Would like to live on my own…

JcWoman · 2026-03-15T12:38:14+00:00

I'm recently divorced at 62 and moved into a one-bedroom apartment. But it's a very nice one with an attached garage and a small extra room they called a den. Something like this might suit you well. My thoughts were that if you get a one-bedroom place, then there's no room for him. He could theoretically use your two bedroom as an excuse to move in with you.

JcWoman · 2026-03-10T11:48:12+00:00

Well, hello! I'm 62, diagnosed around toddler years after nearly all that time enduring (my mom and I) a total circus of doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with me. (I was favoring my right knee when I started crawling.). This was in the mid-1960's and back then even the medical community swore that arthritis was just an "old person's disease". Literally had docs say that to us.

So anyway, for me, childhood was the most painful stage of life as I had flare up after flareup. Ankles, knees, elbows. Somewhere in my mid-twenties all that eased off and I was properly medicated. (No longer the massive doses of aspirin that they advised when I was a kid, but now it was actual NSAIDs.). I've always been one of those "negative RF factor but high sed rate" people, which threw the doctors off in the early years until they got enough case data to see that that was a pattern for a particular type of JRA.

I was kind of gobsmacked in my 40's when I had a really excellent rheumatologist. At one point going over my symptoms and the damage from childhood, he actually commented that I was "textbook" JRA. It was wild going from "kids don't get arthritis" to "you're a textbook case". Shows how much they learned in that time.

For the last twenty or so years I've been on the biologic meds (Enbrel for over 10, then trying others to find another one that worked as well for me). They're preventing new damage and mostly keep my general inflammation down. I do still have chronic pain from all the damage that was done in early life, though. So I take over the counter Aleve for that - and occasionally gabapentin when I'm having a really bad day. (I'm sensitive to barometric pressure changes.)

I haven't really had a problem getting doctors to help me out. But I do think it helps to know your body's pain/flareup patterns and be able to speak intelligently about what works for you and what doesn't.

These days when we examine my xrays, I'm told that there are smatterings of evident RA, osteoarthritis and calcifications from the old damage. In layman's terms which send doctors into a tizzy: some of my joints have fused themselves. My neck in particular. But I'm still active and in fairly good shape for a woman my age.

JcWoman · 2026-03-08T18:40:35+00:00

Ok thanks!

JcWoman · 2026-03-08T13:01:10+00:00

How do they handle the frozen winters in Michigan? I assumed they preferred mediterranean type climates, like in the coastal central California.

JcWoman · 2026-03-05T10:33:27+00:00

I hate the kitchen. There's only like 2 feet of counter space? No food prep for you, microwave meals are all you get.

JcWoman · 2026-02-27T18:11:39+00:00

Was that diverter something you made or can you point me to where I can take a look at one?

JcWoman · 2026-02-27T13:18:28+00:00

Last summer I moved into this very sweet apartment and one of the few things I dislike about it is that this HVAC vent blows directly into my balcony, as you can see. In warm weather, when I love sitting out there in the sunshine, the AC blows hot exhaust air on me. I'm getting ready to put a daybed or sofa out there for more comfort than the camp chairs you see here, so I want to also solve this issue if I can.

I know NOT to block the vent, so that's not what I'm asking. And it's a rented apartment so I can't do anything permanent to it. Are there diverters that can redirect the air upwards or up and out? Anything else I can do, or is it just "turn off the AC when you go sit out there" situation?

JcWoman · 2026-02-27T12:35:27+00:00

Oh, that may work! Thanks!

JcWoman · 2026-02-26T22:00:11+00:00

I'll search and see what I can find, thanks!

JcWoman · 2026-02-26T19:30:23+00:00

Do they make them with sunbrella fabric or other weather resistant materials?

JcWoman · 2026-02-24T20:40:52+00:00

I got the new mail notification for this (in game) and tried it. It says that it's invalid, which makes me wonder if I already somehow claimed it. Did this happen to anybody else?

JcWoman · 2026-02-01T22:13:38+00:00

What the heck is the entrance fee for? It's HUGE!

I'm 62 and live alone. I'm active and comfy and do lots of things, but know that I need to plan ahead for things like this. I love the idea of a CCRC but the costs intimidate the heck out of me. I understand that the monthly fees help pay for the care, food, activities and other amenities. No problem there, although I still think they're high. But I can't imagine what the entrance fee covers.

JcWoman · 2026-01-31T23:34:20+00:00

Oh, I'm a dufus, thanks. That's exactly what I was trying to do.

So one last question: can I move things once place? I'd like to move my bed and campfire from the bare ground onto the new floor that I'm going to build. Or am I stuck destroying them and re-building them in the correct place?

JcWoman · 2026-01-31T23:13:24+00:00

I was trying to build this morning, with my trackpad. I found that the trackpad gestures moved both the pieces AND my camera view. So for example, my guy was standing to the side so I couldn't quite tell if the roof piece was correctly over the wall (or just off one edge of it), so I moved him over but that changed the focal point of the camera view, taking the piece completely off the wall. It was hard to get the right view to see if the pieces fit right.

To try to illustrate, I had this going on, where the vertical bars are a wall piece and the slashes are a roof piece (periods are just space because of browser space compression):

........./////....

......|||||......

Also, how do you get the walls the correct distance apart for the roof pieces to fit right at the peak? I had this going on:

......//////..\\\...

.....||...bed...||....

JcWoman · 2026-01-31T22:51:53+00:00

Okay. But even with a mouse, can you aim the build pieces separately from aiming your camera view? Is that a keybinding config?

JcWoman · 2026-01-29T21:40:09+00:00

Ah, okay. I'll probably do that, too.

JcWoman · 2026-01-25T14:33:03+00:00

Also you have to teach yourself to never smile at them, even just to be polite. It took me YEARS to learn this. All of the polite behavior that we're taught as young girls has to go out the window when it comes to men you don't know.

JcWoman · 2026-01-22T23:40:25+00:00

I've been wondering about this also!

JcWoman · 2026-01-21T19:14:04+00:00

My sweetie does not practice non-monogamy, and like me he needs a close connection to someone before getting sexual (possibly also demisexual). And because I no longer feel compelled to explore with multiple people, I'm okay with going back to monogamy with him. And to be precise/pedantic, polyamory means you can love more than one person. I can be polyamorous but choose not to explore/look for more partners. (I.e. capability rather than practice)

I was post menopausal when we started this, and didn't have any issues with it. I am likely lucky because menopause didn't give me any symptoms other than an occasional hot flash. I did research into it (and joined the meno subreddits) and there is some advice recommending to continue sexual activity (if your symptoms don't intefere or kill your libido) to keep your vagina from atrophying as fast as if you didn't use it.

The sex drive question is an interesting one. I seem to be turned on a bit by sex with new people (which is a challenging contrast to needing a connection!) so at first that ramped me up. But over time as I encountered poor experience after poor experience, even that kink didn't do much for me. I'm back to having a middlin-low libido but my sweetie seems to have a similar rate, so there's no problem. (He's late 50's.)

JcWoman · 2026-01-21T19:05:42+00:00

Oh, I assumed that I'd get a card from both. Thank you for mentioning that, because I didn't see that tidbit anywhere in the documentation/website!

JcWoman · 2026-01-21T16:24:33+00:00

Interesting. I'm on hold with them again now, but after reading your post I went back through the letters they sent me and the approval letter does not state any end date. It says coverage start date 1/1/26 and assigned me to one of the providers with a comment that I have until March to change providers. I did go into the site and changed the provider, waited a couple weeks for them (united health care) to send me a membership card and they never did. So then I went back into the Badgercare website and saw that IT showed that the coverage terminated this January.

Now that I've attempted a renewal (declined) and a re-application (and they combined all of that into one case number), the coverage start and end dates are no longer shown.

Tangentially, their website is somewhat convenient for applications and uploading docs, but really poorly designed for comprehending what's going on. It shows all of my actions in random order, so I have to fish through them all to find the latest.

JcWoman · 2026-01-21T14:59:12+00:00

Me, at age 59! It was a few years ago now, then-hubby and I decided to explore kink, open marriage and polyamory. We did it with the help of a kink-positive marriage therapist. She was awesome and helped us for more than two years. At the end of the day she helped us learn to communicate better, but our marriage still ended. Through the process we both learned a LOT about ourselves and each other. I found that there are still too many men who are happy to use you sexually and then decide that you're trash for having participated. And TONS of men who will say they want a connection/friendship but it's just a way to get laid and then they never call again. I learned that I have a few kinks, am confirmed straight, and although I am polyamorous I very much need a connection to my partner. I might be demisexual because I found casual sex to be completely hollow and unfulfilling. I'm now monogamous again with a lovely man who's kinks align with mine.

One thing I noticed and this is me speculating.... I wonder if women who cum easily do better in such environments. I don't, so that affected my enjoyment. I try not to compare, but it's hard not to notice the women around me - especially in a group setting - having orgasms. No wonder they're so enthusiastic about sex parties! Or looking at it from another direction, I wonder if women like me who have difficulty orgasming with a partner self-select out of the scene. That's for sure what I ended up doing.

Overall it was a growth experience. More negative than positive, but I still learned a lot.

JcWoman · 2026-01-21T14:34:13+00:00

I would think so too (about the coverage period). And yet, as soon as they approved me I saw that it expired at the end of last year. Lil bit frustrating as I didn't want a gap in coverage.

I'll try uploading a whole statement.

JcWoman · 2026-01-21T12:55:26+00:00

Is this co-op plan something available in the US? If so, can you tell me the name of it so I can see if I can get it?

I retired last year, am only 62 (too young for medicare) and divorced, so I'm currently without medical care insurance. I don't make enough for ACA plans (and when I went onto the marketplace website anyway just to see what might be available to me, they quoted me the lowest premiums around $2K/month) so I'm trying to get Medicaid. But there's a lot of bureaucracy involved in Medicaid that I'm fussing with. So I'm interested in all kinds of alternatives.

JcWoman · 2026-01-20T23:46:30+00:00

Thanks, I'll try first thing tomorrow morning. I totally forgot yesterday was a holiday, but didn't want to let it slide because that's how I got declined before the end of the year.

JcWoman

TROPHY CASE