Saturday August 26

Weight 114.75, calories 608. I had a good time with my old friends at lunch yesterday, picked up a couple of sweaters on sale (really cheap) at Talbots and got my hair cut. Oh and I worked for a few hours in the early day, so it was a productive day. I'm off work now until Thursday.

BIL and SIL from Portland OR are here this weekend so we are going to DS restaurant tonight. Seems to be a weekly thing since we are going next Friday as well.

I'm off to read the news about Hurricane Harvey. Have a satisfying Saturday!

Dealing with some depression as a new school year prepares to begin without me. Thirty plus years of preparing my buildings, planning teacher training and orientation, adjusting for last minute new student registrations.... WOW ! Funny, I'm not recalling the parents screaming about changing their child's teacher, the teacher supplies that never arrived, the custodians going ballistic when someone walked on freshly waxed terrazzo, the superintendent who wanted to reduce a grade level from ten sections to nine the week before school started.

We rented a dumpster to get rid of all of the excess treasures we have left, after combining two households. Even though we both weeded out, apparently not so much. Furniture we'll never use, lawn furniture left after going from two huge decks to one, cardboard from boxes. When it s removed Monday, we'll have a basement and a garage again.

Loving the cool nights and warm days. Hiking in the redwoods sounds great to me !!

I am starting to think about what it will be like to not do what I have done for 40 years... Though I won't miss the stress I think I will miss the challenge, the people, a reason to get dressed up, and possibly the routine.

Yes... all that ! Putting on the game face and the "power outfit" and pushing through the challenges is a well developed skill set I rarely get to use now. Have to think on that.

Weight: 135.8
Macros: Cals - 1,323 , Carbs - 145, Fat - 34, Protein - 88, Fiber - 25
Veggies/Fruits: 5
Sleep: 7 hours
Exercise: Aquarobics

My vacation and travel weight is going away nicely, for which I'm grateful. Today, I'll mow, do laundry, and prepare for a quiet week at home.

Liz and Diane, y'all's thoughts this morning about retirement have made me ponder my own retirement experience.

Pre-retirement, I too was concerned about missing aspects of my work life -- the challenges, adrenalin rushes of success, and the motivating benefits of stress. In fact, "retiring well" and "self care" were the two main issues I wanted to address when I entered therapy almost 3.5 years ago.

The first two years in therapy I designed a lot of retirement plans. I was going to be so very, very intellectual. So very, very productive. In other words, I wanted to become very much like the pre-retirement version of me, except that I wouldn't have clients, wouldn't travel for business. I kept saying things like, "I'd love to get another degree in something I haven't studied yet!"

Either the therapy or retirement itself (or both) have worked, because now (and especially after my Last Big Consulting Gig a few months ago) I find I could not care less about that stuff. I think that, since humans' biggest superpower is adaptation, we just adapt. And adapting takes time.

For me the greatest benefit of not working has been the pleasure of not multi-tasking. Not multi-tasking means I get to be so much more present than I was pre-retirement. Now, more of my senses are operating better more of the time, delivering a lot of information I wasn't getting before about my body, environment, emotions, and relationships.

I know that, if I'm lucky, retirement will last a long time and surely require me to adapt many more times. At some point I expect I'll be a widow and live alone. Surely, that change will bring even more challenges than active retirement has thus far.

During the last few decades of my mother's life (she died at 96-1/2 years) I often tried to cross-examine her about what it was like being 70, 80, or 90. Her patient reply was always, "I'm not sure, honey -- I've never been this age before."

So remembering my mother, today's theme is: Enjoy the wonder!

Thanks Ann - good to ponder...

Greetings Retirees and Dreamers

137.5 today. Gotta work on those unwelcome travel pounds.

Speaking as one *****tired at age 50, I can tell you its great. I had had enough of that stressful world and wanted to own my time and my mind and not have it busy with other people's problems all the time. But one has to have purpose and activity. I had always wanted to devote myself to art so that was a no brainer. I use my business skills with our studio and two galleries where I do finance stuff and generally keep us out of legal trouble. Tax planning, banking and so forth. Now I have to use my business head on my mom's estate which is going to take some doing. And I just got a call from her crazy friend who doesn't know about an annuity payment that my mom set up for her so I have to do all that for her. It does feel good to use that part of my brain from time to time.

So being retired is great for me and now that DH and I get social security and I get medicare its financially doable. We may even get to travel again one of these days since I held off because of my mom's condition. There are millions of fun things to do in retirement and Liz and Diane O you will easily find them.

Not sure whats up for today. Maybe I will take some new art to the gallery and go to the studio. I kind of hate being at the house all day.

Hey, new refrigerator comes Tuesday! Hows that for excitement.

I haven't heard hurricane news yet so I hope its not too bad.

Take care. Diane S

I tried to watch hurricane news a few hours ago and they didn't know much then about how bad the damage was (and because the storm is going to stall for a few days there will be excessive rainfall flooding damage coming later too).

Good Morning!

608 calories! My God, Liz..... I haven't been able to manage that caloric level since my first six or seven months out!

It's a gorgeous morning here, but promises to be very hot again - over 100. Yuck! My favorite temp is anywhere from 80-90 during the day, with a lovely drop into the low 60s at night. (Gotta have good sleeping weather! It's a CA thing. Most places on the eastern side of the country don't get the ocean chill at night to cool things down. We are very spoiled here in CA!)

My weight is slowly creeping back down to my "okay for now". The relaxation in attitude about and focus on my weight is all at once freeing and disturbing. I think I have conflicting feelings because my feelings were always conflicted about my weight, but with a much more negative spin. Now, instead of losing my mental cookies over my weight, becoming desperate and belittling myself for lack of compliance, fortitude, and control I am able to accept the reasons for my weight gain, current eating habits, tell the difference between emotional and binge eating. I am also able to acknowledge and delight in my physical strength and soundness and see that even though I am heavier than I ideally wish to be, I am "healthy fat". My annual labs done this week all came back in normal ranges - Glucose, Lipid panel, and all the other good old bariatric labs came back just fine. As a matter of fact, my HDL with which I struggle to keep in the >40 range was the highest it's ever been at 49.

All that to say as time goes on I seem to be finding myself less focused on achieving weight loss goals for the sake of fitting in clothes or looking "good". Instead I feel like a focus on over all health - physical, emotional, spiritual - is taking precedence. It's an interesting place to be. Peaceful reformation with an underlying curiosity sparked by observing the changes that roil conflicting internal dialogs, long held beliefs and feelings.

A delightful Saturday with time to indulge in reflection. Ahhhhhhh......

Health is what counts! The 608 just happened due to busyness and very low cal lunch and dinner. I'm making up for it today (almost at the number now @ 2, just after lunch).