Retire In Style Blog Too

I saw this on Twitter this morning. Even though it was a Tweet posted by an educator, it reminded me of the thought process some people have about retirement. Did you feel like you had "arrived" when you retired? Or did you see a future beyond the gates of retirement and a whole world on the other side? It could be that what we see after that work life will simply be a self fulfilling prophecy. I do hope that you have or had many ideas to chose from. I think that is the key. I suppose if you have always been an armchair kind of person you will not change now. But you can! That is the point. The Point:   Don't ever feel that you have arrived...believe you can reach even higher! It just gets better and better. Ready, Set, Go! Have fun! Just a thought! b+ Related articles Bringing a New Meaning to Retirement How Do You See the Future You? After All...What are Bucket Lists For?

My husband made plans with a funeral director this week for what we want when we die. It is all taken care of so I will never think about it again. By the way, this is not a sad thing at all. It is just doing a bit of planning so someone else won't have to do it years from now. I am sure I will have a lot of funny things to say about the plan in the future! Stay tuned! Everyday living is how I would describe my life. There are many ordinary days strung together. I truly am in love with my way of life. In an article called Everyday Miracles on  Retirement-Reflections , the writer asked the question: What would you do if you believed you had less than five years to live? She was given a possible diagnosis that would limit her life to just 5 more years. The fact that she is a newly retired woman living as though she had many years left. What would she do? I paused for a second and it crossed my mind that, at our age, we really should be living as though we only have 5 more years to li...

I know, it all sounds so wonderful...retirement, travel and maybe even a second home in Arizona or Florida. But don't you really having a hard time visualizing the life? If you have a great deal of money, it will look one way. If you don't, it will look another. Our Tucson Arizona home...a park model on the corner! Then there are those of us that live like we want to live. We probably even make choices that are less costly than they need to be but just fit our personalities. I thought maybe today I would give you a little glimpse into a very simple lifestyle. That is the one we live. If you have any questions, just leave a comment! I you chose this lifestyle, how would you want to live? b+ Our park model front porch after dark. Flower Garden in front of our park model. A special treat...golf at the Tubac Resort The historic Presidio District near downtown Tucson Outdoor plaza in the Presidio District Just because! Golfing with friends My hand-me-down table and chairs...spray pa...

This really made me laugh. We received this email from our golf course in Arizona. It seems that some of the men cannot make it around 9 holes of golf without urinating so they have chosen the 7th hole as the designated unofficial urinal. The residents with homes on the course don't like it. It might even be a little creepy This was not the first email has been sent out explaining to the men that they should not do this...it was one of those "once again with feeling...don't do that!" kind of messages. It went like this: To all golfers:   Again, it’s come to our attention that some members have urinated on the golf course. Please note we do have rest rooms available in the clubhouse and on hole #14.   Arizona Golf Course...so many trees and so many rules! As before , if nature is calling please head to the closest facility. The folks who live on the course with their family do not want to see people relieving themselves in public.     Here is the law regarding exposu...

We were sitting with neighbors last night talking about wine and other important things. The conversation turned to retirement and how we all worried about filling the days without a schedule and a job. Would we be bored? How would it feel to be without deadlines and big responsibilities? Many people move from a work schedule to a very busy life full of "stuff". I am even told by women of my age that they would like to read or walk or even have coffee with me but they are simply "too busy". Isn't that interesting? How could that be? As I was reading an article on a blog site called Your Entrepreneurial Spirit this morning, it finally all came into focus for me. In the introduction I found this paragraph: He drew me a picture! What a wonderful day. Sogyal Rinpoche , author of “ The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying ” coined the term “active laziness” to describe how we attempt to live life to the fullest by filling the hours with too many unimportant activities.....

The Oregonian posted their funniest cartoon today. Todays favorite was one from Non Sequitur. It features a group of people gathered around a grave with a tombstone that says simply "I've Got This".  We have all walked up a path we knew nothing about. In the search for for a solution to a problem put before us, we have volunteer blithely. We put on a smug smile. After all we are sure that "We've got this". Then we journey to the brink. Jeff in the cartoon above set out to find out how far one had to gone before a task turned from one demanding courage into the one that was just plain stupid. Jeff died in the quest. His tombstone tells it all. It is funny but it is also a little sad. Boy do we have to be careful when we put ourselves into the line of fire with "I've got this!" because "not having it" can be a very bad thing. The one that I have used many times before is "how hard could it be?". I remember heading out to see a...

I have always found a connection between growing a garden and raising my family. It may be that only a gardener would understand. It seems to me that taking care of the garden requires a love of gardening and a certain instinct for what the flowers and plants really need. My husband and I share a garden so it sometimes becomes a tug of war. For many years he was sure that I was watering too much and was giving the plants too much food. I was positive that he let plants get stressed and hungry before he would give them what they needed. In spite of our different views our garden did grow. Somewhere between the different philosophies was the perfect plan. In the end it seems we share a brain and it goes very smoothly now. Auntie and Brayden Family many years ago when every grandchild was a baby! We have raised a family and now have grandchildren and a great grandchild. It could that what we learned and took into our hearts during that time is why our garden grows with great gusto now. Li...

You have got to love children that know you so well that they actually read your mind. Those are the kind that get you things you didn't even know you wanted. You just really have to love those children. I am now the proud owner of 3 (three) sleeves of brand new golf balls. Wow. They are all different brands so that makes it more fun...kind like doing a wine tasting experiment. I am happy. I also received the cutest birdhouse/planter. I will hang on my back fence. I am sure it will have a nest in it before we know it. I like it a lot! Then I got a cute black wire basket that will hold more junk...how did they know I had more junk than I had baskets? Pure genius you will have to admit. Echo Dot Then, as icing on the top of the cake I got an Echo Dot. (Yes Andy, I can order from Amazon now just by talking to Alexa. That is not such a bad thing actually.) I didn't know I wanted this device until I had it in my hands. Remember when I was talking about forgetting blog ideas before ...

It seems like a foolish question but I wonder what your bedside table reveals about you. Do you even have one or are you one of those people that reserves their bedroom for sleeping? Family Pictures? My husband and I like our bedroom a lot and we spend time in that space not sleeping. You might find a cough drop, an iPad, remotes for TV, Apple TV and the cable on our stands. But there is also a book, crossword puzzle magazine and Kleenex. The Kleenex is on my husband's side even though he doesn't use it. My side has an inhaler. I would like to have a plant on my side but I haven't found just the perfect one. Maybe an African Violet...I like those a lot. Do you have magazines on technology or shortwave radios or golf or design or hiking or living healthy or even your will? Is your book a murder mystery, a biography or a Harlequin Novel?  Does it have plans for your future or connections to your past? And what do those things have to say about you? See what I mean? So...what ...

My husband observed this morning that he must be hanging out in the wrong places online. When I asked him why, he told me that he just didn't see anyone saying anything good about President Trump. He loves Facebook because so many of his former students are following him. Maybe everyone that disagreed with him unfriended him back in December. That comment got me to thinking about how we feed on our own ideas and opinions. We are simply blown away with our wonderful reasoning and thoughts. And we love preaching to the choir.* A business in Hood River Oregon posted this sign in front. I admired their courage. Could it be that by simply avoiding the views of other people we become lopsided in our opinions. In our own little world no one disagrees, we are saintly and kind and good and sure of our own place in the universe. So if one day along comes a stranger with a different opinion, not a bad opinion yet somehow not the same as ours, we are shaken and surprised. We can forget about t...

If you do, don't do that anymore. I am not a news agency. I am a blogger. Of course you all know that...except for a troll that climbed out from under a bridge somewhere. It was a very good day over here yesterday. Someone that disagreed with me, a Trump supporter I suppose, told me I should be banned from the internet. I think that might be like not being allowed to travel if I am a Muslim but I am not sure. That line of thinking is going around these days. The fact that I was called out for posting "fake new" made me laugh. I do not post the news. I just comment on what I think is a very scary time in history. And I am allowed to do that in America...saying what I think is alright isn't it. And I still think the joke is on the conservative Republicans because I remember very well what their take on Affordable Healthcare Plan was at the beginning of the Obama era. But, having a short memory or even calling the truth a lie is okay these days too. I have done a little ...

English: Donald Trump speaking at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Please be sure to read the article about insurance companies and healthcare insurance under Obama Care: Health Insurance Industry Rakes in Billions While Blaming Obamacare for Losses . See, the deal is a little over 8 years ago the Republican party and all those that supported a very conservative cause (the Freedom Caucus?) did not think that an Affordable HealthCare Act was even possible. It was communist/socialist in their eyes and evil. " What is the world coming too?"  they asked. Now look what is happening. They are not repealing the plan...they are replacing it! Even at its worst, the country will still have a healthcare plan and the joke is on them. I don't think that is what they had in mind. However, the bad thing is that insurance companies and those that are unwilling to admit that we need to take care of each other want to do away with one of the most important clauses i...