Time, Time, Time is on my side........la la la.

If you are harried, still working and pulling out your hair because company is coming this weekend and you had to work late on Friday - DO NOT READ THIS!

So, with the warnings out of the way, can I just say that being retired does not mean that you are not busy each day or even that there are not times when something gets in the way of your plans BUT, the big difference is that there is ALWAYS time to recover from the hiccups or the busyness of the morning or noon or night.

Being in charge of my schedule is probably the biggest gift retirement has given me.  Using the time wisely is the biggest challenge.  Nothing comes free - even retirement has its price!

I had three meetings this week which meant going downtown, parking and planning/working for up to eight other people for three or four hours at a stretch.  In my past life, that would have meant driving through traffic, circling for a parking spot and paying upwards to $30 when I found one and then, chairing a meeting no one really wants to be at.  Contrast that with a five minute drive down the mountain, parking for FREE and walking maybe 20 feet to the door - YEAH!  And that is not all!  The meeting participants were often quite colorful and artistic, willing to dig in and make a mess, and happily clean up afterwards.  And that was two out of the three meetings.

The third did involve discussions and some minutes and even a few votes but, we were rubbing shoulders with artists from wood carving to potters, painters to sculptors and they all wanted to be in that room that day.  We were spending money but our budget was $500.00 - not $50000.00 - and no one was fretting over the particulars.

So, I rushed around today, did some shopping in another country, raced home for lunch, rushed down to the post office for some important "posting" business and then drove all the way across town to check out some real estate before having coffee with the tenants.  Dinner was a gourmet treat, bouef de Hamburg, served with various colorful sauces (ketchup, Dijon mustard and pesto mayo), rosemary oven-fried potatoes, fresh veges of my choice and topped off with avocado chocolate mousse.

I have now retired to my studio to write and paint for the evening.  My honey-sweetened tea sits near my right hand ad as I gaze at the clouds just clearing the top of the mountain, I say:

"Time, time, time - is on my side.....yes it is"

Rolling Stones Live at Leeds 1982

Retired Introverts

I woke up this morning (a good thing!) thinking about retirement now that I have reached my one-year anniversary and realized I am still learning how to be retired.

My first observation in the wee hours - retirement is like starting a new job.  New employees don't start out as the expert on Day One - it takes time for them to figure out the "corporate" culture and how they can maximize their position and contribution within their new surroundings.

Because I am a researcher/analyzer type of person, I naturally spent many hours digging into other's comments - written or spoken - on how they "do" retirement.  Like the new employee, I took to heart most of those comments and felt pulled in many different directions.  I pulled back and hid out for awhile (thankfully no one fired me!) and feared I would fade into the woodwork permanently those first few months.  This morning, I read an article about introversion - one of those "13 ways to make the introvert in your life feel loved" kind.  Thank goodness these two blogs together finally shot a dose of realism and clarity into my blood stream.  Made me look at how I was loving the introvert within my own skin!

Without the distraction of a busy work schedule, I have been embracing my introversion in a way I feel I couldn't while being the best in my work of choice.  Work pushed me into social situations where I learned to be the extrovert social diva to promote and educate and market - all at a cost to my energy and motivation to do more and more.  Fortunately, these times were balanced out with my other tasks that tied me to the computer, working within my comfort zone, writing and crunching numbers!  Ah!  Balance!

Take me out of the "have to" scenario and I flounder - like a fish out of water!  Give me eight months and I finally figure out I am not a fish after all!  The guilt surfaced - how my social activity was being sidelined, even avoided at times.  Wise words (some of them mine!) reverberated in my head:

"You need friends - girlfriends, couple friends, casual friends and especially face-to-face friends."
"Get involved in the community.  Volunteer.  Bake cookies.  Go to events."
"Go to the local coffee shop and meet people. Walk up to a table of seniors with an empty chair or two and ask if you can join them."
"Walk around your neighbourhood.  Talk to people.  Get to know their names."

Can I just say that some of this was great advice and some of it was even great advice for me, but some of it (go to a coffee shop!) made my throat constrict in terror!

My moment this morning realized that my happiness quotient goes up when I stay true to myself,  being authentic within my own heart.  I have taken up solo types of activities like painting and writing to my heart's content.  Learning to paint works - joining a class gives me the kind of beneficial social connection I love while I pursue my creative side.  Joining a writing group puts me in a whole group of introverts! Knowing this even encouraged me to venture out and make my first meeting with them a lunch in a restaurant before I had even met one person!  Volunteering looks different for me than the cooking, baking, kind that I think many of my advisers had in mind.  I volunteer at the local art gallery, meeting and greeting complete strangers but in a setting that houses one of my passions - art.  Instant conversation starter plus I can capitalize on my "being in charge" character from years of management.

Social activity is very important, but it looks different for everyone.  Just like the many home choices (style and location), travel ideas (mode and destination) and financial situations (frugal or on the edge!) differ from one to the other.  Retirement is not a destination but a continuation of the life you started sixty or so years ago - true to character with lots of room to grow and explore and finally with the time and opportunity to relax into it.

Retirees don't morph into something they are not, but for this retiree, at least, they continue to become who they really are.  Free time opens up the opportunity to explore some of those neglected corners of a busy, working, parenting life and infuse light, life and colour back into them.  I was a child who loved to create, read, write and hang out with a few special friends.  I am again that child - just a little wiser and freer to pursue all of this and more!

Ready? Set? Go!

New Years is a time of reflection - where you have been and where you are going.  Where have I been this past year?  I re-read my first post in 2014 (another plus in blogging!) and this is what I wrote:  " I felt like I was standing just below the tip of a ski jump, not yet able to see what lay ahead, not even mapping it out from past experience, but finally, just ready to jump!"

Well, I jumped!  Life is all about change.  Sometimes it just sneaks up on you, like when raising a child. One day you are feeding a babe in arms and the next you are watching her walk down the aisle on her father's arm!  Other times it hits you between the eyes - BAM! - like reaching out to take the divorce papers from the courier assigned the happy job.  But there are changes we seek when we have the time to mull over the details, choose the timing and pick the path.  Like buying a new house when seeking out the mortgage, figuring out the neighborhood and then choosing your move in date gets you your new home.  Of course, nothing is ever that cut and dried!

One CRAZY Shopping Trip

When I first set out to make this move to retirement happen, I was pretty sure selling would be much harder than buying. Then, with a 3-hour quick sale bolstering my confidence, I was filled with the anticipation of an easy/breezy buying trip as I packed for the BIG weekend and looked forward to coming home with a house in my shopping cart!  Famous last words?  Keep on reading!

I have been shopping online for months to find Retirement Home #1 to kick off my retirement this July.  I finally sent my criteria to our new Realtor-on-the-ground, Alina, last week.  After spending many months renovating our last house, we made the decision we wanted a move-in ready home, quiet neighborhood, two bedrooms, one-story with a decent patio/deck to enjoy the balmy, warm evenings that the Okanagan brags about.  Easy access to cycling paths and good wine were also high on the list.  That was the simple part!  Packaging all of this into a small budget was much more challenging.

We landed in Kelowna with our bags in hand and soon had the keys to the Chevy Sonic rental car in our hot little hands.  Wheeling out of the parking lot, I realized, REALLY realized, that this was actually happening.  I was retiring.  I was moving.  GULP.  An easy drive through Kelowna on a mid-morning Friday before the tourist crowds mingled with the locals, and we were on our way.

We whizzed by orchards with black, empty branches reaching the sky.  The vineyards were showing some signs of life as their keepers were spotted cleaning out remnants of last season and fussing over their "babies". We skimmed by beautiful lakes and snow capped mountains and then down, down into the Southern Okanagan.  Even with only the first blush of spring peeping out and showing off her pink or yellow blossomed-branches or shy tulips or more showy daffodils hiding in sunny corners, there was a promise in the air that just spoke to my heart.  The closer we came to Osoyoos, the more excited I became!  Vineyards stretched from mountain to lake and orchards filled in the gaps.  Closed and boarded fruit stands dotted the landscape preparing for the summer harvest of cherries, apricots, peaches and so much more.  Signs shouted Cukes, Tomatoes and Strawberries to our parched, Albertan souls!

Like little kids, we parked (diagonal parking, small town friends!) for FREE (Calgary victims!) and explored the downtown - Main Street!  Coffee houses, boutiques, Home Hardware and wine bars - my smile grew incrementally with each short stop.  We dined on gluten-free quinoa salad and headed to the resort where we had scored an off-season suite.

Welcoming Committee!

We dashed out to the complex of ranchers we had our eyes on for a sneak peak before our official visit the following morning.  We drove through the neighborhood and my stomach lurched a little.  Old people everywhere smiled and waved.  They stopped on the sidewalk to do a double take on the couple in the rental vehicle.  No lawn mowers in this mainly desert landscape - just pretty little houses in gravel-covered yards and friendly seniors dotting the scenery.  They all seemed so old, so quiet, so......retired!  Doubt overwhelmed me!  Maybe I had overstated our wish for a quiet neighborhood.  Perhaps I had been wrong in thinking 55+ complexes were a good idea?  Maybe I was REALLY wrong and I wasn't ready to retire!  I started re-thinking my many decisions and went back to the hotel with a lot of feelings bouncing around inside of me.  I fired a quick email off to our Realtor - "Alina, maybe we should expand our search!  Maybe the Casita del Sol is TOO quiet."  With grace, she agreed to try and add some properties to our afternoon search the next day.

The next morning we WALKED to our Realtor's office.  We had the advantage as her lovely smile was posted on websites and For Sale signs all over town.  Knowing we had the right person, we prepared for our tour.  The sun was shining as we pulled into the visitor's parking at the Casita del Sol.  We checked out BIG cedar decks with lake views and cute little patios for that proverbial sip of wine.  What to do?  The neighbors were awakening on this fresh Spring day with outdoor and garage chores galore.  They waved and smiled as we walked between houses.  The house I had been day dreaming about for weeks was everything it had promised to be.  My thoughts of too quiet or too old calmed.  I easily pictured us with our morning coffee listening to the birds flitting around the mountain landscape as I typed my latest blog on my laptop. Oh, joy - I was home!  I was ready to be a RETIREE!  I wanted to embrace peace and quiet and beauty near a lake in a valley surrounded by mountains.


We bought it - that very day.  Easy. Confident. Calmly.  I discovered how much joy I had been holding back when we were homeward bound and stopped in a little park in Kelowna to finish off our bottle of wine - from the bottle!  Toasting our new house and our new life - in the beautiful Okanagan.

Decision Day

To INFINITY and BEYOND!

When do you know?  I have asked this question many times over the past few years.  As one by one friends and family members retired, I waited for an opportune moment and then quizzed them.  Great answers one and all!  But no one could tell me when I should retire!  If you know me well, you will know that my laptop is filled with worksheets and numbers - almost as full as my head is!  I played games with crazy numbers that jumped all over the place - escaping from my spreadsheets, hiding in the tool bar on the screen or bouncing off face book pages or other blogs with similar topics.  I inhaled gargantuan meals of information that gave me mental indigestion and insomnia!  But slowly, I was able to bring order to my thoughts and corralled those numbers into logical columns.  Now, only the occasional one creates a hiccup!  

A close friend and colleague advised me last year at her retirement party that retiring is like planning to have children - if you wait until you can really afford them you will never have any!  I took that to heart and incorporated a more realistic equation into my spreadsheets!  This winter I spoke to a new acquaintance and asked my "question".  She was wise in hind sight and indicated she knew when she felt she had reached the top of her career and her future role was shaping itself through family and life events.  I added that into the calculations and finally my spreadsheets started to make more sense.  With a little more fine tuning and a majorly freezing winter nipping at my nose and toes month after month, and the decision became a reality.  I breathed deep, re-read my letter of resignation over and over and took the leap.  Four months and I will be sitting on the beach, digging in the sand, sipping the local wine and checking out the seniors recreation centre in the sunny Okanagan! 

I did not have that final piece of the puzzle until a few weeks ago - funny how the last piece falls into place when the timing is sorted out.  Once again, the exceptionally cold winter held some sway in the timing!  So now this - my LAST Q3.................

.....can become this - summer in the vineyard! 

AND THIS!

WATCH MY COUNTDOWN BEGIN!

Just Up Ahead

Retirement used to be just over the next mountain, then it became just around the next curve.  Now I can see the sign post just up ahead.  My problem is that I am bouncing around on the details: when and where.  I have accepted soon!

In a previous post, I indicated YES, we were going to stay put, renovate, and live out the remaining years on the prairies.  Now? well, now that we have been living through -27 temperatures, we are thinking NO, let's look at something warmer.  Sigh.

I so relate to the 18 year old graduating from high school with parents and grandparents breathing down his or her neck - now what?  college? university? employment?  No wonder they retire to the basement and surface with backpack in hand and the graduating cash gifts going toward six months in Thailand.  Coming to terms with retirement is a lot like that.  There are so many scenarios to choose from - the decision is a life changing one and at this end of your life, there aren't too many do-overs available!

Narrowing it down to the important things helps somewhat - once the survival questions are addressed!  Now you may ask yourself if there is a backpack sitting in my front entry and cash stuffed in my pockets and I would have to say, not yet.  But if you checked my laptop you would find the www.mls.ca site has been visited quite often and the "favorites button" is flashing.  Excitement has replaced the fear I struggled with over the years - now I know I have enough to live on and even enough to travel a little - my eyes are focused forward and anticipation is building!

Tipping Point

I have been around and around these questions: 'What will retirement look like? Where will we live? and what will I do with all of those hours that will no longer be filled up with students and teachers and excel spreadsheets?'  I have also wondered, 'When will I know?'

I spoke with a lovely and wise retiree this past December on a quick foray into a warmer climate and she shared one of those "tipping-point" tidbits that stick in your brain.  I have often quizzed any retiree that has crossed my path lately, and I put my usual question out to her, 'How do you know when it is time?'  She smiled and shared that, for her, it was reaching that point in her career when there were no more mountains to climb.   She felt she had arrived and a new life was beckoning to her with a new role and new experiences. I carried this little bit of observation home with me, back to the winter blizzards, icy sidewalks and my life work.

I measured the distance I had traveled in my career and what was over the current mountain top - all I could see for miles was crystal clear air, blue, brilliant skies and a crisp new page of my life.  In the past, I had already usually filled in a few lines before I took a glance in that direction.  Then, I was well on my way defining the next challenge I would take on, how this program here might be elevated from great to fantastic or that process over there might be made more efficient or effective. I always had a plan brewing before I peaked into the next year.  Not  this year.  I felt like I was standing just below the tip of a ski jump, not yet able to see what lay ahead, not even mapping it out from past experience, but finally, just ready to jump!

The biggest decision was to go for it; the rest of it is the details.  I think the details always preempted the decision before.  A new perspective broadened my horizon - thank goodness for wise women!  So, I am retiring within the year.

The first detail to manage was our living accommodations.   These details have been littering my path for at least three years as I ran the scenarios through my mind, back and forth, here? there? where?  That was then followed by hours of number crunching, thousands of words of discussing and months of thinking.  So, the numbers are crunched and the silence is deafening as the words fall into their slots in the plan for the next five years.

What lies ahead?  Many of you have already arrived and thank you, as you were my best source of data as I mined for guidance.  We have been blessed with a gift I wish I could claim as forethought - one of those, all knowing decisions you make when everyone slaps you on the back for being so brilliant.   Alas, this was more an accident than a plan but when we purchased our small home three years ago, we actually had latched on to a source of income that will hopefully pad the retirement rocking chair somewhat and catapult us off into the rest of the world we so want to explore.  

A year ago, we finished the bottom two levels of our house because it seemed to be a good investment and it would give us the extra room to entertain our large family and the many grandchildren.  Well, the family has spread out across our beautiful country and the grandchildren who are close are not quite as inclined to hang out at Grandma's when it is only a few blocks to go home so, we have finally realized that with a few more dollars, we can change our lovely family room, guest rooms, bathroom and backyard into a rental property that will finance our dreams over the coming years and maybe even provide living space for a live-in caretaker that could keep us out of the nursing home - but that will be in a later plan!

So, now, we are sourcing plumbers and general contractors, cabinet makers and finish carpenters and getting closer to our dream.  With the vacancy rate near 0% in Calgary, I think, it is now or never.  We can at least pay for the small renovations required  and, if it pans out, we will hopefully be able to finance some sunny forays into new countries, cultures and experiences.  Next career - Landlord!  Stay tuned!