OMG its 2015, time for those New Year’s resolutions!

Well readers, I apologize for the long pause in blogging, did ya miss me?  I don’t know how things were for you, but the holidays were super cra-cra busy for me.  (My teenage Grandsons taught me CRA-CRA and I decided it sounds cuter than crazy).   I must say the busy part, running out of time, really threw me for a loop!  After all I am retired so I should have had plenty of time to bake, shop, and decorate. 

I was so wrong!  It seems these retirees are very busy folks.  I was always doing something or going to an event or party, phew, it was exhausting.   I mean, I thought at retirement time Happy Hour was supposed to be naptime!  Not… it’s really happy hour with a live band and dancing. What I have learned about the generation preceding mine, as in hippie’s parents, is they are hard to keep up with!  They are teaching me it is not about how old you are, but how you are old!  Get it??  Well let me tell you I decided they can’t be that old, I demand a recount! <Grin>

OK, so onward and upwards as I try and make amends heading into 2015, and we’re off:

The ball has dropped, and the confetti has been cleared. The Ice Bucket Challenge and "All About That Bass" are officially so last year. It's 2015 — the beginning of a whole new year. Here are the pressing questions that I was left with from 2014;

• Who will emerge for the Republicans?
•  Will they ever find flight 370?
•  Will Bowe Bergdahl be court martialed?
•  Will Ray Rice play in the NFL?
•  Will Dzhokhar Tsarnaev get the death penalty?
• What will our wonderful newscaster create for the 2015 weather trend? (How do you top the polar vortex in 2014?)
• Will gay marriage come to all 50 states?

Wow 2015, can you believe it?  I was reminiscing about the doomsday prophesies when we were headed into the year 2000. Do you remember the media hype leading up to January 1, 2000?  How they built it up to an apocalyptic hysteria, telling Americans how they should prepare, that it would impact our transportation, Federal Government security, and there would be Global Computer failures etc.  I don’t know about you, but I was rather disappointed when I woke up on January 1st and nothing at all happened.  I had to go to work as usual, and unfortunately, all the computers worked. <Grin>

The psychic predictions are always fun, and for some reason our infamous news finds them important to pass on to us, so I thought it would be fun to write some down for posterity and check back in 2016. These are a few that I found the most fun:

•    Prince Harry will get engaged
•    Major volcanic eruptions in Japan and Hawaii 
•    National Health and police strikes and riots in London
•  Joan Collins dies 
•   Royal Family death 
•   Zara Phillips , Princess Anne’s daughter falls pregnant
•  Strange fluctuations in the Earth’s Magnetic Field detected 
•  A nuclear submarine will get into serious problems; it could be Russian although there is also Chinese involvement, perhaps an incident over the disputed Japanese Islands in the China Sea? 
•   I feel that 2015 will be a year with a lot of Maritime problems, there could be a very serious disaster, akin to the sinking of the Titanic 
•  2015 will see closer ties between Russia and China. There will be an economic and military pact. In the years to come this will become a powerful alliance that will challenge America 
• Economically , India will rise faster than China in the coming years
• Josefina Vazquez Mota will become the first female president of Mexico 
•  Both Facebook and the BBC will develop search engine algorithms for the internet (and not just for their own websites) in an attempt to rival Google. Amazon will also venture into web search.

Well, there you have it, Craig’s World Psychic Predictions for 2015; we’ll be sure and check back on him in Jan 2016! Here is a funny joke about Psychics, “I knew the Psychic was a fake the minute she accepted my check.”

Did you make any 2015 New Year’s resolutions?  My opinion on resolutions is; we shouldn’t waste time with resolutions, we should instead focus on something far better: resolve. While the words are similar, the difference is significant. A resolution is something you make; resolve is something you have. Call it semantics, but I think the distinction is important.

I think many will make resolutions and then immediately break them. Why? Because they’re not really resolving to do anything different. They’re just wishing. That’s just me talking, but I think the bottom line is: Without a stronger resolve, you have no hope of accomplishing your resolutions.  Isn’t that deep of me? <Grin>

So my resolve in 2015 is to age with grace!  (My disclaimer, sort of.) I have determined that I do not like my gray hair and so I am adding in some highlights. Why, you ask? Well, because I was in a meeting, and one of the men was pointing out one of the ladies to me, and he said the one with the silver hair, as I turned and the entire room was a sea of women with different shades of silver/gray hair! I have never been a conformist so why start now.  And as for the second part of aging gracefully, I am going to stop fretting about the ever increasing wrinkles; I say they're just antique smiles. 

Stay with me, as we traverse through this retirement journey, or as I refer to it “my longest coffee break."  I'm just sayin’…

Book Review of the Ghosts of Christmas Present by Rod Kierkegaard Jr and JR Rain

I was honored to get a pre-read before the launch of the Ghosts of Christmas Present, some what of a sequel to the Dead Detective.

I’m not a fan of short stories because they are well, short!  But I loved this one as it filled in some questions I was left with after reading the Dead Detective.  The collaboration between JR Rain and Rod Kierkegaard was superb in the Dead Detective, and carries over to the Ghosts of Christmas Present. 

 I loved finding out that Richelle is preggers and her baby has the soul of her dead rabbi friend and tadaa... she is dating a 100 year old ghost.  A nice twist is that our pregnant Zombies body is healing because of the baby. OK, so I've teased you without telling you all of it, you'll just  have to read it.  One thing I can promise you it’s too short, and will leave you wanting for more, as in a real sequel.   

This short story is a nice easy read for your holiday plane trip, car ride or just curled up by the fireplace. I do recommend that you read The Dead Detectives first.   Negative, too short, positive, it answered a lot of questions I was left with from the Dead Detective. I give it 5 stars

A. A. A. D. D. - Classic Retirement Syndrome

One of the crazy things I have discovered since retirement, is I still try to organize and plan things. While I lie in bed in the morning, just as I am getting ready to get up to start my day, I talk to myself and plan out what I want to accomplish. Then I get up with every intention of executing what I had so carefully planned out on my mental list. 

However the reality is that on my mental list I had planned on only cleaning the guest bedroom and both bathrooms.  But when I began dusting the guest bedroom, I thought, “Well it’s a better use of my time since I am dusting anyhow to dust the whole house.”  Then I notice the floors in the hallway are also in need of cleaning, so I decide while I have out the stuff I might as well do all of the floors. And so it goes until I come to the end of the day and you guessed it, I ended up cleaning the entire house.

It is now very late in the day, and I find I’m very tired.  I then complain to BFF Hubby that I’m really tired, to which he replies, “You need to get in retirement mode.”  “What the heck does that even mean?” I ask.  So BFF hubby explains patiently to me it means that it doesn’t all have to be done in one day! Hmm, interesting theory, which explains his ability to stay up late, sleep in, and do absolutely nothing if he so chooses, interesting as I think to myself, he just might have something here. 

So I agree with BFF Hubby and say, “You’re right!”  I mean after all he has been retired for the last three years, so he must have this perfected. My little sister gave me advice; she tells me she calls it “Patti Time.”  My Mother-in-law's advice was to remember there is always tomorrow.  I think when I was in the regular world, pre-retirement, we used to call that last one procrastination.

This “retirement mode” sounds much easier than it actually is. I think it’s that old habits have to be unlearned and changed. When you are working, you have a limited amount of time to accomplish everything that needs to be done, and in the past, I always had to clean the entire house in one day. Well that’s not entirely true; the reality was that I had a house cleaner.  It had been over 10 years since I actually cleaned my house; <grin> no wonder I became overwhelmed with the simplest tasks.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I decided to look upon these old learned habits as an opportunity to purge, to rethink my priorities and to be intentional about starting new habits.  Ha, like sleeping in, or at least not hopping out of bed at 4:30 am every morning like the Energizer Bunny.  I decided retirement was my time to make my “new normal” and hey I figure I can make it any way I want it to be, there just doesn’t appear to be any rules!  WOW I love the big fresh start; the clean slate that retirement affords me.  I love the idea that I can get up every morning and start over any way I choose.

After all of this self-discovery I read a humorous article/ joke on the internet, and as with everything you find on the internet, I have no idea who to credit.  It was just so perfect, and it made me laugh so I decided to share it on my blog, not to mention it reminded me ahem, of a few people I know.

It appears there is a new disease called A. A. A. D. D. - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder. This is how it manifests itself:

I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing. As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mailbox earlier. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the rubbish bin under the table, and notice that the bin is full. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the rubbish first.
But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.  I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only one check left. 

My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of coke that I had been drinking. 

 I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over. I see that the coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold. As I head toward the kitchen with the coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye: they need to be watered.  I place the coke down on the work surface, and I discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.  

I set the glasses back down on the work top, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone has left it on the kitchen table.  I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the lounge where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers. I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill. Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:
The car isn't washed, the bills aren't paid, there is a warm can of coke sitting on the work surface, the flowers don't have enough water, there is still only one check in my check book, I can't find the TV remote, I can't find my glasses and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.  Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired. I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail. PS. I just remembered, I left the water running...

Oh dear, I think I may be in trouble, better phone the doctor right away, I may have that syndrome.  Now where, oh where, did I put that phone?

Stay with me, as we traverse through this retirement journey, or as I like to refer to it “my longest coffee break."  I'm just sayin’…

Life is lived on levels and arrived at in stages.

I used to have dreams that I died at my desk. Once I turned in my notice, I don't have those dreams anymore. <Grin>

One of the most interesting thing to me while I awaited the final days, were the  questions that everyone felt necessary to ask me, or warn me, not sure what the points were.  They asked me such things as:

• Once you retire, what are you going to do about your identity that is so dependent on work?

• How will you relate to your relatives and friends who are still working while you are living the life of an aristocrat, sometimes known as "The Life of Riley"?  

• What will you do with your new-found leisure time if you have never learned how to enjoy leisure activities?

I think people either meant well, where jealous, just mean spirited people in the first place, or they want you to tell them the answers so they will know what to do when they retire.  Everyone had a story about a parent, uncle, friend etc., and what happened to them when they retired yada yada yada. 

 As they all imparted their wisdom, I kept thinking in my head, the best thing you can do is ignore them, but please by all means regale me with your pearls of wisdom.

So the final week finally arrived!  If you think it was hard working before, you can well imagine how my last week was. My team was awesome; they had arranged a party almost every day of the week. Tuesday at the main campus, Wednesday we went out to lunch and Thursday a party at the Jamboree building. I was very touched at how many people came by to wish me well.

One of the things I had casually mentioned was the only thing I wanted for retirement was my office chair.  When we purchased Herman Miller chairs for the campus, 12 years ago they brought in a sample chairs, one such sample had remained in my office for12 years. The chair needless to say had sentimental value to me. I felt since it didn’t cost the company anything, the request was reasonable, right?

So the gang went out to lunch to our standard place the Pizza Kitchen, and they gave me a funny gag gift, it was a horn for my golf cart, too funny!  

Well during all of this I learned, of course after it was too late for me to benefit from the knowledge, when you officially retire for SS, it only has to be your birth month. I thought I had read somewhere that you could not retire until after your birthday, so I stayed two weeks longer than I needed too! Argh you have no idea how mad I was at myself for this, really, I could have left on June 1^st!

The last day finally arrived!  I went into the office on Thursday, said I am not going to come to the office tomorrow, I will just do my official meeting with HR, get my final checks and I am out of here. Yahoo! So Thursday afternoon, my boss called me into a conference room for our final hand off, keys AMX and VISA cards, computer etc. Then the whole team came in and walked me to the elevator.  As I was going down to the parking garage I was thinking to myself, well darn I didn’t get my chair and that was kind of anticlimactic.  

As I went to get in my car, I said what the heck; it was completely filled with balloons, so much so that it was impossible to get into the car.  As I was pulling out my cell to call the team, Viola they arrived with the ding of the elevator, all laughing hysterically. So we began the fun task of clearing out the balloons, and one of them said did you see in the back?  As I opened the back to clear the balloons, I saw my quilt from home, wondering what the heck, how did that get in there?  During this whole thing I was trying to figure out how they had got into my car, since I had locked it.

They fessed up, it seems that one of them drove all the way out to my house in Banning and got the keys and quilt from BFF Hubby!  Pretty sneaky! As I removed the quilt, low and behold there was my chair.  I can’t tell you how happy that made me.  Off I went with the best sendoff ever!!

The fun and  celebrations continued as my Mother in law and BFF hubby not only had a birthday party for me, they also threw a retirement party at Sun Lakes!  It was pretty awesome!!  I was so relieved my retirement was finally here!!! So here I am, finally arriving at the exact  place in my life where I should be ,right now! I’m happy and I’m scared, but that makes me know that I am being challenged and the best is yet to be!!

Stay with me, as we traverse through this retirement journey, or "my longest coffee break."  I'm just sayin’