Looking Back on 2025 and my WOTY

Posted on February 2, 2026February 2, 2026 by The Retired Alchemist

January is already over and it is time to look at 2025 in the rearview mirror. I hope you are looking back at it with a smile and fond memories. Last year was a year of change for us. A year that moved our retirement life in a new direction. It put me on a roller coaster of emotions as we evaluated our retirement lifestyle and made big steps towards rightsizing it. Scary steps that turned our little world upside down.

We knew that change was in the air, so I chose the word “rightsizing” to be My 2025 Word of the Year (WOTY). I hoped that it would guide our decisions and move us to a retirement lifestyle that fit our unique interests and needs. At this point, Mr. U and I have both been retired for several years, we are in our 60’s and have whittled down how we want to move forward in this phase of life. So, 2025 was our year of trying to rightsize our retirement life. Fair warning – photo bomb ahead. ⚠️

The year 2025 in review

Like all of you, we celebrated birthdays.

We shared holidays with family.

Holidays are just more fun with kids (little and big).

And we welcomed a precious new grandson into the family.

Son #3 and his lovely wife, daughter and new baby boy.

Sons #3 and #4 (who are fraternal twins) holding the big sister and her little bro (left). Son #1 and his lovely wife made the trip back west to see their new nephew (right).

And amidst the joy was heartbreaking loss for our little city.

Best trip in 2025

We did not do a lot of travel because we were so busy at home, but the best trip of 2025, hands down, was our trip to the Oregon Coast with all of our kids. We have done it for two years in a row now. Does that make it a tradition? While it was a busy year, I am so glad we made time for this. It is the stuff that gives family a common bond, shared laughter and memories to carry you for a lifetime.

Going crabbing and having a seafood boil is one of the highlights of the trip.

The whole crazy gang took time from their busy lives to make the trip.

Biggest changes in 2025

We spent a good hunk of 2025 preparing to sell our home. We went through every single item we owned and determined if it still served us as we moved forward into a smaller space. Hard decisions. It took me on an emotional roller coaster as I relived my life with each piece.

I had to decide whether or not to keep the afghan that I knit for a 4-H project in high school (left). I wrote about my struggle with whether to keep the wedding china in the post, Downsizing Dilemma: The Wedding China.

I am happy to announce that my lovely DIL #2 (left) decided to take the wedding china. She created this gorgeous table setting with some of it for Thanksgiving.

Once I was done sorting and packing, I mopped up my tears and we were ready. We said farewell to The House that Built a Family. It was a home that we loved for 24 years and held us during life’s storms – both physical and emotional.

We said goodbye to our house up on the hill.

It never looked better than when we were getting ready to sell it. Funny how that works.

In the midst of preparing our house to sell, we were also busy making the constant decisions on the new house we were building. We built it on the same property where I grew up, next to a little lake.

The years had deteriorated the original home to such an extent that we needed to start from scratch.

We wanted our home to be cozy enough for the two of us, but big enough for family gatherings.

I am thrilled to be back on the little lake that has so many good memories for me growing up.

As if this wasn’t enough going on, we added in buying a small condo in Arizona last winter. It was in our retirement plan for several years. We had been looking for a while, but then everything lined up and so we needed to move on it.

Our escape plan from the cold, gray winter weather.

Daily life continues on

And in between all of the big life changes, daily life still went on. It always surprises me how life does not stop when I have a big, major hairy transition going on. There were still burdens to carry and the house still needed to be cleaned, the wash done, groceries bought, meals prepared and health issues that had to be followed up on. But there were also coffee dates to go on, micro trips to take and life to be lived.

In between all of the turmoil and change, I made sure to squeeze in coffee dates with my wonderful friend (left) and wine time with my amazing sister (right). Therapy for my soul.

Looking back over 2025

As I look back over 2025, I realize how much life and change we packed in. No wonder I am tired! Perhaps my 2025 WOTY should have been change, because there was so much of it. Yet it helped to control it by keeping the concept of “rightsizing” in the back of my brain through it all. It reminded me to constantly ask, what was right for us, at this stage in our lives? What did we want the rest of our foreseeable retirement life to look like? What can we do now that we may not be able to do in 5 or 10 years? It helped to drive decisions. Thus, 2025 was the year we spent working to bring our planned retirement lifestyle to fruition.

As you look back over the past year, what were your 2025 highlights? Did it reflect movement towards the life you hoped to live at this point? Do you feel like your life is the right size for you? If not, what changes do you need to make? Maybe it is just a few little tweaks or maybe it is a big hairy change.

My 2026 WOTY

I don’t have one. Nope. Nada. I decided not to pick a WOTY this year. It is more a lifestyle that I want to cultivate, and that cannot be captured in one word. After the frenzy of 2025 and all of the changes it brought, I am ready to settle in and nest. I want to live a little slower, more intentional life. I plan to treat my health like a part-time job. And I need more time to sit by the lake to reflect and just be. I want to purposefully spend more of my time on what feeds my soul. We spent 2025 setting up our retirement lifestyle and now I just want to sink into it.

Do you have a WOTY for 2026, or are you feeling more like me and want to slow down and just live life well and appreciate the moments? Either way, may your 2026 hold lots of laughter, joy and be a life lived well.

Cheers to the retirement years!

Curating a Retirement Lifestyle

Posted on March 4, 2025March 4, 2025 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.

Should I Take Flight and be a Snowbird?

Posted on February 24, 2025February 24, 2025 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.

Just an average day in retirement

Posted on March 21, 2023March 21, 2023 by The Retired Alchemist

When I first retired, like most new retirees, I was frequently asked what I was going to do with all my time. Now, over three years in, the most frequent question I still get asked is what I do with all of my time. Like I have an excess of time now…geez! How do I explain to people how much I enjoy my slow mornings, without sounding lazy? Or how going into town is an event and not necessarily an everyday occurrence? How do I explain that there is no average day in retirement?

What does your ideal, average day look like in retirement? I say “average” day because many of us envision travel as part of our ideal retirement. I know I do. Travel days take on a life of their own. But there are many days in between travel. Average days when you do not have anything special planned. How does your typical day or week at home play out? How do you visualize your ideal retirement lifestyle? How do you shape it to be more what you want? It is preferable to figure this out prior to retiring but it is never too late to think this through and then take the action steps to make it happen. After all, retirement is the perfect time to practice a little Alchemy. Three years into retirement and I have developed (or should I say evolved into) a loose structure to my average days when we don’t have anything in particular planned.

What does an average day in retirement look like?

Below is my perfectly average day in retirement:

Definitely, definitely wake up without an alarm. This is usually around 6:30. Not waking up to an alarm clock is one of my favorite things about retirement.
Mr. U and I have our morning “coffee” time. This is something we have done since we first got married and I attribute it to keeping our marriage solid for over 40 years. It is our time to talk over our thoughts, plans, and dreams, as well as the nitty gritty organization for the day.
After our coffee time, we each fix our own breakfast and have some time to ourselves. A day or two a week Mr. U will cook a breakfast for us, or we will go out to eat, but we are talking average day here. We do not usually meet up for lunch. How does that sayings go, “I married for life, but not for lunch?” It is an adjustment spending so much time together when you both retire, and we feel like we bring more back to the relationship if we have some time apart.
I love slow mornings when I have leisurely time to read, blog, journal, pray and just reflect. I absolutely need this down time to ponder. And just so I don’t ponder the whole day away, I also jot down what I want to accomplish for that day. If I don’t do this, the day slips by and I don’t get anything done that I intended. Like many people, I have also jumped on the Wordle band wagon and try to solve it every morning.
Get up and move. Time to do household chores, because apparently, they do not magically disappear in retirement. (My perfect average retirement day would not include chores, but just keeping it real.) I try to do 15 minutes of gentle yoga to maintain balance and flexibility. Then I head outdoors whenever possible. I prefer to fill my water bottle, pack a light lunch, toss my journal into a bag and hop on my bike or just take a walk. My favorite excursions are next to a river or lake.
Afternoons are open to what fun the day presents. This is where play happens. It is a good time to consider doing what puts you in a state of “flow.” Where you get so absorbed in what you are doing that you lose track of time and suddenly realize that it is already dinner time. This could be spending the afternoon with someone or pursuing a personal interest or project. It is different almost every day. I try to purposefully decide how I want to use this precious time. Your retired so you get to pick!
I like to sit down and enjoy a glass of wine at the end of the day, preferably while something is grilling on the BBQ. While we do not typically have breakfast or lunch together, Mr. U and I almost always eat dinner together. And unless there is something significant on, we do not eat dinner in front of the T.V.
Evenings are still a little unsettled for me. My energy has dwindled by then, both mentally and physically. When you are retired, you get time during the day to do what you love so you don’t need to cram it into the evening. For example, I used to read every evening that I had the chance but now that I have time to do that in the mornings, I don’t have a strong need to read in the evenings. I have started watching a little evening TV, but I am not a huge fan. I am curious how other retirees use their evenings.

My perfect average retirement day

Keep in mind that this is my perfect “average” retirement day and not necessarily every day and not my perfect retirement day. That would be out on the boat in flip flops, pulling up to dock at a waterfront restaurant for dinner and then watching the sunset from the bow of the boat with a cold drink and good company. Or a day traveling to new sites, going on a hike and then dining alfresco. However, this post is about a retirement lifestyle that I can enjoy on an average day that feeds my soul. Average days are the meat and vegetables that make up retirement life. Travel and other special experiences are the spices you add on top.

If you have not retired yet, it is never too early to think about how you would like to live your average retirement days. If you are retired, are you living your best life on the average days or do you need to tweak them a little? We want to make every day great and not just tread water until we are on the other side of the dirt. What does your perfect average retirement day need to include?

Take the Risk

Posted on October 24, 2022October 24, 2022 by The Retired Alchemist

Over 36 years ago I took a risk that has paid off over and over again through the years. Over 36 years ago I was pregnant with my first child and working night shift in the ICU at our local hospital. It just so happens that another nurse was also pregnant with her first child and working night shift in the OB Unit. It was a small hospital and it is a little hard to hide being seven months pregnant, so during breaks we ended up comparing notes about our pregnancies. Turns out we were both due on the exact same day.

Fast forward a couple of months and we were both home on maternity leave. Being first time mothers we were tired, swollen and insecure about the responsibilities of taking care of these tiny human beings. Another co-worker just had her first baby several months prior and was a little further down this motherhood journey. We saw her as an experienced mom and mentor.

Even though I was exhausted I knew I needed some adult interaction, so I took a risk and invited them (and their new babies – duh) over for lunch. It was no easy task taking care of an infant, getting the house cleaned up, the table set and making a nice hot lunch for people I barely knew. I am so glad I took that risk. We became good friends and spent countless hours talking, changing diapers and sharing lunches.

**Friendships that developed with our first babies.** **My long term bestie is far left and moi is second from left.**

Fast forward another 36 years and one of these wonderful ladies and I remain the best of friends. We have shared the ups and downs of parenting, from sending our children off to kindergarten to graduation from college and the empty nest. And now we compare notes on our aging bodies instead of pregnancies.

**Bestie and I at Hill’s Resort a couple years ago. Make-up & filter free and totally relaxed.**

We meet people all of the time but they do not usually develop into a friendship. Friendship must start with a willingness to take a risk and reach out to someone: make the invitation for lunch, suggest taking the enrichment class together or meeting up for a walk and coffee afterwards. Someone has to take the first step and risk. It doesn’t always work. I have made several attempts to get together with an acquaintance or coworker, and while we enjoyed the time, it never really took off into a longer term friendship. But, as the sayings goes, you never know until you try.

It takes continued time, effort and forgiveness to develop deeper friendships. When we lived in separate cities, my dear friend and I took the time to meet up for a yearly trip. While we, thankfully, live in the same area once again, we still take our annual trip. The last several trips we have gone to Hill’s Resort. It is a beautiful, rustic, family owned, lakeside resort tucked in the trees of Northern Idaho. The perfect spot to hunker down, talk, laugh, go on walks, sip wine, eat delicious food, and sew. Yep, we haul our sewing machines there and set up shop at the dining room table. We get a few crazy looks, but therapy is worth a few crazy looks. We just got back from our trip a couple weeks ago and it was as beautiful and therapeutic as always.

**The car all packed with sewing supplies & food.**

Lest you think we just sit around and eat and drink, here are a couple pictures of finished projects:

It can become a bit more challenging to make friends in retirement. We do not have the built in option to meet people through work and our kid’s activities. However, friends become even more important during retirement. They round out our lives and help us realize that we are not insane (smile). There is nothing more validating than hearing someone confirm that they are experiencing the same things at this phase of life. So, I encourage you to take the risk and reach out to someone you would like to get to know better. You never know which time it will develop into a deeper friendship.

TheRetiredAlchemist

Tag: retirementlife