You’re Still Here?

 

Days away from another year gone by. Geeeezus.

I remember when my mind was racing with ideas to write about and today I am lucky if I can hold a thought long enough to follow through. As recently as thirty minutes ago I thought a steaming hot cup of fresh coffee with half & half sounded good but I never followed through on it. 

It dawned on me yesterday that a new year is approaching fast. I don’t think I even chose a theme word last year. If I had, it would have been survive.  We were glad to have 2020 behind us but still holding our collective breath, hoping for a better year. It has been better and it has been worse. 

My patience has been tested about every other moment this year. Being the eternal optimist that I am, I just pray for bedtime to arrive so I can pull the covers up over my head, sleep, and try it again tomorrow. 

This next year, I plan to pause a lot. 

If you’re still here, reading my words, I hope things have been better in your world. We have a choice about how we see things. I don’t care how bad it gets, I’m still looking for the rainbow.

Pause. Breath. Do the next right thing. Love. Believe.

After all, we are here to walk each other home. 

Love, susan

Boomer Here, Checking In

 

Hi all. I’m coming to you from Denver. We’re here for a bit visiting the sweetest baby boy ever. We arrived 10 days ago and have been out every day doing this and that. Two days after we arrived, we were informed we had been exposed to covid a few days prior so I had to find a place to get a rapid test. I couldn’t believe it when I found a clinic across town that performed the negative test on a Sunday. (I think it’s important to add that we are vaccinated and my friend who tested positive was also fully vaccinated.)

I’ve been getting around Denver easily with the help of Google maps. I’m not really much of a city girl but I could be. Denver boasts a 2021 population of 2,862,000 people. It’s a big city but I’ve found it to be super friendly and so easy to get around. Some of the roads are pretty rough but I was reminded by my daughter-in-law that they are nothing compared to Michigan (specifically Lansing) roads.

Driving in the mile high city has been a great learning opportunity for me. My use of Google maps has been limited until about 10 days ago. The best thing I’ve learned is that 1,000 feet is a lot further than I think it to be. I’m learning to trust that lady voice that guides me wherever I want to go in this lovely place. My kids live about 20 minutes away and Google lady has taken us there via a couple of routes. Love that.

I’ve been feeling proud of myself for getting past my fear of driving in city situations. I pretty much just set that fear aside and let technology do its thing. I will probably be doing some trips to Phoenix and San Diego this year and my new found experience will no doubt come in handy. 

Hope all is well in your world. Til next time … love, boomer

Two Years Into Semi-Retirement: Best Advice Ever

 

This week marks two years since my last day of work. Full disclosure: I tried to go back to work last September but 6 weeks in I realized I could not manage working along with my home life. I came home and decided to embrace my place in life right now, which is caring for my husband, home, and one demanding dog. I quit searching the help wanted ads and started making this “retirement” my new job. That shift in thinking has made a big difference. I’m not feeling anxious and useless today. The days are going by faster than they did the first year of retirement. It’s true what they say ... it’s hard to know how I had time for anything else when I was working for a paycheck. I believe I was expert at squeezing this much <——————-——> into <—-> this much time. Time management is still important to me and I find using both my digital and paper calendar is effective. A friend who retired before me advised to never schedule more than one appointment a day. BEST ADVICE EVER. I still get up at 5am and have a habit stack that keeps me feeling encouraged and good about myself. I am still volunteering with a local non-profit that provides transportation for seniors to their doctor appointments. I truly love doing that. Lately, I have been watching a lot of YouTube videos on cooking and cleaning. I haven’t read as much as I thought I would in retirement but I’m not giving up the idea that I’ll just sit and read a book cover to cover some day soon.

Embracing this life. 

Love, susan

Happy Earth Day: Vow to Change

 

I have a friend who once told me if we all did just one thing that is earth friendly, we could change the trajectory of climate change. I think about that all the time. I try to be a good recycler but I could do better. I’ve recently been feeding my dog canned dog food. I absolutely hate washing out the cans to recycle, so I don’t. Can I tell you how guilty I feel about that? I do. Feel guilty. Now that I have said that out loud, I’m vowing to change that. 

My “one thing” is I try not to drink bottled water. We live in the desert and have to drink copious amounts of water to survive the heat. We have a reverse osmosis installed at our kitchen sink and I run that water into a Brita filter and keep 2 gallons of water going at all times. There is no reason I should need to drink bottled water ever. I have plenty of water containers of every size to carry with me when I go out. I do sometimes forget to grab water on my way out the door, especially in the winter time. Now that it is heating up, I need to develop a habit of preparing water bottles that are easy to place on the counter when I know I’m going to leave the house. 

I also try to think about things I buy to bring into my home. I’m a big thrift shopper and love the idea of reusing items that others have donated. This week I scored two really nice muffin pans at my favorite thrift store. I had been eyeing them and everything was 75% off so they came home with me along with several new-to-me summer tops. My thought is ... why buy new when I can find practically new at the thrift store? When I need a household item, I put it on my mental list and look for it at the thrift shop before I buy new. Having said that, I did buy a new frying pan this year that completely blew my budget but there are some things that just cannot be found used. 

Summing this up ... going forward I shall:

• Drink water from the tap
• Wash out those dog food containers to recycle
• Continue to buy used items when possible

Do you have ‘one thing’ you do to be kind to the earth? Tell me.

Love, susan

Just One Thing

 

I’ve had a million thoughts running through my mind this week. On a phone call with an old friend yesterday, we shared a conversation about one facet of growing older ... trying to hold a thought. I want to think our current events this last year have contributed to my inability to keep my focus. But, I’m willing to concede that some of it is simple aging. I’ve always had a mind that races but it seems that my thoughts and ideas barely hit the surface and scatter before I have time to either write it down, or commit it to memory. This really frustrates me. I do write notes for myself but often my ideas come when I’m walking the dog, or in the shower.

My idea for this post came while I was reading an email from a favorite writer/blogger Gretchen Rubin. She and other bloggers have little niche things they post .. hers is 5 Things That Make Me Happy. As I read her recent email and I thought ... I’m just looking for ONE THING ... let alone five. And, then I got to thinking ... lots of things make me happy and they can be the smallest things. 

JUST ONE THING .... this week

• I transported a talkative woman to her appointment at the Cancer Center this week. Not only was she super interesting to listen to, I learned how one gets cancer in their eyelid. She described the awful surgery that removed it from her lower lid and the hole it left that had to be patched. From here on out, I’m going to take better care to stay out of the sun without sunscreen and always wear my sunglasses.
• The yellow cactus bloom I caught out of the corner of my eye this week. It only blooms a day or two and then it’s gone. I’m happy I saw it. Photo below.
• Random texts with photos of my youngest grandson. My daughter-in-law can’t begin to know how happy this makes me. Back in the day, we would have had to wait for a special occasion to receive photos of babies. Technology rocks! (I can’t believe I’m saying that)
• This week I hand-wrote (copied) approximately 100 journal prompts from images I saw on Pinterest. The act of putting my pen to paper and not having to think about what to write was satisfying. I may never write anything from those prompts but it felt good to just use a little ink.
• Today I took a close up look at the flowers blooming in my yard. I think these ocotillo blooms look like candy corn. I don’t remember them ever blooming at eye level. What a treat!

I’m always good about telling my friends to find the joy and then I forget to do it myself. This coming week, I’m going to try to pay a little more attention to my thoughts, and find a way to get a few more of them down on paper instead of letting them pass by. I’ll try.

What’s your ONE THING this week?

Love, Susan

Brain Dump

 

Hello there. It’s me. Here it is April and this will be my first post for 2021 ... if I even post it. You should see how many posts I have started and never finished. 

To say I’ve been in a slump would be an understatement. Slump. Strange word. I’m not even sure if that describes my status. I’ve been busy enough. I’m not laying around doing nothing. It’s just that not a lot of things have sparked joy lately. But, I’m not unhappy either. My definition of slump is that in-between joy and boredom place. Ho hum. Whatever. Ya know? 

This week I had the thought that I would like to go just one whole day without talking about covid. I tried that yesterday but then I was complaining to my friends on Marco Polo (cool video app) about “it” and had to laugh at myself. I laughed hard! I can’t even make it 5 minutes after my vow to not talk about it. Covid, covid, covid. 

I’m coming up on my 2 year anniversary since I quit working. I tried to go back to work last September but only lasted 6 weeks. Turns out my home life needed a whole lot more attention than I wanted to admit. If there is one thing I know about myself, I’m not a quitter. It was hard to admit that I couldn’t do it all. When I came home after that last “last day”, I made a promise to myself that I would stop looking at the help wanted ads. I would stop wishing I was somewhere else. I would make my home life my “job”. 

I’ve been journaling a lot the last couple of months. At the end of every entry I have been writing these words ... JOURNAL * READ * DO DISHES * MAKE BED * WALK THE DOG. I recently added DRINK WATER. All of these are actions I resist on a daily basis even though I enjoy either the action or the results. As I sit here writing this entry, I think I’ll add BLOG to my habit stack. I’ll try. There, I said it. 

Gotta go for now. I have an 8am appointment for my car and I haven’t done any of the actions in my habit stack. 

Love, susan