Retirement Musings and Everyday Delights
One thing you have to figure out in retirement is how much structured time you need. How full do you want your calendar to be at the beginning of the week? My summer schedule includes tutoring twice a week and dragon boating three times a week. On top of that I'll usually have a few … Continue reading Amorphous Blobs of Time
September is a mixed month. It has some of the best weather of the year, but it's hard to separate that from the sense of foreboding about what comes next. You see the leaves change colour, and you think, "I'm not ready yet! Spring and summer went by too fast!" You have to keep reminding … Continue reading In the September of Our Lives
I went to university wanting to become a special-needs teacher. My goal was to work with children in a one-on-one setting, but you had to teach in a classroom setting, which required speaking in front of people. I couldn't do that back then, so I changed the plan. Helping kids learn to read and write … Continue reading Volunteering in Retirement
We had our second dragon boat festival last weekend, competing against teams from Belleville, Kingston, Trenton, Cobourg, and Peterborough. Brighton entered two competitive mixed teams and one recreational team. After the morning heats, both our competitive teams made it into the A-Division finals, along with the team we beat by two-tenths of a second in … Continue reading Chodura Family Paddle-Sail-Swim-Bike-Run Race Weekend
It's been a while since my last post. I was in a slump for a bit. Before I retired, what I loved most about my job was digging for answers. Solving puzzles. Searching for the needle in the haystack. I've learned that I need that in retirement too, whether that comes from researching a vacation, … Continue reading And the seasons, they go round and round
Contentment comes from being satisfied with what you have. Complacency is when you feel so satisfied that you don't change anything. Can you be content without becoming dull and boring? Is it okay to be dull and boring if you're content? The fine line between contentment and complacency inspired my "60 at 60" list. I'm … Continue reading 60 at 60: Successes and Failures
Seven years into retirement, my best advice for soon-to-be retirees would be 'know yourself'. People often say that once we hit a certain age, we stop caring what other people think. That's probably because, generally speaking, when we reach a certain age we know who we are, so what others think about us no longer … Continue reading Bagels, Boats and Butterflies
I said to Ray the other day that we're kind of at the peak of our lives. We're healthy, our friends and family are healthy, and after decades of saving, we own our own time. When everything is going great in life, there's always that niggling awareness that it can't last forever; that we have … Continue reading Windows of Time
We competed in our first dragon boat festival of the season, a full-day event with 69 teams entered. Our club put in a women's team and a mixed team and we finished second in each of our divisions. We only had 33 paddlers and there are 20 per boat, so the women did double duty. … Continue reading Paddling Through My Insecurities
Ray started his ride at 7:30 this morning, hoping to beat at least some of the afternoon heat, with temperatures expected to reach 40 celsius with the humidity today. When our article came out in the Globe & Mail, we didn't expect it to increase donations, but we hoped it might reach someone who was … Continue reading And he’s off…in record-breaking heat
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