L’Oreal, the cosmetics’ giant, says nearly half of women older than 40 no longer dye their hair once the gray starts to appear.

Marty was a natural brunette for years, and a bottle redhead for years after that, until she let her silver grow out. She reserves the right to dye again, but loves her shiny silver hair as much as she did her red and brunette days.

Cait, a natural blond who has yet to see a single strand of gray, found Marty this article on MSN on how to grow-out your gray and keep it shiny and gorgeous.

Click here for tips on how to gray gracefully.

When you have to go, you HAVE TO GO! But too often we’re out of luck in our cities when it comes to finding a clean, neat, safe, graffiti-free, working public restroom - with toilet paper.

Gimpy Guru Jane Brody, of The New York Times, says Sydney, Australia, tops all when it comes to accessible public toilets. But if you can’t hold it till Sydney, click here to read Jane’s suggestions for finding decent restrooms closer to home.

As usual, Jane is informative and on-the-money about this being a public health issue too long overlooked in most cities.

Jane also found this great site called The Bathroom Diaries, which describes and rates restrooms in cities throughout the world, including China, Turkey or South Africa.

She suggests planning ahead for your next trip and printing out the Bathroom Diaries list of public facilities in the cities you plan to visit in the United States, Canada or some far more exotic location.

Cait & Marty own a duplex together. Cait & her husband, Doug, are on one side and Marty is on the other. We share duties outside and have been hand-shoveling our snow.

This winter the snow has been so frequent and deep it’s felt like shoveling against an ocean. So we broke down and bought a Gimpy friendly snow-thrower, the ease of which is shown all over Cait’s face on the snow thrower’s trial run in our driveway.

Click here to read the Moka Tales write-up from our friend, Kim, who advised, procured, delivered, assembled and instructed on the art of snow-throwing.

Eds. Note: The Sears Craftsman we bought did not get very good reviews from people who have used it over time. So we shall see and update you on our experience. We did get the $99 three-year in-home warranty, which means they must come to us to fix it.

Odd as it sounds, a surprisingly large number of people who lose their sight start seeing things.

Ophthalmologists call it Charles Bonnet Syndrome, a condition that often affects people with macular degeneration or diabetic eye disease.

David Stewart, a former executive with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, first experienced it when he was listening to a book on tape about sailors crossing the Hudson River.

As Stewart, who is blind, mused about the sailors, one of them appeared in his head - not a dreamy fantasy, but a vivid, highly detailed, very real-like hallucination.

“He had on a cap, a blue cap with a polished black beak and he had a pipe in his mouth.” The sailor gazed right at Stewart. Then the sailor winked.

To learn more about Charles Bonnet Syndrome, Click here to listen to, or read, Robert Krulwich’s story on National Public Radio.

Without a sense of balance, many things in life threaten to become insurmountable obstacles.

In her excellent article, Jane Brody, The New York Times’ health writer, documents why balance needs to be talked up in fitness circles as much as strength training, aerobics and stretching.

As Jane notes, a sense of balance can be preserved and even restored through exercises that require no special equipment or training. These exercises are as simple as standing on one foot while brushing your teeth or walking heel-to-toe with one foot directly in front of the other.

Jane’s article even offers a simple assessment of your current ability to maintain balance.

Click here to read the full story.

We are always looking for home ideas that improve daily comfort and safety for all people, regardless of their personal architecture.

Here are five sites chosen by the AARP and the National Association of Home Builders as forward-looking communities loaded with accessible features.

This delightful New York Times story is about doing nothing in winter at a lazy pace.

Click here if you have the energy.