This is getting ridiculous!

I really have to do better than once a year and I promise that I will. It has been an eventful year in so many ways. Even though I have been retired for two years, I have stayed on the board of the SDCTE and presented a session on poetry in February at the state convention. Then, on my return home, I slipped on ice in the driveway, broke my tibia, had surgery, a metal plate and four screws. Since I left the hospital in a wheel chair, my next stop was 2 and a half months in a nursing home. This was an enriching experience as I met many fascinating people with great stories. I still go to the nursing home to visit them several times a month. In addition I have a marvelous friend whose 93rd birthday we celebrated last Saturday. This is a fascinating woman who has had an incredible life.

I also managed to get my yard looking great and my house cleaned and organized with the help of three young teenagers. We lost a 75 year old elm in our front yard last summer. replaced it with a 25′ autumn blaze maple. This changed my shady front yard to a bright sunny garden, which mean replacing many of the plants I had planted there. We replace many of the perennnials last summer and now they are all blooming beautifully, mostly because we have had the snowiest winter and the rainiest summer in recent history.

Have been trying to convince my husband that a nice winter somewhere sunny would be just the ticket, but he doesn’t want to leave the house unwatched that long and all of our close neighbors head to Ariz. in November. We’ll see what happens.

So it is time that I start thinking of how to really use this blog for something other than a journal and start developing some deep thoughts here.

It really takes patience to follow this blog

Okay,
I was interupted in my before Christmas blog by getting violently ill and was sick for almost two weeks. That was not fun. And then I just got busy with a whole bunch of other things which kept me away from this. So instead of deep thoughts, I think I had better stick to just my daily life and see if anything of interest emerges. I did start my blogger blog, or rather revamp it from the one I used for my classes, to a review blog in which I am posting reviews of books I have read. I am several books behind so will be posting there about every other day until i get caught up. i WILL put a link on here to that blog and also to my twitter if anyone wants to tweet me.
So I am going to jump over January and February and get right to this week. Well sort of. I have two book clubs, my terrestial book club and a celestial book club which I started with other talkie English teachers. We meet once a month online at
Tappedin.org and discuss a book that a member has chosen for that month. This Saturday we are going to discuss Sarah’s Key which sort of spooked me out but is an interesting book. My Terrestial book club meets the first Wednesday of every month and our book for next Wednesday is _My Stroke of Insight_ written by a stroke survivor, but too much like an anatomy lecture for my taste. I kept falling asleep all the time I was reading it. I am now reading the first book of the Sookie Stackhouse series and starting Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin. It was recommended to me by a friend whose book club I am visiting in April when they discuss The Catcher in the Rye.

I now have the distinction of having two dear friends waiting on transplant lists, one is here at home on home dialysis and waiting for a kidney, the other is in St. Mary’s hospital in Rochester, MN waiting for new lungs. So if anyone reads this, please pray for them.
Had lunch with a friend Monday and then went to the library and signed up for a new book discussion group which is starting April 9th. Thenup to the hospital to visit the young teacher who got my old job and who just had her second baby boy. Today was another of my lazy days though I think I will get my kitchen cleaned during commercials while watching TV tonight.
Tomorrow i go to an orthopod to see why I have persistant back and hip pain after walking short distances. So that is the update for today. Peace to all.

Christmas is acomin’ and not only the goose is getting fat

Well, here I am a week before Christmas and I still haven’t cleared space for my Christmas tree or done any specific Christmas baking. But since it is only Art and Me for Christmas, and we never decorate the tree until Christmas Eve, I still have time.

It is amazing to me how fast time flies. I thought once I quit working it would slow down, but my goodness. It seems to be Saturday before I know it. Saturday is when I have a standing coffee date with my old department head who retired with me, and three other teachers who are also retired. We try to get together on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I missed this Wednesday because it was below zero and I have a heart condition which means I should avoid really cold weather.

I have been busy spending money I probably shouldn’t but I have to keep the economy going. I just got connected to broadband internet a couple of weeks ago and hooked up a router so now I have wireless internet in my house. The only computer I have that is wireless is my new laptop, which I love, but it is really hard to type on as the cursor keeps skipping. So I bought a wireless mouse and keyboard which is really slick. I also got a wireless printer/copier/scanner but haven’t hooked it up yet.

February 4 – 2009

Okay, long gap. I suddenly got violently ill in the middle of this post and spent the next two weeks not enjoying life that much. Then just as I got over that I got a cold that lasted three weeks. So I will post a happy new years post when I get back from coffee today. Sorry for the long delay.

OOps! how’s that for publishing in the middle of a word. anyway, I am watching lots of movies that I missed and have downloaded the whole second season of Dexter to my computer since we don’t get showtime. I also invested in a Kindle and now have 25 books on it. They are cheaper than print books and also save me shelf space. If I read something I really want to have on my shelf, I can always order it. I also started an online book club with several other talkies. I have gotten in touch with a couple of colleagues who have also retired and we go out to coffee, for lunch, to movies, to retired teachers, and volunteer at some nursing homes. Yesterday we went on the tour of homes decorated for Christmas. These are the kind of homes teachers will never live in. Wow, one was two stories with a complete house complete with three bedrooms, three baths, and kitchen, family room, dining room and living room and office on each floor. Unbelievable.Now I have to think of what I will do with the rest of this year to make it profitable, in life experiences, if not monitarily. One of the cool things is that I have made a 91 year old friend at one of the assisted living homes. We go out about once every two weeks so that I can take her to do some shopping, out to lunch, and anything else she wants to do. She is amazing and as bright as anyone I know. She has a walker, but usually just steadies herself on my arm when we are out shopping. It is amazing the world you can find once you stop the grind and really have 24hours a day of free time. I’ll worry about getting more organized next year. One vow, I will try to add to this each week on Monday or Friday.

I am really bad about posting to this blog. It has been months and now we are close to the end of the year and my first semester of retirement. So I will try to catch up on a little of what has been going on in my life, or not going on as the case may be. Some of the things that haven’t happened. I have not signed up to substitute, in fact I have only been back to the school once to return some books that I had at home. I have more in the trunk of my car that I have to get up there, but think I will wait until it gets a little warmer. I haven’t written the great American novel yet, though I have been reading voraciously. And I didn’t go to NCTE in San Antonio even though I had reserved a hotel room and registered for the conference. It really bums me out that I missed it, especially since I had not been to San Antonio since I was a child. But I have some health problems that keep me from any long trips right now. Back problems which interfeer with my walking very far. But some things have been accomplished. Art and I pretty much hung around the house and Yankton this summer. I am still unpacking from the things I brought home from school, and doing three years spring/fall cleaning at the same time. Of course I work in one room for half an hour, read for an hour or watch a movie, then work in another room for a while. At this rate I may get it all done by my 70t birthday. In September, taking advantage of the lower prices after the season and the fact that for the first time in many years I could take a vacation during the school year, Art and I drove out to the Black Hills, Custer specifically. It was very nice except that we both had some kind of intestinal upset for about three days of the trip. Kind of cancelled our plans to go on the 1812 railroad which was used in the movie Dances With Wolves. Oh well, there is always next year. But when we got back, we decided that we had better cancel our San Antonio trip until both of us could get around a little better. Maybe next year in Philadelphia. I have watched lots of movies tha

I guess I am not going as slowly as I expected.

Well, I thought I would take it very easy, do nothing for a while, maybe actually dig out my house, but so far things have not gone as I expected.

I have read several books. Was fascinated by The Night Watch by Sarah Waters. I wanted to read it all over when I finished it to catch the clues I had missed the first time through. But I had to read The Innocent Man for my “terrestial” book club before July 2nd. My celestial book club meets on July 10th and I am to lead the dicussion of The Nigh Watch so I will get busy here soon.

In the meantime, a good friend of mine who runs a marvelous little gift and kitchen supply shop downtown fell and broke three bones in her foot last Thursday. Her husband, who just retired this year from being department chair of the English department I taught in, took over running the store. The only problem is that he is doing periteneal dialysis and has to do an exchange at noon each day. Being a good friend, I volunteered to watch the shop over the hour and half he has to be gone each day. It has been fun and I am always proud when I make a sale, but I need to  get some work done in my house. I don’t think I will really feel retired until I get the house cleaned out and life simplified.

Oh, and I keep ordering more books all the time! God help me, I will need to live to a hundred and five to finish all of them. In the meantime I am hoping to get on a weekly schedule of blogging here and entertaining the two people who read it with the trivia of my daily life.

I did some planning for the future though. We are going to Lincoln, NE over the 4th to go to my brother’s open house. His son, daughter-in-law, and baby grandson have come home from Norway and we will all meet Gunnar for the first time. Chad, my nephew, has been stationed in Norway. He is in the Navy, bombed Baghdad, taught at Fallon in the Top Gun School, and now if part of the NATO mission in Norway, though that tour is over and he will probably finish out his career as an instructor at Falon.

Then being really optimistic, I registered for the NCTE Convention and made hotel reservations in San Antonio. I have not made plane tickets yet because I am hoping my husband will go with me. I think it would be a very romantic place to take a third honeymoon since we just celebrated our 40th anniversary.

I also attended my 50th class reunion which was a blast. I don’t know where all those old people came from, though.

Well, that is all for now. Hope to have something more interesting to post next week. Have a good week or summer or whatever.

Stepping More Slowly Than Expected.

Here I am again, almost a week later. I thought that I would post more frequently, but I couldn’t consider myself officially retired until my room was cleaned out and everything packed up, keys and policy, handbooks, activities book, etc. turned in and signed by me and the principal. That all occurred finally last Friday at 2:00.

Saturday and Sunday were my collapse time. I just vegged, watched TV, read most of Sea Glass which is my book-club book for Wednesday, and did very little else. Oh, Saturday morning I did go down to the Pantry and had morning coffee and homemade rhubarb muffins with my colleague Mr. Anderson who is been my department head and is retiring with me, and also who was the baker of above mentioned muffins. The Pantry belongs to his wife. We were joined by the Fischers, also colleaguesof ours who retired several years ago, Mrs. Van Gerpen, a retiree from a near by town, and a young lady who graduated three years ago. This is our usual Saturday morning coffee group.

I took my first official retiree step Monday morning when I finally turned off my clock radio alarm. It will not be turned on again unless I have an appointment or have to catch an early flight somewhere – maybe Reno and maybe San Antonio next November.

Monday I also started working on cleaning out my house, packed up a couple of bags of books to give to a friend, and made some real head way in three rooms.

Today I got up and decided it would be a busy day. So I went back down to the Pantry and had coffee with Mrs. Anderson, the owner, then I went up to the high school and gave my bags of books to Jodie. Then on to the mall and Penny’s where I made an appointment to get my hair cut, bought some thin socks for summer, and three darling baby outfits for a former student, now colleague whose baby shower is going to be held as part of our book club tomorrow. I stopped for a healthy lunch at The Body Guard, and then on to the Senior Citizen’s Center. No not to join it, it is where our precinct votes.

I need to thank Jan Bone for the phone call. Unfortunately Jan did not leave her phone number so I could not call her back. Jan is a faithful Obama worker, but I could not help her out. I am registered as a Republican, so could only vote in the Republican primary, but I was able to vote for a former student for the state house, and Ron Paul.

Now I am home, reading email, playing a little solitaire on the computer, reading my email, and adding to this blog.

Things to do today: Finish Sea Glass, Finish cleaning kitchen so I have all counters clean (I will do refrigerator and stove tomorrow), and doodle around with some ideas I am developing for writing either some short stories or a full length novel. No more about that now, I don’t want to jimx it.

Thank you all on the list serv who wished me well in retirement, and all of my friends who commented on my blog. As soon as I figure out how, I will add links to some of your blogs.

Hello world!

Here I am, just starting a new phase of my life and a brand new blog to record it in. In one more day I will be retired after 31 years in the school system, 7 as a substitute teacher and 24 years as an English teacher/oral interp/assistant debate/theatre director.

I don’t know what this retirement gig is going to be like, but I am hoping to keep up this blog on the whole experience. It is funny I decide to blog on this. I have had a heart attack, a stroke, a year on dialysis, a kidney transplant, diabetes, and another near heart attack, and didn’t journal on any of those.

Evidentally I find this a more important event. Now I just have to see if I can keep this up. Two things happened this weekend. I went to my 50th high school class reunion and to my probably last graduation and million graduation parties. Tomorrow I go up to school and try to get the last of my room cleaned up and disposed of. We’ll see how that, and this blog go.