Reflections on Retirement

As soon as I reached Medicare eligibility, I seriously began thinking I should retire. I'd worked for 48 years. My husband had retired. Many of my friends were retired. I longed to have more time at home, more flexibility to pursue hobbies, more freedom to travel... I thought it was time for someone with more energy to step in to my career.

Eagle Day 2017

Aquatic Sampling

My last work day

So in March I retired from my second career.

I don't want to sound as though I am complaining, but it has been a huge adjustment for me. I know many people would be so grateful to be where I am. I admit it, I miss my career. I need positive interaction with others. I want to continue to learn new things and be an integral part of something important.  Oh, and I don't like not having discretionary money. 

I'm still trying to create a daily routine. I can stay home all day and not accomplish much. That is ok on occasion but not for my daily routine. At first I slept later and then exercised. Brunch might be at 2:00pm. I was experiencing a need to feel that I'm accomplishing something, so I started getting up at my normal time allowing me to get the exercise done, then on with my day.

Art Show

Old habits don't leave so quickly. I tried volunteering in my sister's Kindergarten classroom. It was something I enjoyed, but I prefer to have my own classroom. I volunteer at the local historical museum, and serve on the library board, they expect a lot of free work. I substituted in my sister-in-law's preschool and found it was really fun. I still participated in educational webinars to remain aware of current trends. I continue to join the educational groups in which I was involved. I do job searches online. It would be nice to have a creative outlet that brought in extra money.












All my expectations came to be and we did travel. It was difficult to let go of the thoughts, "we need to get back home, let's shorten this trip, we should be taking care of things on the farm".






Hopefully in my second year of
retirement, adjustments
will allow us to take a carefree trip.

I schedule time for getting out in nature, painting, learning how to write children's books and practicing my photography. I'm searching for ways to combine my interests into a part-time job. My goal is to be productive and enjoy all of this life.

Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.  RWE

A morning at Pre-school

Who knew? I haven't spent much time in preschool classrooms, only long enough to read a story or share a quick lesson. But last Monday I helped my sister-in-law teach 2 groups of 3 year olds. I had so much fun! We dressed the calendar kid for the weather, we said the Pledge of Alliegence, we studied letter sounds, we sang songs, we marched around listening to music, we used free play time outside in the leaves, we ate snacks, we had circle time, we decorated a paper Christmas stocking and I read a new book. Most of them had heard of the Nursery Rhyme, Humpty Dumpty and repeated it with me. Then I read, After the Fall, by Dan Santat. It's a captivating story of how Humpty gets back up and continues with his life. It's a sweet story. The children were impressed, I know because a few days later I ran into one of the mothers and she told me her little guy ask if I was coming back to class. He then told her I taught them all about Humpty Dumpty.


Here is the link to a review of the book: After the Fall