The Great Retirement Experiment

Ha!  I could make a new blog all about retirement!  Does anybody else do that–daydream about new blogs they could write.  When they can’t even keep up with the old one, yeah, that’s a good idea.  I’ve been enjoying reading real life books about life on a farm lately.  So I woke up thinking I could start a new blog–“Life in a Cabin.”  Oh.  I guess that’s what this blog is already about LOL.

So.  Back to the retirement topic.  I know you guys are madly curious about it.  No.  I’m not bored yet.  According to Debra SY, that could take anywhere from 4 weeks to 4 years.  I’m putting my money on the 4 years.

I decided to treat my quilting like a job, albeit a very enjoyable one.  I need to start by 9 or 10 am and work for 4 hours on my quilting. I love this arrangement.  Because in the past, I would putter around, mostly thinking about the housework I needed to do, fooling around to avoid the housework I needed to do, and not quilting because, well, there was housework I needed to do, and how could I enjoy the quilting when I felt guilty about the housework I needed to do.  This way, I have my morning routine–check emails and blogs, spend quite a bit of time reading, journaling, and praying, and then head out the door for the morning walk with Noah.  Exercise done for the day, if I choose not to do anything else.  Back home, I start in on the quilting.  I don’t have any pictures to show you because I decided to try working on a large project from start to finish (very unusual for me.)  And when I am done quilting for the day (believe it or not, 4 hours of quilting is very tiring,) I am actually getting more housework done at the end of the day than I did before.  I do believe the house will be presentable in about 10 years.

The thing I like most about retirement so far is the change in my attitude.  I am more relaxed.  I don’t have an undercurrent of anxiety about work running all the time.  When I think about doing something I am much more positive about the possibility of it happening.

I’m still daydreaming about that farm in Oregon.  There are so many things I like about it.  LOVE the house, the barn, the property.  Love that it is near my best friend.  I don’t love so much that it is far away from this community that I have here.  I’ve lived here for 25 years.  And being that I’m not the most outgoing person in the world, it took me a long time to develop that community.

Oh, here’s some big news!  Guess who’s going to have surgery on BOTH OF HER HANDS!!!  Yep.  Its not like the doctor talked me into it or anything.  It was more the stories about the old geezers who would come in and their nerves were completely gone.  They just kept working with the carpal tunnel until their hands didn’t work any more.  I don’t want that to happen to me.  I’ve had this for 10 years.  It got much better for a long time.  But lately its been driving me nuts.  So I guess that’s my first big retirement project.  One at a time.  Each one takes about 6 weeks to recuperate from.  And he explained to me, when the nerve is fairly damaged, it can take a LOT longer for that to regenerate (nerves heal at about 1mm per day.)

Anxiety.  Changing the subject rapidly.  I don’t think I referred to myself as anxious for the first 50 years of my life.  I WASN’T anxious.  Because I ATE, and that kept me calm and cool and collected.  From the time I was very young, I was kind of proud that I never got nervous or anxious or upset about anything.  Ha.  Then last year I read that book that made me look at what the cause of my overeating was.  And I could see the things/people that made me anxious and how my overeating was a direct response to that.  But now, even though I recognize that anxiety, I still have the automatic response of wanting to eat.  The other day I was heading down the hill.  I had to drop off my dad’s trust to have an attorney look it over.  I was bringing a salad dinner to share with some other women at our Spiritual Formation Salon. I had been thinking, gee, I’m not hungry at all.  I guess I’ll just skip dinner.  The MINUTE I walked out of that office after dropping the trust off, I thought, ‘Man, I am ravenous.  Where did that come from?‘  Yeah.  There’s really no reason for me to be anxious about that trust, but it does make me extremely anxious.  Fortunately, this time I recognized the anxiety, and decided not to eat because of it.  I did have a small salad about an hour later, which was just right.  Dr. Kessler (The End of Overeating) says that neuropathways are formed in our brain when we comfort ourselves with food.  And I’m thinking that if those neuropathways are as slow to change as the nerves in my hand, well, its gonna be a long time until the old ones are gone, and new healthy neuropathways are formed.

I’ve gone to the pool two times now.  I was able to swim for 30 minutes straight the second time.  I think it might be the summer of the pool for me.  I get excited thinking about going.  And tomorrow I am signed up for a TRX training class.  I have belonged to the gym for over two years, and this will be the first class I have taken!  I’ve been wanting to try TRX for a while now.

Finally, a successful batch of granola!  Used Shelley’s recipe, and watched very carefully.  I usually burn it and have to throw the whole batch out.  I wonder if you cooked it longer at a much lower temperature if you would be able to crisp it up without the possibility of burning it?  Anyway, quite delish.  I added some date nubbies (don’t know what these are called–ground dates that are rolled in oat flour so they don’t stick to everything,) raisins, and for the nuts, I used pecans, sunflower seeds, and pepitas.  I also added a tiny bit of uncrystallized candied ginger, chopped up fine.  Quite yummy.  Thanks Shelley!

Granola over homemade yogurt, with a few dried cranberries added.

I don’t have much more to say for myself.  My official retirement party will be this Thursday.  I’m looking forward to seeing everybody.  And two weeks from today I will leave for my week in Coupeville, working with  quilt artist Marianne Burr.  Hands, you just gotta hold out for a few more weeks!