sustainable living
One of the BEST lessons I have learned from my husband Mike is how to truly relax. I have a natural guilt around sitting around spacing out. If you are anything like me, you will first need to be convinced that it’s OK to relax.What does freedom mean to you?
Today I am feeling a tad bit more patriotic than usual, perhaps because I finally live in the right place for me in the good old USA. Having finally found MY perfect place, I appreciate my freedom even more than ever!
I appreciate the freedom to choose and receive a great public education, to find jobs I have enjoyed mostly in public universities, the freedom at age 49 to find my perfect mate, the freedom to save up for retirement in a reasonable way over decades, and then my ultimate freedom to choose the best place to live out the rest of my life.
Since I have lived in a number of other countries, I appreciate so many freedoms that others simply do not have. As a single woman, I enjoyed so many freedoms not available in other countries, and as a married woman I have been free to define myself separate from my marriage partner.
I have done the research. This is the BEST TIME to be alive in human history, and especially as an American woman! We live longer, healthier and freer than anyone else, and yet it sometimes seems, all we do is complain! Yes there many things wrong in the world, and unfortunately we are constantly bombarded with this news. But please take a moment today to appreciate what we generally take for granted. We are a country with free public education, freedom for women, safeguards for children, great medical care, and best of all, the right to VOTE! You’ve just got to love that!
Retirement: Fear or Adventure of a Lifetime?
I had an interesting conversation with a neighbor, who hopes to move to his house here in southern Colorado in the next year or so. The kids are all finishing college this year and he and his wife have built a nice “cabin” near us, and far away from his many responsibilities as a business owner back in Kansas.
Besides the usual, “Have I saved enough money?” fears, my new friend is quite worried about how he will fare in his new life here. He is born and raised German Lutheran with an amazing case of Type A personality. In other words, he likes to be doing something most of the time, preferably something productive, and often pushes himself with deadlines, hating delays and uncertainty.
Now you might say, who does like delays and uncertainty? Don’t we all like to feel in control of our fate? The only problem is, we aren’t. When it comes right down to it we could all fall ill or die today. Anything can happen to anyone at any time. Starting from that premise, what do I need to do today to further my own specific life goals?
I was also raised with that good old German authoritarian, “What have you produced today?” work ethic. Luckily I have also been given the wonderful opportunity to adjust to the idea of retirement very slowly, not all at once.
“What do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each other.” – George Eliot
My husband Mike is my best teacher in this area. He had the misfortune to go from highly-skilled and productive engineering technician to Chronic Fatigue Sufferer in his mid-thirties. After many job losses and years of doctors and others not believing him, he somehow adjusted to the anger and frustration of having an illness that nobody seemed interested in defining or diagnosing properly. (New research!)
The long-term effects of CFS forced Mike to retire early. It also taught him to have more patience with himself and everyone around him. First it made him very angry, then CFS made him a better person. In fact I’m fairly sure we wouldn’t get along so well if he had not been changed so much through his experience with this terrible illness.
His patience and understanding provided me with the unique opportunity to change careers. At age 50 I started over as a freelance writer. After 25 years in the library profession, I finally gained enough confidence to believe that I could be a writer. With Mike’s great emotional and financial support I did what I had always wanted to do, but also feared. I could not have done this without Mike’s help.
That is why I now see ‘retirement’ as the next great adventure.
With love and support we can spend time finding out what it is we really want to try. What did you LOVE as a kid? What did you really want to be doing when you first went to work? You can do those things now. Sure it may not make money, but it could be lots of FUN!
Too many of us focus solely on the money issues surrounding retirement, and not enough on “What’s next for me?” Can I change? Would I like to be a more relaxed or patient person? Can I adjust to not producing something everyday? Can I change my focus to making life less difficult for others? Now that’s a good retirement goal!
I’m a newcomer to rural southern Colorado. After two years I decided to compile a short journal about the ups and downs of moving from a good-sized city to rural America to build a passive solar retirement home in the foothills:
A Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado
Please share this information with your friends if they are considering similar life changes. Feel free to contact me directly to discuss any of these challenges, and to order your own signed copies of any of my books! Cheers, Laura Lee (email me: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com)
Enjoying a Celebration of Never Moving Again!
Today marks two years since we left our perfectly nice home in suburbia for the adventure of a lifetime. It may not sound like such a big deal to move to small town USA to build a custom solar home in the southern Colorado foothills, but it was for us at age 60!
We moved to Walsenburg on June 17th 2014, to sleep on the floor of this hundred-year-old rental, moving in the next day and staying there for 13 months while our new home was forming far too SLOWLY 20 minutes west of town at 7,000 feet. Mike worked as the contractor and purchaser of all things when we found the builder was not taking competitive bids, but just hiring his local friends.
Then on July 30th, 2015 we moved into our new home, HOME AT LAST!
For weeks after that move we just sat and stared out the window, mesmerized with the awesome views out our front windows, too exhausted to do anything else. We finally made it to our goal after many, many challenges and so many days of absolute stress.
Why did we do it? Our trip to Pueblo yesterday answers that question quickly. Being in cities always ruins my day. We need to go there occasionally to buy certain things, but the stress, the heat, the traffic, the bad air and bad manners of other drivers always convinces us we will never live there again!
We have no patience with cities anymore, and why should we when we have a magnificent place where we can escape them?
Today we will drink a toast to surviving all these many changes and challenges, and also to never moving again! Instead we will try to get our patio finished this summer, enjoy the great wildflower displays everywhere, the cool mountain breezes each evening, and offer encouragement to others who have found their new home in this small slice of heaven.
Want to learn more about our experience of moving from the city to the country to live a quiet, relaxed life? Check it out here!
The Best of the Boomer Blogs – June Edition
The wildflowers are just taking off in this part of southern Colorado. Springtime here is truly glorious! Check out the yellow flowers on my header, taken last June near our home. We think this beats the hell out of mowing a lawn!
And speaking of spring, here comes a few great blog posts from my boomer friends. Meryl Baer says: Baby boomers grew up during the turbulent 1960s, not so long ago in the minds of those of us who lived through the era. Yet the 60s decade came and went over 50 years ago. 
This week Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting faced the harsh fact that the 60s not only occurred over 50 years ago, but are ancient history to younger generations. Read about her revelation in I am History.
Doing a little bowl-sitting…
It feels like the dog days of summer early in her part of the country, so Carol Cassara at Heart-Mind-Soul presents us with some dog posts. Here are her tips for traveling with your dog this summer or any time. And because everyone loves cute dog photos, which of these gorgeous pups are your favorites?
On The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide, Rita R. Robison, consumer journalist, writes about two pieces of news for consumers. A federal agency is proposing a rule to end payday loan debt traps. And, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is issuing voluntary guidelines in an effort to work with food companies and restaurants to gradually adjust sodium levels in food. While the payday loan rule has the potential to save consumers nationwide billions of dollars in unfair fees and interest, the salt guidelines are voluntary and only will be helpful if companies decide to follow them.
This week Tom Sightings takes on the issue of men and women. In Part I — What Happened to the Men? he discusses recent trends in employment and education, and concludes with one hope for his children.
With the best of intentions, change can still be hell! Trust me, I know…
“Even in seemingly dormant times, we are in transition. Losses and gains are in constant play. We are the change-agent, and we are changed. Even without toil, we transform. So, wisdom advises us to open our hearts to transition; to honor fully what is passing, to learn from all that unfolds, and to welcome what arrives at our door each day with courage and curiosity.”
As all who have been reading this blog for the past year or so know, I have had many doubts about this big, dramatic move Mike and I started on two years ago. Especially when we first moved to Walsenburg, and I basically hated it.
But then if you took anyone from a beautiful, suburban home in Fort Collins, and moved them into a tiny, dirty 100-year-old house in a sad, rundown town an hour away from any decent sized city, the shock would be total, and it was!
The challenges we have faced in the past two years have been daunting for both of us. For me the biggest challenge was simply adjusting to such a different world than I was used to. For Mike it was the many extra expenses, frustrations, and delays in building a passive solar home in a rural environment.
I am now quite happy that we made this choice, while Mike says he wouldn’t have done it if he had known how unhappy I would be in the process of adjusting to something so different.
In retrospect I wish I had not worried so much about everything and trusted more in Mike’s vision for us, because this place is heaven. I fully appreciate how much courage and vision it took for Mike to push this whole project through to completion.
Now we live in a beautiful home that is supremely quiet, with fantastic views in every direction, and our direct-gain passive solar is working great! Plus I now feel like I’m making a few friends and slowly starting to feel like I belong here.
In summary: This place is perfect, but change can still be hell!
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 