Five Years Into Retirement

What can I say since my last post in 2022; I've been busy. When I look back, as we all do eventually, has my business gotten me where I want to be. In 2022, while I was finishing up my last two years of teaching, George was getting us ready for my first five years of retirement. We paid off debt without necessarily a steady diet of rice and beans, beans and rice.

I retired in May 2020. The standard question was: "Are you retiring because of COVID. My reply confused people: "My retirement was a planned event." True. I was always going to retire in 2020. Retirement is not a factor of age. It's all about the "Five Pillars of Health:" mind, body, family, society, and finances. In my case, the finances were right for the goal that had been set in 2015. The rest of me followed. 

Oh, the things I put off. The first year and a half of retirement was spent on my body. On retirement day, I weighed 236 pounds. On July 9, 2021, I weighed 165 pounds. Many thanks to Alecia Kohrs for sharing "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" with us; both George and I transformed our relationship with food into a healthier duo. Nikken Vital Balance and a morning cold pressed juice now help us maintain our bodies for our healthy lifestyle. Even on vacation, we rarely gain more than five pounds that quickly go away once we are home. While we both have a couple of medial issues, we are able to manage them via natural means. We are grateful our prescription lists can be counted on one hand. May the trend continue.

In 2022, George and I traveled. Besides a road trip to see family, we also went to Alaska. Alaska was my 50th state. The coolest part was seeing the Klondike that I had taught about for decades. We met and made some lifelong friends on the journey.

In our travels, we gave more thought where we wanted to live in this chapter of our lives. In 2021, we revisited Hawaii; we stayed on Oahu for a month since the area topped the list of homestead possibilities. Love though we still do, there were some cons. The biggest drawback was the distance from family. Then in late 2022, George's sister had an unexpected life event that pointed us in a new direction in 2023. 

For George's 80th year on the planet, we did a birthday tour, starting in Central Florida where our son and his husband live. It has palm trees, ocean, sandy beaches, and warm weather. Check. After a month, we threw Florida into the list of possibilities. While on a road trip to Texas and Missouri in April and May, a property in Florida popped up that seemed too good to be true. Well, it was true; yet, from the road of Texas, the time was not right. That house did help us find the correct realtor. Within a month of being home in California, we had decided on a place in a 55+ community and started the process to buy a house 30 minutes from my son. 

In mid-September 2023, I said goodbye to the home I knew since second grade, the home where George and I spent 30 years, and the state of my birth, California. We moved to Florida with only an 8-foot x 8-foot POD of stuff. The rest went to the next generation of kids and grandkids, was estate sold, or went to the junk yard. The rescue cat was rehomed. November 2, 2023, George and I became Florida residents. 

2024 was spent unpacking and getting settled into our two bedroom, two bath home that is five hundred more square feet than we left. You might ask, what took so long to unpack? Well, the house was fully furnished except for bookshelves and a bed for the guest room. The shelves were ordered and arrived on Christmas Eve. A wonderful handyman put them together in January. As the shelves began to fill, we ordered a murphy bed which was assembled by mid-April. A California friend visited at the end of April. George's cousin visited in May. Then, we hit the road for a month in June/July. Once back, we weather a couple hurricanes; Milton damaged the patio. Luckily, the handyman fixed the patio before we left on our two-week Australia and New Zealand cruise. Throw in a couple routine appointments for this and that as well as local activities and that's the reason the unpacking took a while. In fact, there's still some things waiting for their special location in the house.  

Woo-hoo! It's 2025 and I've been retired almost five years. Now, it's time for the next five year plan. What will it be? For this year, I know we are traveling more. In June, we have another road trip in the Midwest to see family. Then, in September and October, we will attend my 50th high school reunion in California and come home via ship through the Panama Canal. Inbetween, there are the must do items at home and hub=bub of life in the 55+ community known as Solivita. 

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