Category: Health and Fitness

Retirement update!

Hello everyone!  I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas!

I haven’t written for a while – trying out this new journey!  I am now  2 ½ months into retirement!  I’m enjoying it immensely, and I really feel that my brainstorming prep I discussed in earlier blogs has helped make this transition smoother and more productive for me.    So, hopefully that is encouraging for you to start/continue your brainstorming of ideas you want to do, both during your future or current retirement AND also during your pre-retirement years, too!

I have begun some of the things from my brainstorming list that I talked about in my early blogs.  I have joined a once-a-month book club in my neighborhood, and met more of my neighbors than all 18 years we have been here together!  Dave and I still do our morning Bible reading, but we now have more time to talk about it, and look further into questions we have!  I have gotten more involved at my church in things I wanted to do, such as participating in a Bible study that meets during the day which I couldn’t do before.  I am also continuing to lead the Bible study that I had previously taught.  I have started meeting with a young woman who is interested in creating events where women can meet to share their talents with each other.  We are working together on one that will provide teaching on a craft skill as well as encouraging women in the “lost art” of note writing.  It should be a fun and fruitful time for women to gather together!

At times, however, I feel like I haven’t done nearly the number of things from my brainstorming list that I expected to by now.  As I discussed in a previous blog, though, I do not want every minute filled with planned activity;  while I like to have some structure, I also want time to contemplate, meditate, and be spontaneous.  So, I am coming to terms with myself for not achieving everything in my list yet.  My hope is to have many wonderful years of retirement during which I can accomplish my list as well as any other additions to it!  I fully expect to keep brainstorming, learning, growing and adding to my list!

Other things I have done is met with friends for lunch, had quiet nice times with my hubby, and have scheduled one-on-one times with my daughters!  One other thing I have started doing, however, is working on my long-term health.  My husband, at my request, has started being my personal trainer.  He has always been active in training himself through exercise and weights, and he has developed a program that will work for me and is very patient in working with me.  We are able to do much of this at home, but we also go to a recreation center which has a Silver Sneaker program that he qualifies for, and a senior discount program that I qualify for.  We have scheduled ourselves to go once a week to this outside recreation center for activities we can’t do at home.  We can both tend to be home bodies, so it is good for us to have a regular time to go somewhere else, and it is fun to have access to other equipment, pool and classes.

And surprise to me — I have also begun learning more about writing using speech recognition software!  I mostly wrote this blog entry using it!  Who knew?  LOL!

So, that is my current status update on my retirement progress.  The rubber is now meeting the road!  I am excited to continue to see my progress, and to encourage you to do the same!

Wishing all of you a Happy New Year!  Let’s all make our 2019 be filled with exciting new goal accomplishments from our brainstorming list!  It is very empowering!

Take care, Mary

Time for health

Hello! Glad you are back! I hope you are stirring with our own ideas by now to help make every day, whether in retirement or not, full of joy and purpose!

My trip to Roatan was really an eye-opener to me for my retirement preparation journey. I suppose that is in part because I finally got to start writing these blog entries, so my thoughts began coming clearer and faster. By the way, writing not only your list, but perhaps writing or dictating an actual journal, might be good for you to consider too, to sort out your swirling thoughts! If you don’t like it after a couple of weeks, no worries. What helps me may not be your cup of tea, and that is OK!

But one other thing that was rather eye-opening is related to my health. I am “generally” healthy, and I like to learn about and implement natural methods of health maintenance and healing. But, I know I have a lot more to learn, (and some issues and bad habits to break) and so my list contains learning about essential oils, herbalism, healthy eating, exercising and other health-related topics.

When I arrived in Roatan, I had a large amount of swelling in my right leg. I thought it was just leftover from the plane ride. But on our 3rd full day there, I was walking around and found not only was my leg swollen, but I was having pain in my ankle and foot. As I got back from my walk I thought I would just stop by the nurse’s office, figuring she would have an ace bandage for me for a sprained ankle. As she probed, no evidence of sprain, but she was concerned about the one-leggedness of my swelling. Since I had a small blood clot history, she was concerned, and through a lot of rigamarole, I ended up going to a clinic where the local folks go to get an ultrasound. Not my favorite day of the trip, but I was happy to hear no evidence of a blood clot. I was advised to drink more water, eat a little more protein, but nothing real definitive otherwise.

I decided to really observe my leg and how I felt generally, which I don’t normally have time to do. I largely stayed off of it the next morning – while swelling had gone down overnight, it swelled back up pretty much immediately after I got up. In the afternoon I tried a short walk, and my ankle started hurting again. I wanted to do a tour at the end of the week, and I feared that was out if I couldn’t walk.

Then, I decided to experiment. I am not one to wear flip flops generally, but I had to get some because the sandals I had brought were not working since they were too tight due to the swelling. I decided to try my tennis shoes again and took a walk. Voile! No more ankle pain! Apparently non-support plus holding onto shoes with my toes does not agree with me, causing foot and ankle pain! Swelling was still there, but at least I could walk…and do my tour at the end of the week! All because I had the time, and made it count, to observe my own health and symptoms!

Do you have any health issues, or at least things you would like to improve, that will benefit from mindful observation of yourself? Make sure to put it on your list…and preferably start doing that now as much as you can, even before you retire if you aren’t there yet…so that when you DO retire, it is as healthy as it can be!

Take care, Mary