Birthday in Retirement

Welcome back to my blog.


I didn't publish much last week as it was rather a topsy-turvy week.  It seems odd to say that I didn't really have time.  But that is somewhat true; I was busy doing other things.  And if I am being honest, I also took a vacation day (or two).

I started my week on Monday by missing my usual yoga class and I also skipped out on Tai Chi as well.  I spent the day, instead, taking my older son and his fiancee to the closest airport for the first leg of their trip to Thailand.  They will be doing some backpacking and viewing of temples and beaches in Thailand, then visiting Bali to meet up with daughter and her husband (on their honeymoon) to play ultimate Frisbee for Easter weekend and then perhaps onto Cambodia.  We are following their exploits through Instagram, Facebook and soon when they start publishing on their blog;

 travelmanuel@blogspot.com.

In the last month, we have been busy helping them store their things...which means my basement has been topsy- turvy as well.  However, they were quite good about things and I actually got my crafts room organized and put together because they needed the space in our storage room.

Also, in the last few weeks they helped me set up my blog and got me publishing maybe a little bit before I had worked out the logistics of how I was going to do this.  And maybe before I had worked out exactly what I want to do on my blog; but I think that will be all good.  Sometimes you just have to grab the opportunity when it presents itself.
You can't just put off beginning something until someday when all the stars are aligned and everything is right.  All of those are just delaying tactics because the "right time or the perfect time" may never come, or even if the perfect time does come you may still miss it because you won't be ready since all you've prepared are the excuses that are stopping you from doing it now.

It is somewhat similar with my son's trip.  A logical part of me would like to encourage them to stay here, focus on their careers, put that money toward a house, or RRSPs or something tangible, but then another part reminds me that you are only young once and right now they don't have the responsibilities and obligations that would tie them down and block such an adventure.  Sometimes you just need to do what feels right to you.

I had a birthday in the middle of the week.  My first birthday in retirement; it seemed like some sort of milestone.  The beginning of how all future birthdays will be.

While I was working in the last few years, I was able to book a vacation day on my birthday and then I would make an appointment for a manicure/pedicure or shopping and sleeping in so that I could cram in as much fun as possible on that day.  This year I still wanted a vacation day--even though I am on what still feels like a vacation from work. So I decided, I didn't want any appointments or plans to interrupt my day, and I didn't want to cram too much into it.  So I stayed in bed and read a bit, and did only enough housework to keep the house from being a mess the next day. And then I did pretty much nothing. No writing or knitting or cooking or baking or anything else. The only thing I did was go to my favourite coffee shop, Twiggs for a Chai latte to drink while I watched Netfix and waited for my younger son to arrive from Ottawa.

My younger son can be very sweet.  Months ago he scheduled his last orthodontic appointment for this week so that he could be home for my birthday. He stayed through to the weekend, happy to be home and enjoying our cooking and free laundry by mom.  We even took a road trip together to his appointment on Friday.  

So that's why I've been to busy to blog last week.

Pillar and Post

NIAGARA on the LAKE

Trying to make travel plans for a retirement trip during the Christmas holidays proved to be too difficult. We would have loved to have booked a sunny trip somewhere south... the Mayan Riviera would have been my choice; however we needed to work out when each of our sons would be home, when we could go to see my parents and siblings' families and work around my husband's return to work.  So instead we made a quick jaunt to Southern Ontario before Christmas and then a short visit to Ottawa after Christmas and then up to Walford to visit my parents for New Year's Day. 

I left the bookings up to my favourite travel agent, Moe.  

He loves TravelZoo because he loves to believe he is getting the best bang for his buck.  Through that website he was able to book a stay at the Pillar and Post in Niagara-on-the-Lake that included dinner at the hotel restaurant and a wine tasting at a local winery, the Reif Estates. The Pillar and Post is one of the Vintage hotels in this picturesque small town that I have been hoping to stay at someday.  The website claims the Pillar and Post is Ontario's only five star Inn, and includes on an on-sight spa, a first class dining room and a hot springs. There is also a very nice salt water pool. You can check out their website for some luscious pictures. 

http://www.vintage-hotels.com/pillarandpost

Their foyer was decorated with a giant Christmas tree and banks of poinsettia. That's me standing beside it. 

    

A large bouquet of red roses was on the table in front of the fireplace flanked by four club chairs. Sitting there to sip morning coffee felt like being part of the upstairs folk in Downton Abbey.  

We enjoyed our meal at the Cannery very much, although with the TravelZoo deal it was a limited menu.  Two choices for appetizer, three choices of entree and two choices for dessert.  I enjoyed all of my meal and Moe felt dessert was the best part.  The Cannery gets its rather strange name from the fact that it was once a tomato cannery for Aylmer.  You can check it out at the link below.  We both regret passing up having breakfast there in favour of going to a restaurant in town because we were planning to visit the shops on the main street.  

 http://www.vintage-hotels.com/pillarandpost/dining.php

Saturday night, there were too many guests taking advantage of the hot springs that we went to the salt water pool instead.  Moe got up early on Sunday morning to go check on the hot springs since he thought that might be our best chance to enjoy it alone. He was right. He came back to say that no one was there, so we quickly threw on our bathing suits and hotel robes to speed down the hall.  The hot spring was ideal.  You leave your robe on hooks conveniently close to the entrance and then can enter the water while still inside the hotel.  Once you pass through a covered opening you are outside in a warm hot springs with winter all around you.  The snow was falling very light and the sky was still dark, the pool was surrounded by rocks and tall pine trees and with the push of some buttons and you are basking in the warm bubbly water.  A great, relaxing way to start the morning.  

I would definitely go back to the hotel but I know that I would also like to stay at the other Vintage Hotels in town, The Prince of Wales which is located right down town on the main street making it very easy to stroll down the quaint street or Queen's Landing.  It's best to check out the Queen's Landing website to see just how beautiful it is.  

http://www.vintage-hotels.com/queenslanding/  

We look forward to visiting Niagara-on-the-Lake in the future and perhaps doing more wine tasting and winery tours. Of course we could also go to do more shopping or attend a play at the Shaw Festival.  Niagara-on-the-Lake is ranked as one of the best places in Ontario and Canada to retire.  It is a beautiful area of vineyards, with quick and easy access to Niagara Falls, St. Catherine's,  Buffalo and Toronto. It is close to outlet malls and regular shopping in St. Catherine's, as well, the quaint town offers unique and interesting shops on its very pedestrian friendly main street.  The town is small but offers many excellent places to eat, several historic areas to visit, beautiful parks and walking paths and of course wineries and the Shaw Festival.  Even if you don't want to retire there, it is a place worth visiting.

Dickens and Great Expectations

I don't think that I can convince anyone to read Great Expectations who doesn't already want to read the classics, but I am going to write about it anyway.  I read it to fulfill the entry for the Reading Challenge about reading a book that I should have read in high school.

I did read some of it in grade 9 and I know that Miss Havisham left a lasting impression but any other memory of the book was vague at best.  I am not sure if I read all of it, some of it or most of it back then but I do know that I listened to Mr. Tuer talk about it in class.  I probably remember more about the teacher and his rather strange choice of socks than I do about the book. The Reading Challenge forced me to take the opportunity to right the shirking of my educational duties from so long ago.

Reading it wasn't like swallowing a teaspoon of vile medicine that quickly does its job, but it still felt like taking some type of medicine.  There were points where I was trudging through it.  True to the conditions of the time, Dickens was being paid for each word and it is very evident at the beginning of each chapter when he sets the scene in often verbose description.  Definitely, good for brushing up or expanding your vocabulary, so you can use words like verbose.

Yet at other times it was truly enjoyable.  Dickens can be witty, even funny with clever turns of phrase and with sarcastic and dry explanations of human foibles.  In the last third of the book, all of the slow lead up with careful laying out of plot and character development the book comes together and it becomes exciting.  I read until I was too tired to read anymore and had to leave the last few chapters to the next day.  Dickens leaves no loose ends and ties up all the plot lines and characters very well.  I guess back then the idea of a sequel, or prequel or spin off was not considered the thing to do.  

Now that I finished reading it I am glad that I did take it on. After all it is a classic and I am probably a better reader because of it.   Next year, if the reading challenge has a similar entry I think I might be reading Dickens again since I only remember the first lines from A Tale of Two Cities and have a vague memory of Madame Dafarge knitting away.
I would rather be reading Austin, her world is kinder.

Absolutely yummy and decadent!

There are times when you want the kitchen all to yourself and then there are times when cooking should be shared.  Valentine's Day works perfectly for shared cooking.  We plan a simple menu; steak, roasted potatoes, salad, wine and add lobster tails if we can.  

This Valentine's we added a couple of upgrades courtesy of February's Canadian Living.  I made the brandy cream sauce that was included with their recipe for Filet Mignon as well as their recipe for Oven-Roasted Potato Wedges; which is just really tossing wedges of potatoes with olive oil and dried rosemary (I used fresh from my rosemary plant) and then roasting for 25 minutes in a 425 degree oven. 

 The brandy cream sauce is also very simple.  In a tbsp of olive oil saute 1 shallot ( I used a thin celery stalk because I couldn't find shallots) until softened.  Add 3 tbsp of brandy and stir cooking until it is reduced by half.  Add 3 tbsp of whipping cream and 1/2 tsp of Dijon mustard, salt, pepper and any accumulated steak juices from the pan, cook, stirring until thickened which is about 30 seconds.  The sauce is rich, very tasty and was a good addition to the meal.  

However, the piece to resistance was the Mini Chocolate Pudding Cakes for Two 

The recipe is below.  We plan to make this again but will double the recipe for company.  Absolutely yummy and decadent!  Exactly what you want for a romantic dinner at home.

• Prep time10 minutes
• Total time35 minutes
• Portion size2 servings

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup (60 mL) all-purpose flour
• 4 tsp (18 mL) granulated sugar
• 5 tsp (24 mL) cocoa powder, sifted
• 1/4 tsp (1 mL) baking powder
• 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
• 4 tsp (18 mL) milk
• 2 tsp (10 mL) butter, melted
• 1/2 tsp (2 mL) vanilla
• 2 tbsp (30 mL) semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup (75 mL) hot water
• 1/4 cup (60 mL) packed brown sugar

Preparation

In small bowl, whisk together flour, granulated sugar, 2 tsp of the cocoa powder and the baking powder. (Make-ahead: Cover and store for up to 24 hours.) Stir egg yolk, milk, butter and vanilla into flour mixture. Fold in chocolate chips. Divide batter among 2 lightly greased 6-oz (175 mL) ramekins.

In bowl, whisk together hot water, brown sugar and remaining cocoa powder. Pour over batter.

Bake on rimmed baking sheet in 350°F (180°C) oven until firm to the touch, about 18 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.
Serve with ice cream or whipping cream.  (Grenache, caramel sauce or Dulce de Leche is a nice addition if you don't care about calories!)
I intend to double the recipe and make them for company on Saturday night. I even bought a new set of ramekins.
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Why a Blog?

Why not?

I have always wanted to write creatively.  I certainly have had plenty of opportunity as a teacher to write for reality and in some cases that has been very creative.  However, it was on-demand creativity; and has never been free choice or personally creative.

The idea of writing a blog that would be part diary and a part information on retirement and other interests fit into my vision of things to try in this new chapter of my life.  It might hopefully, serve some other purposes, as well.

It could help me become a better writer.  Perhaps help me learn how to manage my time if I should ever want to do a bigger project.  

It could help me overcome my fear of having other people read what I write, know what I think.  Publishing your writing opens you up to criticism, it reveals your thoughts and your skills and talents. What if I make a spelling or grammar error? Would people wonder about the state of our education system if I leave participle dangling or mix up my there, their or they're?

Writing would give me a creative outlet, an opportunity to for self-expression, self-discovery and a to be productive.

It could be an extra reason to get up in the morning; or stay up late at night, or sit down and do something different.

It could give me a feeling of doing something a little bigger than my other hobbies and interests that seem to focus on my family or myself.  Writing like this isn't exactly work, but it isn't exactly all fun either--it challenges your mind and is empowering.

It could be a way to preserve my memories, thoughts and feelings.

In the end, though it really comes down to "why not?".

If I want to try something, I can and if I don't like it I can always leave it aside.  After all, I am not under contract; I'm retired.

Book review: Road Ends

Welcome back to my blog.  I thought I would throw in a book review for today of a book I read in January. 

Mary Lawson is my new favourite Canadian author. 

Lawson captures the feeling of winter and isolation in a small Northern Ontario town.  The story is set in the fictional town of Struan, that is located near the actual towns of New Liskeard, Cobalt and Haileybury,  north of North Bay.  Struan could be real as it resembles so many small towns found along northern highway corridors.  

The characters in Road Ends are believable, lovable despite or because of their flaws and read as realistic.  Lawson is able to draw compassion for her characters from her reader without that compassion overriding the reader's expectation that the characters needs to get their act together and take control. 

Road Ends provoked my thinking.  I paused after parts to contemplate what the character had revealed about themselves.  The book is written from the view point of three of the characters. It was actually important to note the dates at the beginnings of chapters as the book is not chronological between chapters but is chronological for each character telling of his or her story within the family. 

The ending was satisfying resolving the issues of the novel yet leaving the possibility of a sequel to close up the lose ends in the lives of some of the characters who have interacted with each other.  

I am looking forward to reading the first two books by this author; Crow Lake and The Other Side of the Bridge.  I will most likely read Road Ends again, once I read her earlier novels.  Some of the secondary characters in Road Ends are primary characters in the other novels.

I tagged some pages to read over and re read pieces that I felt were beautifully written or which evoke response from me.  It was though she was writing what I have sometimes felt about my own need to leave home and create my own path.

Reading Challenge: 

I decided to use this novel to fill the "book set in my home province" even though Struan is a fictional town.   Since Struan would be close to New Liskeard and near North Bay, which are both mentioned in the novel, it is very close to where I live.    A novel set in Northern Ontario is a better choice than a book set in Toronto to be representative of the province I live in.  

Why Canadians yearn for retirement

Our Weekend

My darling husband woke me up Saturday morning to show me the weather on his iPad.  It said some ridiculous temperature but the real news was that with the wind chill it felt like 50 below zero.  Urrgh!!  I rolled over to go back to sleep, glad that I had no reason to go anywhere.

Moe of course, felt he was somehow being ripped off.  If this had been a week day the school buses would have been cancelled.  The students would have had a snow day because of the extreme cold; I didn't bother reminding him that a snow day still means that he would have to show up for work.  Or that the school's heating system most likely would not be able to keep up with the demand and that the school would be cold at best, frosty at worst. And although, we have the car in the garage it would start and that the ride to work would be okay, when he needed to come home the car would be freezing, the tires "square" and he would be cold all the way home. He knew all that. It's just if you need to tolerate that kind of temperature then you should at least get something out of it.  It was a very good day to stay home.

When we were kids, temperature didn't stop the buses.  I remember being outside hearing a branch crack and then fall from the tree because of the cold, our nostrils sticking together if you dared to take a deep breath when you removed your scarf from around your face. When the bus arrived and that door swung open you clumped up the stairs as fast as your heavy winter boots would allow, anticipating the welcome heat.  However, once on the bus you just continued to be cold.  Every time the door opened to allow other frozen children to clomp on, whatever warm air that the heater had created left to welcome the newcomers as they brought more cold in with them.  It was not a good deal. Even in high school, when we drove for long periods without opening the door, that tin can never warmed up at those temperatures.  I am not telling about this to say that we were tougher than kids are now because that isn't a fair comparison, but rather to say that the deciding to cancel buses for extreme cold is a worthwhile advancement in thinking. 

Coming back to this weekend, our sons told us that their apartment heating systems were struggling to keep up to the cold and although dressed as warmly as possible it was still chilly inside.  We are lucky, we have two sources of heat in the house--electric and a gas fireplace downstairs.  However, when it is that cold outside your body still senses it. Even dressed warmly inside with cozy slippers and extra layers, you might not be shivering but your joints and bones and lungs know you don't like it. 

When Moe attempted to start our truck, it refused even though it had been plugged-in over night.  Our son was having the same trouble in North Bay as he tried to get to work.  His car refused to start even after a boost.  No matter how much you love your job, on a morning like that you yearn for retirement and specifically a retirement that includes winter somewhere warm.  No matter how much you loved snow and winter sports when you were younger, your older body yearns to be a Canadian "snowbird".  

Those of us who are left behind in the cold of Ontario this weekend were most likely thinking of all the lucky ones who may have chosen this week to leave for a warm vacation. Envy abounding!  However, thinking of the ones who by some rather bad luck were returning this weekend from an all inclusive holiday into the extreme cold helps to balance out the envy. Imagine the disappointment of stepping off a plane into 40 below weather when just a few hours earlier you were perspiring in bright tropical sunlight.   

Our daughter in Northern British Columbia tells us that she can go to the mountain to ski but that her yard right now is snow free.  I guess that's fair since we were feeling sorry for her in early October when they had their first snowfall.  Here in Northern Ontario, our world is deep with snow.  It has covered everything in the yard making all shapes disappear. There is no mound or drift to indicate where we left our canoe near the water.  Unless you know that it is out there the canoe is undetectable.  If the temperature alone is not a reason to migrate south then being weary of looking at white, shoveling white, of brushing it off the car, of trudging through it is enough to make you want to escape the joys of winter.  

We did brave the cold Saturday afternoon in order to have a Valentine's Dinner at a restaurant. After all, winter is long and you can't let it prevent you from having a good time. Like many Canadians we appreciate the beauty of winter and prefer a white Christmas card beautiful December. And on a sunny, milder day we even enjoy going outside for activities on snow or ice.  And thankfully, the thermometer has now risen to a more comfortable temperature.  

But when Darling Husband retires we will happily escape for at least the long dreary part of winter. Maybe we should consider early retirement for him!

Venturing into Asian Cuisine

Hope every one had a wonderful Valentine's.  This isn't what we had for supper last night, more on that at a later date.

However, we do love Chinese food and have started to branch out into other Asian cuisines as well.  I took this recipe from the January edition of Canadian Living and it was a great success despite needing to make some changes (explanation following the original recipe.  I had never cooked with Udon noodles before but was able to locate them easily enough at the No Frills in town.

STIR-FRIED SEAFOOD UDON NOODLES

4 tsp       vegetable oil
225 g      jumbo shrimp (25-30 count) peeled and deveined
225 g      jumbo scallops (20-40 count) patted dry
1 tbsp     minced peeled fresh ginger
2            cloves garlic, minced
2            pkg (each 200g) fresh udon noodles
4            heads Shanghai bok choy (about 450 g total), cut                 in 1/2 in (1 cm) thick wedges
2 cups     sliced stemmed shiitake mushrooms
1             sweet red pepper, thinly sliced
2             green onions, sliced diagonally in 1/2 inch (1 cm)                  thick pieces
2 tbsp      oyster sauced
1/4 tsp     pepper

In large nonstick skillet or wok, heat half of the oil over medium-high heat; cook shrimp and scallops, stirring frequently, just until shrimp are pink and scallops are opaque, about 3 minutes.  Remove to plate; set aside.

In same skillet, heat remaining oil over medium-high heat; cook ginger and garlic, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute.  Add noodles, bok choy, mushrooms, red pepper, green onions and 2/3 cup water;  cook, stirring, until noodles are softened, about 4 minutes.  Add shrimp, scallops, oyster sauce and pepper; cook, stirring, until combined.

My adaptations:

I used only shrimps since I did not have scallops in the house, but plenty of shrimp.  I just increased the amount of shrimp significantly.  I used the type of Bok Choy that was available in the store so I did not need 4 heads.  I used regular mushrooms as there were no shiitake mushrooms at the store and I did not use the oyster sauce.  But it still turned out very well.  We gave the left-overs to a friend to try and he deemed it a great success as well.  Moe was sad to see the left-overs go.   

I found oyster sauce for when I make it next and will try to ensure I have shiitake mushrooms as well. 

Best Pork Chops Ever

Once my husband returned to work on January 4th, I started experimenting with new recipes.  The second night of this culinary adventure, I hit a home run with these pork chops, served sliced over rice, accompanied by broccoli and a spinach and vegetable salad.  My husband loved their crisp coating and tender center.  His best compliment was that he would gladly pay a hundred dollars for a meal like this in a restaurant.  Music of course to my ears.

 

Crispy Japanese-Style Pork Chops

3/4 cup    panko bread crumbs

4 tsp        vegetable oil

1             green onion, minced

4             boneless pork loin chops (about 450 g total)

1/4 tsp     each salt and pepper

1/4 cup    all purpose flour

1             egg, lightly beaten

In small skillet, mix bread crumbs with oil; cook ov er medium-high heat, stirring, until golden, 4-5 minutes.  Transfer to shallow bowl; stir in green onion.  Set aside.

Between plastic wrap or waxed paper, use meat mallet or bottom of heavy pan to flatten pork to 1/2 inch (1 cm) thickness.  Sprinkle port all over with salt and pepper.  Dredge in flour, shaking off excess.   Dip in egg, letting excess drip off.  Dredge in bread crumb mixture, pressing to adhere.

Arrange pork on lightly greased rimmed baking sheet.  Bake in 425 degree oven, turning once, until just a hint of pink remains inside, about 10 minutes.  Broil until crisp, about 1 to 2 minutes.  Transfer to rack set over rimmed baking sheet; let rest for 2 minutes.  Cut cross wise into strips.

(or serve as a full chop)

The second time I made these I had no green onion so used fresh chopped parsley, left the chops whole and served with a vegetable stir fry.  As well the chops had been cut at home from a large pork tenderloin we had purchased for a slow cooker recipe. They were less tender and uniform as the first time but just as delicious.

Full recipe including Sesame Slaw can be found in January 2016 Canadian Living or on their website of recipes.  

Reading Challenges

At the beginning of the year reading challenges start making the rounds on Facebook.  I have never paid attention before as January is not a great month for pleasure reading for educators.  Report card writing for teachers and report card reading for administrators, as well as the necessary professional reading takes up time and energy needed for reading for fun.

This year is different!  Yipee for time to read. I ran off the lists for 3 different reading challenges and set up a binder to keep the lists, lists of book recommendations and the list of books read.

I'm doing the 2016's Ultimate Reading Challenge! found through Popsugar. http://www.popsugar.com/love/Reading-Challenge-2016-39126431

I'm also trying to complete the 2016 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. It is in fact harder because the entries are more obscure or require research to fulfill.  Like read a book that was published in the year you were born. http://bookriot.com/2015/12/15/2016-book-riot-read-harder-challenge/

And I also printed off the 2016 Reading Challenge from the Modern Mrs. Darcy.  This one is only 12 books and has some challenges that are easy to fulfill, like read a book that you've been intending to get to or read a book that you should have completed in school.
http://modernmrsdarcy.com/2016-reading-challenge/


As another aspect of these challenges, I signed up for Good Reads and have become acquainted with how that works. I found out that several of my friends are already Good Reads alumni and am wondering how I missed learning about this great website before now. (www.goodreads.com)  I am also anticipating that I will be knocking off an entry on my bucket list when I become part of a book club that a friend is starting in the spring.  The book club selections will most likely take care of the more difficult categories of the challenges.

Fortunately, the challenges allow for plenty of opportunity to read what I want as well as incentive to read the books I've already own but haven't had time to read.  Cold winter days are a great time to curl up with a book and a cup of steaming hot chocolate while cold winter nights are perfect for a tall glass of wine, a cozy sweater and a good murder mystery.  I didn't quit my job to read but it was an incentive to retire.

How I ended up retired

How my thinking changed

Retirement was never a holy grail for me.  I didn't dream of retirement or complain about needing to work and I loved my job.  I didn't yearn for retirement and when others were counting down the days or years until they retired, I would shudder. Work gave me meaning, identity and personal accomplishment.  I had always wanted to be a teacher and enjoyed moving into administration to end my career.  My original plan was to work until my husband retired in June 2017 or to even continue longer.

Don't get me wrong I was a teacher, so I was always home when my children were home for holidays.  And I loved my summers.  But I was busy during those times.  During the summer, I was a stay-at-home mom and spent lots of my time catching up and getting ahead of mountains of housework so that the school year would be less hectic.

The date I was eligible to retire was November 30th 2013. It passed with a twinge of awareness that quickly went away.  I still had things to do in my career and with a child in university there was tuition to pay.  Plus I couldn't imagine being at home for four years waiting for my husband to join me.


But somewhere in the last year those feeling and that plan changed rather dramatically.  These are some of the things that brought that about.

The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan has a website with a retirement calculator.  My husband introduced it to me.  It allows you to play around with different dates, and various options to obtain an estimate of your pension payment each month.  By working for two years after my retirement date, the gap between my pension and my pay was shrinking.  Was it really worth it to get up in the morning, drive for almost an hour during unpredictable winter weather to work in a stressful environment? As a school administrator, your responsibilities are enormous, the workload is heavy and the liabilities are scary.   After taking into account the cost of gas and car upkeep, the cost of clothing, the savings from being organized and on top of things at home and the gap was even smaller.  The logical part of being able to afford to live without working was making retirement enticing.

I spent January 2015 trying to get my asthma under control.  It was a miserable winter and the cold, dry air took a toll on my lungs. Cold is the major trigger.  The thought of spending the cold winter months in doors catching up on all the things I want to do in the house became rather appealing.  No winter driving on dark cold mornings and the chance to have adequate sleep were equally enticing.

My last child graduated from university, so no more tuition.  My daughter got married and lives across the country from us in B.C. The freedom to visit her and the ability to stay awake long enough to talk to her despite the time difference--very enticing.

I have a great desire to travel, almost every where in the world is on my bucket list.  Yet, despite working my entire adult life I have not travelled as much as I would like. The only time we can travel is the busiest and most costly time.  What's the point of working if I am never going anywhere?  Retirement would mean that we could take advantage of off times and offers; a great enticement.

Somewhere during that time my feelings towards my job also changed.  I had always said that when I retired I wanted to be able to say I still loved what I did.  I was beginning to feel the enjoyment, the pride and excitement of solving problems and conquering challenges slipping away.  I began to feel less autonomous, less self directed and less interested in the much of the work that didn't involve dealing with people.   A life with less rushing, less stress and freedom to set my own pace was becoming the greatest enticement of all.

The life that I wanted to live began to call to me too.  I was coming home from work, eating, cleaning up and then falling asleep.  I was too tired after work or on weekends to be able to find the time to do all the things I wanted to do.  Here we were, empty nesters with no real calls on our time but not the energy to do anything with that time.  I had already worked two years longer than I needed to, did I really want to do three, let alone four?

Then I read the book, How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free  and started to think about what retiring could mean for me. I had stopped thinking of retirement as the end but instead started thinking of it as the beginning.

Get a Life Kitchen Vision

Since on any work day my husband was home before I was (sometimes hours before I arrived home) he has done most of our weekday cooking for the last five years.  He is a good cook and has become more adept and more adventuresome but if I was going to be home all day, then it could be my turn to take over more of the cooking. 

I still cooked on weekends and for all major holidays I was in charge of the turkey dinners.  I'm also the baker.  However, both my cooking and my baking had slipped into a narrow selection of recipes or in some cases no recipe at all just the standard way I had always prepared that type of roast. It was actually quite boring!

As part of "vision of my life during retirement" was the goal to bake more and to learn to cook again. It might even be fun as well as useful.  Over the years our taste buds have grown up and we have learned to appreciate a wider variety of foods with new spices and different techniques.  My cooking seemed routine.  The type of cooking I usually did, I found boring. I lose interest and things end up burned.  In fact if something is burned or burnt tasting the kids say, mom must be cooking!  Yet at one time I had loved to bake and try new recipes. 

Moe had started watching the cooking show, Best Recipes Ever (from Canadian Living and CBC) and was PVRing them to share with me.  He watched Gordon Ramsey videos and had mastered the perfect steak.  He found slow cooker recipes online and created delicious pork tenderloin and chicken recipes.  I wanted to catch up.

We ordered the Best Recipes Ever Cookbook from Amazon, I received Better Homes and Garden's Best Comfort Foods as a gift and I brushed off my collection of cookbooks in preparation for the start of my new kitchen adventures in January.  


By chance, I bought a copy of January's Canadian Living.  (I succumbed to the buy 3 magazines for $10 at the Walmart check out counter--I am seldom in Walmart and seldom break down to that cash grab; but it turned out well.) It was a great purchase!!  The first week of January, I tried 3 recipes and two were smash hits and one was going to be great with a little tweak of the spices to our taste.  I ended up with a subscription to Canadian Living.    

Reading to Prep for Retirement

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Seeking Answers

Most of the readily available advice about retirement concerns preparing financially for retirement. Without a doubt that is important, but it's not the only part of a successful retirement.  I knew that for me the biggest part would be whether I could be happy without the structure of work.  Although I loved summer vacation and Christmas holidays, could I be happy in an open ended vacation that didn't have the work of the holidays?

During a conversation about his recent retirement, my husband's brother-in-law, Marc suggested a book that helped him organize his time and health in retirement.  It's a book that has little about the finances of retirement but a lot about putting life into retirement and determining what will constitute your retirement.  Because after the traveling what will you do with all of the hours in a day?  HOW TO RETIRE HAPPY, WILD, AND FREE, by best-selling author Ernie J. Zelinksi  addressed the concerns that I had about retirement and helped me develop answers to my own questions.  I am sure there are other great books out there that do the same thing, but after reading this one and doing some of the exercises in it I had enough confidence to trust in myself that I would be able to live a life I wanted to live without a career as a cornerstone.

Zilinksi has a different attitude about working than I have so that was something I had to wrap my mind around to accept and not be sidetracked by when I was reading. He is also the author of The Joy of Not Working and semi-retired happily quite young which worked for him.   I have never thought of work as something that you want to be free from as soon as possible. He gives examples of how some people choose to live in order not to need to work at a paying job that seems to me to be a mind boggling choice of a life of poverty or of extreme frugality.  I would never want to have be so focused on getting away from work that I made myself miserable while I was working.  That's sort of the warning.  However, if you would like to retire as soon as possible this may be the very book that will help you realize that you can find a way to make that happen.

There are parts of the book that certainly helped me put the image of the life I wanted to lead in retirement into focus.  There are good exercises to try to prepare for retirement, particularly the Plant Your Get-a-Life Tree and Watch It Grow and Grow, that is part of a chapter entitled, So Many Worlds, So Much to Do.  That chapter had me thinking and realizing that there was so much I wanted to do that there were probably not enough hours in the day or time in my clock to get it all done.

It is an easy, folksy read with cute cartoons and plenty of words of wisdom from various wise people in blurbs along the way.  He writes a very convincing image of retirement and gives varied and extensive lists of suggestions for defining your life.

My biggest nugget from the book: you don't retire from something but you retire to something and that to something is personal and can be ever changing.

Launch Day! Welcome to my Blog!

Welcome to my blog! 

                         Today is launch day for this blog which makes it a happy dance day!  I have been writing posts for a while now but have not published them.   Ready or not, polished enough or not, I am going to take a leap of faith and start to publish. 

Today, is my daughter's birthday.  It marks the day when I first became a mother, so it seems fitting that it will also mark the day that it is the "birth" of something else. 

The idea of a blog that tracks my adventures in retirement has been forming and developing for quite some time.

Because I have written a number of posts already, there may be several posts with this date instead of just one.  I officially started my retirement on January 1st, however, my last day of work was December 18th.  So I have some catching up to do.       But first, I'm going to celebrate!

 Happy reading, and I hope that something in my posts sparks some idea or gives a tiny bit of happiness for you.