Retirement Projects

[nyadrn]

Lots of people talk about all of the spare time that they have after they retire and how they are going to fill it.  Many have projects that they have been waiting for years to tackle..  

What about you?   Do you have projects that you have taken on or are  planning on?

[jd2031]

I retired almost three years ago. I do fill my time with “busy” tasks, such as gardening, tending our pet birds and chickens, and walking daily. Recently I have joined a rock painting group, and we all paint rocks and hide them in the community for others to find, and, hopefully bring a smile to them.

However, I recently feel the need to have more social contact and possibly make a friend or two. My wife is still employed for another few years. Perhaps I need to try and connect with some retirees taking classes at the local colleges, or the many community recreation centers. I volunteered once monthly for the first year, but the commute was not fun, so I stopped that. 

Any suggestions would be welcome!

[mj6966]

There is never a shortage of things to do. I think people who are bored in retirement never had any interests besides work. My plate is full, don't know how I ever had time to work! We did a kitchen remodel a year ago, planned for it the last 2 years of employment and saved like crazy and shopped even crazier for the best deals. Did some of the work ourselves, fortunate to be able to. I love gardening and I can spend hours in the backyard putzing around. There is always something to do! I have dug up about every area I can to grow things and it cuts down on mowing. I quilt during the winter, not for profit but to just pass the cold months. I have given quilts to family members, haven't attempted to sell any because no one would pay what they are worth, at least $1000 each. I do machine piecing and hand quilting, one stitch at a time. It's a great stress reliever, especially when I feel like I want to stab something 10,000 times!

And there is always fishing, Dad lives on and owns a limestone quarry. When the work is done there I go fishing. Life is grand! Dad is wanting to plant Chestnut trees on an area he cleared with his skid loader. I know he will never see them make chestnuts, but a part of healthy aging is always looking to the future. He says they will be a good cash crop. I think he's looking out for the future generations. He and I garden like we are gonna live forever!

[nyadrn]

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@mj6966wrote:
There is never a shortage of things to do. I think people who are bored in retirement never had any interests besides work. 

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I thought about what you said here and I find it to be an interesting perspective.   It also shows the differences in what people consider work.  For many of us, work is not a job.  It is a carefully chosen career. One that we enjoy. One that requires much more than just a 9 to 5.  More in time, more in continuing training, hours in travel and much more in enjoyment and fulfillment. More in networking and new technology and just more.  I just don’t have time to retire 😀

[TracyofCotuit]

@mj6966wrote:
There is never a shortage of things to do. I think people who are bored in retirement never had any interests besides work. 

I also gave this some thought.

I'm happy being retired. My life is calmer now, which took a bit of time getting used to after working a hectic schedule for so many years. But two years into retirement I volunteer and have many hobbies. Somehow though the days often go by so quickly that I may forget to do something that I had planned. 

The only thing I miss about work is the verbal interaction and the sharing of problems and ideas.  I have found this community, and enjoy learning what others think, what bothers them and what pleases them, as well as what worries them. I have much in common with some, nothing in common with others, but love the experience.

[rh7502210]

Continue sharing my 60 years of experience and knowledge on Q&A forum, QUORA.COM.

Quora's mission is to share and grow the world's knowledge.The vast majority of human knowledge is still not on the internet. Most of it is trapped in the form of experience in people's heads, or buried in books and papers that only experts can access. As a can access. As a consequence most people don't have the knowledge they should, and don't have the time, connections, or skills to get to the knowledge they would have in an ideal world. . . .

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We hope to become an internet-scale Library of Alexandria, a place where hundreds of millions of people go to learn about anything and share everything they know [via Q&A]  . . ."

[ks60584231]

I will retire November 23rd, of this year.  My mind is full of ideas.  I have a small blog, I love doing arts, crafts and making old things new again, but yesterday I was struck by the kindness and the evil of humanity.  I had a small bit of cancer that had to be removed yesterday.  The doctor was awesome and asked what my family consists of; my husband, my daughter and my son, and five dogs.  He asked about the dogs and I explained that I volunteer at a shelter.  He also asked how I managed to bring them home and what to look for in a shelter animal.  I gave it all - and he decided to go to the shelter and get a cat.  One more animal out of the shelter!  I blessed that man for an hour for giving a shelter animal a new home.

Then I heard about a kitten that someone had put rubberbands on all four feet, which led to a vet having to amputate his feet.  Someone that brutal, immoral and inhumane made life painful and so difficult for a little soul that could not fight back.  I've heard of lots more brutality and I don't get it. 

So!  After I retire, my goal is to continue blogging, and then contact every representative in the House and Senate to change how ALL animals are treated.  No more brutality, no more mean vicious acts against animals - if I can do it.  They need to pass laws that protect them from experiments, from being disabled, from being put in cages that are so crowded no one moves.  There are so many things that makes this wrong, and I want to try to make it right.

I got up on my soapbox and I hope I made sense.  This is so important to me.  God gave us these animals to respect and care for.  Our humanity seems to have fallen short of His will, and we need to try to remind others this is serious.

[WarrenA614851]

Well, I'm not (yet) retired, but I've been writing. I mean a lot. Most of it's subversive fiction — nice little stories that are GLBTQI+ inclusive and sex-positive, quite a lot of them set in a small town that looks very much like Mayberry on the surface. Until you look a little closer. (Which is what makes it subversive.)

It began as a response to lack of representation for non-heteronormative people in lit. We're too often portrayed (even by ourselves!) as struggling with identity, damaged, wounded by negative social tropes. I thought there weren't enough stories about people who are just … people, more than an identity, more than a collection of responses to that identity.

To that I added my general distate for the rise in dystopian fiction. It's not the tone that bugs me there so much as a nagging, quiet concern that by flooding the bookverse with dystopian futures, we're subtly embedding an expectation that the future will be a disaster. The future is what we make it; but it's also what we envision it to be.

So I thought it might be kind of neat to tell stories set in a place where people are mutually respectful, polite, compassionate, and forward-thinking, then go on to show how they use those characteristics to overcome difficulties, instead of being hammered to a pulp by the grim scenarios they're surrounded by, where "heroism" amounts to little more than barely eking out an existence.

Here's an author page with just the ebook titles, if anyone is interested: https://www.books2read.com/ap/8GlYex/Warren-Adams-Ockrassa

Wolves and Cougars is avaialbe for free from here; the only tradeoff is you have to register on the site and post reviews of authors' works: http://anovelconnection.com/downloads/wolves-and-cougars-by-warren-adams-ockrassa/

Phantoms in the Smoke is available for free from everywhere except Amazon: https://www.books2read.com/u/4XoLzv

[ccncee]

Hi nyadm - I have so many interests that I find it hard to settle down and do one thing for too long, so I've started several projects over the years.

Since I love gardening, I decided to design and landscape the yard around my house after I moved into it 10 years ago. I originally thought I'd have it done in 6 years, but between money, time, weather and my health, plus plants not performing as expected and deer pulling up tulip bulbs with their long tongues, rabbits nibbling at some plants and now I'm allergic to bee venom, plus can't be out in the sun more than 20 minutes at a time - well, its about 90% complete.

I also started writing a trilogy starting with my mom's life the year she met my dad (they're both dead now - mom stabbed to death by a crazy man in the foyer of my aunt's house when I was 7, and dad after a heart attack 20 years ago), 50,000 words done, but needs editing; middle starts after mom's death and how her 4 children grew up without her 48,000 words, but needs proofing and editing; last starts with my divorce after 7 years of marriage, about 25,000 words so far.

Between those 2 things I've had 3 different booth at crafters' malls where I sold twill aprons and tote bags that I painted; floral arrangements and wreaths and swags, plus gift baskets I made; vintage home furnishings, jewellery, clothes, purses, etc.; antique items from my grandmother - lace tattings, table linens, furniture, collectible teacups with matching saucers, books, etc..

Most recently I started to put tiling up in my kitchen, but, sadly, my hand is not as steady as it should be to do that, so its crooked. I either have to take most of it off and start over, or pay to have a professional do it. Opps!

[nyadrn]

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@ccnceewrote:

Hi nyadm - I have so many interests that I find it hard to settle down and do one thing for too long, so I've started several projects over the years.

Since I love gardening, I decided to design and landscape the yard around my house after I moved into it 10 years ago. I originally thought I'd have it done in 6 years, but between money, time, weather and my health, plus plants not performing as expected and deer pulling up tulip bulbs with their long tongues, rabbits nibbling at some plants and now I'm allergic to bee venom, plus can't be out in the sun more than 20 minutes at a time - well, its about 90% complete.

I also started writing a trilogy starting with my mom's life the year she met my dad (they're both dead now - mom stabbed to death by a crazy man in the foyer of my aunt's house when I was 7, and dad after a heart attack 20 years ago), 50,000 words done, but needs editing; middle starts after mom's death and how her 4 children grew up without her 48,000 words, but needs proofing and editing; last starts with my divorce after 7 years of marriage, about 25,000 words so far.

Between those 2 things I've had 3 different booth at crafters' malls where I sold twill aprons and tote bags that I painted; floral arrangements and wreaths and swags, plus gift baskets I made; vintage home furnishings, jewellery, clothes, purses, etc.; antique items from my grandmother - lace tattings, table linens, furniture, collectible teacups with matching saucers, books, etc..

Most recently I started to put tiling up in my kitchen, but, sadly, my hand is not as steady as it should be to do that, so its crooked. I either have to take most of it off and start over, or pay to have a professional do it. Opps!

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Wow  you have been busy : )

Congratulations on all you have accomplished and best wishes on your continuing journey!!  I will look forward to reading that book : )   

[Imagine948]

You are an inspiration. So glad to hear about all your projects.

[nyadrn]

Suggestion 1

Photo organization.

How many of you have boxes of pictures of family that you got from your parents or have collected yourself sitting on a shelf somewhere?

These are on the top ten list of things that your kids do not want.  Especially if they do not know who the people are,  what the occasions are/were, have no one to ask any longer.. etc.

Go through your pictures and either store them electronically or put the ones you want to keep in an album, but only after noting who the people were and as much other information about them as you can find.

I did that with my mother.  We took her big box of pictures from down in the dusty basement and went through them.  Did it take time?  well of course but I got to spend time with my mother and talk about all of the old times and the people in those pictures, many of family from Europe that died long before, either before or after the war.  

There might be one person in your family that is interested.  If so you know what to do with them.  But don't leave the box sitting unless you are not planning to give it to anyone.  You know where it will end up.  I recall one of the first times that I went to one of the giant weekend flea markets in NYC.  There were thousands of pictures of unknown people in boxes at many vendor stands.  So many memories and no one to honor or appreciate them.   Sad.