Category: Preparing for Retirement

Hello!

In my last posting I talked about my plans for my first day of retirement – very exciting to me, just because I want to celebrate the freedom that day will represent to me, even though the actual activities I have in mind for that first day are pretty low-key! But now, back to current realities!

I am now less than 30 calendar days from my retirement date! It has been getting more real all along, but I have to admit now it is SO VERY real, after what seems like a very long time in planning and anticipation. Here are several of my reactions to my now-imminent reality:

1) YEAH! That light is very bright now! FINALLY!

2) WOW – how can I get these last few projects done in these very few working days that are left?

3) SO many emotions, including excitement, relief, a bit of sadness to leave behind this phase of my life, excitement and anticipation of the upcoming NEW phase of my life, and determination that all of these ideas that have been floating around in my brain, and that I have been writing about, will actually come to fruition.

My pastor’s sermon today at church was from the book of James, Jesus’ brother, and the sermon series is entitled “Rubber Meets Road” – that sermon was very pertinent to me in this phase of life…not just related to how I implement my retirement, BUT in making sure that I grow in my faith during this new phase of my life! That goal is in my list, as I have indicated in prior blogs, and today’s sermon confirmed for me that retirement is not a phase to slow down in my faith growth, but a grand opportunity to grow it even more, and to help others in their growth! Check it out at https://www.encompass.church

As I finish up these last few weeks, I may not post each week…it is amazing how many details need to get worked out now, both finalizing work, finalizing finance arrangements, and preparing to begin my new journey! Please keep me in your prayers as it all comes together…and in the meantime, be sure to take the opportunity to work on your own dreams and goals, and write them down in your journal/list, so that you are preparing yourself for both your NOW and your future retirement sunRISE!  And remember, this is an ongoing process as we live life, and realize new things we want to be part of our present or future!

Talk to you again soon!
Mary

Welcome!

Since my retirement is coming up just around the bend, I have been spending even more time thinking about what my first retirement week will really look like. I am so excited to make it really mine!

We live in a rural area and have lovely walking opportunities even within our neighborhood of houses that are rather spread apart…including some animals to look at along the way. As I have worked through the years, I have often, I confess, felt rather jealous when I saw women out early, walking either with friends or by themselves, just enjoying themselves. I have wistfully wished I could have time to do that, and not have to be rushing off to work. SO, while it isn’t exactly the most amazing, stimulating, retirement activity for my first retirement “former” work day, I intend to go walking with my husband with our crazy dog, and just enjoy the neighborhood and the freedom!

Then, back home, perhaps off to a local coffee shop in our small nearby town, linger over a book and a coffee or green tea latte, then have a leisurely rest of the day at home!

Sound exciting? LOL! I think it does, because I just want that first day especially to represent my new found freedom and new sunRISE! The rest of the week will probably have more to it…a Tuesday women’s Bible Study; writing more blog posts; begin fitness training with my husband who I have asked to be my trainer (since one of my major goals is to get into better health and fitness); working out a routine with him of jointly cooking meals; hopefully trying new recipes (though Dave has done a GREAT job over this first year of his retirement of cooking dinners most weekday evenings and trying new and very tasty dishes!); and making a specific implementation plan for the ideas on my notebook list that we discussed in the beginning of this blog. (See May and June blogs if you haven’t heard about notebook lists! Good stuff!)

We have bigger plans for here and there down the road, including family time, planned travel, spontaneous day trips, classes, involvement at our church, etc., but I am excited that my first week will be one of quiet appreciation for the blessing of this new phase of my life!

Talk to you again soon!

Mary

Hello everyone! I hope you are planning for wonderful sunRISES every day!

As you know by now, my time left at my job is definitely winding down. 7 more weeks to go! This is getting real, and I am SO excited!

At my work, we hopefully are homing in on hiring someone, so that is good and hopefully that will all take shape very soon. I am working hard on things that need to be wrapped up before I leave. I have communicated my retirement to a few customers who specifically need to know because of my relationship with them. I have started to box up some personal stuff and take it home…and I have started to recycle some old files that won’t be needed (and truth be told, I should have gotten rid of a while back…but I am a piler, and filing/paper clean up is not first on my priority list! Sigh…! Something I hope to do better once I am home!). My packing up has made my co-workers nervous and sad, however, so I don’t want to do too much that is totally obvious till it is almost time! They are all very sweet through this process with me, so I am very blessed by that!

Now THAT is all getting DEFINITELY real! LOL!

One other thing that is getting real is fully realizing that soon, I won’t be seeing/interacting with the people I work with every day anymore. I am realizing that is the part I will miss…because I truly consider some of those folks to be my friends, and we have all personally grown through working together. I will try to stay in touch with some of them, most definitely, but I know that the reality, in most instances, is that those contacts will become fewer and fewer as we all move on with our lives in each of our new “normals.”

This realization makes me a bit sad, and I know that is going to be what causes my last month or so to be more teary than it has been up to now. But, as we have talked about before, all of life changes have both positive and negative effects; but the positive ones I fully expect to be the greater side of that equation, since all of life is what WE make it, through the blessings of the Lord…so, onward toward my newest upcoming sunRISE!

Talk to you again soon!

Mary

Welcome back…hope you are well!

Last time I talked about training my replacement and other practicalities. Today, I thought I would cover some of my changing emotions over this past 5 months back at work.

My excitement is really growing, and that is my overarching emotion at the moment. I still must be, and am, very engaged in doing my job, but that light that is getting brighter beckons strongly! As of date of this posting, only 2 more months to go!

However, as I have also been informing the broad group of folks I work for throughout my company, I have occasional unexpected tears when talking about it. I know that will increase toward my last month because I am generally a crier (sigh!), but also because, as with any change, there are both positives and negatives. Every change in life I suppose is composed of both of these! But I have to say that these few earlier episodes have taken me by surprise. I think it is because the reality of leaving many people I truly like is setting in.

But that being said, it is kind of funny how some folks have described this when they talk about my retirement… “Sailing off into the sunset.” While that is a very common phrase to describe retirement, somehow it just wasn’t what I wanted to call it for me. I asked them to start saying “Sailing off into the sunRISE” instead…because I definitely don’t see this as an ENDING for me, but a NEW BEGINNING full of a new day’s promise. They laughed, but actually thought it was a very good thought, so now that is what they say! I told my manager, who is much younger than me, that I felt it my duty to help them all look ahead to realize what their own retirements might look like! He thought that was pretty good! As I have tried to emphasize in these blogs, brainstorming and writing down your ideas of what you want to do and accomplish are important both for NOW and in your retirement years!

So, whether you are ready to retire or looking at it in the near or far future, think of every day as a new sunrise!

See you next time!

Mary

HI everyone!

This blog today is being actually WRITTEN about 5 months after my last blog, as opposed to my last blog being POSTED in July. I was in Roatan late Feb to early March…now I have been back at work for about 5 months, so first, as I write this current blog: a) I am less than 3 months from my retirement date now (YEAH!), and b) this blog and going forward will be written from the perspective of final preparations for actual retirement, and observations about myself and others in this time frame of final preparation for the big “R”!!

First, it is interesting to note how my perspective is different today, in July, even compared to that from being in Roatan. More experiences, actual announcement at work that I will retire in October, finalizing a few of the nitty gritty details, all makes this now EXTREMELY REAL! EXCITING, though I will admit, a little bit scary!

When I got back from Roatan, it was very much “business as usual” at work. I hadn’t finalized my actual retirement date yet, but my team knew it was coming up this year. We devised a plan for me to work with my successor, someone I had been working with for a few years already, to train with me to take over my job duties. From my return through June, we have really only been able to meet once a week for me to do a “download” of overall information. That has been necessary and good but was only really in preparation for her to actually “do” the work. She is still in deep throes of fulfilling her current job obligations, so time is limited. However, it is getting pretty real now; we have worked together on a few items, so she is starting to get her feet wet. She gets copied on everything and is getting to know the teams I work with, so that is all good. She will do great, and that is a relief to me, knowing I am leaving it all in good hands. Plus, she will have support from our larger team as well till she gets HER successor up and running!

A job posting was made to backfill for her position, and interviews have started. Hoping to find the right fit soon, so I can help her train that new position, AND get more in detail on training her for mine.

Lots of balls in the air!

With all of that, my team has been very supportive, very happy for me, but sad to see me go. I have been blessed with a wonderful team of co-workers! While I am definitely ready to leave the stress of the actual job behind, I will miss the people a lot! I want to leave them all as prepared as possible…and it has all been part of our team goals during this year. The new person in my job and her successor will put their own mark on things, which is a good thing, but of course, they all need to understand where to start! LOL!

Such is part of these final realities for me!

More observations and realities for me next time. For now, take care!

Mary

HI everyone!

Ok, one more from Roatan! Just as I finished up writing my last blog, I realized that I needed to mention one other lesson learned from my discussion with the resort managers which I talked about in my blog on July 14, 2018. And that is, he, as an engineering teacher, truly did love his job. He didn’t feel a need to retire to get away from it, and he probably would have kept on working for at least several more years at it if the extended opportunity to present fun, ecological seminars didn’t present itself.

His wife, however, was absolutely ready to retire when the opportunity presented itself. I understood from her reaction that she wanted to retire definitively and was very happy about this chance.

So, all this is to say, if you love your job and don’t want to or don’t have to retire, then you absolutely don’t have to! If retirement is all about doing what you want and what you love, and if you are already doing it, then there is no reason to change! When and if the time is right for whatever reason, you will be able to take the plunge at that time.

But if you definitely feel the tug to retire in the next few years, and if your finances will allow for it, I encourage you to start the process of planning for what is next! It is actually a fun and interesting process…with lots of discoveries ahead!

Of course, planning for the financially part is definitely important.  As I said in the beginning, I do not have retirement financial expertise and we relied on a financial planner significantly. If you have a 401(k) or other retirement plan at work, I recommend you talk to one of their advisors or seek private planners; but even if the money part is not ready yet, thinking ahead and implementing some of your desires for retirement now, even before your retirement,  pave the way.   There are lots of things you can start now to make things very enjoyable. Remember as we have said, the brainstorming and list making  we have talked about is great for helping to make both your NOW and THEN be what you want it to be!

Take care and happy planning! Come back next time when we will talk from the angle of being in the middle of work time still!

Mary

Welcome back!

Today I thought I would just summarize my “lessons learned” during my Roatan vacation! It was a great experience for me, and an eye-opener! I hope my list of lessons learned helps you to sort through some of your ideas about your retirement planning. They may or may not apply directly to you, but they hopefully will help you to think about whether they do apply, whether the opposite applies, or something in between.

 – While I want time freedom, I also need some structure.
 –  Writing out my thoughts has helped gel what I am thinking I want my retirement to be, and to sort through some of the little things that I hadn’t really considered before.
 – Even though Dave was diving for most of our time here, I realized that, in real life, he and I will be together more than we ever had been. We need to make our relationship as a couple be a high priority.
-  Though I haven’t written about it yet, even though our “coupleness” is important, our individuality is also important, so we need to be sure those needs are also planned for.
 – I want to take time to grow my relationship with my daughters and granddaughters, using the time I still have to leave a legacy of family, faith, responsible living, fun and love.
-  I want to grow my own relationship with Jesus Christ more fully, so I live in great anticipation of who I will meet when He finally calls me home!

I hope more ideas than these have been flowing through your mind as you have walked through this set of my blogs! These all come from when I had the time to really think. I hope you have that same opportunity, but even if you can’t get away for a week right now or in the near future, try to block out an hour or so just for you each week and write down your thoughts. Remember, neither your list nor general “thoughts” journals need to be shared with anyone unless you want to, and you are not committing yourself to anything by writing them…you are just starting the process of making sure you don’t wake up on your first retired morning and saying “Now what?” OR, even if your retirement is a ways down the road, these times to think and write things down will help you so you don’t wake up one morning and realize you aren’t doing anything you want to do other than work, eat, sleep, repeat. Writing things down is VERY empowering to help you get your sights set on what you want to accomplish in your life, both before AND after retirement!

There will be one more blog from my Roatan experience after this, but after that, my next blogs will be from when I am back in the trenches of real life…work, home, etc. But, the day I went back to work after my Roatan vacation it was 7 months till my Retirement Date in October (but from date of actual posting, is only about 2.5 months!) That will hopefully keep me going!

Take care!
Mary

Hello everyone, and welcome back!

The day I wrote this was our last full day in Roatan. So that means settling up accounts, packing, and doing the last stuff we want to do. It was wonderful break, full of discovery for me, full of diving for Dave.

As I was paying the bill at the dive shop, the resort managers were there on the dock, and I started talking with them. They are a 60-something couple who I knew hadn’t been there as managers too long. I asked them how long and found out about THEIR retirement story…and since it is interesting and proves up something that I think is good to realize, I wanted to tell you some of their story today.

The husband-manager was an engineering teacher for 35 years. The wife-manager was the administrator of a crisis teen center. In their later years they started learning about ecology, and got involved with a seminar group, speaking around the world about those issues. That brought them to the attention of the resort we were at, along with having come here as guests and “mentioning” they might consider retirement sometime in the near future. They got a call from the resort a few years ago reminding them of their retirement remark and were asked if they might be ready to retire now… and if they could come to host the seahorse festival during the entire month of November. They decided it was a great opportunity and so they did retire. The invitation then expanded to some other time frames so that they eventually spent about 12 weeks a year here doing special fun educational events.

Next up, they were asked if they would like to live in Roatan full time and MANAGE the resort! Quite the turn of events! They agreed and have been here now about 5 months full time.

I think this interesting story shows that, even if you retire, you may end up with other opportunities presenting themselves!

I really don’t think this is the end of their retirement story, however, based on our conversation. They are enjoying their role, but he remarked that he realized he really is not “retired” any more, since this managerial position for them both is a 24/7 situation, with lots to do to keep things running, improvements to make, etc. My personal opinion is this might last a couple of years, then perhaps they will go back to their fun ecological education seminars when they want to do them….OR, who knows?

The point is, retirement means a lot of different things to people. I don’t think too many of today’s retirees think of the old traditional “rocking on the front porch” version of this period in their lives anymore. I certainly don’t! My list shows that I have lots of plans for my “golden years!” I hope your list is helping you define what you want your retirement to be! And, if rocking on the porch sounds divine to you, that is great! But I think this story of these resort managers shows that retirement may change over time, from slower paced to a little more active to perhaps a whole new career, and back again! Keep your mind open to possibilities and to what you want to make of your retirement!

More next time, see you then and have a wonderful rest of your day!
Mary