Never thought retirement would be like this

N

NancyNGA

Well-known Member
Location
Georgia
Matrix was so nice to put in this diary section. I'm going to start one. I'll just give a very brief background for now. Please feel free to post comments if you want.

I'm 68 years old and retired almost 12 years ago. I live in an urban area in NE Georgia. In 1995 my parents left Florida and put a mobile home on some vacant land I bought years ago out in the country near where I live. At the time they were in their late 70's and I was worried about them living so far away. No brothers and sisters. My father died in 2006. He was the one who fixed everything around the house---carpentry, plumbing, electrical, you name it.

I've since learned to do a lot repairs because I hate the hassle of trying to hire someone, people not showing up, not always good work. Discovered I really like to learn to do things like that, and will continue as long as I am physically able. So this diary will probably have a lot of DIY projects in it. Repairs never seem to end when you are responsible for maintaining two households.

I tend to overthink writing posts to forums, so I'm just going to hit the SUBMIT button now and hope it makes sense. More later....
 

Good for you! I'm hopeless with DIY although I can paint and do very basic minor repairs. I'm glad my dh can do everything to maintain our old house - electrical, plumbing, carpentry, etc etc. Saves us a fortune.
 
I admire you for doing your own repairs Nancy, I'm not that handy, but hubby takes care of most things. You're smart to be a do it yourselfer, it does save a lot of money, and many companies nowadays are rip-off, and charge much more than what's fair.
 

I'll bring some of the newer members up to date on my status. I retired from the bakery business in 1999 and sold my house to move to Florida. I still have my camping trailer that stays in Sylvan Beach, NY and we stay there about 5 months during the summer. We plan one one or two more years of this and then stay right in Florida.

I am 76 and my wife is 73 years old. We were married Dec. 25th, 1956. I was home on a three day pass and was being sent to California, so we rushed things along so that after I got settled, she could join me.

My wife is a cancer survivor, twice, but is in good health for her age. The last couple years my health is failing a little but most of the time I feel good.

We live in a nice over 55 community and are about 10 minutes to the Indianlantic River and another 10 minutes, over the causeway, to the Atlantic Ocean.

We we live a simple, easy lifestyle and enjoy the little things like taking our coffee to the shore and walking in the sand at sunrise. So peaceful and beautiful.

Oh, and we haven't seen or shoveled snow in 15 years. :love_heart:
 
The thing I like most about being retired is time...time to pick blackberries from a hedgerow...time to watch the birds...looking at the clock and thinking..'' I don't have to get up if I don't want to...

And time reverting back to it's normal pace..
 
Thanks for all the comments, folks.

Pappy said:
Oh, and we haven't seen or shoveled snow in 15 years. :love_heart:
Click to expand...

Ain't that the truth. I grew up in Ohio.

Twixie said:
I don't have to get up if I don't want to... And time reverting back to it's normal pace..
Click to expand...

And Daylight Savings Time doesn't matter anymore.:)


BTW, there is no reason why several people can't share the same diary. There was a diary with 3 members on a forum I used to belong to that went on for 4 years until the forum shut down. I miss them and I wasn't even one of the 3.
 
Please fill me in as to exactly what I am supposed to post on here..
My life story ?? ......... That will be about 4 pages long ...
My lately story ?? ..... That will be about 2 pages long ...
My ongoing story ?? ... That will be about 10 words .....

I would like to post, but am a bit confused........
 
You're supposed to tell us why life has made you happy or unhappy. You should say what really offends you and what pleases you so we can...adjust. You can reveal things to relative strangers that you might not otherwise mention to anyone. Besides, at this age, what do you have to lose? "Rage against the dying of the light"...Dylan Thomas
 
An online diary is just like a regular old fashioned diary, only online and public.

Typically each person would start their own personal diary as a separate thread in the diaries section.

That person just posts to his/her diary something that happened, or something they did, or a thought---the most important things of the day.
Or maybe they will only post when something noteworthy happens.

If some comment in a diary perks another member's interest, or maybe another member has a solution to your problem,
that member will (hopefully) post a comment to your diary.

Example:

One day I post to my diary: "My dog is very lonely. I'm thinking of getting a cat to keep him company."

Another member may post (in my diary), "I got a cat to keep my dog company once and they fought like cats and dogs.
Don't do it. It was the worst decision of my life."

Another member might post, "My cat and dog get along just fine. You just need to introduce them properly.
Here's how I did it..."
 
I do a blog which has random posts about life in Scotland and other things. Lots of travelogues as well. I have a separate and very extensive blog I kept while we lived in Uganda for two years - 2007-09. I still get a lot of emails and comments on it even though I stopped writing it when we left.
 
Ameriscot said:
I do a blog which has random posts about life in Scotland and other things. Lots of travelogues as well. I have a separate and very extensive blog I kept while we lived in Uganda for two years - 2007-09. I still get a lot of emails and comments on it even though I stopped writing it when we left.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's the word. Just like a blog.:)

metasegue said:
.... You can reveal things to relative strangers that you might not otherwise mention to anyone. Besides, at this age, what do you have to lose?
Click to expand...

Go for it metaseque! :drool1:
 
Eleven years ago we bought some goats to keep down the brush on my mom's property out in the country. It looks like a golf course in the woods now, but it required installing over 6000 feet of field fence. (I did NOT attempt that myself.) There is one electric wire strung on top and one along the bottom, to hopefully discourage predators (dogs and coyotes), and keep the goats from riding down the fence.

Maintaining that fence has been a major ongoing project. Trees are always falling on it. I just spent 3 days trying to track down electrical shorts on the hot wires. The voltage is now up to 7100 and it should be near 8600. The current pulses for only a split second every second, so it's not as bad as it sounds, although if you touch your head to it, it can knock you out cold for a second (don't ask me how I know ;)).

The plan is to find the last short tomorrow and do a few long overdue modifications causing most of the trouble. [If I post this publicly, it may force me to do it. No excuses.]
 
I'm using this cold snap to procrastinate a bit longer on a small addition I'll be building before the snow flies. I put together maybe 300' of fence this Summer...can't imagine 6,000. We live in the forest and let it remain wild except for a few rough trails. It's so bizarre...the same 40's that are chilling my bones now will seem toasty next February.
 
Yes metasque, there's a (relative) cold snap here too and it's like I'm trying to go into hibernation or something. Grew up in Ohio and can't remember paying that much attention to winters there---so cold you couldn't draw a full breath without it hurting. Wisconsin is probably worse than Ohio.

Is that an addition to your house you're working on?

The goats were something we just wanted to try for fun. They are real characters, and *are* a lot of fun, but also a lot of work.

n_squirt_zps4c2b5921.jpg
 
Yes Nancy, it's a small addition for a wood burner and storing a couple ranks of split oak. Last year, we lucked out by purchasing an entire tank of LP in early Winter thus avoiding a huge spike when steady sub zero temps drove the price up. I don't want to depend on luck, or the weather, for economic stability...we have lots of wood. A new generator will be mounted just outside the room for electrical outages. The older I get, the more cautious I become regarding Winter. Being prepared can be crucial in these changing climatic patterns.

Yeah...I like goats too. They're clowns and incredibly practical too...landscapers you can milk. :D
 
Metaseque: I love gas heat. Had a heat pump and hated it so much I traded it for a natural gas furnace before
it was very old. I want to be able to stand near a register and feel hot air. I do have a gas space heater in one
room that works when the power is out.

Got the fence work done today and it's up to 8000 volts. :woohoo:

The changes today had little to do with it. It had just rained last time I measured and today everything had dried out.
Every little blade of grass that touches a hot wire conducts a tiny bit of electricity when it's wet---but not when it's dry.

I suspect with all the splices and corrosion after 11 years of wear and tear that's the best you can get. Anyway it will
knock your socks off, so I'm done until the next tree falls, or a deer jumps over and dislodges a wire with his back feet.

It might sound like I'm obsessed with this fence. It *is* an interesting puzzle and I like puzzles, but as it turned out a more
important use of the top electric wire is to indicate that the fence might be down. I used to have to just go out and check
it occasionally. Kept putting that off too long in between. Now I just check the voltage from the backyard.:)
 
Years ago ('94, '95?) I would tape the O.J. Simpson trial every day and start to watch the tape in the late evenings. Promptly fell asleep on the floor in front of the TV and next thing I knew it was morning. (How did that come out anyway?;)) Point is I got into a habit of sleeping on the floor and couldn't stand the bed. When I retired I bought the hardest mattress you could find, and sleeping in bed was good again. Last night I fell asleep on the floor in front of the TV waiting for my hair to dry. Best night's sleep in a while. What's with this floor thing?

Speaking of TV, when I was working, especially the later years, I never had time to watch it---going back to around the Seinfeld days. So now, while there is so much junk on TV, I can watch all the reruns and there were some good shows back then, and they are all new to me. Right now I'm hooked on NYPD Blue. That is a great show as long as you can tolerate the constantly moving camera. But I can't talk about them, because people think I have dementia.:(

See, you can post any nonsense in a diary!
 
I like a firm bed, but I can't remember the last time I slept on the floor, maybe in a sleeping bag in a tent while camping. :) I knew an older lady who put plywood under her mattress to make it more firm. You must have nice plushy carpeting on your floors Nancy! :D

Seinfeld was a good show, it's too bad the comedies are lacking nowadays, instead of improving. A quirky comedy on cable TV was Curb Your Enthusiasm, a little language and racy topics sometimes, but I used to get a kick out of it. King of Queens was a silly comedy, that was pretty funny, I like Jerry Stiller, he played the live-in father.
 
Love your diary, Nancy, enjoy reading it and admiring the great photo of one of your goats,(goat's milk, cheese, and butter)?
I. too, try to do my own repairs around the place, as I find it hard to deal with 'tradies' who some times can be expensive, overcharge, or try to get away with doing as little as possible.
Kept a war diary during my teens, was forced to do so initially, but then kept it going-many newspaper clippings, impressions, teen age angst (reading Heinrich von Kleist at the time did not help).
Read thru this war diary later (was repatriated to the U.S. at age 17), felt so depressed by it, ceremoniously burned it in our incinerator.
Wish I hadn't, though, as it did not put the war memories and hatred of war to rest.
 
SeaBreeze: I've watched all the King of Queens episodes. Working on Law and Order also. L&A: Criminal Intent is very strange, but Vincent D'Onofrio was so cute I watched it anyway. Then again, I think Dennis Franz in NYPD Blue is cute too...

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Susie: We got these goats only for eating brush. They were mostly altered males but 4 females to begin with. One female went into milk big time
the 3rd year without being bred. So among other things, I also had to learn how to milk a goat.:cool: (We found a good home for her and her sister very fast.)

Nice to hear from other gals who fix stuff.

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ps: Why not start another, more happy, diary.
 
Just got back from the east suburbs of Cleveland where I was over the weekend. We had a mixture of rain, sleet and snow, not to mention the high winds and cold. My wife and I attended a wedding for my cousin's daughter and the church was located maybe a block or so from Lake Erie. I could easily see the lake as I did take a quick drive down to it. The waves were 3-4 feet and very choppy. It was also very grayish in color and looked very dangerous to be on, if in a boat. Sort of reminded me the night the Edmund Fitzgerald went down. It would not have been a good day for flying in that area.

But, we went to see the Browns play on Sunday and they beat the Bucs. I live about 20 minutes from Raymond James Stadium in Tampa when I am at my home in Clearwater, Florida. So, I sort of root for the Bucs, but have always been a Steelers fan first, followed by a Browns fan. What a combination that is. Soon time to head south.
 
Nancy. When I was a little guy, my grandfather had three goats. Two milkers ,Josephine and Rags, and a miserable goat called Bachlor Button. Many a time Button got loose and chased me all over the place. Grandpa was the only one that could handle him.

PS...Hated goats milk.:mad:
 


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