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Post by edmontongreg on Nov 18, 2016 17:52:03 GMT -5
I am recently retired and to tell the truth I really loved my jobs. But now I am retired. I travelled for 3 months and now I have settled in a new town; I moved as the weather is way better. I have read more books since July than I have read in a long time. I have been reading Michael Connelly's books, I am currently in the Harry Bosch series, although it does cross over sometimes into the Mickey Haller series once in awhile. I had read some Harry Bosch books before, but I decided to go back to the beginning. I am currently reading the Concrete Blonde. His books are pretty good, Harry is a detective in Los Angeles, Hollywood Division. He was in the Robbery Homicide Division, but the details of his handling of a serial killer got him transferred/demoted to Hollywood. You learn a lot about what's what in Los Angeles. Besides reading I have been watching a lot of Netflix. I am also watching The West Wing from the start and will re-watch the Wire.
I am just adjusting to having more time...a lot more time. It is ok, get to sleep in everyday, but it is not an easy transition.
How did you retirees deal with this? For those of you who aren't retired, are you planning for this?
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Post by hcsodale on Nov 18, 2016 20:23:48 GMT -5
I loved my job, but I was ready to go. I was just starting to feel that it was my time and I wanted to leave while I still had a positive attitude and before I turned into a disgruntled dinosaur like I have seen so many before me evolve into. I am still in touch with several of the people I worked with and will meet with them for lunch every few weeks. It's not all shop talk and they seem to really be interested in life outside of being a cop. One thing I have started spending a lot of time doing besides planning for and then traveling, is bicycling. I am a wuss for being afraid of motorcycles, but with the bicycle I am usually on dedicated bike/walking trails or in dedicated bike travel lanes when I do go onto roadways, though I don't often have need to. My area, Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL, have miles and miles of bicycle trails. I typically am riding the bike a couple hours a day 4 or 5 days a week. I have photos of a buck just grazing along one of the trails in Starkey Park where I was riding and a photo of a dolphin surfacing about 30 feet offshore along the Courtney Campbell Trail. I guess an added benefit is that I have dropped over 10 pounds and I'm not dieting, I could stand losing a few more though.... I have also started cooking more, experimenting with new recipes, attempting things I would have never tried to make before. A few are busts, but more often than not I am pretty proud of what I made. Sometimes cooking what looks like a complicated dish really is easier than it looks. My other half hasn't been complaining about my efforts (though he sometimes scratches his head wondering where I got some of the recipes I did, damn Food Network, Ina Garten and Tyler Florence, love 'em.) Besides that, I am sloooowly getting around to some of the things I need to do around the house. I completely emptied out one bedroom just before this last trip and am putting a lot of time and attention into it that it has needed for many years before I ever owned the place! I work on it as much as I can at a time in between the rest of daily life activities. Before retiring I would take off vacation time or holiday time so I could tackle some of these projects. Now I do them at my pace. Though with a 70 year old house, there are always projects to be done. I do sleep in. When working, I got up at 0430 for 0600 roll call. Now I get up anywhere between 0630 and 0730, and I don't feel the least bit of guilt. It did feel strange the first few months, but coming up on my 6 month retired anniversary next week, I have come to the conclusion that I did the right thing.
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Post by bluepride on Nov 22, 2016 17:25:08 GMT -5
It usually takes some time to get used to retirement. There's always the second guessing......wondering if you did the right thing.... At some point you realize....HELL YES! It's good to have things to do. Before I retired I had a calendar book every year from my union. All those years and I never used them. When I retired, it became indispensable! Always some plan or appointment to look forward to! Now I like to say, "Retirement is a full time job"! One day you'll wake up, yawn, scratch your butt and it will hit you.....LIFE IS GOOD! And on a really lousy weather day, you can look out the window, see the rain, the snow or the locusts and just say...."I'm not going anywhere"! You'll have that freedom!
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Post by bluepride on Nov 22, 2016 17:36:59 GMT -5
Dale, you sound like you have the retirement thing down pretty good so far! Spain is beautiful. I've been there twice...Madrid, Vigo and some cities on the outskirts of Madrid. I've never been to Barcelona but I've only heard great things about it. Someday...someday.... I don't have any great desire to go to France at this time. Maybe someday. But traveling is a great thing to do! I need to do it a bit more myself.... And I have no plans to ever get on a bicycle ever again! Ha ha! Bike patrol cured me of that! No more taking headers after hitting potholes, no more getting laughed at by citizens as I'm somersaulting through the air! No more bruised heads, knees, legs, arms, noses or ears for me, thank you very much!
As far as your new cooking hobby....I hope Russ has a strong stomach!!
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