My First Update Since Jim's Passing - Life, Skincare & Red Light Masks

Good morning. Before I get on to today's topics, I want to thank you all so much for all the prayers, the love, the support, [music] the condolences. I I I I mean, I I was overwhelmed. I had well over a total of 800 comments on my last video, and I was able to reply to 100% of you, and and and I really was touched. When I filmed the video, my last video, I had no idea that Jim would pass as quickly as he did. He was right there in the living room when I was filming this, and he died within a week, and I didn't know what to do, and I decided to take the easy way out, and go ahead and put that video up, and then just put in the pin comments that he had passed. And that's what I did. I felt I felt all the prayers, all the thoughts. It has helped keep me strong. I know everybody says this, but I truly believe I have the best YouTube community out there. So much support, so much love, and so much love for the other people that leave comments. I see so many other people that that are getting encouragement from you. I don't want to talk about Jim's final days because that's his story, and I think it would be way too hard for me to talk about. I will tell you that he faced his end on his own terms 100%, and his family was in agreement with Jim and with me. We all, even though it wasn't exactly what we would have chosen, it's what Jim chose. He wanted to be cremated, he wanted no formal service, and no obituary. And that I'm and that's what we did. And what's kind of hard is because there was no obituary, like I will go places and people will come up to me and say, "How's Jim?" And that's hard. But we we went by his wishes and and what else could we do to honor him but that? And he passed away with dignity and in peace and knows that he is sitting in heaven with the Lord. And that is truly a blessing. It's still I mean, it it's just been a little over a month and every day when I get up in the morning, I I'm just so surprised that he's not here. And he's definitely missed. I do want to say something that I am extremely proud about. Jim was diagnosed in February of 2016 with stage 4 COPD, and that is the end-stage COPD. And he managed well until probably about 2022. But anybody out there who is familiar with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, it means usually many trips to the doctor, to the emergency room. But together, Jim and I worked out a plan on how to deal with his exacerbations, and we never once went to the emergency room. And he never had to call for an appointment. He went to the doctor every 6 months, and we were able to maintain To me, that was a huge blessing because I have seen that so many times that people with end-stage COPD spend so much time back and forth to the hospital. But being an RN, that did help. I will admit that. But I'm He was so sick of me saying, pursed lip, pursed lip breathing, Jim. I mean, he I kind of had to change names to get him to agree with me. I'd say, "Do your special breathing." And I do want to talk about Jim a little bit. I I don't only have a couple of things I want to cover. But we met almost 20 years ago, and it was on his 63rd birthday. And one funny thing is it was I'll put the video below on how we met. It was an accidental meeting in in a way. It really was. But we ended up meeting it for a late lunch. And I [clears throat] had never I had never planned on doing online dating. I wasn't interested, but it was a fluke what happened. And so I would I He got there before I did. And and when he walked when I walked in, he knew who I was. And when we sat down at the booth for dinner, he said to me, he said, "Well, I got to tell you something." He said, "I've been doing online dating for some time, and you are the first person that is better in person than you were on your photographs." Cuz we exchanged photographs. But I I he he just cracked me up. He was He was really funny. One of the gifts that Jim gave me was learning how to love a road trip. Prior to Jim, I was always like very scheduled. You know, I kind of had an itinerary. I had traveled a lot and internationally, and Jim had never flown. And he told me we he got a passport because we had planned on on flying. And he did use his passport when we went to Canada. But I always knew where I was going to be. I always knew had reservations. Well, we traveled 35 states together between 2007 and 2019 and I learned to love it. How Jim, we kind of would have to kind of go back and forth. As long as I knew where I was going to stay that night, we were fine. We'd look at the map and decide where we were going to go and I would find the hotel. I'd use my iPad and he ended up really liking that because one night I did it his way and we he went in quite a few hotels and they didn't have a room for us. So, I learned to love it. And what we would do, we would go to different cities and we'd try try to find an a walkable area and we would stop at one place and have a drink and then we'd stop at the another place, walk on down and have an appetizer and then go to another restaurant and have lunch or or our main meal or whatever, but we got to try a lot of different restaurants and listen to live music. We love music. Which reminds me of a funny story. As some of you know, Jim really had a good voice and I I will link his videos below. I when I was watching them and I do get great joy watching them. On one of them that I in Branson, he did two songs and I forgot about the other song. So, I have quite a few songs that Jim sang and I've watched him several times. But we were in Nashville and Nashville's probably about 4 hours from us and we would go and spend a couple of nights there and we were on I think Broadway is the main street and we would karaoke. And so, Jim and I did together Mack the Knife and I had all the moves and he had the voice, but I would sing just as loud as he did. Well, really not quite as loud. But, we had so much fun. And sometimes he would do one by himself. And of course, we didn't know anybody. And he always like did Ronnie Milsap Lost in the Fifties Tonight or did Johnny Cash. And sometimes I would do a karaoke. And we were at a place It was a really large place. And I don't remember the name of it in Nashville. And I decided I was going to do one on my own. And I did Santana's You Got to Change Your Evil Ways, Baby. And I did it by myself. And I did I of course I had the moves, you know. Anyway, I got a standing ovation. My mediocre voice got a standing ovation. And he just got the biggest kick out of that. A lot of times we would just sit in a room and I would have my laptop. And I'd And we just take take turns picking out a song. And I would find it on YouTube and listen to it. And he was always surprised that I knew the words to songs way back in his day. But, I had My oldest sister is 79 years old. And she started listening to music when she was 10. So, I was three. And I just remember all those songs from way back in the day. And we just both would sing with them. And it's really a good memory. Our last trip that we took together was I think in September of 2019. And we went to Nashville for a couple days. And picked up Sandra Hart. And many of you are subscribed to Sandra's channel. And uh went out for lunch. We just had a great time and visiting. Picked her up at her son's home. And just had a really good time. I don't know if Jim sang on that trip or not, but I I have a playlist of all of the creators that I have met since I think 2017 and and Sandra was one of them. We had reservations in Nashville to spend a couple of nights in March of 2020. Monica McGillicuddy from Out East was going to be there and Melissa 55 from Tennessee was going to be there. And because of Jim's health, we decided not to go. And And so we hadn't traveled since 2019. I tell you even now when I look back and it is so new, I just think about the good times. I think about the fun times. I don't think about the past couple of years, although there were some very wonderful moments during that time. The essence of Jim is what I remember the most. And the funny thing is, I was 53 when I started dating Jim and I had been single for 15 years and I had absolutely no intention of dating anybody until I was 60. That's when I thought that I would start dating, but didn't work out that way. During Jim's last several months, I spent a lot of time in the living room. That's where That's where he was. That's where I was. And you know, like all the things that I do, I mean it's not that many, but my mask that I do on my face and my neck, my tretinoin, my hair thickening stuff. I have things like in different rooms because that's how I have to do habits and do be consistent. I know when I go in my dressing room, I do this. When I come in the bedroom, I do that. So anyway, I moved everything that I needed into the bathroom and into the living room. So I was pretty compliant with with everything that I do. My little beauty routines. I continue with the 0.025 tretinoin. I quit for 17 months and I was using the stronger strengths. I got a prescription from my doctor, got this filled at Cost Plus Drugs and I'll put that up there. Uh for the big 45 g tube, it was to get it home to me, it was $32. So, I just use a little bit of this five nights a week and I'm very happy with it. I had mixed some in a little jar of the 0.025 and a 0.05, used it on my forehead. I used it up, but I just started using this on its own and I don't think I'm going to move up to the stronger strength. Right now, I'm very happy with this. I have absolutely no redness, no burning, uh no problems at all with it. So, I'm going to keep going with this. And the reason I started back on tretinoin, I was using the My Skin Green Tea Serum and it was like $65 or more. I thought it was good. I I did the light serum and I thought, well, I wonder if I started using Retin-A cuz this will last 2 years and it's $32. I just kind of thought, well, I'm going to try something different and that's the only reason, just to keep it simple is why I did it because I do think the My Skin serum is really good and they're not even similar products, but there's some really good studies on the green really but on the green tea serum for My Skin. I have been getting questions on older videos and it's about the new mask from My Skin. It is called the Aura Mask and it is different than the mask that I use, which is the My Skin Pranayama Mask. I've been using an LED face mask consistently for over 4 years. First one was OmniLux, 27 months it lasted. I was thrilled. Some people's last a whole lot longer than that. But anyway, when it quit, I bought the maysama because I wanted the mouth coverage. And I'm it's done really well. I I don't have very many lip lines and I want to keep it that way. As long as I can cuz I love lipstick. And I bought the maysama face mat, the maysama prana in September of 2024. So it's not yet 2 years old. And I definitely would not buy a new mask if my mask is still working. I I just wouldn't do that. I'm going to give you point out some things that I see about both of them. I'll put some pictures on the screen at some point comparing what they look like. After looking carefully at the aura mask, there's definitely things that I like. I love the way it fits. I love that it treats the under chin area, which is called the submental area. And I love the corda cordless battery design. It normally retails for $575. And right now it's until the 4th of July it's $489. If it lasts 2 years, which it says it will, it'll work out to $0.67 a day. And that's how I kind of look at things. Now the prana is $200 less. It's 375 and is currently 319. If it lasts 2 years, which it will because it's guaranteed for 2 years, that works out to about $0.44 a day. In June of 2025, I bought this mask from maysama and it addresses the submental area. And it does the decollete and around the neck. So that may have a little bit of bearing on my decision. I do like even though there's just a little slit in the new Aura mask, I don't know if the lights I couldn't tell by looking if they addressed the around the mouth area. And when I wear my Prana mask, I've always said I put my hand like this. Just hold it there. I I do not mind a cord at all. In fact, I always have pockets. I either have pockets in my pants or a shirt with pockets or an apron on. I will put an apron on. They both have pulse light technology. Uh that course the newer one is faster than the older one. But see, I know this mask works. I know it does and I've used it. I really think if something Well, if something happened right now, they'd send me a new one because it's less than 2 years old. I really think I would purchase this one again. I just like how it just covers the whole mouth. But that's the best answer I can give right now. I I'm pretty sure that's what I'll do. But consistency is the most important thing. And I spend 9 minutes today total. I do do the mask and and the chin to chest at the same time and and and I do 9 minutes and I'm done and it doesn't bother me a bit. As for my channel, I am still planning to upload a video the last Sunday of every month and I am hoping to get back into filming more often. You don't need to subscribe. You can go to maryellenafter60.com and check there and see if I've uploaded an a video. If I upload one, it'll be on a Sunday and it'll be at 6:00 a.m. Central Standard Time. And before I go, I want to ask you a small favor. I think it's a small favor. I have never been one to talk about wanting my channel to grow or wanting more subscribers because you know, it's really not important how many subscribers it has. It's important how many people see the video, how many people benefit from the video that I make. Cuz I truly hope to bring something of value to any video that I film. If I don't have something of value, I'm not going to do a video. But I'll do one the last Sunday of the month. If you find anything or have found anything of value, would you consider sharing YouTube with a friend? And I did the very same thing with my friend Pat, who I lost my best friend since birth. When I started a YouTube channel, she said, "Why YouTube?" She said, "All they do on there is singing." And I said, "Oh, no, no. Come here for a minute." So, I was at her house and I brought up YouTube on her computer and I said, "Tell me something you're interested in." And she's And she loved to quilt. She loved horses. She loved a lot of different things. And I just put in the topic and I would bring it up and I would show her what what all was about. And she ended up using YouTube a lot. You can find out how to do just about anything on YouTube. If you think somebody would benefit from YouTube, show them how to use it. Show them they can use it on their phone or their iPad or or on their television and introduce them to other channels that you enjoy. I think it could be very valuable for your friend, your sister, your neighbor. And also, it would help me and I would appreciate that. And something I'm really kind of curious about, I look at my statistics, I watch YouTube videos 99% of the time. Well, probably 95% of the time on my laptop. I've just started about 5% of the time watching it on my television. I'd like to know if you watch on your TV or your iPad or your telephone or how you watch YouTube. That would just be interesting to me. Thank you for considering it. Thank you for everything. Thank you for being here. And it is all good with God in my life. How can it not be? And I will see you in my next video and take care. And I may be boring you, but um And you know, there were a lot of That's probably my most important area. And then if you think somebody I think it's