Month: February 2025

Should I Take Flight and be a Snowbird?

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

If you are retired and live in an area that gets really cold, harsh winters, you may have considered the option of being a snowbird. A snowbird is defined as a northerner who migrates to a warmer southern state in the winter. And why not? The birds are smart enough to do it. I know that we have pondered it for many years. To take flight and be a snowbird or not to be a snowbird – that is the question.

I am writing this post sitting outside on a patio in Arizona enjoying the sunshine and palm trees while it is snowing several inches at home. We are, once again, pondering the question of whether or not to be snowbirds.

Our weather forecast at home this week is on the left. The forecast for Arizona the same week is on the right.

Last year at this time we were in southwest Florida trying out the snowbird lifestyle for a month, which I wrote about in the post, Travel: Living Like the Locals. We loved the area with the Gulf (of what?) adjacent to it. The water, beaches and sunshine lifted my spirits. I can certainly see why so many people snowbird there, but there were a couple big drawbacks for us.

First, it was a full day of travel with at least one layover. Florida is about as far across the U.S. as you can get from our home in the PNW. It was just too far away from family and friends. The other consideration was the possibility of hurricanes. Several people told us that the cost of insurance on their condos was outrageous, if they could even get it covered. Sadly, about nine months after we left, Hurricanes Helene and Milton swept through the area. So, while we really enjoyed our month there, we ruled it out as a snowbird option for us.

To snowbird or not to snowbird, that is the question

The advantages

As with any major life decision, there are advantages and disadvantages, and you have to weigh those based on your lifestyle. It is about rightsizing your retirement life. The most obvious reason to snowbird is to get away from lousy winter weather. I get tired of being cold all the time, shoveling snow and navigating icy sidewalks and roads. Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing better than snow at Christmas. I love curling up by a cozy fire with a good book while the snow falls gently outside in a silent blanket of white. Bonus if I made a pot of soup to simmer all afternoon. It is beautiful and cozy… until about January. Then it becomes claustrophobic, dark and dreary.

Another advantage of fleeing to warmer temperatures are the health benefits – both physical and mental. We are much more likely to get out for a walk or hike in a warmer climate. And yes, we have gyms, but I prefer the outdoor gym. Of course, bike riding is totally out of the question in the snow. Sunshine also elevates your mood. Too many gray days can get depressing. Research shows that sunshine boosts your serotonin levels as well as vitamin D. During the winter months at home, we can go for days and days without sunshine, as you can see from the above photo.

A third advantage is the fun of exploring a new environment and meeting new people. We can get a little stale over time, and it helps to explore new places. It triggers our curiosity and opens up our creative thinking. Not to mention all of the different restaurant options! 😊 (I wonder if that defeats the health benefits?) It is wise to choose a place that has lots of things to do that you enjoy.

The disadvantages

Being a snowbird also comes with some disadvantages. The most obvious one is the cost. Renting a place for a few months adds up. You can buy something, but then there is the initial cost, as well as the upkeep and/or HOAs. However, if you buy something, you can rent it out part of the year to defray some of the costs and you should get a long-term return on your investment.

The other big disadvantage is being away from your life at home that long. This is particularly difficult if you sit on a board, volunteer or work part-time. Mr. U has a part-time job at home, but they are very flexible and willing to work with retired employee schedules. (That was a requirement for us.) For me, it is hard being away from family and friends for extended periods of time. I miss my peeps. This week we met a couple that snowbird in Arizona from Wisconsin. They were also torn because all of their family was back in Milwaukee. Their solution was to plan several trips back home for family events or just some grandparent time.

If we were to snowbird, it needed to be a quick flight back and forth to our home in the north. Arizona is only about a 2 1/2-hour direct flight for us. That meant that we could travel back and forth much easier and cheaper than Florida. Son #4 has a condo in Arizona that he rents out when he isn’t visiting there, so we knew we would get to see him there some. Also, it is close enough that family and friends can visit. Matter of fact, my granddaughter was just there last weekend for a gymnastics meet and we were able to go watch her while there. That being said, we would still not do the traditional snowbird life of being gone for a full 4-6 months at a time.

Never say never

After our month in Florida last year, we decided not to snowbird. One year ago, I wrote a post about that decision, explaining Why I Won’t be a Snowbird Any Time Soon. And then winter showed up… again. And we are not getting any younger. The timing seemed right, and Arizona checked most of the boxes for us. So, we finally got off the fence and purchased a condo in Scottsdale. Common sense be damned. It is past time to live our best retirement life.

We took the snowbird plunge. Note the cute little turtle at the bottom of the picture. There is a walking path right by our condo that goes along this pond. It will keep me more physically active in the winter just to go see the wildlife.

15 Ways to Invite Serendipity into Your Life

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

Surprising little adventures are waiting to be discovered every day.  Serendipity is a happy, lucky coincidence that is not sought after.  And the wonderful thing is that life is full of serendipity.   However, we miss most of it because we are so busy pushing and pulling through our days, trying to morph and shape our schedules so they resemble the perfect life.  In the meantime, we are missing out on the sweet life.  For it is only in the open, quiet space that you can hear clearly.  You can’t force serendipity.  It happens by a chance discovery.  Even though you cannot plan, organize or schedule serendipity, you can curate a life that invites it in when it quietly knocks on your soul’s door. 

15 ways to invite serendipity into your life

  1. Leave White Space in your day.  Instead of scheduling your calendar until you cannot breathe, leave blank spaces that are openings to adventure and surprise.  
  2. Say “yes.”  Quite thinking of all the reasons that you cannot do something and say “yes” when opportunity presents itself.  You will miss lots of little adventures if you wait until it is convenient.
  3. Be ready.  It reduces your chance of creating excuses.  If you stay up on your routine maintenance, you will be more open and ready when the opportunity knocks. 
  4. Unpack your brain of all the commitments and responsibilities that take up so much valuable real estate there. 
  5. Release your fears: fear of failure, fear of looking like a fool, fear of being wrong, and fear of the unknown.  Let it all go.  
  6. Follow your nose and see where it takes you.  Let the wind lead you instead of your calendar for a change. 
  7. Let your imagination soar.  Imagination allows you to look at things from a unique and colorful perspective.
  8. Say hello.  You never know where a conversation with a stranger will take you.  It could be a friend in waiting or just an interesting conversation that opens up your thinking. 
  9. Take the back roads.  The freeway seldom leads to serendipity.   Ah, but the bumpy backroads lead to the unexpected. 
  10. Leave judgement in the dust of your footsteps – the judgement of others if you do not follow the expected pathway, but also our own judgement.
  11. Be brave and willing to make mistakes.   Perfection is not the path to adventure and surprise.
  12. Curate a creative life.  A creative life fosters serendipity and serendipity ignites your creativity.
  13. Take the less worn path. The one that does not have a safe, predictable outcome.
  14. Stop long enough to feel what is tugging on your soul.  Follow where it leads you, even I it doesn’t seem practical.
  15. Eliminate the word “should” from your vocabulary.  One seldom meets serendipity while wrestling with what they should be doing.   
Happy Valentine’s Day! Remember to be your own best valentine and treat yourself to something special today.

Now that we are retired, we have more open hours in a day. More time to let serendipity in. Yet, I forget. I get so focused on the task at hand, and the task after that one, that I get tunnel vision. With spring just around the corner (O.K. – I might be overly optimistic) I am trying to be more available to the present moment and whatever gift that it provides. Allow myself to be caught up in the moment and where it leads. It is time to invite more serendipity into my life. Be more aware of the simple joy of the unexpected. And what better time than Valentine’s Day to start living the sweet life.

Maybe George Jetson Had It Right All Along

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

If you are old enough to be retired, you probably remember the 1962 cartoon, The Jetsons. Arguably, some of the best cartoons aired in the 60’s, such as The Flintstones, Rocky & Bullwinkle, and “not a bird, nor a plane, nor even frog, just little old me… Underdog!” And don’t forget nearsighted old Mr. Magoo. It was a great time to be a kid. Of these cartoons, it was The Jetsons that playfully looked into the future. We watched with amazement and laughter as The Jetsons used unfathomable technology in their daily lives from their home up in the sky in Orbit City. Little did we know, The Jetsons had it right all along.

How The Jetsons predicted the future

The Jetsons was an unimaginable, futuristic cartoon. But now, over 60 years later, a lot of what they used has come into our everyday existence. Let me give you a few examples.

  • Remember Rosie, the sassy robot that cleaned house for them? Now we have the self-driving Roomba vacuum, and it doesn’t even make any wise cracks while it works.
  • Like The Jetsons, we now have voice activated alarm clocks that gently wake us to our favorite song, instead of a loud, obnoxious beeping sound. Not to mention our brain assistant, Alexa. No wonder I can’t remember anything anymore… I don’t have to.
  • One episode shows George Jetson reading the newspaper online. This was at a time when everyone received their ink smudged newspaper on their doorstep – flung there by the neighbor kid down the block as he rode past on his early morning paper route.
  • We were all watching The Jetsons on a big clunky T.V. with an enormous box behind it. It was often housed in a large wooden T.V. stand that served as a piece of furniture. We observed The Jetsons as they watched T.V. on a flatscreen mounted to the wall.
  • The Jetsons had moving sidewalks, while we now use treadmills to go nowhere.
  • Not only did the Jetson family have smart watches, but they also had a smart house.
  • George Jetson may have participated in the first ever video conference. As a kid watching the show, I never would have guessed that someday I would be actively taking part in Zoom meetings.
  • And lastly, the self-driving car. George’s car sure beat Fred Flintstone’s car that was propelled forward by his own two feet.

Mr. U and I recently escaped to Scottsdale Arizona for a few days of sunshine and warmth. As we pulled up to a stop light, I looked across at the car in the lane next to us… with no one in the driver or front passenger seats. It expertly waited for the light and other cars before turning. The passenger sat calmly in the back seat staring at his phone – not unlike many drivers that scroll through their phones while sitting at a red light, or worse yet, while driving. We don’t have any of these self-driving cars (also known as autonomous cars) in our small town up north, but we are starting to see quite a few of them in Arizona.

This sign was posted on the wall at the Phoenix Airport.

Many of the technologies and conveniences that were in The Jetsons cartoon have come to happen in real life. When we were on our trip to Florida last year, we saw the below robot in a restaurant. I do not think her name was Rosie, but she was very busy delivering meals to customers.

I wonder if we will see more of these in the future.

Keeping up with technology

Like many baby boomers, I have a love/hate relationship with technology. I resist learning it, but once I do, I love the amazing convenience it usually provides. Mr. U and I both cringe when we hear the word “upgrade” because it means the technology will change, just when we finally had it figured out. And we have used more than a few swear words trying to get some techno gadget set up. But it is imperative that we remain at least somewhat current on technology if we want to stay in the mainstream of modern life. If you do not force yourself to do it, life will pass you by.

Mr. U remembers his aunt using the phone on the left at the farmhouse that his dad grew up in. And I am sure that many of us remember picking up the dial phone, only to hear the neighbor’s conversation on the party line. Now we have handheld cell phones with customizable backgrounds that fit in our back pocket. We’ve come a long way!

My dad has chosen not to embrace much technology. He gets a pass because he is 97 years old, however he misses out on some of life because of it. He did not keep his cell phone because he never got comfortable using it. But then he misses out on texts and pictures from his kids and grandkids that I know he would enjoy. He was frustrated when a business would only accept credit cards (which he does not keep) because they needed to hold a deposit with it. So, he had to call me on the business’s land line to get my credit card number to use. He was not happy about that.

I have used many of the modern conveniences predicted by The Jetsons. However, I have not ridden in an autonomous car yet. The closest I have come is riding in son #4’s Tesla. It is a little unnerving when he takes his hands off the wheel as we are zipping down the road at 55 miles/hour. Yet, I am sure this is safer than 75% of the drivers out there. And self-driving cars don’t have emotions, which would eliminate road rage. But I don’t think I am ready to hop in the back seat and get an autonomous Uber ride yet. My hope is that they are the norm when I get older and am unable to drive myself. How about you – would you take a ride through the city in an autonomous car?