Living a quieter life
Our move to the Colorado country in 2014!
Retirement may suggest lifestyle change for some, but how many are willing to take on any real risks at age 60? Enter Mike and I, the quiet revolutionaries. Four years ago this month, we drove down to southern Colorado to purchase a few rural acres of pinon-juniper woodland west of Walsenburg. Mike’s dream had always been to construct his own passive solar home with amazing mountain views. This was our chance to make that dream come true!
In June 2014 we packed up or got rid of most of our worldly goods, sold our nice home in suburban Fort Collins, and took off to live in a 100-year-old rental home in Walsenburg, while constructing a new life twenty minutes west of there. Crowning ourselves the “NEW Old Farts,” I began sharing this retirement adventure with the world in October 2014.
Although my husband was a true believer from day one, this all felt like a gigantic leap-of-faith for me. With housing prices rising quickly in the metro areas of northern Colorado, I saw little chance of changing our minds later to return to the city if this didn’t work out. So I made myself believe in my relatively new husband’s vision, and you know what? He was right.
Three and a half years later, after too many doubts and incredible challenges to my idea of who I am and where I belong, I am now quite content in our country solar home looking out each morning at the majestic Sangre de Cristo Mountains. My days are filled with supreme quiet and astounding beauty. I have also found a few good friends, a yoga class I like, and all the books I wish to read and movies I wish to view through the La Veta Public Library.
The view from our new solar home!
I find my need for distractions has dwindled. No, I do not miss city shopping, traffic, stress, noise or air pollution. In fact going into a city of any size is now the perfect reminder that I made the right choice for me. I have finally learned the power of living in this present moment. With so much more available to me and few distractions, I now have the time, energy, and awareness to fully appreciate the world around me.
We moved here for a number of reasons: To live close to nature, to try passive solar living, to build the kind of home we chose to live in for the rest of our lives, and to find a far more peaceful, healthy and less expensive lifestyle than cities could offer us. We have received so much more by choosing to live in this beautiful, quiet place where life is luxuriously slow and overflows with simple pleasures.
Would you like to know more about our adventures? Check out my new memoir!
Winter living north of the Spanish Peaks!
Yesterday I started thinking about the many people who move here only for the summer, and miss all of this in the winter…
I love a good snowy day…
Feeling Daily Gratitude Changes Everything!
I wonder what percent of Americans ever stop and think about their lives on Thanksgiving, or as far as that goes, on any day. What a crazy, busy group we are! I’m retired so I have more time for contemplation and meditation, but I have also found a way to improve every aspect of my life. It may sound too simple to really work, but it truly does, and it only takes five minutes a day!
Go here and stop, look and listen…
At first it may feel silly or even uncomfortable, but give it some time. At first you may feel too busy or distracted, but keep trying to let go, breathe and take these few words into your heart and mind. No, I am not selling you anything, I’m trying to help you appreciate and enjoy your life more completely.
I started watching this video everyday about ten years ago. I now have it almost memorized, and yet I still need those five minutes of guided meditation to remember exactly how wonderful my life is. And the best part is my life has gotten so much better with this simple gratitude practice! Appreciation of all the amazing people, pets, your surroundings, and your life leads naturally to improving your life.
Trust in the universe leads to ever better quality of life for you and your family.
“It is enough to be grateful for the next breath.” ~ Br. David Steindl-Rast
I wish you all a glorious THANKSGIVING! Let’s give thanks for so many amazing blessings!
A message from Gratitude.org: “On Thanksgiving, I pledge to overcome the illusion of ENTITLEMENT by reminding myself that everything is a gift and, thus, to live GRATEFULLY.”
What High School Reunions Can Bring Up
I just received a reminder that my 45th high school reunion is coming up soon. My first response is I simply cannot believe that I graduated from high school 45 years ago. How did that happen? So I turned to my yearbooks to try and remember something about high school.
I hated everything about high school. I hated my home life and how I felt at school. The best way to describe me looking back from my 45-years-later perspective is flat affect. I just kept wondering if my life would ever get better. I remember at high school graduation singing that German song from Cabaret: “Tomorrow belongs to me…” over and over in my head.
These days I am so glad I hung in there! Everything got better in college. I went to Colorado College, the one where my father taught. As soon as I got there I felt like I fit in much better. For the first time I was constantly around fellow eggheads, and finally completely academically challenged. Slowly through the past four decades I have become more at home in my own body and freer to become my true self.
The hardest battle you will face in life is to be no one but yourself, in a world which is trying its hardest to make you like everybody else!
Now I see this maturation process as peeling the onion of my soul. At first I only felt safe taking off the most outer layers, exposing my true self very slowly and carefully, so afraid of what others might think or say. When I finally got some counseling in my early thirties, my therapist noted how often I said, “People think this…” She would challenge me with, “Who are these people?” It was not easy, but I have finally found my true self in the midst of too much feedback from others, and far too many rules in my own mind.
I have never attended a high school reunion, but I am seriously considering it this time. We live only a couple hours southwest of Colorado Springs now, and I am quite curious. Perhaps I should go find out who I went to high school with, because I suspect none of us are anything like we were in high school.
For a REALLY FUNNY take on high school reunions, go here!
I am a professional photographer, writer and psychotherapist whose midlife crisis included a divorce and soon after the loss of my job and career as an academic librarian at age 49. However, I found all of these misfortunes supremely fortuitous eventually! Everything wonderful in my life flowed from losing my past life and changing up everything possible. I started my own dating service, which led to meeting a new and much improved life partner, and then in ten years we followed our dreams to build our own passive solar home in rural southern Colorado…
No surprise that I now see midlife difficulties as once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for personal liberation! I have written & produced a few books about midlife change. Don’t miss my latest about leaving the city life far behind!
Listening to old friends…
Horsetooth Reservoir at dawn
Her husband left her twenty years ago with four kids to raise, so she was talking about how much her blood pressure fell after her husband was finally out of her life. That was quite striking, and reminded me of how my own super tight jaw (TMJ) vaporized after my divorce. Then all of a sudden she said, “You know, I haven’t been angry or in an argument in weeks now.” I thought, wow, that is so true, with the tiny exception of the horrendous traffic in Denver!
We got to talking about how we cope with difficult times in our life, crappy times like divorce. She said she only started drinking too much during and after her divorce. I’m just not fond of alcohol or other addictive substances, so when she asked me, “How do you cope with tough times?” I said, counseling, walking, journaling, reading good books and quiet times where I delve into what went wrong, in hopes of making my future much better than my past. I have made a million big mistakes in my life, but I have also always been an analyzer. (Can you tell?) I want to understand everything around me. As far as relationships go, I knew that if I improved my own relationship with myself, I would be so much easier for others to enjoy.
So I did everything I could think of to understand 40+ love. I even started my own local dating service, and it’s a good thing I did. A few months later Mike walked into my life. Everything got better with Mike, or as my Dad said a few months later, “Mike saved your ass.” I finally found unconditional love and compassion in a world where it is so very rare. Then I wrote: “How To Believe In Love Again: Opening to Forgiveness, Trust and Your Own Inner Wisdom.” I wanted to save lives. When you feel all hope is lost, please consider taking a look at this book.
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 