Life with a view
In contrast, Norway has recently discovered the popularity of slow television, or “slow TV” (
From daybreak…
to sunset, it changes constantly, and sometimes offers up the most amazing images! Boomer World: And the Beat Goes on…
I must say, when I started this little website two and a half years ago, to share the slow progress on our passive solar home here in southern Colorado, I never expected for it to grow to 23,000 visitors with over 50,000 views. And I most definitely didn’t expect to see readers from over 80 countries of the world! Hallelujah!
Something else I never expected is that I would still be participating in the same Boomer Blog Carnival that I began in 2008! OK, so the members have changed constantly. I’ve even changed blogs since then. But come rain or shine, we are still bringing together some great blog posts for you to peruse each week!
Speaking of which, today over at Heart Mind Soul, Carol Cassara shares how her husband managed a painful surgical recovery without pain meds. And in another great post she tackles a tough question for most of us: Why is it so hard for us to ask for what we need?
Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting says: For so many of us computers are an integral part of our life nowadays. When the device runs smoothly we have a window on the world, using it for work as well as for all kinds of recreational pursuits. But when problems occur, those of us who are “non-nerds” become frustrated. That is what happened to Meryl this week. Her long-time computer companion had issues. Here she recounts her experiences in My Technologically Down Day and Hacked!
According to Rita R. Robison, consumer journalist, Saturday was National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day. If you weren’t able to return your unused or expired drugs, check in your community to see if it has a permanent location. It’s important because medications in the home are a leading cause of accidental poisoning. In addition, if you leave unused prescription drugs in your bathroom cabinet, teens or others may steal them and become addicted to prescription drugs. It happened in Robison’s family; it can happen in yours.
Of course many retirees like to travel. And Tom Sightings says, if you do, more power to you. He admires your sense of adventure. But as for the rest of us, he argues in If You’re Retired Do You Have to Travel? we shouldn’t feel that we’re missing out on something by staying closer to home. Travel is one thing to do in retirement; but it’s not the only thing, and it’s not something we should feel required to “check off” in order to fulfill our retirement dreams.
You tell ’em Tom! Our retirement dream was to move to such a natural, peaceful place that we wouldn’t feel the need to leave much, and I believe we succeeded…
This is our view this morning from our solar perch with the sun pouring in!
I created a journal version of all we went through to end up in our toasty warm solar home in southern Colorado: A Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado Let’s work around Amazon (the evil empire!) Contact me directly to order your own signed copies of any of my books! Cheers, Laura Lee (email me: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com)
The Supreme Freedom of Retirement
Retirement hasn’t been at all like I pictured it. In fact, I never even pictured it until I met Mike thirteen years ago. The fact is, I couldn’t afford it back then, instead I was busy looking for a new job…
At that time, good fortune visited me big time! I decided I needed to change careers, and Mike decided he wanted to support me in this new endeavor. Thus emerged my “Midlife Crisis Queen” blog (now defunct) and my three books about winning the midlife challenges war by changing everything at age 50.
Recently Mike and I moved to rural Colorado, which required more major mental adjustments (at least for me!) For the first year we worked full-time to produce a passive solar retirement home. It was only after that major achievement that we began to officially “retire.”
Now, a couple years later, I recently realized that retirement may be my first chance to observe my true nature. For the first time in my life nobody is telling me what to do, no parents, no boss, no need to be nice to make money, no need to prove myself to anyone. Basically no pressure and very little stress of any kind.
For the first time I get to decide how much self-discipline I want to have. At first we both had very little. We were both exhausted from over a year of home building. Mike and I both felt numb. We loved to sit and look at our view and just feel glad to be alive.
The meaning of life is having a spectacular view…
But after a while we began to wonder who we are beyond all the rules and self-discipline that has filled our lives up until now. Do we like who you are now?
Retirement means: How will you fill your life now?
These are the kinds of questions that keep some from ever retiring, fear that they may disappear with no more job to go to, no rules and little life structure. I enjoy this phase of life so much more than I ever imagined! I love the lack of rules or structure to my days. I change my mind all of the time. One minute I’m taking off for yoga in town, and the next I’m doing it on the floor at home.
I don’t need very much to give my life meaning, because my meaning is in the enjoyment of every moment, every day.
I appreciate the fact that I have a better life than just about anyone else on planet earth right now, and I’m going to enjoy the hell out of that until I draw my last breathe…
To learn more about how my midlife questioning led to a whole new lifestyle for me in a passive solar home in the Colorado outback, check out: A Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado
When Breath Becomes Air
“No philosopher can explain the sublime better than this, standing between day and night.” (pg. 34 of When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi)
I just finished reading this fine book, the last written words of a top neurosurgeon who died in his mid-thirties of lung cancer in March of 2015. With a recent scary cat scan of my own lungs in January, you may wonder why I chose to read this book now. I wasn’t sure myself until I read it.
First of all, Kalanithi is obviously a deep thinker, always searching for the meaning in life. In fact as I read I realized he had the opposite reaction than most of us when confronted with such a daunting diagnosis. Most become more emotional, he seemed to become more analytical. This was not my response to my own recent confrontation with death. My response was along the lines of: “Am I proud of my life?”
One aspect of Kalnithi’s story rang very true to me, the way my perception of time has changed so much since we left the city behind with all its traffic and deadlines.
“Everyone succumbs to finitude…Most ambitions are either achieved or abandoned; either way, they belong to the past. The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present. Money, status, all the vanities the preacher of Ecclesiastes described hold so little interest: a chasing after wind, indeed.” (pg. 198)
We are never so wise as when we live in the moment.
I am boundlessly grateful to finally understand the pleasure of living in the present.
April Arrives: Welcome to Spring, Boomers!
We had our own private April Fools Joke yesterday morning around here, no power again for 13 hours! Absolutely not funny, but at least we know the drill now…
We also woke up to half a foot of snow…again! Oh well, all’s well that ends well!
We have some beautiful snow-capped peaks to look at this morning with a high of around 55 degrees! This is the view from our front door today…
But enough about us, this is the day I share with you some wonderful Boomer blogs written by my virtual friends everywhere!
First off we have Meryl of Six Decades and Counting. Though not a fashion maven who normally ignores fashion fads, this week two news articles caught her attention and triggered some fashion deliberations. Here she ruminates on the topics of jeans and leggings, and the dilemma of whether or not people of a certain age should ever wear this attire. Go read her comments on Fashion Sense and Nonsense: Leggings and Jeans.
Her final words at left, express her feelings perfectly, from one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, Franz Kafka. This is also a perfect expression of my general feelings about our present century and watching the news! LOL!
Writer Carol Cassara discusses a different topic this week: Can you really sit back and manifest your heart’s desires? Over at Heart Mind Soul, wise woman Carol gives us some useful instruction in what else is necessary to make dreams come true?
March is Taste Washington Wine Month. To celebrate, Rita R. Robison, blogging at The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide, decided to go to Taste Washington, a huge gala in Seattle with 235 wineries pouring wines and 65 restaurants offering food this year, the 20th Anniversary of the event.
Robison decided to taste wines from the wineries that she’s personally visited. Among her favorite wineries whose wines she tasted at the event are Airfield Estates, Woodinville; Silver Lake Winery, Zillah; and Tsillan Cellars, Chelan.
And finally, Tom asks: Did you play an April Fool’s prank on someone this past weekend, or have one pulled on you? In Are You Ready? Tom Sightings admits to a good one he fell for a few years ago. But then, you too might have gotten a little nervous in his situation.
Wishing you the best of Aprils! I know I am going to enjoy it because my birthday is always right around Easter, and I have every intention of celebrating surviving the worst winter of my entire life health-wise!
A Drive Northwest of La Veta Colorado…
Since we finally had a sunny day yesterday, we decided to take a drive out west of La Veta. We took off west on Francisco street on the county roads and soon started seeing wild turkey everywhere…
and amazing rock formations too!
There were also abandoned cabins.
I took a few more photos of the old adobe school house on County Road 510,
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 