Retirement in rural southern Colorado: If you don’t take the risk, how will you ever know?

June 4, 2018December 27, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 9 Comments

Four years ago, on June 17th, Mike and I sold our nice home in suburbia and left behind everything familiar to us. After living up in the Fort Collins area for the past few decades, this move felt like a gigantic leap of faith.

Here’s a photo of our past home in south Fort Collins. In the past four years it has increased in value more than $100,000! Wow, the prices of homes up in metroland are growing by leaps and bounds!

After over a year of emotional and financial struggle, we triumphed over a million difficult challenges to create this passive solar home west of Walsenburg Colorado. We have been quite happy living here for the past few years. Retirement agrees with us, and especially in such a quiet, natural part of the West. BTW, passive solar works great down here!

Most of my worries about moving here never came to pass, and other completely unexpected problems replaced those. The biggest challenges for me have been health-related. My body made a quick decision to start falling apart soon after age 60, creating new opportunities for compassion towards others who suffer. And the truth is, I have met so many here who have been forced to retire early because of health concerns and disabilities.

Huerfano, meaning orphan, is a poor, rural county down near the New Mexico border, with a total population of around 6,500 and an average age of 54 years. With few good jobs and an abundance of natural beauty, the Huerfano attracts those with less money and more appreciation of rugged country and rural life. We live on three acres in the Pinon-Juniper ecosystem right around 7,000 feet elevation.

Judging by the rapid increase in traffic in Walsenburg, the many homes sold here in the past few years, and how crazy Highway 160 has become in the summer, it looks like this area has been “discovered” by those living up north in metroland.

We have found this area to be slow and quiet, especially in the winter, and windy as hell. If you hate the wind, don’t move here! The slow country ways are what now attract me. I can go into La Veta and always see people I know. I like that.

Laura Lee Carter is a professional photographer, writer and psychotherapist. Her midlife crisis included a divorce and the loss of her career as an academic librarian, misfortunes she now finds supremely fortuitous, as everything wonderful flowed from these challenges. Laura now sees midlife difficulties as once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for personal liberation. She has produced four books and one workbook on personal change, midlife psychology and how country living changes you.

Don’t miss her new one: A Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado

My New Xeric Garden in Southern Colorado

May 31, 2018May 1, 2021 / Laura Lee Carter / 2 Comments

Now on to my favorite pastime, where you can find me every morning bright and early, my rock garden outside my door! I know, it isn’t much to look at this time of year, but my new plants are just getting established, some last spring and some this year.

Some plants came back with enthusiasm! I have found that Rocky Mountain Penstemon (Penstemon Strictus) never bloom the first year they are planted, but all three of them are blooming this year!

And this one I forgot all about, but it is sure happy in my garden this year!

I have some cute little pussy toes! All blooming very soon I’m sure!

I haven’t had many problems this year with rabbits or other animals chowing down on my plants. I try to choose the ones the animals don’t like, but I just learned how much they like certain Yarrows!

I learned the hard way my first summer out here that they LOVE tender, well-watered Portulacas! Perfect rabbit salad! These are the only “annuals” I buy every year. Sometimes they do re-seed themselves in their own pot. Now I keep them up on a shelf away from all hungry critters.

THE VIEW OUT OF MY BEDROOM LAST SUMMER…

I’ve also had great success with Blue Mist Spirea bushes, Jupiter’s Beard, Lavender, most sedums, Gallardia, and I’m working on establishing a few Walker’s Low Nepeta (Catmint) for their lovely purple color in the spring. Nice to see a few native plant volunteers too! We plan to add hardscaping this summer. It should look wonderful in just a couple more years… That’s the way with new gardens, patience is key! The main problem we have here is the drying wind. I like what Merrilee over at Perennial Favorites said about that: “We hate the wind, but the plants really don’t mind.”

Why take major risks in midlife?

May 24, 2018September 7, 2022 / Laura Lee Carter / 7 Comments

I met a nice couple who just moved in below us on Tuesday. They are like us, newlyweds in their 60s from the metro area up north. They came by to explore their new neighborhood, although in our case the homes are pretty far apart. I showed them my memoir about the tough process we went through when we first got here and they bought one.

**Mike woke up one day after we moved in, went straight outside and did this!**

Then I started reading my memoir again. How time flies! It’s been almost four years now since we plopped ourselves down in Walsenburg, and started building west of town. And yes, an author can actually forget what they wrote a few years ago.

Although certainly imperfect, this book is an honest and funny account of my experiences in a part of our country which at first felt a bit like a foreign land. Building here was fraught with major challenges. In case you don’t know, one definition of fraught is: “causing great anxiety or stress.”

Why did we do it? Here’s a short essay from my book that explains everything:

The American Dream In Progress – March 6, 2015

I am surprised how much interest there is in building solar in rural America. My views on this blog have increased dramatically recently, and that includes views from all over the world.

But then I got to thinking, and realized the dream we are presently pursuing is the most fundamental of all. The immigrants who risked everything to come to America did so just to be able to purchase their own land and build a new life here. Having your own piece of land is, in a sense, what this country is all about.

This realization makes me very happy and proud. My husband Mike has held this dream for most of his life. Building a passive solar home has been his primary goal since he was a teenager. Now we almost have our home completed, and in spite of the many unexpected difficulties and inconveniences that have arisen in this process, we will soon be living the life we only dreamt of last year.

Hold on to your dreams! Don’t give up when those dreams require taking risks that scare you. Don’t let others talk you out of your most important goals. You have the needed vision to live your dream.

“The person who says it cannot be done, should not interrupt the person doing it.” – Chinese proverb

Do YOU have what it takes to follow your dreams? Check out my memoir… and please follow me on Twitter!

Rediscovering your heart

April 17, 2018April 17, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 5 Comments

“Who knows why you start rediscovering your heart you just do it again and again…” – Jimmy Buffet

Midlife is such a marvelous time to rediscover yourself and your earliest dreams and goals. It is the time to look back and see how well you have achieved those goals you treasured as a child, and what else needs to be done to make your life complete.

Here’s a short essay from my book Find Your Reason To Be Here: The Search for Meaning in Midlife, about how this process might proceed:

What Defines You? Rediscover Your Heart

Your first step in this new action plan will be to let go of your previous reality, which was built on unrealistic goals, rules, expectations, and perceptions. This will require that you first find a way to believe it is possible for you to change your life.

How will you do this? First you must rediscover your heart, your inner wisdom, and your belief in your power to change perhaps everything in your life. Do you remember your child’s-mind and heart at age seven or eight? When you were that kid you had a pretty good idea of what you loved to do and what you were naturally good at. Back then you were still listening to your inner wisdom and paying more attention to its truths. That was before authority figures began sharing their truths with you, convincing you that your own truth was silly, unrealistic, and not worth listening to.

Now is the time to check inside again and excavate that child’s wisdom from the decades of outside advice and beliefs you have accumulated in your head and heart. Yes, there were many practical concerns that drove you to choose the major you pursued in college, the career you have dedicated your life to up until now, and even the love partner you may have spent the past 20 or 30 years with.

No need to judge the choices you have made up to now. Know that you have always done your best to survive and thrive, but also respect your present need for a mid-course adjustment. Constantly racing towards some sense of security is quite human, but not realistic. Find new respect for your changing self and the many new perceptions you will gather as you attempt to turn off the safety-seeking, security-oriented feedback loop in your brain. Security can only take you so far, but to grow and evolve you must take new risks. Your overall goal is to have no regrets as you look back over your life from the age of 70 or 80.

Change in midlife requires that, like never before in your life, you begin to believe in yourself and your power to change. This exercise will require that you develop your highest levels of self-love, self-respect, and self-compassion.

As you begin to recall your past interests and dreams, think about what happened to them. Did they hold any validity? Do you miss those dreams or have reasons to believe that you would still like to pursue them? Were they vestiges of your authentic self, which you have tried to delete or ignore for decades? Would this be a good time to allow them back into your heart, if only for a bit of new consideration?

Midlife is the best time to question again why you are here and become crystal clear about what needs to happen in your life before you die.

Laura and Rasta the view 2014

Open to your vast spontaneous creativity, give yourself the freedom to try new things, let go of your innate fear of failure, and finally feel free to experiment, perhaps for the first time in decades!

Codependent no more, but still quite the introvert

April 15, 2018April 15, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 8 Comments

After only a couple days of company out here in the middle of nowhere, I realized once again exactly what an introvert I am. I can easily become intolerant with ‘company’ because I’m just too easily distracted by other peoples’ energy.

This definition of introvert works perfect for me:

Someone who prefers calm, minimally stimulating environments, and tends to feel drained after socializing, regaining energy by spending time alone.

I am fundamentally too sensitive to have most people around me for any length of time. After only a few hours I feel exhausted and angry. I hate feeling so at the mercy of the needs and emotions of others. I need to isolate to finally give myself the love and attention I need. When forced into situations with lots of people around I eventually explode! I have a great fear of being stuck with others whom I really don’t want to be around, so I have finally learned to do this:

“I’m very picky whom I give my energy to. I prefer to reserve my time, intensity and spirit exclusively for those who reflect sincerity.” ~ Dau Voire

And yes, I search relentlessly for those who are sincere and authentic. I find most do not value putting time and energy into becoming their authentic self. That is one of my most essential goals.

One of the first topics Mike and I agreed on when we met, was that we had both been identified as “too intense” throughout our lives. That must be society’s way of saying strange. I would define that trait as highly sensitive to everything around us, especially other people. Mike and I notice everything around us and thankfully at about the same rate of speed. We test this out sometimes and find we are often on the same wave length, thinking the same thing at the same time. This must be why we can enjoy being around each other, while most people drive us nuts after only a couple of hours.

We know to give each other lots of space.

“Introverts are word economists in a society suffering from verbal diarrhea.” ~ Michaela Chung

I feared before I met Mike that I was destined to live alone forever with just my dogs, because most people drive me nuts fairly quickly. But I am here to reassure those of you who are highly sensitive and quite picky about partners, there are others out there! Don’t give up the search…

“I want to be alone… with someone else who wants to be alone.” – Dimitri Zaik

“Quiet people have the loudest minds.” – Stephen Hawking

Now that I’ve gotten used to being ‘old’…

April 11, 2018January 1, 2023 / Laura Lee Carter / 5 Comments

An elder friend told me years ago, ‘old’ is always ten years older than you are right now! Actually, I still do struggle with the apparent fact that I am now 63 years old. In my mind people in their sixties are like my grandparents. They are retired, checked out of the work world. I barely remember my grandparents before they retired. I mostly remember them as elderly folks who hung out a lot watching TV. This all reminds me of how different and out of it I must seem to kids today.

I’m beginning to think I’m the last person on planet earth who has never owned a “smart” phone and never really needed one.

I still communicate with my friends through e-mail to set up dates, etc. It works and does not add all those additional monthly expenses for mobile phones. I suppose my thrifty nature has made it possible for us to retire early… But then you do run into the whole, “What do you do with your life now?” question.

First of all, anything would be better than my life back in 2004 when I lost my last job. I was driving a hour each way to Denver to work at Regis University Libraries. I swear I’m still suffering from back and shoulder pain from that daily trek down I-25 to a job I hated, with people who apparently hated me. After six years I got fired in a way that felt like the end of life itself, but turned out to be the best thing ever! Yes, my life since then has been the perfect example of this Chinese parable from 2,000 years ago:

A Chinese farmer gets a beautiful horse, but it soon runs away. A neighbor says, “That’s bad!” The farmer replies, “Good news, bad news, who can say?”

The horse comes back and brings another horse with him. Good news, you might say.

The farmer gives the second horse to his son, who rides it, but is then thrown and breaks his leg.

“So sorry for your bad news,” says the concerned neighbor. “Good news, bad news, who can say?” the farmer replies.

In a week or so, the emperor’s men come and take every able-bodied young man to fight in a war. The farmer’s son is spared...

Proving once again that nothing is as it seems at the time. From my first (and ONLY!) firing as a professional librarian at age 49, I learned that it’s best not to get too hung up on what happened today. Even something that seems like the worst EVER can turn out to be a hidden opportunity to improve your life!

Our Walsenburg rental, an 100-year-old miner’s home!

My best example of this is four years ago when we moved down here to build solar in the foothills. When we first got here I was not certain this was such a great idea. Moving from an up-and-coming city like Fort Collins to a poor, quiet, rundown town like Walsenburg left me thinking,

“Is this a bad thing? Have I lost my mind?”

But resilience and patience got us through the difficult adjustment stage of building this home out in the foothills west of Walsenburg, and today I am supremely happy to be here now.

Note to myself: Allow LOTS of time for personal adjustment around major life changes.

And yes, we do find excellent ways to spend our days, even in retirement. We have learned to enjoy a much slower pace with lots of time to just be. I have also learned how to truly live in the present.

Four years ago, on June 17th, Mike and I sold our nice home in suburbia and left behind everything familiar to us. After living up in the Fort Collins area for the past few decades, this move felt like a gigantic leap of faith.

Here’s a photo of our past home in south Fort Collins. In the past four years it has increased in value more than $100,000! Wow, the prices of homes up in metroland are growing by leaps and bounds!

Judging by the rapid increase in traffic in Walsenburg, the many homes sold here in the past few years, and how crazy Highway 160 has become in the summer, it looks like this area has been “discovered” by those living up north in metroland.

We have found this area to be slow and quiet, especially in the winter, and windy as hell. If you hate the wind, don’t move here! The slow country ways are what now attract me. I can go into La Veta and always see people I know. I like that.

Don’t miss her new one: A Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado

Now on to my favorite pastime, where you can find me every morning bright and early, my rock garden outside my door! I know, it isn’t much to look at this time of year, but my new plants are just getting established, some last spring and some this year.

Some plants came back with enthusiasm! I have found that Rocky Mountain Penstemon (Penstemon Strictus) never bloom the first year they are planted, but all three of them are blooming this year!

And this one I forgot all about, but it is sure happy in my garden this year!

I have some cute little pussy toes! All blooming very soon I’m sure!

I haven’t had many problems this year with rabbits or other animals chowing down on my plants. I try to choose the ones the animals don’t like, but I just learned how much they like certain Yarrows!

I learned the hard way my first summer out here that they LOVE tender, well-watered Portulacas! Perfect rabbit salad! These are the only “annuals” I buy every year. Sometimes they do re-seed themselves in their own pot. Now I keep them up on a shelf away from all hungry critters.

Then I started reading my memoir again. How time flies! It’s been almost four years now since we plopped ourselves down in Walsenburg, and started building west of town. And yes, an author can actually forget what they wrote a few years ago.

Why did we do it? Here’s a short essay from my book that explains everything:

The American Dream In Progress – March 6, 2015

I am surprised how much interest there is in building solar in rural America. My views on this blog have increased dramatically recently, and that includes views from all over the world.

Hold on to your dreams! Don’t give up when those dreams require taking risks that scare you. Don’t let others talk you out of your most important goals. You have the needed vision to live your dream.

“The person who says it cannot be done, should not interrupt the person doing it.” – Chinese proverb

Do YOU have what it takes to follow your dreams? Check out my memoir… and please follow me on Twitter!

“Who knows why you start rediscovering your heart you just do it again and again…” – Jimmy Buffet

Midlife is such a marvelous time to rediscover yourself and your earliest dreams and goals. It is the time to look back and see how well you have achieved those goals you treasured as a child, and what else needs to be done to make your life complete.

Here’s a short essay from my book Find Your Reason To Be Here: The Search for Meaning in Midlife, about how this process might proceed:

What Defines You? Rediscover Your Heart

Your first step in this new action plan will be to let go of your previous reality, which was built on unrealistic goals, rules, expectations, and perceptions. This will require that you first find a way to believe it is possible for you to change your life.

Change in midlife requires that, like never before in your life, you begin to believe in yourself and your power to change. This exercise will require that you develop your highest levels of self-love, self-respect, and self-compassion.

Midlife is the best time to question again why you are here and become crystal clear about what needs to happen in your life before you die.

Open to your vast spontaneous creativity, give yourself the freedom to try new things, let go of your innate fear of failure, and finally feel free to experiment, perhaps for the first time in decades!

After only a couple days of company out here in the middle of nowhere, I realized once again exactly what an introvert I am. I can easily become intolerant with ‘company’ because I’m just too easily distracted by other peoples’ energy.

This definition of introvert works perfect for me:

“I’m very picky whom I give my energy to. I prefer to reserve my time, intensity and spirit exclusively for those who reflect sincerity.” ~ Dau Voire

And yes, I search relentlessly for those who are sincere and authentic. I find most do not value putting time and energy into becoming their authentic self. That is one of my most essential goals.

We know to give each other lots of space.

“Introverts are word economists in a society suffering from verbal diarrhea.” ~ Michaela Chung

I feared before I met Mike that I was destined to live alone forever with just my dogs, because most people drive me nuts fairly quickly. But I am here to reassure those of you who are highly sensitive and quite picky about partners, there are others out there! Don’t give up the search…

“I want to be alone… with someone else who wants to be alone.” – Dimitri Zaik

“Quiet people have the loudest minds.” – Stephen Hawking

I’m beginning to think I’m the last person on planet earth who has never owned a “smart” phone and never really needed one.

A Chinese farmer gets a beautiful horse, but it soon runs away. A neighbor says, “That’s bad!” The farmer replies, “Good news, bad news, who can say?”

The horse comes back and brings another horse with him. Good news, you might say.

The farmer gives the second horse to his son, who rides it, but is then thrown and breaks his leg.

“So sorry for your bad news,” says the concerned neighbor. “Good news, bad news, who can say?” the farmer replies.

In a week or so, the emperor’s men come and take every able-bodied young man to fight in a war. The farmer’s son is spared...

My best example of this is four years ago when we moved down here to build solar in the foothills. When we first got here I was not certain this was such a great idea. Moving from an up-and-coming city like Fort Collins to a poor, quiet, rundown town like Walsenburg left me thinking,

“Is this a bad thing? Have I lost my mind?”

But resilience and patience got us through the difficult adjustment stage of building this home out in the foothills west of Walsenburg, and today I am supremely happy to be here now.

Note to myself: Allow LOTS of time for personal adjustment around major life changes.

And yes, we do find excellent ways to spend our days, even in retirement. We have learned to enjoy a much slower pace with lots of time to just be. I have also learned how to truly live in the present.

“There’s nothing sweeter than falling in love with the moment we’re given, the only one we have.” — Marcia Smalley