Nesting

Curating a Retirement Lifestyle

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

The majority of people look forward to retirement. Who wouldn’t? Endless days of sleeping in and doing whatever we want, whenever we want. Most people have a vague idea of how they want to live their retirement years but have not carefully crafted the days and hours that are the building blocks of those years. And that is where the nitty-gritty is. It is very easy to fall into the trap of letting the days melt into each other and never really building a lifestyle that makes us excited to get out of bed in the morning. We don’t want to drift from day to day, we want to curate a retirement that makes us feel alive.

How do we do that? It takes introspection. It takes knowing yourself. All of us, whether single or with a partner, need to determine our absolutes and curate a life that focuses on those. If you have a significant other that you are sharing your retirement years with, it takes A LOT of conversations. Conversations over coffee in the morning or a glass of wine in the evening. But before you engage in those conversations, know yourself first. Know what your absolutes are for a wonderful retirement lifestyle. Be sure of the things that you do not want to live without and bring those to the table. Then be ready to be flexible with everything else.

Take time by yourself to think about your absolutes. The things that, within reason, you would be very sad or disappointed if you did not have in your life.

Retirement absolutes

My absolutes:

  • Be near family and friends.
  • Have a comfortable home that I love to be in. Preferably surrounded by nature, but close to restaurants, shopping, theatres, etc.
  • Time to feed my spirit and soul; creating, reading, writing, reflecting and prayer.
  • Good food! Not just sustaining food, but real, yummy, good food.
  • I need water close by.
  • Time for self-care. This is something I neglected during the busy work years.
  • A place where walking, riding bike and kayaking are within easy access.
  • Contributing to the greater good. While someday that may mean volunteering, right now it is being there for family when needed, and helping my dad so that he can remain independent as long as he wishes. I want his last years on this earth to be full of love and joy.

Mr. U’s absolute list was smaller. He is much less high maintenance than I am. His included:

  • Have enough money to support our retirement comfortably. (He is also much more practical than I am.)
  • Get away from the cold winters. He has had his share of gray days shoveling snow and plowing the driveway.
  • Space for a garden and woodworking.
  • Time with family and friends. At least we agreed on one thing.
  • Have something engaging to do. This is where it gets a little tricky because that may interfere with your partner’s time or plans.

Blending retirement absolutes with your spouse

We need to start Living Our Best Lives right now. Today. None of us know how many more years we will be blessed with. Every new brown spot on our skin or stomach cramp makes us wonder if it is something more serious than a liver spot or what we ate for dinner the night before. While we have been thoroughly enjoying our retirement, it was time to take some next steps towards some of our retirement absolutes. It has taken a lot of conversations to determine what that would look like. I am sharing how we blended our absolutes to curate a retirement lifestyle that fits us, in hopes that it will inspire you to make any changes necessary to be living your best retirement life. Change is hard, but if not now, when?

Blending the common absolutes

We started with the easy stuff. The common absolutes. We love where we live but as we get older, we both know that we need to downsize and move closer to town. While this big of move wasn’t something either of us really wanted to do, we knew that eventually we would need to, and it was much easier now than later. So, when the opportunity came up to rebuild a home on the beautiful property where I grew up and have so many good memories, we decided it was the open door that we needed to make the jump.

We will be downsizing to 1,700 square feet less than what we currently live in. This change of location is just a five-minute drive to town and will save us about an hour of driving/day when we want to see family and friends or just go to dinner. It will be closer to healthcare services, which is something else to consider as we age.

Blending the individual absolutes

Fortunately, this move also meets my absolutes of being by the water and nature. It feeds my soul. Kayaking will be outside my back door, and I can hop on my bike right from the house instead of having to haul it in my car down our steep gravel driveway to get to a place to ride. Our bodies will rust if we don’t use them and so we need to make it as easy and delightful as possible to do that.

It meets Mr. U’s absolutes in that it already has space for a garden there, albeit much smaller than what he currently has. It will be an honor for him to revive the garden that my dad spent so many years cultivating. Same with the garage for woodworking.

Some of our individual absolutes were a little harder to blend. This is where it gets tricky. It takes conversations and compromise. Mr. U is thoroughly enjoying his part-time job. It keeps him engaged and he enjoys all of the people he meets through it. But it also means our schedule is dependent on working around it. This compromise came through him choosing something that is very part-time and has a flexible schedule with time off whenever requested.

The other challenging absolute was getting away from the cold weather. Mr. U has wanted to snowbird for a long time. While I get tired of the cold, gray days, I tend to be more of a homebody. We finally decided on a small place in Arizona, as I explained in the previous post, Should I Take Flight and be a Snowbird? However, by the time you add the square feet of the condo to the square feet of the smaller house we are building, I am not so sure we are downsizing all that much. Hum. I have to remind myself that it is more about rightsizing.

We have spent so many hours sharing our hopes, dreams and absolutes.

And in the end…

I don’t want to get to the end of my life and realize that I did not live the life I loved. And I want to make sure that I make space for the people I love too. None of us want to have major regrets. Change is not easy. It takes planning and a ton of effort. If you have a partner, it also takes heartfelt, honest conversations and some compromising. But if you design it around your absolutes, it will be worth it in the long run. This is true of any age or stage of life we are in. I wish you the best as you curate a lifestyle that makes your heart sing.

Hunkering Down

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

The new year has been rung in, the Christmas decorations are packed away and it is full on winter here in the PNW. I figure you have two choices. You can get depressed and tired of the cold, gray, dreary days on end, or you can embrace them. I spend my time vacillating between these two viewpoints – enjoying cozy evenings by the fireplace and planning my next escape to sunshine and warmth. But we should love where we are. Life is too short not to.

The cold weather makes me want to hibernate at home, read by the fireplace or put on some peaceful music, light a candle and work in my craft room/office. As one reader has commented, “snow means slow.” I like that. So, I have been spending the last couple weeks hunkering down at home, going for walks, then coming back inside to stomp the snow off of my boots and put together a big pot of soup to simmer all afternoon.

Winter food

One of my favorite winter soups is creamy, cheesy potato soup. I found the recipe on a postcard (Western Image) years ago and have made it numerous times. It is hearty soup that sticks to your ribs… and waistline. And if you are going to be home all day anyway, why not make some homemade wheat rolls to go with it? Absolutely nothing goes better with soup than homemade rolls with butter slathered on top (because carbs don’t count in the winter months).

Below is the soup recipe in case you are interested. Instead of using bacon, I like to boil a left-over ham bone and use some of the meat and broth from that. This can simmer for a while which heats up the kitchen nicely for the rolls to rise. I find it easier to bake or boil the potatoes ahead of time and just add the cooked potatoes to the soup. To assemble, make a roux of the butter and flour and gradually add the milk. (I prefer to use a mix of broth and cream.) Then just dump in the rest of the ingredients and heat through. Add a salad and it is the perfect winter meal.

Getting air

In the winter months, it is very easy to hunker down at home, get engrossed in a project and not step out the door the entire day. Who wants to go outside when it is cold and dreary? Besides, it feels like a lot of work to layer on a coat, hat, gloves, heavy socks and lace up boots. But we all need to air out, so I push myself to get outdoors. Once I get out, I am always glad that I made the effort. There is nothing quite as silent and reverent as a fresh layer of snow. Wildlife gently meander through it in search of food, leaving their tracks behind like cookie crumbs.

We have an abundance of these prehistoric looking creatures. It is surprising how big the tracks are that they leave behind. They can also be quite messy in your yard. Normal people clean up after their dog, we clean up after the turkeys.
The dear are the beautiful, gentle animals of our area. Unfortunately, they will eat everything in your yard and garden, which is a challenge come spring.
The moose are a rare treat to see. This one left tracks right through our front yard.

I hope that you are finding ways to enjoy your winter wherever you are – whether it is basking in the sunshine or hunkering down on a cold night. Every day is a gift to be appreciated.

Let the Season Begin

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

Frost is in the air, the red kettle bell ringers are outside the stores and Amazon deliverers are working overtime. Yep, tis the season. Every year I promise myself that I will keep the season simpler. Let it be about the reason we celebrate. Let peace reign and heal our fractured souls. Let love wrap us in its warmth during this holiday of good will, generosity and kindness. Allow the season the space needed to do its magic.

Unfortunately, Christmas has lost a little bit of its magic since stores starting stocking Christmas items before Halloween and IG influencers’ holiday decorating posts are already stale. (Please don’t ask me how I know these things.) All in the name of commerce. I really try to ignore these overly anxious promoters. After all, they are just trying to make a living. But the struggle is real.

One way I do this is to hold fast to my rule to wait until after Thanksgiving to play Christmas music and decorate the house. But after Thanksgiving, it is full on Christmas. Every year I take the long weekend after Thanksgiving to decorate for the holidays. This is a carryover from when I was working full-time, and it was the only stretch of time available to spend two full days taking down fall decorations, cleaning and then putting up the Christmas ones. So last weekend, I put on the Christmas music, lit a candle and went to work.

I put the last touches on the decorations as evening settled in.

Kicking off the season

In our small town tucked up in the pines of the PNW, the season kicks off every year with a Christmas light parade and fireworks. This year, we were invited to view the festivities from a friend’s deck overlooking the city and lake. The light parade was festive, and the fireworks were heart stopping.

The parade was chilly but still drew large crowds that lined the street.
Of course, a Christmas parade is not complete without Santa – or the Grinch. The crowd chanted “lock him up, lock him up” as he went by. The Grinch…not Santa.
The fireworks are let off over the lake while Christmas music blasts from huge loudspeakers.
My grands watching the fireworks in awe (left.) My other granddaughter (right) is expecting a little brother in May – blessings abound! May we all view the season through the eyes of children.

Decorating the house and enjoying the downtown festivities were wonderful ways to kick off the season. May we all remember to take time to exhale and feel the spirit of Christmas in the next few weeks.

Let’s Get Cozy

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

I can’t deny it any longer. The cold weather is arriving. It did not even check with me to see if I was ready. I am not. At least mentally. However, we are prepared otherwise. The boat and camper are winterized and tucked into the shop. The firewood has been split and stacked. The sprinkler system has been blown out. The pizza oven is covered, and the outdoor chairs have been placed under shelter. Lastly, the tractor has the blade on it to plow our long, rather steep, driveway. Now we wait for the temperatures to drop and the snow to fly. It is time to cozy up.

Around this time every year I have to make an attitude adjustment. I mourn the sunshine and warmth. I miss having morning coffee outside listening to the bird’s cantata. I miss the sun casting a blanket of warmth on my shoulders. And I miss the ease of just throwing on shorts and a pair of flip flops, instead of having to bundle up with layers of cloths. But we live in the PNW and that means the days get shorter and the temperatures get colder. And colder. And colder. So, instead of fighting it, I am trying to embrace it. Because nothing is quite as beautiful as frost on the trees and a spanking new layer of snow on the ground. Attitude is everything.

Frost settles over the Tamarack trees, as fall gives way to winter. (Photo credit to my wonderful sister.)

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we get four very distinct change of seasons. I absolutely love that. The outdoors becomes this evolving canvas that you never get tired of observing. Years ago, we lived in Portland, Oregon (back when Portland was cool). It was the first time I had lived in a big city, and I was thrilled to experience something new and different. I especially loved the lush greenery that surrounded every nook and cranny of earth. But, as we soon learned, there is a price you pay for all of that vegetation… rain. Four seasons of rain: heavy rain, moderate rain, light rain and the “I am sick of rain” rain. After four years we were ready to move back closer to family and living with four distinct seasons again. Even if it meant that one of those seasons could be bitter cold and gray.

As with most things in life, it is the diversity that gives our lives texture and interest. So, in an effort to savor the art of living seasonally, I came up with a list of ten things I love about winter:

  1. Settling into a good book on a snowy day. Spending hours reading is an indulgence that only a day snowed in at home can give me the permission to do.
  2. Evenings by the fire listening to it crackle and pop, while I sip a glass of hot spiced wine.
  3. The very first snow fall. Best if I am tucked away at home watching it float down and silence the earth.
  4. Playing some Frank Sinatra music and lighting scented soy candles to create a peaceful mood.
  5. Taking a walk in the crisp air with the sun bouncing off of the snow. The feel of the cold air on your face is invigorating and makes you feel alive.
  6. Coming home to make a hot cup of tea in a favorite mug that my mom gave me several years ago.
  7. Loosing track of time as I settle into my office/craft room to let my creative juices flow.
  8. Pulling on a comfy pair of hand knit socks first thing on a chilly morning. Bonus that my friend made them for me.
  9. Making a big pot of soup and leaving it to simmer on the stove all day. Even better if I took the time to make homemade bread or rolls to go with it. Winter is no time to be counting carbs.
  10. One of the best gifts of winter is the holiday season. Thanksgiving and Christmas are full of precious time with family, delicious food and grateful hearts. What more could we want? Well, maybe a little sunshine to go with it.
Sorry, this picture is a little crooked. Must have been from the glass of hot spiced wine I was enjoying in front of it.

So, as the temperatures slowly drop below freezing, I am making an effort to settle into the winter months ahead. I am reminding myself of all the lovely things I enjoy about this time of year. This is the season of hygge, and I am going to melt into it. Because, as much as I complain discuss the colder weather, I honestly enjoy the unique beauty and coziness that this time of year brings with it. (At least at the beginning of the season… I will have a tough time coming up with reasons I love winter once February rolls around.) So, make a cup of hot tea or warm spiced wine, grab a good book, put your feet up by the fire and cozy up for the months ahead.

Winter… we are ready for you.

Nesting

Posted on by The Retired Alchemist

Over the last several weeks I have been observing the swallows nesting in the birdhouse on our back patio. (Exciting life, I know.) Before moving in they visited the birdhouse several times to see if it was suitable. Then we watched as they determinedly began bringing in little sticks, mud and debris to build their nest. I envision them excited to create their home together and fill it with a family. Before long, we heard little chirping sounds from the birdhouse… the children have arrived! Life will never be the same.

Like people, once the babies were born, the parents spent most of their time taking care of them. In this case, finding bugs to bring back to the nest. Back and forth they went, removing waste and returning with food, as the chirping got louder and louder. Last week, the babies were poking their heads out of the birdhouse, checking out the world outside of their comfort zone. I kept a close eye on them, hoping to witness their first flight away from the nest. Then one morning, I was having my coffee and observing the final baby bird leaning out of the nest as his momma brought him, what turned out to be, his last meal at home. Then he leaned further out and whoosh, he pushed himself out and with a few wobbly flaps of his wings, he was gone. Out to start his own adventures into the world. The next morning, the nest was quiet. It got me to thinking about our own nest.

One of the baby birds peeking out of the birdhouse (left). The baby bird being fed breakfast (right).

We have been feathering our nest for years. Adding pieces of furniture, gadgets and other stuff that would make it more functional and comfortable. As we prepare to downsize next year, I am now busy “unfeathering” our nest. Not a job for the faint of heart. So many memories. It feels like we spend the first two thirds of our life accumulating and the last third of it trying to get rid of what we accumulated. I have been working on this downsizing thing for a while, as I addressed in a post I wrote over a year ago, The Secret Life of Stuff.

I am trying to pawn off gift our children with as much stuff as I can. But as I read recently, your kids don’t want your %#*! and they really don’t want to sort through it after you pass from this earth. I am currently on both ends of that now. We are slowly going through and cleaning out my parents’ home that they raised six kids in. (My dad lives in a house in town now.) Again, so many memories. However, these memories are from the perspective of my own childhood, rather than that of a parent. It is the cycle of life, the remnants of a life well lived in our various nests.

I have to remind myself that the nest is just sticks and that, what we carry with us, what really matters, are the people. The nest is the carrying device for living out life. It does not hold the memories. Those have already been created and live in us. The nest does not shape and build us, family does. I love to live in a cozy, warm, inviting nest, but it is empty without the people that bring it to life.

Son #1 and his wife came to visit the nest last week. Since the rest of our kids live in the area, we were able to spend lots of time together as a family. It is always comforting to have your children back in your nest. It speaks of home and cozy and a reminder of those years when we were all together under one roof, safe and warm. I miss those years. But I have also grown to enjoy our quieter life and the freedom to come and go as we please. We can choose to watch a movie and have popcorn for dinner if neither of us feel like cooking that night.

Nests come and go, but the memories live on. Our four sons helped preserve those memories through an exceptionally thoughtful gift this week. When I retired, they created a book for me. Each of them wrote several pages of their memories growing up and words of kindness and appreciation that were beyond what I deserved. They planned to make one for their dad soon after, but life got busy. They joked that each of them kept waiting for one of the others to spearhead the project. Well, they finished it recently and decided to wait until they were all together this week to give it to their dad. A beautiful, heartfelt, tear inducing, tribute of their memories with their dad. And guess what? It wasn’t about nests; it was about people making lasting impressions on each other’s lives.

Mr. U and I with our four grown sons and the memory books that they made for each of us.

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July. As I mentioned, we enjoyed precious time with all of our immediate family, ate way too much food and tried to set the world on fire. THANK YOU to all of our current working military and our veterans. We are grateful.