Retirement

My family teases me that I have come out of retirement three times....I have done this to do interim nursing home administration work. From March-May of 2013 I helped the Good Samaritan Society at Crosby ND to transition to being community owned...St Lukes Community Living Center. It was a huge amount of work getting policies and procedures and equipment and benefits in line for the new entity. At this writing, I have now been retired for over 7 months. It has been tougher than I thought and it is also wonderful. We both had busy, stressful and successful careers. Here are some things we have learned: 1/ We have had to adjust our finances. No one really knows how they will manage financially until they try it. We were drawing from our pensions to make ends meet and with the help of our investment counselor, decided I should start getting Social Security. If we hadnt decided to do this, we would have exhausted our pensions. So my advice is to have a financial counselor and talk thru your unique issues. 2/ There are 2 unique seasons in our little fishing village. Summer...which is crazy...full of activity and company and we love it! Winter....very quiet and remote. Arden likes to visit ice fishing houses and hang out with his buddies at the bar....me, not so much. I like to quilt, read, spend time with kids, grandkids (who are 5 hours away) and my sisters...if the weather is bad, it is hard to travel or get supplies for my hobbies. There has been some adjustments. I have found another woman who lives here full time to have coffee with. I have talked to Arden about my frustration and he has listened and makes sure I get to travel to kids and sisters. Thank goodness to Amazon.com where I can download books and order supplies as needed. 3/ It's ok for us to have separate interests and schedules. This helps us to appreciate each other more and to treasure the things we like to do together. We will soon spend 3 weeks together in Arizona...after football season and as ice fishing draws to a close. 4/ We work together on chores in the house. We both love keeping our new home together. 5/ We don't need to eat three meals a day. Breakfast and coffee together and one other big meal with snacks in between. Gone are the days of 3 big meals when we were working full time. Another great benefit of retirement is having time for exercise and fitness. We have an elliptical and I can safely say that Arden is in the best shape of his life and I am focusing on a healthier 2014. So, if you are thinking of retirement, you can try semi-retirement for awhile or just jump right in. Have fun working through the issues with the ultimate goal of enjoying the retirement you worked so hard for!