RETIREMENT - DAY 1

 

 

 

       Today was the first day of my retirement.  It was both happy and sad.   Happy because I've been looking forward to this for quite a while, but sad because I will miss my friends in La Paz.   However, we are already making plans to see Willie Nelson when he comes to Parker next March, plus another Girls' Night Out in Lake Havasu City is in the works. 

 

       I started the day with an early morning walk.     A Harris Hawk was on the ground in one yard.  It was enjoying something freshly caught.   Unfortunately I didn't have my camera.  (Isn't that always the way of it?)   This was the first time I've seen one with a kill, too.       

 

      When I returned home, I realized that on a "normal" Thursday I would still be driving to work.   I'm really glad to be finished with that commute. 

 

     I quickly wrote up a to-do list and started in on it.   However, it is now after 5 o'clock, and  I have yet to finish it.   In fact, I'm only about half way through it.  So much for becoming super-efficient now that I'm home.

 

      So how did I spend my first day?  

 

      I did some paperwork.  Seems there's always paperwork to do.   

 

      I received some positive feedback about an article I submitted to a publisher not long ago.   A very good thing to have happen on my first day home.    Made plans for follow-up work on that.

 

       Around noon Kent and I went to Vogue Bistro for lunch to celebrate.   We've been wanting to go there for quite a while but had never made it.   They were recently featured on "Check Please", an Arizona public television show that features local restaurants.    We had their French Onion Soup, which was delicious.  They top theirs with a flaky pastry and fill it with lots of cheese and onions.    I would definitely order it again.    I also had their specialty salad, which was also excellent.    Sipped a nice Merlot with it, too.    (Something I couldn't do during working days.)  

 

         Took a little afternoon nap.  (Something I couldn't admit to doing during working days.)

 

          Visited with our neighbors who just arrived from Wisconsin.   They're snow birds who are here for the winter.

 

          Thought about going back to the paperwork stack but then I realized I need to pack up my beading supplies.   Tomorrow is Beading day at SCG.     I have to get organized for that.

 

           Now it's nearly 6 o'clock.   I should stay and work on that list some more, but the back porch is calling me.  

 

           Besides, I'm retired now.   There's always tomorrow.....

 

         

 

 

     

Countdown to Retirement

     I plan to be seeing a lot more of my backyard soon.  

     Yesterday  I turned in my retirement papers.  Beginning November 1, I'll be retired. 
     I've been making plans for this for quite a while, and my boss has known for over a month.    But now that  the paperwork is in, it seems real.   Like it might actually happen.

     In anticipation, I've been making a list of things I want to do, like beading, writing, traveling, etc.   I rejoined the Romance Writers of America a few weeks ago, and yesterday I mailed off my membership application to the local Valley of the Sun chapter.    They have a writer's seminar coming up that I'd like to attend.   
       The Sun City Grand beading group has a class I want to take in early November, too.  I'll be trying to join them next week because the classes fill up quickly.  I can't wait until I'm officially retired or I might get closed out.
       Whew--I'm not even retired yet and I'm already busy. 

       This morning I had breakfast on the back porch, something I look forward to doing more often.  While I was there, I practiced taking pictures with my "new" camera.    The pix shown here are the first two keepers.   The hummingbird blends in with the foilage, I realize, so I'll have to try to catch him on a different perch.

     When my husband retired a few years ago, he wanted a Cannon Digital Rebel camera for his present.   He's taken some great photos in the last few years, but he moved onto a newer camera recently.    So I asked him for the Rebel as my retirement gift.   Or should I say re-gift?

      My older Cannon PowerShot is still a very good camera.  It's small, lightweight and easy to handle.    I may end up continuing to use it, especially for video.    But at 12.20 megapixals, the Rebel is much more powerful, plus it has two telephoto lens.  I'm looking forward to learning to use it.

      Most of all, I'm looking forward to being retired.     

Structuring Retirement

I’m working now, but as the site address suggests, I’m a retiree-wannabe.   I had hoped to make the leap last year, but it didn’t happen.   This year I’m hoping it will.  

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with all that free time I’ll have.   (Those of you who have already retired can quit laughing now.)   My friends who are already retired tell me they are busier than ever---many don’t know how they ever found time to work.   And while most of them are doing what they wanted to do, a few have just fallen into things.  So I want to make sure I end up doing what I really want to do.

To that end I’ve been making a list of all the things I want to do or am interested in checking out.  A type of bucket list.  I know I won’t have time to do everything, and I want to make sure I end up doing what is really important to me.   This way, if something comes up that isn’t on my list, it will be easier to say ‘no’.   In the past I’ve ended up working on projects or committees that involved things that didn’t really interest me.    But for one reason or another I agreed to take on the project when I was asked.   This time around I want to have a plan, a structure, for my time.

At the top of my list is writing.   I have an unfinished novel and another one in the idea stage.  Not to mention this blog, and another blog idea that I’m considering.   Getting the novel completely written is priority numero uno, even if it never gets published.  I’ll probably continue writing a blog, too, either this one or something different.

I’d also like to return to taking Spanish lessons.  I had to quit last year when things got totally crazy and out of control at work.    I want to keep mentally sharp, and studying a language will help with that.  Plus I love Mexico and would like to take trips there more often.

I know I have to schedule in some exercise time.  If not, I’ll start to write or read and never break a sweat all day.   Except for walking and splashing about in the pool, exercising isn’t something I enjoy.   There’s no excuse not to do it.  Sun City Grand has two activity centers with classes in aerobics, dance, yoga, and lots more.  So another goal is to find a physical activity I like, sign up, and show up. 

My need for structure was never more clear than yesterday, when I had an afternoon “free”.    I had thought about going to a new bead shop, my latest hobby interest, or attending a beading session here at Sun City Grand.   I looked at the info for two bead stores that give lessons, and I stopped in briefly at the beading group.  But I never took a class or strung a bead all day.  

I cleaned the casita.    On my “free” afternoon!     It needed it, but cleaning wasn’t my plan when I started the day.    The problem, of course, was that I didn’t have a plan for the day.    

Writer Aimee Bender found she needed structure in order to write consistently.   She wrote about it in her article “A Contract of One’s Own”, published in this month’s O, the Oprah Magazine.  Years ago she started writing in a closet for two hours, and has continued the two hour routine long after leaving that closet.  “If left to my own devices,” she writes, “a blank page and a free day and that meadow, little will get done and I’ll feel awful about it.  But put me in a box for two set hours and say go?  It is one of the most steadying elements of my life.”   

That’s the way I feel about my retirement time.   I’ll need a plan, a structure, so that the things that are important to me get done.  I’m working on the list now.   Then I plan to prioritize it and figure out how many things I can fit into a day or a week.

  If anyone else has approached retirement this way, I’d like to hear how it’s working out.