Retirement Times

Now that the garage sale is over and much of the excess stuff is gone or going, it’s time to purge files!! I’m plodding through the files. Much of the contents are outdated and easily discarded. It gives me a sense of liberation to throw away all those years of performance evaluations! There’s something so intimidating and humbling about having another human being pass judgment on you yearly! Most of the time the evaluations were pretty perfunctory and routine. There were times that the comments were challenging to me. Sometimes expectations were difficult to fulfill and not always related to my job description. I always dreaded this process. I got pretty good about tooting my own horn. I worked hard on my self-evaluation and I think that always helped. It is so wonderful to be able to just dump all this and to know that it’s not going to happen again. Now I work for myself and my husband. We do what we want and what we need to to make our lives function well. Nobody else has to approve or disapprove. This is true liberation!

For the past two days we have sold our possessions online and at our garage sale. I am so glad my friend Linda has been beside me because she loves garage sales and understands selling items on the internet. She oohed and ahhed over my things and suggested pricing. It feels weird to sell something you bought for $100 for a mere $10 or less! But it still feels good to have fewer possessions to fret over.
The weather was cooperative even though the forecast was for rain both days. The mosquitoes were pests, but we burned coils and Tiki torches and we survived their sorties.
Because we had some items listed online, some folks came into the house to look at them. Several times we were offered money for things we didn’t intend to sell at the moment. One such item was our bedroom furniture!! And another gal offered to buy all our living room furniture!
The funniest customer was an extremely talkative woman who admired all my perennial flowers and told me she was a “digger”–one who likes to dig up wild flowers and/or flowers from other people’s gardens if they agree!! She wanted some of my nettle plant and some lily-of-the-valley so we took a trowel and dug away!! She also admired the metal fish our son-in-law had fashioned for us. She asked me to sell them to her when we move!!
I’ve found that as I go from room to room emptying drawers and closets and cupboards of salable items, I feel little pangs of nostalgia. It is hard to transition from a long term home to a totally new community. We have so many memories tied to this home, this neighborhood, this city and state! We raised all our children here. We know many of the neighbors and their families. We’ve walked, biked and run these streets and the bike paths nearby. We’ve watched the trees grow from saplings to shade trees. It’s all so familiar!
If all goes as planned, we will say good bye to this place by summer’s end and head for Oregon with just what we can carry in our car. We will move into a smaller ranch-style house conveniently located near shopping, medical facilities and our son’s family. We will experience Indian summer which we have missed in our years in Alaska. We will enjoy a milder transition to winter with little or no snow. We won’t worry about slick streets and snow removal. We will get used to rain again. We will have a smaller Thanksgiving with our son and family and Skype with the Alaskan contingent and maybe with Katie in Japan. It will still be family and that will be good. We will play noisy games and enjoy each other’s company until it’s time to call it a day. We will pick Fall apples and go to the pumpkin patch and get a Christmas tree from a tree farm freshly cut. Life will still be good, just different.
What we value most is not material things. It is connections with those we love. It is being able to show hospitality and to be good guests. It is watching our grandchildren develop into wonderful people. It is loving and being loved.
We can do this in Alaska or in Oregon, or both.

Now that we have both been retired for more than a year, we are thinking about where we want to live out our days.  There are good and bad points to most choices.  This is no different.

Staying put is easier in many ways.  We have a house that is comfortable and paid for.  We have made so many changes in this house to add to its coziness.  We have infloor heating.  We have painted and refloored and redone bathrooms.  We know what to expect here and therein lies one of the issues.  Winter is hard and long here.  Although neither of us has mobility issues we may have in the future.  Ice and snow are not easily managed if one has balance problems or has to use a cane or a walker.  Even for the mobile, snow and ice require removal and that is heavy work.  Tracked in snow is messy as well.

Another good thing about staying put is that we have our networks.  We have good doctors and dentist.  We know where to shop and get our hair cut.  We have places to volunteer to add meaning and purpose to our lives.  We have our church.  There is also the gym and the classes we enjoy there.

But there are also problems with staying put.  This house has stairs up and down.  As we age this may not be desirable.  And Medicare funding in Alaska is very sparse.  It is hard to find caregivers unless they allow you to “age into their practice”.  And since we are aging so are our siblings and our one remaining parent.  We are so far away that we can’t always even get to their memorial services.

Speaking of family having all but one of our grandchildren here in Alaska is definitely a point in favor of staying here.

But they also talk about moving “Outside” in the next few years.

Another reason to stay put is that Alaska has no state income tax, gives a tax break on property (first $150,000 tax free), and seniors register cars for free.  We can also fish without paying for a license and take classes at the University without charge.

Points in favor of moving would include better weather, closeness to aging family members, greater availability of services, closeness to the ocean beaches.  Also moving would bring us closer to Seth and his family.  We could participate in our grandson’s life more than previously.

For now the plan is to get ready to move and to see what happens next.  This may sound easy but it is not!!  We have begun the arduous task of sorting our belongings.  In 34 yrs it is easy to accumulate an incredible amount of “stuff”!  We have enough books to furnish a small library!  We have saved so many unnecessary pieces of paper!!  And there are clothes and shoes enough to clothe  a small community.  So much of our stuff is without real value to anyone else.  It’s rather embarrassing to think of having a garage sale, but that’s what we are doing.  We have easily 100 picture frames to sell.  There are boxes of seasonal decorations, tools, framed art, exercise equipment, bed linens, dishes, baskets, storage containers.  None of it is very high quality.  It’s humbling to see your stuff through others’ eyes.

And if we do sell our house, what do we do about our furniture?  My friend tells me Craig’s List is the way to go.  She will be here on Wednesday and we will take pictures of those items and list them online.  She says we should sell the house that way too.  My other friend says “Sell everything and start over from scratch!!”  When you look at the cost of transporting goods from Alaska, that may be the better option.  Our “new” living room furniture might be sold for a mere fraction of what we paid for it, but how much would it cost us to transport it out of Alaska?

It seems like we should keep a few things…a few books, a quilt, a few pictures, family photos, important papers and a few files, our best clothing, dishes and cookware.  How much can we carry in our car?  Could we bring some of it out with us this July when we drive out?

See how disruptive this whole process is?  And we haven’t even put the house on the market yet!  I wish I could fast forward and be done with this part of it.  I wish I could be sure we would be happy somewhere else.  I wish I knew there would be a welcome for us in a new community with opportunities to serve and to network.  I wish I knew that I could be happy without frequent contact with my daughters and their families.  I wish I could be certain that Katie will have a place to land when she returns to the US.  I wish I knew that our income would go as far there where there are fewer breaks for seniors and taxes are higher.  I wish I knew for certain that moving was the right choice….

The biggest problem with retirement is having no schedule! It is so easy to let a day go by without accomplishing anything! There are no deadlines or expectations to urge us on. I’ve decided that I need external motivation.
So far since retiring we have done some traveling: to Idaho, to Hawaii, to Japan, to Oregon, to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. Having a trip looming gives some shape to our lives. So what to do?
My solutions so far range from making lists(a favorite activity) of projects to be done with a timeline for accomplishing them; to suggesting daily and weekly schedules; to exploring volunteer opportunities.
I was able to help at a Health Fair. It was a hoot! I have missed being with people. I’m a sociable person and love having people to talk and listen to (I prefer finding good listeners since I am a talker!) We also worked the library book sale. That was OK. We will do more volunteering at the library since the budget is being cut and there will be a greater need. Just so I can be near people. Shelving books doesn’t do it for me. We also do some writing and editing for the church. It’s fun, but there’s not much time commitment.
For now we are pretty well set since we bought paint for the downstairs and we have a goal of having it all done by the time Katie comes home for Christmas.
Also on our radar are projects to simplify our living space. I am looking for homes for books. (Everything from Chemistry texts to diet books, to thrillers, to romances. So far we know the library will take some and the senior center will take the RD Condensed Books. That will help declutter our office and my quiet room.
And I need to work on closets. One of the terrible problems with having weight that fluctuates is having at least two sizes of clothing. So I am working on my weight and trying not to buy anymore clothing in a larger size.
So you see, life is endlessly interesting to the retired.
Gotta go, it’s lunch time! Some things don’t need scheduling, they just happen!!

We are in the final stages of preparing for our most outrageous trip ever!! We are going to Japan to visit Katie and tour Honshu with her. We are doing it the mature adult way–we paid to have our itinerary mapped out for us! Our trip is well planned and will let us tour in some outstanding places. We will tour temples and historical sites and spend a day in Nikko where Torenaga held court.
We will travel first class on the Shinkansen, bullet trains. This will be our downtime for listening to soothing music, reading or snoozing between destinations.
We are looking forward (with a little trepidation, on my part) to staying at the ryokan on Miyajima for two nights. It will give us a feeling for the traditional hospitality of the Japanese. I’m game to try anything once.
It is cheating a little to hae Katie with us since she has grown more accustomed to the culture and language in her year living there. She will be invaluable to us. Perhaps she will save us from acting like “barbarians”. Hope so.
We are trying to pack light and travel smart, but that is so hard to do since we will be away from home for a whole month! It’s a learning process. If we don’t get it right this time, maybe we will next time we travel abroad!
Our next post will be after our trip. I expect some surprises and reactions we haven’t anticipated, both good and bad.
Being away from home for a whole month is stretching it for us too. We have always had to return to work within two weeks. Like I said, this is what retirement is all about! Sayonara!!

Today we woke to birdsong and the soft air of Hawaii. We are taking a week to relax and plan. We want to sketch out some ideas for what this retirement is going to look like. We have been so busy that we haven’t had a chance to begin what is supposed to be a calmer existence.
Today is open. We will orient ourselves since Kona has changed much since we have been here last. We will walk as much as my legs will allow–and they are doing famously. And we will map out our activities for the next week.
When we arrived in Kona last night, we were surprised with a lei greeting. (They don’t kiss you on both cheeks like it shows on TV, just the lei!) It was special. I like to think it is symbolic of how this time will be. Stay posted!

IT has been nearly a month since I officially stopped working. It has not been an easy month. We experienced one of those life experiences which all the books about our life stage tell us to expect–my father died. Les lost his parents many years ago. He tells me that my father was his Dad longer than his own biological father. Les’ father died when Les was 33yrs old. Since Les is now 67, my Dad was his Dad for the nearly 43 yrs that we have been married. So our loss was mutual.
There is something very weird about losing a parent. Suddenly you become the terminal generation. It gives new urgency to topics like leaving a legacy and making an impact! This affects how I feel about my retirement.
I want more than ever to make a difference in my world and in the lives of those I love and those I come into contact with from here on out. I want to live in such a way as to not be an embarrassment to Jesus!
My appproach to my retired life since I returned from Idaho has been to get things in order. I have been reading “Sink Reflections” and getting some great ideas for daily routines and for sorting out and creating order. I want to simplify our lives by getting rid of excess in our belongings and working smart at keeping up with cleaning and maintenance. Today the job is ironing and putting away those many shirts hanging on the rack downstairs. My approach has been to bring the ironing board upstairs and work at the task while watching American Idol. It seems to be working! My mother always tried to make work fun. This is my tribute to Mom. She is an ironer and will be so proud.
Because we haven’t been able to really kick off our retirement as we had planned, we scheduled a trip to Hawaii later this month. It will give us some fun in the sun time and let us do some more planning.
I’m looking forward to this transition. I tend to jump into things with both feet, while Les holds back. I’m hoping we can find some activities we enjoy doing together so that we can make a joint contribution to our community. Stay tuned.

It’s Monday and normally I would be working.  I enjoyed a slow morning, cleaned my house, caught up on my Bible reading, did laundry.  Just regular stuff.  Since Les was gone for a few hours I hung out on Facebook for awhile, knit a few more rows on my socks and had lunch.

I’ve decided that my knitting is like my butterfly stroke(swimming) according to my grandson Ethan:  it needs work!  I’m just not making nice ribbing like Sarah showed me.  I may have to go hang out at the knitting shop and let the experts show me what I am doing wrong.  Or I could take Sarah lunch at work and let her coach me while she eats.  Or I can keep going and have this bad example to look back on.

My party was really heart warming last Friday.  More people came than I expected.  Before I left there I had two offers of jobs and a great offer of a vacation in Panama.  The jobs were to train trainers for a program all over the state.  It would be in mid April.  Or to sign up for registry so that I could sub when someone needs a day off.  The vacation offer was from Fatima who headed the WIC breastfeeding initiative for the state of Alaska.  I worked under her for a few years.  She is moving back to Panama and urged us to come and visit.  I think that sounds like a lovely place to go next winter.

On the way home from the party I got a call from a woman asking me if I would do a seminar for her church ladies.  I called her back the next day and we decided I would do a retreat in the Fall for them.

All these offers make me think that retirement may not be boring!

Tonight I am going to start packing to go to Idaho to say good bye to my Daddy.  When I talked to Mother yesterday she sounded very brave, but like she was having to work hard to breathe.  Bless her heart!  This is so hard on her.  She never imagined life without Daddy.  We will all need to help her make her transition.

Saturday we ordered new living room furniture.  It is fairly light colored, but will blend nicely with the soft green walls.  We will have to lay down ground rules about food and fluids in the livingroom.  It will be a challenge.  New furniture is one of the ways I cope with change.  When Katie left for college, we bought our bedroom suite.  It was a statement about time for us.  This is a further statement about our enjoying our home together.  Maybe we will entertain more now that we aren’t harried by work.

This transition will take time.  It’s like the famous line in that movie about “Bob”, “Baby steps, baby steps!”

Yesterday was my last day at work!  It was sort of bittersweet.  Several coworkers gave me hugs and congratulations and some had tears in their eyes.  I tried really hard not to cry myself–even when three of my best buds walked me out to the car!  I told them that “exit hugs” would be put off until today.  My party is at 3PM.  I will wear waterproof mascara!

If I am going to be retired, I think I need to make a “Bucket List” or do “Twenty Wishes” like in Debbie McCombers’ book.  So here goes.

1.  I want to make special memories with my husband.  These could just be at home learning to communicate on a deeper level.  (It’s about time–almost 43yrs in to this marriage!)

2.  I want to go to Japan to see where Katie lives and to visit some of the sites Les knows from reading.

3.  I want to take a trip up the East Coast during leaf color change season.  I’d like to go all the way up to PEI.

4.  I’d love to explore the British Isles.

5.  I want to work on fitness so I can enjoy walking all over these places and more.

6.  I’d like to learn to paint with water colors.

7.  I’d like to learn to knit well.

8.  I’d like to write a few articles for publication.

9.  I’d like to simplify and organize my environment so that it will be beautiful and restful.

10.  I’d like to become a master gardener.

11.  I’d like to take a river cruise in Europe.

12.  I’d like to become a good swimmer so that I could swim laps without getting breathless.

13.  I’d like to become a water aerobics instructor.

15.  I’d like to get really good at using this computer for pictures, presentations(if I ever need to do one again!), etc.

16.  I’d like to catch a fish, but I don’t have to learn to clean it!

17.  I’d like to cook light healthy meals.

18.  I’d like to explore trading homes for vacations with people from interesting places.

19.  I’d like to have tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria.

20.  I’d like to have special moments and make lasting memories with all my kids and grands.

That’s enough for now.  It occurred to me yesterday that I have either been in school working or raising kids since I was 19 years old.  I think it will be very interesting to have the time to explore what I may have missed out on for all these years.

A friend told us last week that “retirement has it’s ups and downs.  You get up when you want to and go down when you want to”!  We’ll see how that works out.

Time to go to the gym and start working on the fitness thing!

It’s been months since we have checked in here.  Mostly because we haven’t gotten used to the process.  But it has been busy too.

Christmas was wonderful with all our children and grandchildren here.  The downside was the below zero weather, but the upside was being together and talking and playing games and enjoying each other’s company.  Everyone loved hearing about Katie’s grand adventure in Japan and we all love to see how the children have grown.

Once the holidays passed I was faced with the task of going back to work.  Work is like it always was: delightful because of the babies, but frustrating because of the lack of time to help everyone on a busy day. My plan has always been to retire from working this year.  Now that date is staring me in the face because of two things.  I signed up for Medicare because I had to within 3 months prior to my 65th birthday.  (Yikes!  It’s almost here!)  Then my Daddy’s health deteriorated drastically and it looked like he was slipping away two weeks ago.  My oldest sister asked me to put in my two weeks notice so that I could be available to help Mother in case Daddy died, or,if he rallied, help him if he needed my help.  I gave my supervisor my letter.  Daddy rallied and the other sisters said they could carry on for a few weeks.  Now I am finishing up my planned appointments with the doctors and dentist before I go on Medicare.  I can’t earn more than $14,000 this year due to getting Social Security(which I could postpone, but chose not to) since I am not at full retirement age until age 66.  It’s all very complicated.

My current plan is to work through the week of Valentine’s Day then retire.  It is scary.  The US economy is in such dire straits that we don’t feel as well off as we hoped to be.  Retirement means never getting raises or vacation pay.  That’s hard to be OK with.

Not working means flexibility to go help the folks out if needed.  It also means not having to have permission and coverage in order to take a vacation like the one we plan to Japan this year.  It also means we could take advantage of last minute travel bargains if we wanted to.

As Christians we want to trust God for our future and not be always looking at our shrinking paychecks.  We also want to be good stewards and keep our expenses down.  

So we are in a process of making life changing decisions.  It is scary, but exciting.  We worked all our lives for this.  We are asking everyone we know who trusts in God to direct His children to mention these two kids, Les and Julia and ask Him to help show the way.

Life is good.  My mobility is good.  Les is generally in good spirits.  We’ll be fine.