Tag Archives: retirement

Dec28

The Gift of One Year, One Day

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The COVID pandemic life continues another year with social distancing, masks, vaccines, remote work, and political debates. Dean and I felt more at ease once we received our vaccines early spring. This year became new, uncharted territory when I retired from full-time government administration work in June. Several years without regular pay raises due to tax issues and corruption had something to do with my decision. My inheritance allowed me to make this life change now rather than later. Subsequently, my mental and physical health improved while focusing on different work. God’s new purposes are being revealed to me one day at a time.

I am in full swing to my loves of writing, gardening, cooking, & antiques. I now teach per diem adult & children’s culinary classes at the local community college in their continuing education program. I opened a booth in an antique store & flea market near my daughter’s town and taken other items to resale stores repurposing items once belonging to myself, my mother, & others who donate. I dubbed it “Flock Together Mercantile”, as it is a “birds of a feather” endeavor. Monies earned go towards my daughter’s medical bills to treat her rare nerve disorder. Mom would have approved. A non-profit may be in the future? My life-long passion of writing includes recipes & poems found in eMerge, an online publication as well as my WordPress blogs, & more recently six-word stories on gratitude with Flapper Press. My Seashells poem is included in the book Dairy Hollow Echo that came out in August. This collection of poems & short stories on love, joy, & hope has already made Amazon’s best seller’s list for the anthology category. Since August we once again opened our St. Charles cottage one weekend a month to Airbnb guests. A detached garage with a studio is in the expansion plans for 2023, but maybe sooner. We will be able to offer many more weekends to guests. This year we had installed new roofs for both houses & gutters as well as a new HVAC system for the St. Charles cottage.

Dean & I road tripped several times, keeping off airplanes during the pandemic. Besides, it’s the journey getting there as well as the destination. Late March into April, we visited family & friends in Arkansas, Texas, and western Missouri. We searched, finally found the Texas bluebonnets blooming in the fields as we visited during their early season. We enjoyed a family weekend in Branson in early June. During the summer I spent a week in Eureka Springs at The Writing Colony at Dairy Hollow in their culinary suite. What a lovely experience, a week to just write, make culinary creations, & meet other writers. A September week included cranberry bogs & festival in Wisconsin, & a millinery boutique in Galena, Illinois where we purchased Edwardian-style hats for a costume party. Dean’s cousin, Leigh passed away in October, traveled to Arkansas for her memorial services. Mid-November was another weekend in Branson & where we will finish the year there with family all wearing our red buffalo check attire. In 2021 Missouri celebrates her 200th year as a state in the Union. Dean & I saw so many places & towns taking the country state & county highways this year. We discovered the quaint Missouri River town of Glasgow while staying at Dean’s classmate’s charming inn, The Orchard House Inn. A few Friday nights were enjoyed at the DeSoto CIA Hall where my childhood friend serves an elaborate menu to the local community while her partner plays old country-western, gospel tunes. Our Saturday nights we still watch the Opry show on the Circle Network with country radio personality, Bobby Bones. Hope to be in Nashville in 2022 to see a live Opry show.

A spring tea party, birthday celebrations, memorial services, a nephew’s wedding, long weekends, & holidays brought us together with family. Dean & I’s eight grandchildren continue to grow, ages now range from 20 years old to 14 months. Our six grown children work hard at their occupations & homes. A stray puppy found on the streets near my daughter’s came home with me for a week until we found a home for Peanut Butter. Dean’s brother & family adopted & renamed him Scout PB. My twin sister, older brother, sister-in-law, Dean, & I cleaned out my mother’s villa this summer. We made some minor repairs, put it on the market, & the home sold at a price higher than we asked for. Dean’s parents have had a difficult year. His mother fell, requiring hip surgery with a slow, but sure recovery. I spent a week & Dean most of November in KC helping his parents, making their house more safely accessible.

Dean hopes to retire in about four years. I picture him in free-lance research & consulting after his work with the National Archives, as his love for history is broad. He returned to the federal building two days a week this autumn, works remotely the other three days. My 61-years old hubby remains in good health; tall, dark, & handsome as ever in his salt & pepper hair. Dean tinkers with his plane models or the bird feeders where he tries to make them squirrel-proof. Key word is “tries”. A December tornado just missed our greenhouse/screenhouse in Defiance. Spring greens from the screenhouse still fill our salad bowls during the warm weather months. Harvested herbs spice up our dishes during the winter months. Our hydrangea blooms provide texture and color the year round inside & out. We revel over the maroon pansies blooming on the porch planter late into December, the longest growing season that I recall. No white Christmas here. In 2022 I hope to complete my first book of short stories with a culinary theme as well as a poetry chapbook. Meantime, I write & will submit to more literary magazines & websites. Our feathered derby & cloche hats wait on the chaise for our next outing on the town. Established routines such as quiet time, prayers, & journaling are interwoven with such spontaneity. The days do not have to be same old, same old. Revere each day & moment like a gift. Then it becomes just that, a gift even on the difficult days. Sometimes it’s a simple red apple from the fruit basket, or a fancy wrapped package. Untie the bow, unwrap the paper. There is something wonderful inside for you. God-given.

May22

The Plant Life

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The Plant Life

This has been an odd Spring thus far. It came and went and came back for just a few days, and now feels like Summer. Lately, I have not written much about the plant life. Believe me, Deanna Greens still exist, alive and ticking. My busyness is crash training my full-time job before retirement while starting another job working just part-time as a culinary instructor. Just one more week of this. My health requires me to go at things with a slower pace. The weekend warrior stuff is over. I was diagnosed with PVCs a month ago, and probably had them for awhile. I am still tending to my green friends, but not with such vigor as the recent years past. Winter wanted to stay longer, so we took an early spring vacation to the southern states of Arkansas and Texas. My lettuce and greens garden was sown about 4 weeks later than my usual. This week Dean and I finally picked our first greens of the season and had a scrumptious salad for lunch.

The blooms have been magnificent this Spring. Vivid shades of blues, purples, pinks, and reds. And so many of them on each bush or stem. Red bud, white dogwood, German bearded and blue flag irises, “Granny’s bonnet” columbines, Chinese peonies, and mustard & ketchup roses. Our green perennials of ferns, philodendrons, arrowheads, and purple heart went outdoors to join the beauty of the bright colors. I potted some red begonias and purple lobelias. The neighbors, too have a rainbow of colors in their yards. A long Winter seems to bring out the colors come Spring. It is this plant life that calms me.

Jan22

Dormancy

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No winter-like simulation now, it is the real deal.  The winter weather seems to be sticking around for more than a few days.  Icy, sleety, and snowy last week, and again this week dipping into the teens overnight and staying below or close to freezing during the day.  Due to budget constraints our winter vacation week was decidedly best to stay in our home state of Missouri this year.  No expensive sandy beaches to sunbathe on.  Making the most of our budget and what our state has to offer during this winter season, Dean and I chose to visit our state’s Ozark Mountains.  Most of our vacation budget is for a lovely lodge in the woods, the journey there only a 5-hour drive from home.  Home-cooked meals prepared in a well-stocked kitchenette, and an occasional meal out satisfy us both.  Every night a vignette of soft lights dot the mountain sides from the valley we are nestled in.

Dean and I venture out on half-day trips for a couple of days, visiting small towns and cousins.  We went target shooting at an outdoor range one afternoon.  We meander into northern Arkansas part of the week.  Naked hardwood trees, pines, and cedars clothe the mountains along with icicled cliffs and crags much like glittered ornaments.  Flowing valley streams, swooping birds of prey, and cattle feeding in the fields are the only movement around.  Dormancy is what we experience, and what we need. Oxford’s online dictionary defines dormancy … “the state in which a plant is alive but not actively growing” and with this sentence example “dormancy allows woody plants to survive these unfavorable conditions”.  

The quiet, unassuming beauty of the woods in dormancy stills my busy body, mind, and soul.  Very present moment several times each day, a retreat without structure.  Just being, breathing in and out, and audibly awake.  It is not necessary to block out the static and noise of my job, the house, and almost no obligations as I am far enough away from these occupations.  Words come in and out on occasion, Dean and I relating this quiet vacation week to our retirement years.  Some words make a page in my journal, and others are just thoughts in dormancy for a later writing in favorable conditions and more life lived.

This year I am ending the summer season of my wellness career.  The autumn season of my career follows, short and sweet like Missouri’s autumns with the winter season close behind.  The dormant season always emerges into a glorious spring song.  A book of collected letters, Letters To A Young Poet, poet Rainer Maria Rilke urges the young budding poet, Franz Xavier Kappus to look inward and know what motivates his own writing.  Rilke encourages the development of a rich inner life which is the process of creative art. “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet.  In today’s words, live today, be present moment.  Some answers come eventually.

 

Jan1

New Year’s Day And Occupation in 2020

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New Year’s Day it is!  Morning is trying to wake up this first day of 2020.  Slow, or it seems.  A cup of hot chocolate and whipped cream awaken all my senses, warm me along with my Life Is Good long-sleeve t-shirt and leggings.  I cannot sleep this weekday holiday.  I awoke at 4:30am like it was a work day.  The sun finally peers above the two-story houses across the street while sitting in our small cottage’s living room.  My blogging urge comes.  Reflection of 2019 was last night before I fell asleep on the couch.  This morning it is looking forward.

What is to be my occupation in 2020 beside getting through this predicted long winter?  Last week I came across this Sinclair Lewis quote, “Winter is not a season, it’s an occupation.”  For those who live in the cold regions, or have cold-induced angioedema like myself, this rings true.  Reading, researching, journaling, writing, blogging, bookkeeping, and filing will be my occupation the next 3 months before the growing season.  I may work on a jigsaw puzzle for a change.  Maybe this mindless occupation will bring clarity and direction.  All are warm indoor activities.

Dean and I are looking to our retirement years, how soon is the big question.  I have exhausted my energy and drive at my government job.  Too many politics and bosses to please, and why?  I just want to focus on the holistic well-being of those people God has or will place in my life, my purpose in living.  I will retire this autumn, with plans to find more enjoyable employment using my organizational skills for another 10 years, retire fully at age 70.  My thoughts are I will probably use my human resources management, non-profit, and/or hospitality experiences in a combination of occupations.  Desired is a Masters in Creative Non-Fiction Writing at my alma mater, Lindenwood University.  This can be obtained with classroom or online courses.  There is a 50% discount for students age 60 or over. My 60th comes in August.

The other question is whether to move south to at least a little warmer area after my retirement, and how far south to reside.  Dean and I love our home state of Missouri, lived here all our lives.  Maybe southern Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, or Texas will be where we will find our new home, in a less populated area?  We are reading about and visiting various locations in 2020.  My current read is the The Body Keeps Score, authored by world-renown Bessel Van der Kolk, MD.  This book addresses the physical and psychological aspects of trauma.  This is helping me understand my own past trauma and the trauma of others as well as the hope of healing.  The book I started writing this past summer has come to a halt while I work through this healing.  With our travels, I hope to occupy a writer’s retreat in the spring to continue this work.

What direction are you going in 2020 and into this decade?  What will occupy your time and energy?  Are you living your life with purpose?  I ask for God’s light to guide you.

Thick arrow pointing to the left and up, made from plenty of colorful jigsaw puzzle pieces separated on white background.

May30

Co-Thriving

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“Co-exist” is a word that became popular a few years ago. It implies people, critters, and plants living harmoniously on this earth despite our differences. A lofty goal, easier said than done, but is wonderful to experience when it happens. I would rather think “co-thriving”.  I want to thrive rather than just exist. I know there are other people in my world who feel the same.  Even my Labrador, Midnight thrives when people surround, a social animal. My geraniums thrive in the warm and sunny afternoons and a humid Memorial Day rain storm.  Rain finally came after many cloud build-ups this 3-day weekend!

I am hitting the age where more of my colleagues are retiring.  Dean and I attended a happy hour this past week for  one of my friends. More Cardinal ball games and late mornings are in my friend’s new season.  I can be entering that season of life in about 4 years and 4 months. That would be 225 more work weeks. Oh, I forgot I have a few vacation weeks in there as well, but who is counting?! I want to thrive, not merely exist during retirement. Good chance I will do just that because that is what I am doing now. Key is, co-thriving with my Dean, family, and friends. I believe green plants and gardening will fill my days, as well as serving with joy the people God places in my life. Much like today. “And those who were seen dancing were thought to  be insane by those who could not hear the music” Friedrich Nietzsche is quoted.  I hear the music, and I want to dance every season of my life.

Jan24

Oh Hermann!

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This weekend Dean and I hibernated in Hermann, Missouri.  We were invited to stay at a lovely guest house by some wonderful folks.  We took a gander at antiques and patronized a gift shop in the historic downtown area.  The friendly salesman at the gift shop greeted us warmly and proceeded to tell us where he was from and why he retired in Hermann.  This retired banker from St. Peters, my hometown says the cost of living is so reasonable in Hermann, and so many services cater to the aging population in the quaint German town.  Just my thoughts exactly for the past almost 6 years, retiring in Hermann.

“You had me at ‘hello'” was displayed on a wooden sign in the gift shop. That would be my Dean and I.  Love at the first sight, e-mail, FB message, and date 6-1/2 years ago. Our garden courtyard wedding took place 5-1/2 years ago just 4 blocks from where I stand at that gift shop.  We had to pick up a pastry in this old Old World town. A local bakery was spotted amidst the neighborhood bars and shops.  A kringle, “krakeling” filled with strawberry ooze called out our name as we perused the dessert selections. My diabetic diet just went to pot, but back on track come Monday.  Besides the small town walking helped, right?

After an early Saturday dinner at the Tin Mill Brewery, Dean and I hung out with the local folks at the firehouse fundraiser mouse races. We fit right in, happy women with full hips and bearded men with a sense of humor. Homemade chili and desserts galore.  Bids for cash and guns kept us on our toes.  Loads of fun!  The laughter got louder as the evening went with the number of empty beer & wine bottles and whiskey & coke glasses. German people know how to celebrate life!  Not a need for a wedding or birthday to live life fully.

Sunshine beams through the tall-pane window as I sit in an elegant armed chair. Next to me my cup of hot Earl Grey tea laced with bergamot and half & half while a couple of Italian dark chocolate wafers await my consumption.  This crisp January afternoon brings my dream to life once again.  The heart dreams where the soul needs to be.  Our house and bed & breakfast in Hermann, Missouri.  We feel at home, at peace every time we come to Hermann.  From the time we cross the lighted bridge over the Missouri River, we are home.  Oh Hermann, we will be here to stay within 5 years.

Aug29

Vintage Trouble And Thoughts

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My husband, Dean called me “vintage trouble” yesterday morning while in route to work. The word “vintage” suggests “the best of a past season”.  I am the double nickel today, so I took this new name as a compliment as he said I “still have it”. Vintage stock.  What I have is an aging body, but a spark, spunk for life that God gave me, and a sassiness to embrace all God has for me.

There is so much to do in this world, help make it a better place for those that surround me, God’s creations.  I know who God says I am, and this is all that counts.  I am too old to worry about what others think of me, so I will go ahead and say my vintage thoughts …

Criticism and pettiness paints life’s mural gray and black.  Such negativism. Why the “accuser of the brethren”?  We don’t need the devil to ruin another’s life as people do a good enough job at it.  Who needs an enemy when you have family and friends like that.  How about seeing one ounce of good in someone, and maybe you will see a pound of it.  I would rather spend time alone than with someone who gossips and murmurs about others especially about their family and friends. That constant drip is annoying, and I avoid it.  At church a couple of Sundays ago, Father Don talked about living “simply”. No prejudice thoughts or premeditated plans and gossip towards the stranger, neighbor, friend or family member.  Simply put, live a simple life.  Care for self and those who God has place you with. Vintage heart.

So onto more pleasant thoughts … Dean and I are the midst of a vintage project, resurrecting a childhood dream of mine.  We happened upon it this summer.  Dean has embraced this dream, and sees its investment advantages well into retirement, our autumn and winter years. It is a bit early to share the details, but it will be shared soon enough on Deanna Greens And Garden Art’s Word Press blog.  And another blog will extend from this one.  Stay tuned … more to come.