Retire In Style Blog Too

A couple of years ago  my husband decided to do something we had talked about for years but thought we were too old to do. Too late, too old, too bad...so sad! Upon awakening from a dream I turned to my husband and he turned to me and said, "Well why not? We are not getting younger. And if we live for many more years, if we don't, we will not have done what we want AND we will just be ten years older! Very like the person that decides to finish college at 65, what difference does it make! I want to do it. Have you ever done that? Our decision was to move money from one piece of real estate and invest it in another...our very own fixer upper. At that time I was 74 and my husband was 78. Too old...? Well maybe. As it turned out our dream was a blessing...and a lot of very hard work...but it was our dream so we just did it. There was really no financial risk and that was good. That is always our one caveat...we only spend what we can afford. The little townhouse we bought is in T...

In the Orchard In the Orchard  (★ ★ ★ ★+):  Winner for Best Feature Film at the 2018 Sonoma International Film Festival, the 2018 Culver City FF and the 2019 Beaufort Int FF. A grief stricken woman befriends a Marine veteran with PTSD, and their relationship leads them towards potentially tragic consequences. Available on Amazon Prime.  I love blogging. It has offered me some amazing unexpected experiences. Connecting with film makers Dana White and her husband, Christ Knoblock, was one of those rare things that doesn't happen in my world everyday. I don't remember where we connected. Dana may have gone through blogs and emailed me or I may have seen her on a crowd sourced website. Getting to know  Hollywood film people as we would in say our simple eastern Oregon way was just fun. That was several years ago. At that time Dana and Chris were working on a film Dana wrote. It was called The Red Suitcase. I donated to their efforts so I was very interested. (I still wea...

If you are a person that does not like change or adventure and wake up thinking about a story, a project or what you will write, what do you do when you retire? Then let's add the person that retired from a public service volunteer type job. What do they do? I am thinking that volunteering is not something they will be interested in. Really, you can only read and travel a certain amount of time. Is there only work left for that person? Sorting and counting and supervising. What do they do? Do you have an answer? I need ideas. b+

Since Malcolm Gladwell came out with the new book Talking to Strangers  my stories about all those people I meet while we are traveling are greeted with "Well that is so interesting...do you suppose they were telling the truth?". Are people by nature liars do you think? I often wonder. Having heard our wonky president being called a liar (because he probably deserves it) I wonder if all people are speaking in liars language. See, it has occurred to me that we all are telling things that are not quite true. If you have ever been interviewed by a small town newspaper and then read the article written about that conversation, you know that the article does not say what the reporter was suppose to hear. Was that person lying? I don't think so. In fact, I bite because of the title of an article only to find that the title does not reflect what the article says. I feel like I have been lied to. Even in the case of our president whose mind is not as smart as it could be, he is n...

I wrote this article back in 2014. My husband and I had been retired for 18 or so years. We had emerged from all of the angst and were enjoying ourselves no end...we still are. But, we did go through the stages of grief (in a positive way if that is possible). Now we love our time to travel, enjoy grandchildren and great grandchild. We now own two homes, one in Oregon and one in Arizona. Yes it is true that your financial life gets better as you age but that is another story. All in all LIFE IS VERY GOOD! Sapa, Viet Nam Hanoi after dark Grandchildren! I now have 13 and these are three youngest. The oldest is 26ish. :) Are there seven stages to recovery from the shock of retirement? Do we feel loss, pain, anger, depression and loneliness after which we turn upward, reconstruct our lives and then begin to live again? It very well could be. I do know that when I talk to newly retired people there seems to be a pattern of behavior that each person feels is uniquely theirs. During the years...

"In her poem Small Kindnesses   Danusha Lamér  wrote about those everyday things we do that send out ripples of hope and happiness. She began with: I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk  down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs  to let you by.   And she continues with words about spilled groceries and the stranger that will bend to help you. Then the best line of the poem: Mostly, we don't want to harm each other. As she continues I found these words: We have so little of each other, now.... Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.” Credit: Copyright 2019 Danusha Laméris. First published in  Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection  from Green Writers Press.     I saw a photo of this poem on Facebook. I was taken back to a piece of graffiti I photog...

Downsizing was on everyone's mind. The stress people endure just because of a lifetime of clutter they have accumulated added to the retirement dilemma and limited income and you have the perfect reasons for wanting to live in something much smaller. Park Model in RV Resort Once the decision has been made to move the question is where? People as asking themselves Should we sell our house here in the north and buy something smaller for much less in a warmer climate? It has occurred to me that we might need to rethink what we are doing. It is a temptation to sell here in Portland, Oregon, for example, because a person can buy something in the Southwest USA for less and have disposable income left over to have MORE fun right now. When the weather is warm in the winter that person will be at home while all those snow birds are living in small resorts. Sound about right doesn't it? RV Resort Bocci Ball Tournament Then summer comes...it gets very hot in the southwest in the summer. ...

I don't know about you but I love my TV. My husband can watch seasonal sports and I can watch those shows that I enjoy. We share a lot of interests so that is great! When my husband and I move from North to South and then back again, the cable service has always been a problem. There was vacation service payments and extra boxes to return and purchase. It has cost us a lot of extra money over the years. The goal for the snowbird is to make the transition as seamless as possible. So, yes we do love our TV BUT we resent the cost that cable companies and satellite dishes are charging. The cost is simply more than we want to pay. Many people cannot afford the fees. And cable has ceased to allow you too fast forward through the ads on recorded or On Demand shows. For many, the big cost was worth it as long as you had that advantage. So my husband and I cut the cord completely. We do not have cable TV. Instead we have been using a streaming media player. We have both a Roku and a Firest...

Our park model home in Arizona Take the time to do it right...you will never regret it! Follow the links listed here and on the other posts. You will find a wealth of information. Oregon I am not here to burst your bubble but there are a few reality checks that need to be considered. I know...traveling off to warm weather in the winter, having two sets of friends and maybe a second home, sounds very luxurious. Golfing while your friends are mucking around on snow and ice would be soooooo dreamy. I want you to stop and think about what you might be doing. There are choices to be made Arizona We sat next to a couple from the east side of Portland this summer. They were approaching retirement age I guessed. We were talking about membership in the wine club at this particular tasting room when I told that we were gone for six month of the year so a membership might not work. The man sat up suddenly interested. "You're snowbirds? How do yo...

I have my MOJO back...you know my magic spells and incantations! Life is as near perfect right now as it has been in a long time. As you know, I embrace my age. Being 77 (78 in November) is really a pretty good gig for me. I can dance, still love a good party and an occasional martini. I have friends and neighbors that tolerate me as well as anyone can. Plus they like my parties. AND my husband still looks good in his blue jeans. Like I said...LIFE IS GOOD! I have my MOJO back. How is your life going? b+ MOJO:  a magic charm, talisman, or spell.  "someone must have their mojo working over at the record company" synonyms: spell · incantation · conjuration · rune · magic formula · magic word · abracadabra · jinx · sorcery · magic · witchcraft · wizardry · hex · makutu

This years theme: LUAU Every year my husband and I are invited to spend some time with some very special women...the ones that are interesting, fun and above all, true to each other. Their children/their spouses/boyfriends, parents and now, grandchildren join in the camping weekend. Games and old dogs fill the three days over Labor Day each year. Susie and Dewey own a meadow and their son, Lee and his wife Christine put on a party for us...well with a lot of food and help from friends...but still they orchestrate drinking games (croquet this year), set up corn hole boards (holes were lit this year) and see that there is an outhouse for everyone to use. Tents appear all over the meadow and a beautiful fire drum remains lit all day. The creek that runs through the property provides a play space for the dogs and their people. If it is not perfect I don't know what is. At sometime during our one day there I will have a little time with each of my daughter's friends. We laugh, commi...

I've been watching The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu. The show is riveting and disturbing. The story is one that circles around a global environmental disaster. The result is a severe drop in pregnancy's and the birth of living children. As a result a group of religious fundamentalist rebels win a fight to set up a totalitarian society where women are property and those women that can bear a child are separated to become the bearer of children for the elite infertile women. The Reality Check:  The story has been on my mind a lot because the reproductive rights of women seem to be on men's mind as much as it has always been on women's. Only a female can bear a child. Men can't do that. So what should we tell our daughters and granddaughters? What do they need to think and know  as they grow older? This new climate for girls/women is not something to be taken lightly. In the USA a group of powerful people are chipping away at the rights that women have to have an aborti...