Retirement Diaries 2024: Back in Minnesota

After three weeks in Washington and Oregon, I’m back in Minnesota.  I had so much fun, seeing friends, visiting my favorite places, and getting in plenty of beach time. 

The weather is so much better than when I left!  Instead of lows of 7 degrees and snow on the ground, the weather has been mostly sunny and in the 50s and 60s since I got back.  Until today at least; it’s raining now and it is supposed to rain off and on until Monday.  There are worse things in life.

The grass is green from the recent rains, and once the rain stops I’m going to be getting out into the yard to work on pruning and trimming back the dead foliage.  The lilac bushes are starting to leaf out, so there will soon be the sweet smell of lilacs blooming!

Cora and Yellow were of course happy to see me, and have forgiven me for being away.  It is so nice to see how bonded they are; they regularly snuggle and sleep in the same puff, even though they have lots of options.  At the moment, I can hear Yellow snoring in the other room; they really have a good life!

Mom was kind enough to think of me when she went to the library book sale for the next town up the road, and she got me some books on the Civil War.  She’s always so thoughtful!  There is also an upcoming book sale at our town library, so I’ll be helping move books from storage next week to get ready for it.  I’ll be considered the young person with the strong back among the other volunteers I’m sure.  It reminds me of helping mom to purge her books before the move last year.  That was a lot of boxes of books!

On my way home from Washington, I spent a couple of days on the Oregon coast, camping, looking for agates and just enjoying the beach.  I did get rained on a little, but it was pretty good weather for the most part!  After I left the coast, I spent a few days getting home, doing a little bit of sightseeing on the way.  A winery along the Columbia River Gorge, and a few museums in Montana and North Dakota.  After leaving Oregon, it got too cold for camping, so I splurged on a few nights of hotels.

Along the way I had a few lovely chats with people I met on the beach, at the winery, or in the restaurant bars – I like sitting at the bar when I’m dining alone, it just invites more social interaction.

Of course, now that I’m back I’ll be able to write more regularly again.  Not much driving to interfere with my downtime!

I hope everyone is well – and enjoying spring!

So Long 2023 – I’m Done with You!

What a whirlwind year – I can’t believe it is time for my year in review!  Oh dearest 2023 – what can I possibly say about this year?!

2023 marked the first year in my entire adult life that I haven’t “worked.”  That is, I haven’t worked for pay.  I quit my job and retired over a year ago on September 20, 2022 and it has been nice!  Honestly, the only thing I miss about working is the friendships and social connections.  I don’t miss the stress and the drama.  Well, I suppose I miss the higher paycheck too, but I’m doing fine.

This year ended up being really busy.  My mom had been planning her move to be closer to me in Minnesota, and I flew out to Washington for three weeks in February to go to a friend’s 60th birthday party, and to help mom with the long process of downsizing her life.  Since I had made major achievements in this area of my life the previous year, I consider myself an expert!  Haha – not.  But I did my best.

Mom ended up finding a house here that she liked in March, and she made an offer.  When it was accepted, the race was on!  I flew out to Washington in mid-April to really get down to the business of mom’s move.  Of course, because things don’t always go according to plan, that house ended up having water in the basement when the spring thaw came; the basement mom wanted to use extensively for storage.  So we backed out of that deal.

Mom had already scheduled movers and made the decision to list her home in Washington, so we now had to see if we could find her a different house.  It’s a very unique experience to do a walk through of a home on video chat, and buy it sight unseen (in person anyway).  I know people have been doing business moves this way for ages, and even just based on photographs, but it is a strange concept for sure!  Luckily mom found a home that actually works better for her needs, and is closer to me to boot!  It has been nice having mom only three miles away; it makes popping over for dinner or a movie, or to borrow something fast and easy!

I ended up spending close to two and a half months in Washington on that second trip.  It was super busy.  We were purging and packing every day, with the exception of a brief respite when the house first listed.  And I was trying to fit in as much time as possible with friends in the evenings.  I was definitely burning the candle at both ends. 

Mom and I departed with her loaded car on June 21.  We had four days to make the trip in order to meet the moving van, and we made some stops along the way.  We saw the Cataldo Mission near Couer d’Alene, Idaho, and walked the streets and shops of Wallace, Idaho for an hour or so.  We saw the incredible mineral museum in Butte, Montana, at the Montana Tech campus.

In Bismarck, North Dakota we visited Keelboat Park, to see a replica of the keelboat designed by Captain Meriwether Lewis on their famous expedition.  We also visited Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park in Mandan, North Dakota, to tour the reconstructed On-A-Slant Mandan village and the commander’s home of Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Custer lived here from 1873, until his death at Little Bighorn in 1876.  Of course, we also made brief visits to some impressive giant statues!  Salem Sue, the world’s largest Holstein Cow, received a sunset visit.  And Sandy, the world’s largest Sandhill Crane, got a brief stop on a rainy last day of driving.

The next month was a flurry of activity at mom’s house, as we unpacked, arranged, and tried to create a sense of order in the chaos.  Once that was done, it was time for me to take a vacation!

I returned to Washington at the end of July; I spent a week touristing through North Dakota and Montana and then spent a glorious five weeks with my friends, and enjoying summer in the Pacific Northwest.  I had only one chore while I was there; to clear a couple of last pieces of furniture that remained in mom’s house.  With the help of a friend who was furnishing a new place, and another friend with a truck, it didn’t end up being too burdensome!  Get the tape measure!

I spent my time reading, exploring, seeing friends, beachcombing, and capped it off with almost a full week on the Oregon Coast.  The weather was cool but dry, about as good as you can expect for the Oregon Coast in August.  I found tons of agates, revisited some of my favorite restaurants and camped at Beverly Beach.  It was glorious!

Roads End Driftwood

It was time to return home in early September, and I went back to Minnesota by way of Eastern Oregon and Idaho.  I saw some new to me places, including John Day Fossil Beds, the Polka Dot Agate mine (where you can dig for thundereggs!), the Idaho potato museum, and Virginia City and Nevada City in Montana, and the Enchanted Highway in North Dakota. 

Later in September, mom and I took a whirlwind road trip down to Knoxville, Tennessee to go to her jewelry-making workshop again.  We didn’t really sightsee this time, but instead I signed up for the workshop and actually made some jewelry!  It was fun, but I have a long way to go before I would consider myself anywhere near competent at jewelry-making.  And in a strange twist of fate and timing, I got to see my cousin and her husband for lunch in Louisville, Kentucky!

One thing about getting older is that I’m not willing to deal with other people’s drama and bad behavior; I’m just no longer willing to allow people to mess with my peace.  I left my job last year because of my toxic boss.  This year continued that theme.  Sadly, there were a few people who I had to remove from my life; they were simply creating too much chaos.  With that, I restored my peace, and I’ve been a lot happier since.  Word of advice – you are the one who has to live your life.  So, if you feel that toxic people need to go, don’t fall prey to the guilt trips that they try to throw in your face.  Your peace isn’t worth it! 

Since I’ve been back in Minnesota I have been nesting, doing some home maintenance, and relaxing.  I have been rearranging my house, and unpacking things that I now have room to put out.  I have also been reading and writing more here!  I’m almost done writing about my big road trip back in 2018 (where have the last 5 years gone!?), and I’m excited to move on to more recent adventures.  With a couple of minimal travel years, it shouldn’t take nearly so long to catch up.  The 2018 trip was unique in that there was almost four months of daily adventures, and often visiting more than one place in a day!  You can be sure I’ll be blogging more about the places I went this year! 

Cora, Yellow and the chickens are all still hanging out, living their best lives.  Unfortunately Yellow’s kidney’s are failing, so I’m giving him supplemental fluids every day to keep him feeling better.  I’ve been down this road before, and I know the eventual ending, but for now he’s tolerating the fluids, and still enjoying life. 

 

All I have to say is that life throws some curveballs.  I didn’t expect some of the things that happened this year, and it certainly changed my long term outlook and plans.  Some were good, some were bad, some are still in the planning phase.  I’m proud of myself for standing my ground and standing up for my boundaries.  I am hopeful for 2024, in more ways than one.  Life is what you make it, and although sometimes you can’t control what happens to you, you can control your reaction to it.  Enough said.  Bring on 2024!