Magazine Archive
Magazine Archive
Get Paid to Rebrand Your Business!
Are you a small business owner in Northampton looking to take your business to the next level? Well, imagine if someone paid you $5,000 to work on your personal brand. It sounds too good to be true, but over the past few months, I've helped over 20 small businesses get state funding to improve their image, inject more personality into their website, restructure their business, and wow their target audience.
Are you a Solo?
The short answer: It’s complicated.
Strictly speaking, Solos are defined as adults 65 or older who have neither a spouse/partner or adult children to support them as they age. But the complexities of real life, real people, and real families also come into play. In the real world of serving financial planning clients, we’ve worked with many people who don’t qualify as Solos – technically speaking. Yet in actuality, now or in the foreseeable future, they will be aging pretty much on their own.
Comfort Food: Manna Offers Northampton a Recipe for Resilience
Today’s meal is New Orleans dirty rice with a garlic aioli served over spinach. Start with a side salad or some fruit. Room for dessert? How about locally sourced fruit pie.
Welcome to Manna.
To Be Transformed by the Journey
To journey and to be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim.
- Mark Nepo
It is 9 p.m. when my kids and I join my wife in her hospice room. We've come to tell her that her oncologist at Dana Farber has spoken to the hospice medical director and agrees that her feeding tube is only causing needless pain. That it is time to let her body die. Tough as nails, my wife insists that she speak directly to her oncologist. She wants us to call her immediately.
Navigating the Medicare Maze
Medicare can be complex and confusing. It can feel overwhelming just trying to understand all the options. Did you know there are local experts who help people navigate through this maze of information known as Medicare?
Before
Let’s talk about the fairy godmother, before. At this point, she is just a woman, still relatively young, approaching her life’s precipice, fairy-status undiscovered, role of godmother yet realized. It doesn’t matter how all that will come to be, only that right now she works at a diner, spends the day penciling people’s orders on a notepad and running back and forth from the kitchen to her tables, carrying plates of eggs and buttered toast, a practiced smile on her face
The Cheung Family: A family of many talents
The Cheung family has lived in the Tinkham Woods neighborhood of Florence for fifteen years. Their daughter, Claire, now lives in Providence. Floyd Cheung has been a professor at Smith College for 23 years where he has taught Asian American literature. The last three years he has been serving as the Vice President for Equity and Inclusion.
Northampton Jazz Festival
JAZZ ABOUNDS DOWNTOWN! The Northampton Jazz Festival will kick off at Pulaski Park on Friday, Sept. 30 with a Jazz Strut throughout downtown Northampton and free performances will continue downtown on Saturday, the first of October.
Fall Paddling Tips
Did you know fall is a favorite time at All Out Adventures to head out kayaking and canoeing? With typically cooler air temperatures, water that’s been warmed all summer, and typically quiet days at the parks and rivers, it’s a lovely time to get out on the water!
Electrical safety tips for Halloween & the Upcoming holidays
When it comes to Halloween and the holidays that come on its heels, nothing is scarier than dealing with the consequences of an electrical emergency. Electrical problems are one of the leading causes of house fires in the U.S., accounting for an estimated 51,000 incidents and nearly 500 deaths each year.
Suna Turgay: Using Nature to Find Peace
Suna Turgay, of Bay State Village in Northampton, has been gardening since she was a student at Hampshire College, where she studied Experiential Education, Music and Dance, before working in education. Suna’s gardening has been a source of peace and joy, a comfort in times of distress, and a resource for her, her partner Ben Wood, and their children, Elsa and Cyrus.
Your True Colors: Why you need an Image Consultant
Did you know that wearing the wrong colors can make you look ill, older and just off? Subconsciously, we are internally aware that one particular hue of color suits us more than the other. You may walk into a party and see someone wearing bright blue and wonder: “Hmmm. That just doesn’t look right…” You don’t see the person wearing the color. You see the color wearing the person. This is a telltale sign that the color you are wearing clashes with the natural colors within you and doesn’t flatter you.
Do you have a Financial Planner?
“Do you have an accountant to do your taxes?” You can probably answer with a definite yes or no. There’s nothing ambiguous about the question. Everyone knows what an accountant is and everyone’s familiar with filing taxes.
The Cathros: Generations in the Valley
Charlotte Cathro was raised in Florence and presently lives in the house she grew up in. But between growing up here and present day, a lot has happened. She has started her own business as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), volunteered as a Board Member at president of the board of Dakin Humane Society and at the Massachusetts Society of CPAs, she has raised a family with her husband Patrick, who is a realtor with Rovi Homes, and so much more.
Long COVID and Vaccine Side-Effects: A Conversation With Dr. Jonathan Bayuk
For those who don’t know, Dr. Jonathan Bayuk is a board-certified allergist and immunologist as well as the president of the Allergy & Immunology Associates of New England. He is one of the area’s foremost experts on allergy and immunology on top of being a well-respected and beloved community member and educator.
Chelsea Sunday Kline: Storytelling for good
Few people are as well-known and well-liked in all of Northampton as Chelsea Sunday Kline. Having lived in the area since 2001, she has made her impact in ways such as starting a loving family, advocating for a litany of local causes, writing creatively and professionally for the Gazette, working as a life coach to help people fully inhabit their own stories, and eventually running for state senate in 2018 to represent our district.
Medigap vs. Medicare Advantage: What’s the big deal?
Once enrolled in Original Medicare Parts A & B many people are faced with the confusing choice of whether or not to pick up either a Medicare Supplement, also known as a Medigap Plan, or a Medicare Advantage Plan.
Jill Foley: Nowhere Else Felt Like Home
Jill Foley is a Northampton native who’s excited to be back in the Valley. “After living in Boston for 10 years after college” she began, “nowhere else I went felt like home.” It was especially difficult because she had so many ties to the local community. She grew up doing laps at the YMCA and forming many of the lasting relationships she’s carried with her to present day.
God-Wrestling With Sister Mary
If grief is a teacher, then perhaps we are all sometimes her reluctant students. My father died nearly half a century ago. After his funeral, Edith, one of Dad’s closest friends, offered me some rather blunt advice: “Rob,” she said, “you’ll never get over this.” I’ve always been grateful to Edith for letting me in on one of life’s best kept secrets; that our greatest losses may change us forever.
Boss Consulting: My Story
My image consulting journey began in 2010 when I finished training as a diplomat. Growing up in London, competition was fierce. From an early age, I knew I had to stand out if I wanted to get ahead in life. But no matter how educated I was or how many accolades I won, I still felt average because there was always someone better than me.