Merry Christmas for 2015!

Finally, after posting all of those cards from Christmases past, I have arrived at the present. Whew. 

Merry Christmas, 2015
I’m finishing my first year of retirement, and it’s not anything like I thought it would be.

Retirement fantasy: Go to a matinee movie every week; scan boxes of photos; finish novel; play piano every day; post regularly to my blog; paint the woodwork and ceilings; learn German; read lots of books.

Retirement reality: I saw two movies in January; no photos were scanned; there was no novel writing; my last blog post was May 14, 2014; no woodwork or ceiling was painted; the piano was not played; regarding German, I learned “kommen” means “come” and “mit” means “with”; I read a book; I played 13,256 games of Spider Solitaire. Hey—don’t judge; they were four-suited games.

I’ve come to realize that retirement is something I will have to learn to do. My retired friend Jane B laid it on the line: First you have to get past the idea of being productive. Well, I think you could say I’ve got that down.

Rachel and Luna 

It was a great year, really. Top of the list—we have a new granddaughter, Luna. We also went to Paris for our 15th anniversary, and as long as we were in the neighborhood we dropped in on our German family for nearly a week. I also traveled a lot on my own and had great times staying with my family in Austin, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. I’m planning to go back to Austin to spend Xmas with Rachel, Luna, and our new foster granddaughter, Kodi.

I’m really looking forward to 2016. I’ve already started reading a book!

During a camping excursion we hiked with our German family up a very steep hillside in the middle of vineyards lining the Main River.

In Paris we enjoyed more than the fabulous art and beautiful architecture. Been there. This year we did stuff like hike in this forest, visit the botanical garden (6 football fields long), and walk along a 3-mile elevated walkway like the High Line in NYC (but built 15 years earlier). 

Love to all.

Christmas card for 2014: the China Trip

Tom and I never sent a 2014 Christmas card, even though he had created this cover art showing us on the Great Wall of China.

In 2014 we took the longest vacation that we had ever taken: three weeks in China. It is the only time we ever went with a tour group, rather than making all of the travel arrangements ourselves. That was the right decision for China, because we needed to see as much of China as possible; it's unlikely we'll ever go back, given how much more of the world we want to see.  

Without the benefit of the tour company (Grand Circle Travel--excellent), we would not have been able to see so many wonderful sights and so much of the country in three weeks. For example, we had five flights in China, plus a four-day river cruise. Could we have arranged those? 

Even in a single city, such as Beijing, we had the advantage of a bus driver who knew the way to places like the Great Wall, the hutongs neighborhood, Tiananmen Square, and the Summer Palace. We also enjoyed tickets already purchased for us, no standing in line, and guides who could explain everything to us in English. [Note: the links in this paragraph refer to Nairam Chronicles posts about China that I wrote shortly after getting home from China. They have pictures!]

More benefits: All of our meals were arranged, and excellent. We always stayed in 5-star hotels, something that certainly has never happened in trips we've planned ourselves. So, I'd have to give the tour experience high marks.

My biggest surprise was loving China. I mean really loving it, as a country. I thought I would find it fascinating, curious, unusual. I assumed I would learn a lot (since I knew nothing about it). And I did. But I really love it. I think it is because our guides (a different native guide in each city) really conveyed their own love of and pride in their city. They were frank about problems--cost of living, traffic, and housing shortages among them--but their love clearly shone through and I ended up feeling something of that love. 

Maybe we will go back some day!

Christmas card for 2013: Dublin, Austin, Manistee, Ypsilanti

I am repurposing the Christmas card messages I've written since 2001. From old Christmas cards to new blog posts. One a day. Merry Christmas.

The 2013 card from Tom and me took a photojournalism approach.

Ireland

We went to Ireland for vacation at the end of August, but our plans for driving around the island changed after I broke my arm on the second day. 

Here I am, at the River Liffey, about an hour before falling in a movie theater. So young, so carefree.

. 
Here I am, still young, still carefree, a couple of days later. Tom, not so much. It's always harder on the caregiver. But we had a great time for the five days in Dublin before coming home--and we'll definitely go back. 

Later, back home, I had to have this ingenious plate installed to keep my bones together and aligned. Cool. Bet you’re jealous.
















Michigan

I took a couple trips to Michigan. The first was a business trip in April. I tacked on a couple days to visit my sister Dianne and her family. It was near Easter and I made sure everyone had bunny ears.

In August we vacationed in Manistee before I went to my 50th high school reunion in Ionia. The photo below shows a freighter, carrying salt, coming into the Manistee River. It called for two drawbridges to be raised. Lots of fun to watch.


Austin
On a visit to see Rachel in Austin, she and I focused focused mostly on gardening. Here she is chopping the onions we harvested.




   

At home
Our old garden was trampled and largely lost during the 2011 kitchen construction. Creating the new garden was a labor of love and has brought us such joy. Hmmm. More emphasis needed on the labor part. Tom designed (and built) the planters and deck, and I designed the plantings. We had to lug in tons of new dirt (which I now call “soil,” per the garden club). Below is an "aerial" shot of the finished garden.

We had our traditional Halloween with champagne and neighbors on the front steps. Joyce wanted to be a panda but turned out to be a cat. And yes, that is Tom in in the middle.

Tom and I joined the garden club on a day trip to Mt. Cuba, a garden estate in Delaware. We had a great time with our friend Doris and about 40 other jolly people, enjoying box lunches and wine on the bus and touring through some great gardens that are focused on native plants. The trip, $105. The experience, priceless.

We enjoyed having family members visit during Thanksgiving week. Here I am in the kitchen with my sister Joanne.

Love to all, and Merry Christmas.

Christmas card from 2012: Novel writing, Minnesota capitol

I am repurposing the Christmas card messages I've written since 2001. From old Christmas cards to new blog posts. One a day. Merry Christmas.

What a great year this has been for me. I cut back my work by 50%, putting me in what I call semiRetirement. Tom points out that I might be in semiRetirement but I have not moved on to semiSpending.

In early July Rachel and I took a see-the-relatives-in-the-Midwest tour that was just a blast. We started with a 3-day stay in Minneapolis (see my blog post about the Macy’s bathroom) during which I toured the state capitol in St. Paul. Then we had a 2-week road trip from Minnesota, to Ypsilanti, Michigan, staying with relatives for 2-night stints along the way. Like Tom, I treasure my family and find such joy in being with them.

In other 2012 highlights, besides the Minnesota capitol building, I knocked off the New Jersey state house in Trenton, bringing my total to 20. On the down side, although I was in Boston on business in January, I totally FORGOT that it was the state capital, so like a fool I went to the art museum and did the Freedom Trail during my personal time there.

Rahdi, one of my watercolors from 2012

Although I allowed Tom to do the cover art for this year’s Xmas card, I am still pursuing watercolor classes and really enjoy it.

But in a totally new artistic undertaking, I participated in NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel during November. You log in your word count on the website each day, which leads to a message such as “at this rate, you will not finish 50,000 words on November 30 but a good target date for you is July 11, 2015.” And they show you a bar graph of your cumulative words. I just checked the website (NaNoWriMo.org), and can report that 38,000+ people worldwide participated this year. We should all do it next year! 

I was part of a NaNoWriMo email group of 10 who encouraged and harangued each other every day. Four of them made it to 50,000 words. Of course, some might say they are obsessive-compulsives who are still trying to please some authority figure from their misguided childhoods. The ones who say that tend to be the ones who wrote 14,612 words and were happy about it. They are also the ones who are happy in semiRetirement, a twilight stage of life with no goals and definitely no authority figures to please.

One of the reasons I didn’t get to 50,000 words in November was the week we spent with Rachel that month. We tackled Rachel’s huge parent-do list while we were there. This was Tom’s (Mr. Handyman’s) first visit to her new house, so I’ll just say that the week involved three trips to Home Depot and warranted such supplies and equipment as Stripeeze, ladders, pruning shears, wire strippers, lawnmower spark plugs, paint thinner, and a plumber’s snake. You get the idea. We also watched videos, did a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, and entertained guests. It was a wonderful week.

Love to all

Minnesota Capitol

Minnesota Capitol Rotunda