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