I began active journaling early in my retirement after reading about Morning Pages from Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way. That book is her original one on the topic, which I find the best for learning about her creativity tools like Morning Pages. She has other books in the same space, and I’ve read both the one … Continue reading Exploring One of My Quirks – Journaling
One of the continuing challenges for me in retirement has been creating and maintaining connections/friendships. I’ve stated before that when I left full-time working, I lost 80% of my daily connections. While these were not necessarily all close friendships, they were connections that provided me with support, validation, advice, a sounding board, and inspiration. Intentional … Continue reading Additional Thoughts on Friendship
Recently, a newly retired acquaintance commented how she feels bad that she doesn’t want to travel in retirement as that’s what seems to be expected. Unfortunately, the expectations for retirement remain the same for a newly retired professional – consult, travel, high-level volunteer (meaning be on a board of directors), and/or spend time with grandkids. … Continue reading The Things I Thought I Would Do
I scroll Facebook a couple of times a day. (Please don’t judge me!) I enjoy catching up with my friend’s activities & travels, seeing notifications for upcoming events, learning about local places, and reading the positive memes and stories. I often will link onto an article for deeper reading. I’ve started jotting down some of … Continue reading Quotes for Personal Development
I started to title this blog “Mid-summer” until I realized (thanks, Google) that mid-summer is an Olde English term referencing the summer solstice festival in June. The midpoint of summer is more towards the first week in August. Again, it depends on when you consider summer to begin; do you go by the astrological date, … Continue reading Summer Mid-Point
A blogger I followed for a number of years announced her retirement from blogging and, in fact, retirement from almost all use of social media. Over the years, I have seen a number of bloggers leave the blog-o-sphere. And each time I wonder, is it time for me to pack it in? With a blog … Continue reading Happy Anniversary to Me
I’ve created a number of new routines since retirement. Hubby’s recent knee replacement surgery disrupted a number of them. I began to wonder, were my new routines a new life rhythm or were they actually ruts, as in an inability to be flexible? Of course, I explored the concept of routines and ruts on line. … Continue reading Rhythms, Routines, or Ruts?
I am a huge proponent of To-Do Lists. I get stressed if there’s not a list of things for me to do, even if it’s all just possibilities. If it’s not written down on a list, I totally forget about it. I’ve even added in a new tool this year, an I-Did-It List (link to … Continue reading To Be, To Do, Do-be-do-be-do
I read an article the other day that had me wondering about retirement again. The article was about the positive side of flunking retirement! The article’s research (link here) indicated that, “Only 44% of the people who stop working ever consider themselves to be happy in retirement.” So apparently 56% of people should actually “flunk … Continue reading Am I Failing at Flunking?
Back in January, I contemplated a Word of the Year choice (link to post here). Over the years, I’ve used a WOTY a few times to really help me shift mindset. The years I choose Joy, Soar, Release were all extremely helpful. JOY in 2016 (link here) really helped me focus on finding joy in … Continue reading Acceptance – An Unchosen WOTY
retirementtransition 