Retirement – Life's Chapter

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# Category Archives: Retirement

# Back In The Saddle

Posted on October 12, 2020 October 12, 2020 by Virginia
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

When you fall off the horse, you need to get back in the saddle again. And that is what I’m ready to do. It’s taken me over a year to get back to you. I missed checking in with everyone because I kind of checked out. I can’t keep pretending that life and death hasn’t happened. I have to move forward.

After the death of my son, Adam, I couldn’t do anything. I just existed–and not very well at that. Then his wife got very sick–NOT COVID–and suddenly we had two grandchildren in the house. I was back to teaching first grade while trying to figure out how to teach and entertain a four-year-old preschooler. I was so super busy that I had no time to go to the restroom, let alone write on my blog.

Under such stress you feel you are going crazy and that there is nothing to help relieve the burden or the pain. I had nothing to anchor me and I was not happy. On top of that I was frightened I would die.

The good news is that my writing is my stability, my outlet, my sanity and my joy.

So here I am trying to be proactive in my journey to acceptance, to getting my balance back–as well as my sanity– and to find my happy place again.

The good news is that my saddle, like the one above looks a little worn, it has had a lot of use and abuse, but it’s comfortable and I can’t let mine get old and cracked. It needs loving care and needs to be oiled a bit here and there.

So I have dusted mine off and I’m ready to get on it.

Retirement isn’t what I expected–no, let me rephrase that.

Retirement in 2020 isn’t what I expected

I thought I would have days when I could sit around and do nothing. Ha! I have a four year old and a seven year old.

I thought I would spend days at the beach, and hours with my friends enjoying restaurants or taking trips to visit the grandkids in D.C.

NOPE, none of that!

Everyone of all ages has had their life restricted in ways we never thought would happen.

The kicker for the retired is that retirement means you’re old, and the old are more susceptible to the bad ravages of COVID 19, which just adds fear to the equation.

At this age, you don’t want the year to go by quickly, you want to enjoy every moment you have on this earth, but I want 2020 to go away and the vaccine to hurry up.

I’m back in the saddle.

I’m back to writing and finding my happy place during a not so happy time.

# Yoga With Goats?

Posted on November 1, 2018 September 8, 2020 by Virginia

Beth, our instructor, wasn’t always holding a goat.

Yes, it is real yoga. My aching body will attest to that.

Yes, they are real goats. One pooped and peed so close that when I reached to catch my balance–well-you get the picture.

Look at them, you cannot get upset because they are so cute!

Goat Yoga started in Oregon in 2016 so it hasn’t been around for long. And lucky for me, Sweet Sugar Farm in Encinitas, California has goat yoga.

No, I am not so tired of doing yoga in my regular gym that I just needed a new venue. For those of you who know me, I am the least limber of anyone around. I think this may be the third time in my life I’ve done yoga and I am sure I was the oldest one there. The reason I attended is because I need to do research for one of the books I’m writing. Who said research isn’t fun?

We reached and stretched, warrior posed, chair and child posed, cow and cat posed, and I tried the downward dog, but I was best at the corpse pose–meaning lying flat and not moving. Also, I was pretty good at sitting and holding the baby goats.

This goat yoga venture supports a young 4-H girl who is raising an endangered species of dairy goats. They are called Oberhasli goats. Yes, all you Wisconsinites, there are 4-H’ers in California. I’d go again just to help her help an endangered specie.

I will go again–once I can move my hips.

The farm is located in the rolling hills and ranches of Encinitas. It is a beautiful drive just getting there. My daughter and I came early because I didn’t want to miss anything. That means, we had a chance to meet some of the other farm animals. There is a pony, donkey, turkeys, rabbits, chickens, roosters, geese, and a pot belly pig. I am sure there is more, but that is all I saw. Oh, and of course, the goats. There are pygmy goats in the corral, they are short and squat, but they don’t yoga well, so they stay home.

The goats that ride on our backs are African goats called Nigerian Dwarfs. They are so cute!

The goats that are raised as diary goats are the larger brown ones.

No, they do not ride on your back. They are cute, but not meant for yoga.

Then we have some other visitors.

These are a little larger. The llamas love to munch the hay that is placed all around, while you yoga. And, they also aren’t much into exercise. The female likes to consider herself invisible, but Bandit, the one with the black halter, loves selfies.

It also looks like he loves the love more than the selfies!

Check out Goat Yoga at Sugar Sweet Farm. You will have fun!

# Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Posted on October 18, 2018 September 8, 2020 by Virginia

There is no truer statement than “necessity is the mother of invention.”

I’ve worn a lot of hats in my life, daughter, sister, wife, mother, teacher, friend, principal, and counselor.

But now, I can add a couple of more hats.

Inventor. Engineer.

If anyone has been in my kitchen and has had the misfortune of having to throw something in the trash or to recycle anything, they are forced to make the agonizing decision of which of the containers the item goes into. This is because they both seem to shmoosh and glide into one.

About a year and a half ago, we changed the kitchen cabinets and made a pull-out drawer for trash. The trash drawer was too small for the waste baskets that came with a normal pull out trash drawer.

In keeping with wanting to save the environment for my grandchildren and great, great, great grandchildren, I wanted two containers in the drawer.

You may think that finding two containers to fit in a drawer is easy, but it is not. I checked Amazon, the Container Store, Target, Walmart, K-mart, restaurant supply stores and even garage sales. NOTHING!!!

Finally, I did manage to find two containers that would fit.

If you notice, they are very short containers. They do not even come half-way up the drawer!

They are so short that within four hours they are full–remember there are only three people living in the house. Of course, no one wants to take the trash out, so they try to push and shove the trash into the appropriate container. The one is the back is for recycling, the one in the front is for trash.

I think the people in our recycling garbage truck are swearing at us every Tuesday because the containers usually become so co-mingled that there is a little bit of everything in each one. I feel bad because there may be several cans that were never recycled because the recycle basket was always full.

We illegally co-mingled for about two years!

I had an idea, for over a year, that I tried to get Number One to try. He kept telling me that it wouldn’t work, that it would be ugly or whatever kind of excuse he could come up with.

Finally, I had had enough! I guess this is the year of the women who think they can so…. I did it!

I got this shirt from Jazz for my birthday as incentive to help me exercise. It didn’t help with the exercise, but it did encourage me with my invention.

I had an idea to use PVC piping, but when I went into Home Depot to ask for help with it, I said PCP piping. (He laughed and corrected me and told me it was PVC. I guess he thought I was going to pipeline an hallucinogenic drug.) Also, I was carrying the wastebasket that I wanted to use–maybe he thought I was going to fill the wastebasket with PCP.

I needed 16 three-way-tee fittings and piping. He suggested 2 pipes, I got three for good measure. And, I am glad I did. Oh, I also asked about cutting the PVC piping. He showed me tool that was not too expensive and would make my life very easy, and it did!

I came home, showed Number One what I wanted to do with the piping and he was intrigued.

The next morning we started “our” project. You know to keep peace, I can’t take all the credit.

Side View

Top View

Completed Project

The finished product!

We now have two distinct baskets. Each one is big enough to hold two days worth of garbage–not four hours–and I am patenting it!

I can hardly wait to see the faces of our garbage people.

SHE CAN DO IT!!!!!

# Cruising On a Saturday Night

Posted on September 26, 2018 October 12, 2020 by Virginia

Well actually, we were cruising on a Sunday morning, but the old person Saturday night, is early Sunday morning.

The Santa Barbara beach bike-path, which meanders a long the deep blue waters of the Pacific, was a like an old friend that we hadn’t visited in a long time.

Luckily, Number One’s conference was held at the Hilton. When you spend enough nights in hotels, there are certain perks that you get. The Hilton provides free Beach Cruising bikes. We love to bike, so this was a great opportunity to have some fun and anything free makes Number One happy.

I rode a hot pink cruiser with wide handle bars and an extra wide seat, (so comfortable) and to my chagrin it also had the old fashioned pedal brakes. It has been years and years and years since I rode a gear-less and hand brake-less bicycle. When I was younger, I loved my banana seat and the super high “ape hanger” handle bars. I raced up and down Blake Road for hours. I thought I was the greatest bicyclist. Of course, there were no sidewalks, no cars and no pedestrians!

Not only was it a blast to the past, but I also had a blast of fear as my cruiser pitched and lurched towards a parked jaguar. I was reaching frantically for the hand brakes, but there were none. I didn’t stop to think there might be pedal brakes, I just slammed my foot on the ground—using the Fred Flintstone braking system. Fred was lucky, he didn’t have to balance his car and brake at the same time.

Before I was willing to venture onto the street and then the narrow bike path, I had to practice in the parking lot. (No, I didn’t practice near the expensive cars. )

I finally—-sort of —got the braking system figured out. You may never forget how to ride a bike, but you certainly do forget the braking system. It does NOT come naturally after using the modern new-fangled brakes.

Somehow I managed to cross the street and hobble onto the bike path. I am sure you have had an experience when a steering wheel on a car has to too much play and a simple turn sends it careening hard to the right or to the left. It was the same with this bike. I was hanging on for dear life while bringing my hands closer to the front fulcrum, hoping that moving upward would give me more control. NOPE!

We biked for only three miles, but I think I put fifty thousand miles on the soles of my shoes. My shoes braked better than the bike. The out of control front wheel barely missed a few pedestrians. Thank God I had a lot of tread on my shoes.

Next time I am either bringing my 21-speed Trek bicycle with hydraulic brakes, or I will have to learn to love the view of the parking lot.

If anyone has a cruiser that I could practice on, I would appreciate it. I hope you have good insurance.

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