Monday Morning Feb 17 #Valentine's Day

We do most of our living between Friday night and Monday morning.  Monday morning is the time to reflect on the weekend and get back into our week day routine . As I get older it becomes more difficult to get myself  moving on Monday morning.   I guess that is part of what retirement planning is about - letting go of the weekday routine and spreading the rest of your life over seven days!





Monday, February 17, 2014

Valentine's Day is over for another year.   I detest how commercial this day has become.  The marketing and advertising world has created this hype of what love is and how it should be celebrated.    Always portrayed as two beautiful heterosexual couples madly in love and the only real way to express it is through the gift of "hearts on fire" diamonds.  This serves no one but retailers and alienates many in our society who don't line up with those manufactured ideals.

Love has many forms and faces in our lives and I totally agree it is to be celebrated.  Genuine and authentic celebrations of love are all around us at Valentines.   I just wanted to acknowledge a few that I encountered during Valentines 2014:

Ellen Page's speech at the Time to Thrive Conference in Las Vegas on Valentine's Day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hlCEIUATzg#t=21


The Sunday New York Times Book Review section dedicated to Love.  One of the features was to ask contemporary writers what literature had taught them about love.  There was a great quote from Ann Patchett:

"Literature has taught me that love means different things at different points in our lives, and that often as we get older we gravitate toward the quieter, kinder plotlines, and find them to be richer than we had originally understood them to be"

My most favourite example of an authentic and real valentine moment was the Valentine's card received by our friends, James and Cathy from their daughter Olivia:

And, of course, dancing with my husband on Valentine's night.

Monday Morning Feb 10 #Let'sTakeTheLongWayHome

We do most of our living between Friday night and Monday morning.  Monday morning is the time to reflect on the weekend and get back into our week day routine . As I get older it becomes more difficult to get myself  moving on Monday morning.   I guess that is part of what retirement planning is about - letting go of the weekday routine and spreading the rest of your life over seven days!





Monday February 10

Tonight is bookclub.  We have been meeting for many years - a group of us - our members change over time -  but always we have the same thing in common - we love books.

Tonight we will discuss Gail Caldwell's Let's Take the Long Way Home.  A beautiful book about writing and friendship and loss.  

This blog is about emerging seniors.  There are few of us who get to this stage in life who have
not experienced the loss of a close friend or people that are "pillars" in our lives.  There is no easy solution to working through such grief.  And certainly no book will provide an answer.  However, Let's Take the Long Way Home is an eloquent and wonderful story that would touch the hearts of anyone who is or has had to walk that path.

Monday Morning Feb 2 Snowbirds

We do most of our living between Friday night and Monday morning.  Monday morning is the time to reflect on the weekend and get back into our week day routine . As I get older it becomes more difficult to get myself  moving on Monday morning.   I guess that is part of what retirement planning is about - letting go of the weekday routine and spreading the rest of your life over seven days!






We just returned from a two week vacation - Caribbean cruise - and a had  a wonderful time and grateful for the opportunity for a reprieve from winter.  Certainly I feel rested - how could you not since cruising life is certainly all about being spoiled- by the service, by the food, by the entertainment.  I also feel rejuvenated and  more upbeat having escaped the dreariness of our Canadian winter.

I was especially interested in the many retired persons on the ship many Canadian or from the U.S. North East or Mid West.    Snowbirds taken flight down south for a little sunshine.
Many were on back to back cruises (two in a row)  I met one couple who were on the ship for three consecutive weeks.  Another couple spent two weeks on a Carnival ship got off the ship and the same day boarded our ship for two more weeks of cruising.  
There was one couple sailing with us that had just finished sailing four months on the ship and had four more months before they departed!

The cruise director told us about a women on another Royal Caribbean ship that has been sailing for three years!  Fascinating - figures it is cheaper than a retirement home!

With all of the reward programs, sales, etc , consecutive cruising is not a bad option for an extended stay vacation in the sun.  These sophisticated cruisers  had different routines and strategies onboard and in the ports to stretch their dollars.  

We met a retired couple on one of our stops that earlier in their retirement did  winter cruising but changed to extended stays on the islands  having discovered some real bargains - they were on St. Kitts for four months this winter.

For my retirement years, I hope I am fortunate enough to be able to spend some of the winter in a more southern part of the world.  My retired shipmates have inspired me to explore the variety of options that are out there.

This was our first back to back cruise and hopefully not our last.  All I know my favourite day on board was the day that everyone else on the ship was leaving and we were staying!

Monday Morning January 13 #SNL

We do most of our living between Friday night and Monday morning.  Monday morning is the time to reflect on the weekend and get back into our week day routine . As I get older it becomes more difficult to get myself  moving on Monday morning.   I guess that is part of what retirement planning is about - letting go of the weekday routine and spreading the rest of your life over seven days!

Monday January 13

As I watched the Golden Globes last night I was struck  by how much things have changed specifically  the influence of Saturday Night Live on today's entertainment industry.  Being a teenager in the '70s, I witnessed the birth and roots of this legendary show.

  SNL was the epitome of anti establishment TV.  It was  a parody of current culture and politics.  Definitely had a drug culture associated with it and the musical guests were the music of youth not our parents.
Without PVRs or videotape machines, no matter what we were up to on a Saturday night we would find a TV and watch the show.  The original cast including Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtain and John Belushi were awesome.  The show had cult following and was night and day different than late night TV at the time - 

Now 40 years later, even though the intent, premise and format of the show remains the same, former cast members have permeated the entertainment industry  Back in 1975, I would never have believed that two former cast members and writers would be hosting the Golden Globes.  That another former cast member, would be poised to takeover the premiere late night show of the industry - Jimmy Fallon.   I would never have guessed that SNL alumni would be successful movie actors, sitcom actors, producers and so on. It is a testament to the talent that show has recruited.

I still watch SNL sometimes live - but most often on the PVR

Retirement Planning Checklist

My research on retirement has certainly uncoverd a lot of information on the importance of pre planning. 
Based on my research I started a list of what I need to do before I retire.  It is in no particular order.  It is a dynamic document - definitely not final but hopefully I will be removing things at a rate faster than adding them!   Everyone's list will be different, here's mine..... Do you have a list?
.

1. Attend pension retirement seminar
2. Schedule an appointment to review pension options and process
3. Review pension options by year - ages 55 - 60
4. Research and comparative shopping for  benefits in early retirement
5. List of annual expenses
6. Explore alternative to satellite expenses 
7. Develop a post retirement budget and live on it for three months
8. Reorganize basement
9. Make a list of home improvements to tackle before retirement
10. New roof
11. New central air conditioning
12. Renovate main floor powder room
13. New area rug dining room
14. New area rug living room
15. Redesign front including driveway, porch and sidewalk
16. Landscape plan for house front
17. Purchase and plant new landscape design
18. Dig up plantings at side of house
19. New plantings for side of house
20. Landscape plan for backyard
21. Purchase and plant new backyard landscape design
22. Redo photos in front hall stairway
23. Renovate main washroom second floor
24. Kitchen renovation
25. New patio doors for basement
26. New interior doors upstairs
27. New windows
28. Murals in each staircase 
29. Take down basketball hoop
30. Research  two organizations to volunteer my time 
31. New laptop
32. Gain experience in social media
33. Research about long stay winter vacations
34. Research tax implications of retirement
35. Reinvent what work may look like for me - explore options - do I really not want to work at all
36. Research on protecting  assets
37. Research on dividends
38. Start taking Advantage of Age Discounts
39. List of new things to do - " I might want to try"
40. Pick and Prioritize Dream trips
41. Plan retirement celebration trip
42. Recalibrate Fitness Routine
43. Comprehensive Medical Check up
44. Comprehensive Dental check up 
45. Research on complementary business for market space
46. Name for new business
47. Renovation of space for new business
48. Inventory for business
49. Transformation of inventory to sell
50. Online set up of business
51. Launch business
52. New blog related to new business
53. Research on Canada Pension plan options
54. Update estate planning
55. Develop a list of retirement projects (don't start them before retirement)
56. Assessment by naturopath
57. Assessment by acupuncturist

Monday Morning January 6

We do most of our living between Friday night and Monday morning.  Monday morning is the time to reflect on the weekend and get back into our week day routine . As I get older it becomes more difficult to get myself  moving on Monday morning.   I guess that is part of what retirement planning is about - letting go of the weekday routine and spreading the rest of your life over seven days!







The first Monday of 2014 and our winter continues to be fierce.  With about 15 cm of snow last night the 
snowbanks continue to get taller.   A new deep freeze in temperatures is entering our region with tomorrow's high 
to be minus 20.  I don't' know about the wind chill - I don't want to know.

Hockey  Tough weekend for Team Canada and all Canadian fans as our World Junior Team lost in the 
Bronze Medal game in Malmo Sweden.   In the end, these are young men ages 16 - 20 who are playing
their hearts out to represent their country.  They are not making money still junior athletes yet as a country
including the media we put extraordinary pressure on them to produce and to win.  In reality anything but a gold medal seems to be a failure.  I think if as a Canadian you love the game of hockey, one should be happy that
other countries are getting better and better.  It is good for the game.

House Back to Normal  We spent yesterday taking down both inside and outdoor Christmas decorations.  It is never an enjoyable task unlike putting them up.  All our treasures full of Christmas memories are wrapped up and put away until next year.  My artist husband took a photo of the decorations from our White Tree waiting to be boxed up.  Their is rumour that it might be a painting.  I think it would be a terrific.

Downton Abbey  is back!  Season 4 premiered last night.  The story continues.  Awesome series.  It seems
that I have been waiting forever to see how the story continues.   PBS also had a special on Doc Martin so I am hoping that will be soon starting again as well.  Both of these TV shows are British TV at its best.

Happy New Year

 I  have been remiss about my blog over the last several weeks.  I had many distractions: the many preparations for the holidays; our cat, Lilly was ill and we were nursing her, new computer, and my blog posts were not feeding to my twitter and facebook accounts........

It was a good lesson for me. First - I am easily distracted.  Distractions no matter how many will always exist.  I can't ignore my blog or it will cease to be vital and part of my day to day. It would have been much better to include the various issues in my blog instead of being silent.

Well, I am back on my blog.

The holidays are over.... we had a wonderful Christmas,  my new computer is still giving me a few problems, I think I have fixed my blog feed problem and my sweet little Siamese cat Lilly passed away just before the holidays.  Rest in peace.

It is a New Year, in fact a new moon to start the New Year - very rare last time this happened was 19 years ago.  It is a signal for a really fresh start.

I am not big on New Year's resolutions.  I am not that disciplined.  Although in 2013, I definitely identified  that I needed to become more involved in social media tools.  This time last year I would never have imagined that I had a blog, that I would have had an active facebook account - 100 friends today and over 370 followers on my twitter account.  I am still not sure who or why anyone would be that interested in what I have to say.... although I have quite enjoyed it.

Still a bit of a mystery of who is reading what.  My biggest surprise was the blog post  about letting my hair go gray. http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=664493679346756330#editor/target=post;postID=3152896046321508468;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=20;src=postname

Widely popular.... as a result had many different groups about gray hair following my twitter feed   I have even been invited to London England next summer for a gathering of women advocating for the beuaty of gray hair.   Who knew!

Certainly, this blog has helped me bring focus to my life as an "emerging senior" - to give greater thought to my plans for retirement and new adventures and ventures that may await for me in this upcoming phase of my life.  

Wishing all  a happy and healthy 2014.