Monday Morning April 21 - Couples Timing

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, April 21, 2014

Recently the New York Times  published an article on the timing of retirement for couples.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/22/your-money/coping-when-not-entering-retirement-together.html?_r=0

Let's face it - we no longer live in a world where the husband is the sole breadwinner and when he decides to retire the couple is "in retirement".  Things have changed.   Couples come in many forms and so does work .  It seems highly unlikely that two people's individual passion for their work and their desire to pursue new interests would coincide at exactly the same time.

I certainly know that my "artist in residence" has no plans to retire - he says never.  I totally understand that his need to continue to create does not diminish over time and  may  even intensify.  In fact, as an artist often the value of your work  appreciates in the more mature years of your career.  I wouldn't want or expect my husband to retire just because I was planning to retire.  It doesn't make sense. . However the impact of one partner retiring does impact the couple and not just financially .Retirement is a transition and a change in lifestyle for an individual and for a couple.  .

Monday Morning April 7 - Kids Room

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  April 7, 2014

Huffington Post had an article this week about creative makeovers for  kids rooms once they leave home.  Renovating the room is a real milestone that your son or daughter is not coming home.  It is a marker that a chapter has come to a close.  It really doesn't seem like that long ago.... you were focused on making the perfect nursery for this new baby to come home to and the next thing you know... 20 + years later,  you are dismantling a room full of memories....

The Huffington Post article through facebook asks parents for examples of what they have done with their kids old  room and also publishes kids responses.

Here is the link:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/03/spare-room-ideas_n_5030411.html

For me.... well I am not quite there...  I mostly keep the door closed.  The bed is gone... replaced by boxes of stuff.... storage for paintings.  The baseball photos and trophies still line the walls so ..... part storage part shrine.   I really need to tackle this ....  Put that on my retirement list.....

Downsizing - it sounds so simple.....

But it is not..... 

It is an option that everyone faces when planning for retirement. On paper, it makes absolute sense.... two of us occupying a house that is much too big for our needs.... a lot of extra expense, extra work. 

But a house is is far more than what appears on paper...more than a balance sheet and much more than bricks and mortar. It represents memories of kids, pets, holidays and family celebrations.

At this point, downsizing is not in our immediate future. We could change our minds. My hope is that I have decades left in my house - that I am carried out feet first having had the opportunity to build many more years of family memories within these walls.

My friend, Shawn, said it best when he wrote about the importance of a house. When his Father had to move out of their family home, Shawn penned a letter about the story of the house and hid it in the attic to be found by other owners.

When Shawn's Dad passed away this past Fall, he read the letter during the funeral. Subsequently, this letter was published in the Reader's Digest. .

So on this St. Patrick's Day, my hat's off to my Irish Canadian friend Shawn and his beautiful letter about what a house really means...

from his letter::

"Our house was filled with unfetterd freedom-probably too much freedom. Our parents chose this house because it was close to schools, the arena and church - in that order. Most waking hours of our youth were spent at the arena, school and church - in that order. Most of us worked at the... arena at some point...we held our family Christmas dinner there every year, including a hockey game - no helmets allowed... We had fun in that house. It was the site of countless road hockey games, fights, lacrosse games, backyard ice rinks, swingsets and tree climbing. The driveway was home to crappy cars, motorcycles, gocarts, boats, trailers and served as a parking spot for friends when the arena lot was full. Our neighbours included families that were Irish, Italian, French and British all living in harmony. We grew up without a care in the world and walked ourselves to school from the time we were in kindergarten...... That's not to say we didn't have our challenging times. It was this place where our parents told us that our brother had died and it was where our mother went to the hospital and never returned. But it was also where we wanted for nothing and really didn't worry about tomorrow. We hope whoever owns this house next will build their own memories and one day,pass it on to a family that appreciates the fact that while a house may be temporary, the memories you have of the time spent in that house last forever."

Monday Morning March 10: With glowing hearts..

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, March 10, 2014

With glowing hearts... a phrase from our national anthem that
describes the pride of a nation.

As a rule, Canadians are not overtly patriotic people.  Ours is a more quiet patriotism.   It is rare to experience a Canadian boastful about our country.


 However when it comes to hockey our patriotic blood boils over.   At the Olympics Canadians are the most vocal and demonstrative hockey fans.  When I was at the World Junior tournament in Buffalo,  the  Canadians attending burst into singing O'Canada , our national anthem while standing in line to get in to the arena!

Last weekend, after the Olympics were over , I was sitting in the mezzanine at our local public market.   An adult choir was setting up to perform   On a busy market day, the entertainment on the mezzanine level is always somewhat background ambiance to the normal activity of the merchants and the shoppers.

But this choir started with  O' Canada.  Very unusual.  It was very moving to watch from my second floor
location, the market slowly become still.  First, the persons on the mezzanine sitting at tables all  stood. The people on the first floor they couldn't see the choir, but as the music travelled down to the first floor, shoppers stopped in the middle of the aisles, parents picked up their toddlers and paused, shopkeepers stopped and bowed their head.   The normal chaos of the market became very quiet except for the choir singing.

I love Olympic and World Junior hockey and no one is a bigger fan of our Canadian hockey teams than me.
However when that bustling public market became quietly and respectfully still, it was more moving than tens of thousands of fans, with painted faces waving flags.

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!