brown the rest of the year. If you live in the Northeast, Tucson is the perfect refreshing escape from the
55+ Life •

Ways to Stay Active This Winter

Cold temperatures and late-afternoon darkness can easily lead us to think bears have the right idea in winter: find a cozy spot and sleep until spring. It’s actually much healthier — for your mind and body — to stay active, especially during the cold months when it’s even harder to find the motivation. Physical activity can help you sleep better, reduce anxiety, improve your balance, lower your risk of type 2 diabetes and many kinds of cancer, strengthen bones and muscles, lower blood pressure,
55+ Life •

Top 5 Online Learning Sites

Ways to keep learning about just about anything from the comfort of your home laptop

Online learning sites remain one of the internet’s best-kept secrets. Courses on just about anything you can imagine are offered—often free!—on sites all over the web. You can take entire college-level classes from the comfort of your own home, at your own pace, and you don’t have to sacrifice your firstborn child to pay for it! [Author calms down and shoves nerd glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose.]

W
55+ Life •

Why You Need to Make a "When I Die" File

…And all the things you should put in it

Grieving for a loved one can be an all-encompassing experience. The last thing you want to have to think about if you’ve recently had to say goodbye to someone very close to you is paperwork. But one of the unfortunate facts of our society is that if you are the designated executor of someone’s household (which usually means you were very close, indeed) you have to think about all the legal and financial obligations that person might have had and close t
55+ Life •

6 Ways to Cut Cell Phone Costs

Tips for making your monthly cell phone bill more manageable

It would be hard to exist in today’s world without a cell phone, so it’s a cost that many of us swallow like a bitter pill. The pill needn’t be the size of a horse tranquilizer, though, because if you’re just a little canny you can cut a lot out of your monthly cell phone bill without losing the services that you need.

All the major carriers offer a monthly discount if you choose to pay your bills by autopay. The average savings is $
55+ Life •

4 Steps for Eliminating Cable

We debated the pros and cons of quitting cable. Now here’s how to do it

If you’ve made the decision to kick your cable subscription to the curb, we applaud you. It can be hard to give up the comfort of a familiar technology for a newer option. Here’s what you need to do to make the process relatively painless.

If you’re going to cut the cord with cable, it’s crucial to first ensure that your internet connection is capable of providing the streaming options you prefer. Many major streaming serv
55+ Life •

Pros and Cons of Cable. Should You Cut the Cord?

The potential pros and pitfalls of eliminating cable from your life

To stream, or not to stream, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer while paying an outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of commercials, and by opposing, end them.

Shakespeare knew what we were up against. It’s hard to tell whether it’s better to continue paying for basic cable services—just because that’s how we’ve always done it—or to finally cut the cord and just pay for the streaming op
55+ Life •

How to Talk the Talk: Bonding with Grandkids

Bonding Over Video Games With Your Adult Children and Grandchildren

Video games have been a point of contention for families for several generations now. Since they don’t show any sign of going away, we’re here to suggest another tactic: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Gaming has come a really long way from the days when your choices were between an animated plumber and gore-filled shoot-em-ups. It may be time to realize it’s a great way to connect with both your adult children and grandchildr
55+ Life •

Finding the Best Jeans for ANY BODY over 50

Yes, you can wear jeans after 50.

Jeans. They’re the ubiquitous fashion staple because of their versatility. From classic shapes to ultra-trendy, jeans have helped define eras and delineate generations. (Don’t even ask a Gen Zer about skinny jeans; it’ll ruin your whole day.) Jean styles range from the super comfy boyfriend cut to sausage-casing jeggings, with all ranges of elasticity, lengths, and rises in between.

Indeed, the many options out there can make it easy to feel a bit lost on how
55+ Life •

7 Money-Saving Blogs to Help Your Money Go Further

Saving money is just a click away!

Everyone can appreciate a great tip on how to save money in our everyday spending habits. Whether it’s guidance on budget management or simply recipes that allow you to make delicious food with cheap ingredients, it’s nice to have help becoming more fiscally prudent. We’ve rounded up our favorite blogs that address all aspects of frugal living so that you can find one to follow and start saving money yourself.

This is probably the most well-known and popular
55+ Life •

Ways to Volunteer From Home

Not all volunteer work has to happen outside your home

Volunteering is a way to give back to your community, perform good deeds in a world that needs it desperately, and also gain a sense of fulfillment that not many activities can provide. It’s a win-win, really. But sometimes it is difficult to overcome certain obstacles to get out there: mobility issues, health issues, or even transportation can present a problem. The good news is that there are so many ways you can volunteer your time from
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 •

What to Consider Before You Relocate After Retiring

Many retirees dream of relocating to someplace idyllic after they’re done with the 9-5 slog. In fact, 400,000 retirees moved in 2020, which was the highest number in five years. Most of those retirees stayed in the same state, but 38% of them moved away. Perhaps an out-of-state move after you retire is something you find intriguing.

Planning to relocate when you retire? Here are some important points to consider and research before you pack up and run off to Boca Raton.

Things to consider if y
55+ Life •

6 Easy, Stylish Ways to Wear A Scarf With Your Winter Coat

If you’re anything like me, you have approximately one bazillion beautiful, soft, winter scarves stashed away in a closet somewhere, going unused because every attempt to wear one ends up looking like the little brother in The Christmas Story.

There are, apparently, hundreds of ways to wear a scarf with your winter coat without looking like a mummy. In fact, a brief Google search for “How to Tie a Scarf” can lead you down an internet wormhole for days. So, to save you from that utter time-suck,
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+ Life •

How To Avoid Getting Scammed

Ways to help protect your identity and money

In 2020 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received an unprecedented 4.7 million reported cases of fraud through the Consumer Sentinel Network, a secure online database designed for law enforcement officials to track and prosecute cases of fraud. The depressing part of that figure is that the actual number of people who were scammed is likely much higher, due to a lack of reporting or people failing to even know they had been defrauded. The increase
55+ Life •

Top 10 Travel Podcasts for Boomers

Podcasts to help make your travel plans easier

The worst part of traveling anywhere is the necessity of planning the trip. The drudgery of searching for flights, finding the best hotels, and figuring out an itinerary are all stress-inducing, and then when you see the price tag it’s almost enough to make you give up.

In the interest of saving you money and making the planning stages as painless as possible, we have rounded up some of the best travel-related podcasts. Some offer tips on making t
55+ Life •

Pondering Getting a Pandemic Pet?

5 Things You Should Consider Before You Take the Leap

For many, the solution to the isolation and repetitious slog of the past two pandemic years (years!) was to adopt a pet into the household. This is a wonderful way of introducing activity, love, and companionship into your life if that is what you are truly seeking. Plus, if you adopt from a shelter or rescue organization, you can feel good about potentially saving a life. Pet ownership isn’t always a walk in the park, especially in the COVI
55+ Life •

What Is Reiki?

Is this alternative healing option right for you?

Holistic medicine was once considered quackery by many. Today, society is slowly starting to support some of its practices as, at the very least, supplemental treatments to mainstream medical therapies. The reasons for this evolution are myriad. A healthcare system that makes getting care easy and/or affordable is one. For others, especially those with chronic conditions that Western medicine has failed to help, alternative therapies may feel li
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Featured Articles

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

What's Trending: "Coolcationing"

After the record-breaking scorcher that was summer 2023, travel experts are predicting an upward trend in people seeking to vacation in cooler, more moderate climates. “Coolcationing” has become summer 2024’s new buzzword, signifying the trend for vacationers to opt for more bespoke, curated experiences that veer away from the typical sunny — and sizzling — tourist destinations. Photo: iStockphoto.com/HalfpointLast summer, the world experienced its hottest stretch of months since modern record-k...
SevenPonds Blog •

The Death Care Industry is Going "Greener"

In case you haven’t noticed: it’s hot outside. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2023 was the warmest year since global records began in 1850. In fact, the 10 warmest years in our 174 years of recording global temperatures have all occurred during the last decade (2014-2023). It’s getting harder to ignore the effects of climate change all around us, and people are finally paying attention. As a result, innovators across the globe have been looking for ways to decr...
55+ Life •

How to Design a Stunning Shade Garden

Figuring out what plants will and won’t work in a shaded yard is one of the great gardening dilemmas. While you obviously can just pick flowers willy-nilly, plop them in the ground and hope for the best, experience suggests that likely won’t work. Designing a beautiful garden requires forethought and a considerable amount of botanical knowledge. Take your soil: Will it need amending to provide the proper nutrients for what you want to grow? Does it have proper drainage, or does it get boggy afte...
55+ Life •

What “Color Season” Are You?

If you mess around on social media at all, you’ve probably seen the latest innovations for finding your “color season.” Seasonal color analysis takes the coloring and undertones of your eyes, your hair and your skin tone, and places you into a “season” color palette. These seasonal color palettes contain the colors that will naturally enhance your features and flatter you best.This is not a new concept. Color seasons go all the way back to impressionist painters, who had to accurately represent...
55+ Life •

Quick Getaways: Tucson, Arizona

March is the most beautiful time of year to visit Tucson, Arizona. The cacti are beginning to bloom, the weather is warm but not yet oppressively hot (that will arrive by June,) and the mountains are the greenest they will be all year thanks to snowmelt running down from the peaks. It’s a gorgeous time to explore the desert and watch it come to life in a place that is overwhelmingly dry and brown the rest of the year. If you live in the Northeast, Tucson is the perfect refreshing escape from the
55+ Life •

Ways to Stay Active This Winter

Cold temperatures and late-afternoon darkness can easily lead us to think bears have the right idea in winter: find a cozy spot and sleep until spring. It’s actually much healthier — for your mind and body — to stay active, especially during the cold months when it’s even harder to find the motivation. Physical activity can help you sleep better, reduce anxiety, improve your balance, lower your risk of type 2 diabetes and many kinds of cancer, strengthen bones and muscles, lower blood pressure,
55+ Life •

Top 5 Online Learning Sites

Ways to keep learning about just about anything from the comfort of your home laptop

Online learning sites remain one of the internet’s best-kept secrets. Courses on just about anything you can imagine are offered—often free!—on sites all over the web. You can take entire college-level classes from the comfort of your own home, at your own pace, and you don’t have to sacrifice your firstborn child to pay for it! [Author calms down and shoves nerd glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose.]

W
55+ Life •

Why You Need to Make a "When I Die" File

…And all the things you should put in it

Grieving for a loved one can be an all-encompassing experience. The last thing you want to have to think about if you’ve recently had to say goodbye to someone very close to you is paperwork. But one of the unfortunate facts of our society is that if you are the designated executor of someone’s household (which usually means you were very close, indeed) you have to think about all the legal and financial obligations that person might have had and close t
55+ Life •

6 Ways to Cut Cell Phone Costs

Tips for making your monthly cell phone bill more manageable

It would be hard to exist in today’s world without a cell phone, so it’s a cost that many of us swallow like a bitter pill. The pill needn’t be the size of a horse tranquilizer, though, because if you’re just a little canny you can cut a lot out of your monthly cell phone bill without losing the services that you need.

All the major carriers offer a monthly discount if you choose to pay your bills by autopay. The average savings is $
55+ Life •

4 Steps for Eliminating Cable

We debated the pros and cons of quitting cable. Now here’s how to do it

If you’ve made the decision to kick your cable subscription to the curb, we applaud you. It can be hard to give up the comfort of a familiar technology for a newer option. Here’s what you need to do to make the process relatively painless.

If you’re going to cut the cord with cable, it’s crucial to first ensure that your internet connection is capable of providing the streaming options you prefer. Many major streaming serv
55+ Life •

Pros and Cons of Cable. Should You Cut the Cord?

The potential pros and pitfalls of eliminating cable from your life

To stream, or not to stream, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer while paying an outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of commercials, and by opposing, end them.

Shakespeare knew what we were up against. It’s hard to tell whether it’s better to continue paying for basic cable services—just because that’s how we’ve always done it—or to finally cut the cord and just pay for the streaming op
55+ Life •

How to Talk the Talk: Bonding with Grandkids

Bonding Over Video Games With Your Adult Children and Grandchildren

Video games have been a point of contention for families for several generations now. Since they don’t show any sign of going away, we’re here to suggest another tactic: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Gaming has come a really long way from the days when your choices were between an animated plumber and gore-filled shoot-em-ups. It may be time to realize it’s a great way to connect with both your adult children and grandchildr
55+ Life •

Finding the Best Jeans for ANY BODY over 50

Yes, you can wear jeans after 50.

Jeans. They’re the ubiquitous fashion staple because of their versatility. From classic shapes to ultra-trendy, jeans have helped define eras and delineate generations. (Don’t even ask a Gen Zer about skinny jeans; it’ll ruin your whole day.) Jean styles range from the super comfy boyfriend cut to sausage-casing jeggings, with all ranges of elasticity, lengths, and rises in between.

Indeed, the many options out there can make it easy to feel a bit lost on how
55+ Life •

7 Money-Saving Blogs to Help Your Money Go Further

Saving money is just a click away!

Everyone can appreciate a great tip on how to save money in our everyday spending habits. Whether it’s guidance on budget management or simply recipes that allow you to make delicious food with cheap ingredients, it’s nice to have help becoming more fiscally prudent. We’ve rounded up our favorite blogs that address all aspects of frugal living so that you can find one to follow and start saving money yourself.

This is probably the most well-known and popular
55+ Life •

Ways to Volunteer From Home

Not all volunteer work has to happen outside your home

Volunteering is a way to give back to your community, perform good deeds in a world that needs it desperately, and also gain a sense of fulfillment that not many activities can provide. It’s a win-win, really. But sometimes it is difficult to overcome certain obstacles to get out there: mobility issues, health issues, or even transportation can present a problem. The good news is that there are so many ways you can volunteer your time from
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 •

What to Consider Before You Relocate After Retiring

Many retirees dream of relocating to someplace idyllic after they’re done with the 9-5 slog. In fact, 400,000 retirees moved in 2020, which was the highest number in five years. Most of those retirees stayed in the same state, but 38% of them moved away. Perhaps an out-of-state move after you retire is something you find intriguing.

Planning to relocate when you retire? Here are some important points to consider and research before you pack up and run off to Boca Raton.

Things to consider if y
55+ Life •

6 Easy, Stylish Ways to Wear A Scarf With Your Winter Coat

If you’re anything like me, you have approximately one bazillion beautiful, soft, winter scarves stashed away in a closet somewhere, going unused because every attempt to wear one ends up looking like the little brother in The Christmas Story.

There are, apparently, hundreds of ways to wear a scarf with your winter coat without looking like a mummy. In fact, a brief Google search for “How to Tie a Scarf” can lead you down an internet wormhole for days. So, to save you from that utter time-suck,
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+ Life •

How To Avoid Getting Scammed

Ways to help protect your identity and money

In 2020 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received an unprecedented 4.7 million reported cases of fraud through the Consumer Sentinel Network, a secure online database designed for law enforcement officials to track and prosecute cases of fraud. The depressing part of that figure is that the actual number of people who were scammed is likely much higher, due to a lack of reporting or people failing to even know they had been defrauded. The increase
55+ Life •

Top 10 Travel Podcasts for Boomers

Podcasts to help make your travel plans easier

The worst part of traveling anywhere is the necessity of planning the trip. The drudgery of searching for flights, finding the best hotels, and figuring out an itinerary are all stress-inducing, and then when you see the price tag it’s almost enough to make you give up.

In the interest of saving you money and making the planning stages as painless as possible, we have rounded up some of the best travel-related podcasts. Some offer tips on making t
55+ Life •

Pondering Getting a Pandemic Pet?

5 Things You Should Consider Before You Take the Leap

For many, the solution to the isolation and repetitious slog of the past two pandemic years (years!) was to adopt a pet into the household. This is a wonderful way of introducing activity, love, and companionship into your life if that is what you are truly seeking. Plus, if you adopt from a shelter or rescue organization, you can feel good about potentially saving a life. Pet ownership isn’t always a walk in the park, especially in the COVI
55+ Life •

What Is Reiki?

Is this alternative healing option right for you?

Holistic medicine was once considered quackery by many. Today, society is slowly starting to support some of its practices as, at the very least, supplemental treatments to mainstream medical therapies. The reasons for this evolution are myriad. A healthcare system that makes getting care easy and/or affordable is one. For others, especially those with chronic conditions that Western medicine has failed to help, alternative therapies may feel li
55+ Life •

7 Reasons to Start Your Day With a Smoothie

New Year’s resolutions used to be about taking stock in your life and finding ways to make a meaningful change for the better. Now it’s too often just another excuse for social media gurus to sell their latest subscription service or fad diet, because a “better you” is clearly a thinner you, right? Well, we can’t argue that some of us could use a few healthier habits, and one easy way to introduce some good things into our diets is to consider a smoothie kick.

To be clear, we’re not limiting ou
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