It's Hollyhock Time Again

Cerrillos, New Mexico
1997

Some years ago on our first trip to New Mexico, we saw these hollyhocks blooming in the little town of Cerrillos along the Turquoise Trail that runs between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. I never forgot the sight and hoped to have some hollyhocks of my own someday.

I feel so lucky that my wish came true. We not only have our hollyhocks, but we also have some warm adobe walls to give us shelter and to act as a background for our flowers. 

All of these hollyhocks and the ones out in the back of the house are descendants from a little handful of seeds given to me by my knitting friend, Diane. That was maybe four years ago. Many of you who are reading this have received seeds in the mail from me; relatives of these hollyhocks are growing all around New Mexico and in Arizona, California, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Oregon, Texas, and Virginia.

The original plants from the first year have spread and spread. Little seedlings spring up in unusual places. Sometimes I move them to a better spot, and sometimes I just let nature take its course. 

The new hollyhocks fill in empty spots where I haven't been able to grow other plants. They don't seem to care if I forget to water them, although they do appreciate every drop they get. 

The original plants from 2011 are still going strong although they are not as tall as their daughters

The flowers catch the early morning light in a way that makes my heart glad. 

It is very hard to capture that with my little cell phone camera. 

It feels to me that this colorful garden is a culmination of a lifetime of hard work and planning--not planning for flowers, but for retirement and a place to live in the sun. 

The flowers just make this part of our lives even more lovely. 

New Discovery: Dogs Can Listen, Appreciate Science, and Salivate Concurrently

As you might expect, our dogs are quite interested in matters pertaining to veterinary science. Beez was recently reading an article to them from The Economist (Hot Spots; How Changing Farming Habits Threaten Human Health) about livestock-to-human transmission of diseases, and they were absolutely riveted by his description of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever. 

... Or were they?

Hint: Look closely (click to enlarge) and you will see the plate of bread and cheese balanced on Beez's chest.
Everyone in our house can multitask, even the recently-retired guy.

Travels with Andy: Some Really Good Reading

I've been spending a bit of time every day reading Andy Baird's blog, Travels with Andy. He tells about his experiences on the road as a full-time RVer, and how he discovered that he could retire at 55 and live very comfortably.

Some years back, Andy learned in a retirement seminar that he wouldn't be able to even think about retiring until he had savings, pension, and Social Security income to equal 80-90% of his working salary, and he figured out that would mean having at least $800,000 in the bank. Discouraged, he formulated another approach--the "die at your desk" plan, which essentially meant that he would never be able to retire.

To see how he got from that low point to being able to retire at age 55, you will have to read the website. Even if you aren't interested in becoming a full-time RVer (I'm not, although Andy makes it sound awfully good), you will still learn about culling your possessions, selling your home, living well on a reduced income, buying the best digital camera, taking wonderful photographs, traveling on a shoestring, which state has the best parks, designing space-saving storage, how Amazon.com's membership can pay off, all about buying a Mac (computer) and/or a new car for a rock bottom price (without raising your blood pressure or losing your dignity), and lots and lots of other wonderful things that keep me up reading about Andy's world late into the night.

You'll also find that you can help support Andy's website by using this address (bookmark it to make it easy) each time you go to the Amazon.com page to place an order. It doesn't cost you anything, but Andy gets a few cents for each referral. If I haven't explained the process clearly, just go to Andy's Shameless Commerce page to read about how it works in Andy's own words.

Joie de Vivre; Alegría de Vivir

Frozen fountain on our patio

We've all heard the stories. An older person finally retires, ready to rest and full of plans. Once faced with limitless leisure time they freeze up and don't know what to do with it. The next thing, we hear about them going back to work "just to keep busy."

During the first few months of my retirement, we were moving from New Hampshire to New Mexico, so my time was taken up with that chore for a while. Once the boxes were unpacked and the curtains hung in our Clovis house, I started doing all the deferred reading I had longed to do after years of being immersed in children's literature. Adult books! Library trips once a week! Books by the armload!

It took a while, but I eventually looked up, bleary-eyed, from the books and realized that I wanted to be with people. And so it went, step by step. I found some volunteer work, a wonderful women's group, and new friends.

Now that we are in Las Cruces, my list of things that I want to do keeps growing and growing. I want to learn more about:

• Digital photography
• Digital movie making
• Speaking Spanish
• Quilt making
• Spinning
• More knitting
• More reading
• Blogging
• Bird watching
• Star gazing
• Animal tracks
• Local geology
• Desert gardening
• Archeology
• Local history
• Oral history

I want to explore:

• Las Cruces restaurants
• Mesilla Valley wineries
• The Rio Grande Theater
• The Fountain Theater
• Garden centers
• Museums
• Libraries
• Art galleries
• The University
• Local parks
• Ethnic grocery stores
• Mountain and desert trails
• Older neighborhoods

There's probably more on my list of things to do, but I'm just relieved to get this much written down for future reference. As I try all of these things, you'll be reading about them on my blog.

Back to School

Grandchildren off to first day of school (photo taken by their mom)

It's time for children and their teachers to go back to school, and it's the beginning of my second school year of retirement. I love all the memories of working with children, but I love my days now, too.

I'm looking forward to resuming my volunteer job as reading tutor one morning a week at one of the local schools. I continue to enjoy the idea of no plan books, no staff meetings, no professional development outlines, and no classroom discipline issues. No dealing with the latest new educational philosophy, or the latest in a changing cast of administrators. (You can tell I was so ready for retirement).

No schedule. It's a good life.

Anniversary

Today I am celebrating the end of my first year of retirement. It seems to have gone by quickly but when I take stock of what has been accomplished, I am amazed. I ended my last school year early because of foot surgery and while I was still stumping around in a cast we packed up our house in New Hampshire, took a fast trip out to Clovis to find a new house, and then moved cross country. During this past year I have figured out how to "do" retirement; I've found great joy in volunteering at a local school (see the thank you note from my young friend, Anjelica) and in the adult literacy program at the community college. I've joined a wonderful group of women who knit for needy families. My husband and I bought a second house and have rented it to my sister--it is so wonderful to have her close by. I have started swimming several times a week and have spent a lot of time riding through neighborhoods on my bike. I read whenever I want. I meet new people every day.

I've made three of the My Clovis videos now and have posted them on this blog and on YouTube. I love to see who has been watching them, and am amazed that people as far away as Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands have taken a look at my view of this prairie place.

This blog has become an important part of who I am. The written word has become a piece of my daily life and I continually work to improve both my writing and my photography. Because of this blog I see, hear, and experience almost everything in a much more intense way. I love exploring my new part of the world and learning about its history, its places, and its people, then writing about it for my imaginary audience of readers who live far away from this wonderful place. Today's post will be my 156th, something I never could have imagined. When I first started blogging I wondered what I could possibly have to say, but it ended up that I needed to write about prairie dogs, posole, cowboy boots, radio telescopes, charity knitting, adobe houses, curanderas, Harvey Houses, chuck wagons, and tarantulas. Who knew?

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reads this blog and those who have left comments. You have no idea how much you mean to me.

The U-Shaped Happiness Pattern

Imperfect Peace

Slate Magazine, in The Midlife Happiness Crisis, reports on "a new study by economists David Blanchflower of Dartmouth and Andrew Oswald of Warwick. They document how happiness evolves as people age. While income and wealth tend to rise steadily over the life cycle, peaking around retirement, happiness follows a U-shaped age pattern... Happiness starts off relatively high in early adulthood, then falls, bottoming out on average around age 45, and then rises after that year and on into old age."

As a relatively new retiree, I'd like to second that notion. Retirement is a wonderfully happy time, after you've done a bit of adjustment. First, you have to get over the guilt you feel when everyone else seems to be zipping off to jobs and stress in the morning. Then you just have to find a way to use the lovely gift of time that you've been given, in a nice balance of service to others and giving yourself permission to do all the things you've been wanting to do--and hoping for the physical capability to do all those things.