<p>Moda–you would just be the most fun client! I would work with you anytime! You are clever and hardworking and just get the job done. Yep, just maybe when all of your dust settles you will have a little time of filling in the space. But if I know you, you have it planned ahead already. Some folks just have to wait and see how it feels when they get there. Some can learn ahead and get things in place early. Both works!</p>
<p>Percussion Dad, if you need a little structure at first, I’m sure we can come up with a list of fun things to do so we can live vicariously through you. Then your new job could be to report all the shenanigans back to us each day ;)</p>
<p>But seriously, my mom had an early retirement by attrition without financial need. Some of the things that helped her transition included painting classes (she had actually been a reasonably talented representational type artist before getting involved in finance/management), auditing other courses at the local college, working occasionally as a pitch-hitter or consultant on projects, etc. For a little while, she even would come and work ad hoc for me. She is also a volunteer driver for the cancer society who takes patients to their chemo, which is about an hour away. She’s found this to be very gratifying and life affirming, if you know what i mean – making things a little easier for someone who doesn’t have access otherwise. For a while, she also volunteered at the hospital, but frankly, the treated her too much like an employee and didn’t respect her time – eg incessantly begging her to take shifts (she’s in Canada too, so you know what the hospitals are like.)</p>
<p>With your experience, I suspect your local municipal counsel would find you to be an exceptionally valuable contributor on committees/commissions. As well, since arts organization still exist in Canada (half joking) and with your d’s interest in music, I suspect the local symphony etc. would more than welcome your participation.</p>
<p>Also, when I lived in Canada, most universities offered free tuition to retirees. Don’t know if that’s still true, but if there’s an area of interest that you’ve never pursued, its a great time to pursue it!
I predict you’ll come to live your freedom, so don’t worry!</p>
<p>kmc–I am so moving!</p>
<p>NorthMinnesota, so sorry about the mix up. I guess an expensive lesson? I once had a fleeting brush of terror when I was bidding on Priceline. When scrolling, I accidentally changed the dates, which I realized the moment I hit “submit” but thankfully they didn’t accept my bid.</p>
<p>D made it safely to her conference and said the hotel she’s staying at is beautiful. They are 8 hours ahead of us (7 for her). I can’t imagine her jet lag! The opening ceremony is tonight, which is mid-morning here. It’s supposed to be streamed live so hopefully I will catch a glimpse later today.</p>
<p>On names. I had a friend in college whose name was Cash Coyne (last name was pronounced like coin). Some humor in that family obviously.</p>
<p>I’m always afraid of making a mistake when I book somehting that I look it over like 5 times before submitting. Over kill I know but I’m always worried about booking the the wrong time or something stupid.</p>
<p><strong><em>brag warning</em></strong> D just forwarded the letter naming her as a recipient of a big award given to about a dozen graduates (out of many thousand) during the main graduation ceremony, and she’ll get called up on stage to be congratulated individually by the university president. How cool is that? I’d been musing not going to the big event and sticking with the college and departmental events, but I think this will be worth sitting in the stadium to see – and I hope the university photographer is better than I am. <strong><em>end brag warning</em></strong></p>
<p>arabrab, that’s wonderful news. Congrats to your D.</p>
<p>Oh my gosh, arabrab!!! How exciting! I got goosebumps when I read your post! Congratulations to her! I bet they will have a photographer take pictures. Yay for her! :)</p>
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<p>How cool? Way cool! </p>
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<p>My lack of skill as a photographer is well known in my family. At Son’s HS graduation I kept focusing on earlier grads to practice, etc. After I snapped the HORRIBLY BLURRY picture, older D said that she couldn’t believe that anyone was able to take a picture that bad. (When younger D was briefly a high jump star, I finally had to ask older D to take a picture because I could never ever get a picture of D flying over the bar.)</p>
<p>When I took the family to Paris one spring break many years ago, I was able to obtain 2 tickets with FF miles, and then bought the other three. Of course, I was “multi-tasking” when I booked the 2 FF tickets, so I got them for the wrong day, and had to pay a $200 change fee for the “free” tickets. So now if I am making airline reservations at work, I forward my phone and close my door, so I can focus.</p>
<p>arabrab, Congratulations to your daughter!</p>
<p>arabrab, let me echo the congratulations to your daughter!</p>
<p>Way Cool Arabrab!! And so very proud of “our” girl! </p>
<p>Oregon - I would love if I could find a therapist around here as I think they are very helpful to just organizing one’s thoughts and feelings. I had a great one who then closed her practice to enjoy life when her cancer returned. I miss her terribly some days.</p>
<p>Last night I scrubbed the flooring in the playroom until it looks practically brand new. I LOVE bar keepers soft scrub. It’s an individual tiled linoleum floor in this one section that comes off as a green and white checkerboard pattern and the white was looking really quite dingy upon closer inspection. Yep… once again, making the house look better for someone else than it has for us in years!</p>
<p>PS - did anyone see the piece on Good Morning America about “xanax makes me a better mommy”? Where the heck was this movement when I had young kids? Then again, I guess I could say xanax makes me a better daughter… but it’s mostly the idea of having it vs taking it that does the trick for me.</p>
<p>Congratulations arabrab.</p>
<p>Gave a talk last night on my nascent book on career choices. I spoke to my alma mater’s Alumni Club of New England. 70 people showed up. Seemed to go pretty well. [I’m extremely experience at public speaking by now so I was more concerned that the topic work with the audience, which it seemed to do]. This is one of my two current pro bono projects. I’m actually thinking of finding a coauthor in the careers/HR area who wants to boost his/her career by doing all of the marketing (and getting to share in whatever benefit my ideas offer). This is the first time I’ve ever showed up at an alumni club meeting, though I do go faithfully to reunions every five years.</p>
<p>Arabrab congrats to your D !</p>
<p>arabrab, what an honor! I am a terrible photographer too - when we were in Ireland years ago, we were looking for the ancestral home of H’s family. When we found it, on a very narrow road, H asked me to jump out of the car and film it with our video camera. Which I did. Holding the camera sideways. Actually, it’s not bad, if you just tilt your head!</p>
<p>shawbridge, the talk sounds very interesting. Also sounds like a good plan to market it with some assistance.</p>
<p>I used my cyber-stalking skills and saw D in the audience in the streaming live coverage! It was in English, but the coverage had a voice-over loudly translating the conference into Arabic.</p>
<p>congrats Arbrab! to your D too!</p>
<p>Lost a long post yesterday but think I have figured out why–if you click on the preview box v.s. the Reply to Thread box everything disappears very quickly. The trick is to read one place and make corrections another place. Kinda like walking and chewing gum.
You all probably had already figured this out…</p>
<p>My mother insists the hospitalist only told her that she has 3-6 month left because he wanted the bed. B signed her up for Home Hospice and she is having fits but she will hopefully listen to her primary care doc when she gets in to see him. Mainly she is focused on her 18 year old refrigerator that she wants moved from ILL. to CA because the old ones are better than the new ones and the stepkids (who get the house and what ever crumbs she leaves) are not to get anything. It was very difficult to be nice to her last call as she said she hopes my brother suffers (for his making decisions that she does not like) for the rest of his life. I pretty much raised him from4-8 yrs old --until I abandoned him by leaving for college–so her wanting him to suffer just did not go down well with me at all.</p>
<p>cq–very cool. Neat you found her!</p>
<p>ararab - congratulations to your D! what an honor!</p>
<p>c-q- nice job on the cyberstalking ;)</p>
<p>cq – how cool that you could pick her out!</p>
<p>oregon – how uncool of your mom. It has been my experience that as people hit the old age stage that they usually strengthen whatever personal characteristics they had, good or bad. We try to focus on how nice it is to enjoy older friends who kept to the positive side, but that isn’t always a choice with family.</p>
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<p>Congratulations to all on your children’s wonderful achievements! I’m happy for all of you.</p>
<p>I have been MIA because I haven’t had the heart to post. Fang Jr had a disastrous quarter. He has withdrawn from school and is looking for a job. We imagine that the jobs he is deemed qualified for will be minimum wage, low skill jobs, and even then, with his issues, he will have trouble finding and keeping a job. </p>
<p>He is currently remaining in the program he is in, now in the “career” section. They will help him with job skills and the job search. We are hopeful that he will be successful in this new phase of his life. We love him very much.</p>