Many ski resorts in the US also have the ambassadors that will help you out by the maps and also lead free tours around. We saw them at Park City, Tahoe and Beaver Creek on the trip we just returned from.
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Retirement activity yesterday was yard cleanup. We have a weeping cherry tree that will be coming down but it is dropping lots and lots of little sticks. We’ve had a number of windstorms that have brought down a fair number of larger limbs and horse chestnuts, which are extremely prickly. I raked those up and watched as our neighbors leaves blew into our yard. They prefer a natural approach, which means they don’t want to work in the yard. Now I can start planning what is going to go in for plants as it has been some time since the yard was attended to. I am counting down the days to our trip. H will finish up with radiation soon and then our lives will have a bit more normalcy.
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We gladly left behind similar Chestnut tree seeds at our old house. We called them “prickly meatballs”.
LOL on the neighbors. I’m all for nature but there does come a time to clean up!
Is the trip domestic or international?? A good reward for getting through a tough period.
I love that - prickly meatballs! Makes me think of this dish I had as a kid - porcupine meatballs!
The neighbors are a fairly busy couple in their mid-forties with two young children. They put up an extremely ugly fence when they moved in, much to Mom’s dismay as she was getting ready to sell the house before she died. It’s out of character for the neighborhood. Inside the fence, the yard is free of leaves. The back portion of their yard, which is unfenced, is where they put…all of the leaves. When the wind blows from the west, which it always seems to do, we receive all the bounty. We do mulch leaves and H offered to mulch theirs for them, but his offer was declined. I think they’re worried we’re old and will ask for their help!
We are just going to Florida. We are taking D and her friend with us - it’s been a tough few years for everyone. I’m a little nervous about leaving the country right now. H’s first knee surgery will be right before Easter but that will be done locally - no more daily driving over the mountain!
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We went for a hike yesterday – it was beautiful and sunny – and then had some friends over after dinner to watch a movie called Flow that is an animation that won an Oscar. A bit weird but captivating at the same time – very visually compelling, which is what appealed to ShawWife.
Today, I had my weekly Sunday morning phone call with the CEO of one of my clients (I’m not retired or retiring but have organized my life to have time). This afternoon, we saw a terrific show of Edvard Munch and then out to dinner at a not so expensive restaurant and then went for ice cream (something we used to do when I was a young professor back in the dark ages. Our favorite ice cream store and most of the restaurants we ate at (and could afford to at the time) have closed. But, at dinner, we talked about going back to the restaurant where we had our first date. It not only is still there, but added space and renovated from shabby to much nicer decor.
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We had over for dinner a couple who has retired. Just before the Pandemic, they sold their suburban house a few miles from us and rented an urban apartment. Their idea was that they would walk to restaurants, enjoy urban life, and fly to California to help their son with his grandchild (now grandchildren). Alas, the were stuck for the first couple of years mostly inside that apartment. Early in the Pandemic, they started bringing dinner for them and us that we would eat outside in our “nature preserve with espresso bar” of a house. They were still working but he retired and a year later she did. They still come over once a month and we share cooking (they are good cooks and do a lot of work before they come over).
They have thrown themselves into music lessons and choral groups and caring for their grandkids. What’s interesting is that they feel so busy and also anxious. They say, “We need to schedule with you today for next month because our lives are so busy and we know you have busy schedules.”
We spoke to another retired friend. He’s about 10 years older and was a well-known architect who has thrown himself into fine art photography as if it was a career. He takes lessons, goes to workshops, etc. We called and he was also in California vising kids/grandkids and said, “we need to schedule but our lives are so busy.” Both friends know how much I have traveled for work and pro bono projects and that ShawWife can be busy as well (she had two one-person museum shows and one one-person gallery shows and had pieces in at least a couple of other shows in 2024) and we travel for fun as well – which makes scheduling with us challenging.
I don’t think we spend a lot of time telling people how busy we are. I wonder if these retired folks somehow feel insecure and need to tell us how busy they are. (I’m not generalizing about all retired folks, but noticed that they somehow felt compelled to let us know how busy they were). Have you seen that?
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Under certain (repeated) circumstances the whole “we are SO busy” is annoying. Good for you. You have the friends, money, family, blah blah blah to stay busy. Not everyone has (not wants) those resources.
I think for me the goal is to stay “busy enough”. And to not need to broadcast it.
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Totally agree with this. It always seems to me to be a bit of a “flex”.
I also think that there are those (this does not apply to @shawbridge post exactly) who have a tough time managing their time. Why are they so much busier than me when we have the same tasks and the same amount of time to do them?
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Some of us retired people need a lot of down time around activities. So, one big event or errand a day seems plenty, hence the need to schedule social engagements.
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Also some of us have MANY more MD visits and “procedures” than we’d like & need to schedule around that as well. All of it makes life more complicated than otherwise.
We are trying to figure out when to go to Oklahoma City to visit friends and are scheduling around their free time and ours, plus some plane trips. Coordinating schedules isn’t as seamless as it seems it ought to be. It’s not a matter of trying to be important ot busy, it’s just the other things do surface—grandkids, kids, elders all clamor for attention too.
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Yeah. With both and especially to the first of the two, there seems to be a strong need to let us know how busy they are. A little off-putting after a while.
The funny thing is we have friends who by virtue of their positions in life are always more scheduled than we are. One was the president of a major university. The other is one of the world’s leading scientists. Scheduling with them requires advance planning but they never tell us how busy they are.
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I don’t mind people telling me how busy they are, that’s great. But what is starting to bother me is how often people cancel on me, often at the last moment and when the entire get together was their idea….location, date. I realize I make it easy to cancel, always say no problem, I’m flexible, and don’t put any guilt on them. Often I’m feeling that I am the absolute last priority and if there’s anything else that needs doing, I get put on the back burner.
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Can you explain this a bit more? I guess I’m not sure the difference between “task busy” and “friend busy”.
I like some friend time but like my task/hobby time to consume more of my time!
I don’t have patience for people that cancel plans. In my world you get one free pass to cancel. If you cancel a second time then I am not going out of my way to plan stuff with you.
My DW told me about a year ago that people love to say ‘oh we should get together’, but then nothing happens unless DW starts the process of scheduling. So DW’s reply had become sure and tell said person to let her know when they would like to get together. Things fizzle from there.
I took over scheduling for us and one couple. I definitely see where she is coming from. I scheduled our last outing and now just waiting for the couple to plan something.
The great thing is DW and I can have plenty of fun doing stuff with or without others.
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I admit it. I’m not particularly busy, and I am 100% good with that. My very good friend lives in an active living community in Florida, and she loves it. That’s cool, but she seems to think H & I need to move there. I don’t think that she can envision being happy without a day full of activities with others. That sounds awful to me - for me. I’m active on my own, with H and with GD. That’s my speed!
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I’m the person who likes a lot of down time. I don’t need to be busy all the time. I’m like you.
I have certain (mostly relatives)people who seem to think that they are in some sort of a competition. That I must be able to do certain things because I have a lot more time available.
I have 2 children. One of them is organized and can do tasks and have time left over for them. The other is not organized and spends a lot of time doing tasks that takes the other one much less time to complete.
I was on my way out so maybe how I put things wasn’t exactly the way I meant it.
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I live alone and don’t need to be busy at all. I might be a little older than some folks here:I also get tired. COVID isolation slowed me down a bit and I am currently trying to get back to tai chi and art, but slowly and carefully. My entire life I have loved solitary down time and that makes me feel fortunate as I get older (almost 74 now). A book, a quilt, a cup of tea and I am happy. I just need a cat!
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My in laws are always “busy”, so busy that they never have time for their family. My late father was so busy (he retired and then worked for 20+ yr as the unpaid director of a nonprofit) that they never had time for little things — seeing grandchild’s home,having dinner with their kids, going to a concert with their friends from church. They would always do that “later”.To be sure, it gave him purpose and made them both very happy, but we had to schedule around his work.
And as his life ended, I felt angry that he had given so much of it to a thing and not to us. I hope to never be so scheduled and responsible that I can’t participate in little
things. (Not that anyone here suggests otherwise)
DH says we are spending our60’s getting ready for our 80’s so we can enjoy our 70’s.
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I am “busy” but not with a schedule of activities like my mother had. There are a few people I enjoy spending time with but typically we meet for breakfast. I like having the flexibility in my day. Most of my friends are still working. It may sound silly, but having the companionship of the dogs makes up for a lack of humans on a daily basis! I really don’t mind being alone.
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My mom just turned 83 and has been retired for 24 years. The first 10 plus years of her retirement she was taking care of grandkids, volunteering and walking 4-5 miles a day. She was very busy and loved it. My dad did not retire until almost 10 years after her and once he did they started traveling a lot. Two years ago when my dad started to go downhill my mom stopped doing many of the things she had enjoyed as she was taking care of my dad. Since my dad passed away in December my mom has started to get back into doing the things she likes. She is playing bridge 2 times a week and is walking a couple of miles a day again. She also has planned 3 trips for this year already. I am happy to see her active once again and getting to do the things she enjoys.
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