Showing posts with label retired. Show all posts
Showing posts with label retired. Show all posts

Saturday, October 08, 2022

October? Really?

 Allllllllllrighty, then...

It's early October. I spent some time yesterday putting together a little 41 song playlist of one of my favorite songs, one we covered in Alaska Summer/Summersong back in '77, in The Last Frontier Band in '79, and on the cruise ships in (I think) '81. This new mini-infatuation with listening to versions of songs is made simple by Spotify and I'm having fun with it. If you have Spotify, I suggest listening in the app and sorting it by duration--that way you'll get any remasters/rereleases played back to back for comparison. And there's one lurking in there that's not a cover, but rather a song by the same name. I like to leave those in for fun. Fun fact: the 11+ "The End" Doors masterpiece was included in the search results originally and I almost left it in since in the duration sort it came at the end. Ha.

Listen (might take a moment to load):

 
On other fronts, I had a fun one-night camping experience at Cheatham Lock and Dam last week. I had intended to make it two nights but the first night's low was 46 degrees and the 2nd was predicted to hit 40 and I discovered over a long first night's "sleep" that I needed a little more gear. I have that now, and my upcoming road trip to Texas to see my much-loved bro' will be more comfy camping. It's a 12 hour + drive and I plan to break it up with a night camping at another US Corps of Engineers dam campground. I like dam campgrounds. Dam campgrounds are damn good. Here's the view from the fishing chair outside my new tent. This will soon be a painting.

pano at dusk, cheatham lake (really just a wide spot in the mighty cumberland river)

By the bye, I am loving my painting classes (really an "Open Studio") with Charles Brindley. I learn a little each time I am in the room with him, and the two classes a week for 3 hours duration are perfect. Here are the two pieces, one on canvas on one on upscaled 2x6 discarded lumber, that I most recently completed:

purple vetch, barbed wire, and montana

riders on a piece of brownland farm in franklin

That be all for the mo'. I'm not gonna promise to blog more regularly. Something about scheduliberatedness has made me comfortable with doing it when I do it and not when I don't. You should try it in all kinds of scenarios. It's a dam good thing (sic).




Saturday, June 11, 2022

Friday ramblings

Hi. My goal is to be mostly scheduliberated. I can do this.

Let's see. Today is Friday and as of 5:36 this morning I have no appointments, just a loose commitment to Rocky for breakfast in Ashland City. There is no time set for that but it'll likely be early, in the 7 to 8 o'clock range. According to my iWatch it's only 61 degrees out there so an early walk with Watson, my "Australian Healer," is also likely. I primed a few rescued pieces of scrap lumber for painting yeseterday, and I have the image of the eerie cinder block wall mystery exterior door up on both monitors for reference, just waiting for a paintbrush to touch the wood for the first time. One "canvas", 10 1/2" by 5 1/2",  awaits on the tabletop easel I treated myself to last week. I will continue my online mandolin class with Sierra and that's at least an hour, maybe two. I doctored the hot tub chemical balances yesterday but I will check with a test strip today and do that again if needed today, though that's improbable. I may need to go get new kitchen flowers today since the yellow roses I bought and set out three days ago seem to be choking already. None of them has necked but it's in the near future according to their sad look. If the wind remains still out, I plan to finally pull out my drone and get it airborne again. Lots to do.

That's my report for the morning. I will check back here and assess my day in late afternoon. My plan is to make sure I am living healthy, practicing self care, making/creating, and doing just fine without a schedule. My goal is to be mostly scheduliberated. I can do this.

Good? Good.

LATER

Hi again. Immediately after typing the above I went down a rabbit hole at about.me, revising my info to reflect my new status as retired. Contacted Rocky and verified 9am at Cody's. Now I'm off to walk with my best canine friend.

MUCH LATER

Saturday morning. Up late, like right around 7:30, and spent some time at my desk cruising Instagram and posted a pic from the work finished to date on a new painting. I fleshed it out yesterday and added to it today, Just pencil on primed pine 2x6 lumber around 10 or 11 inches wide. Here's the pic:


I'll wash and sponge paint and who knows what all with this one. I love that the lumber piece is flawed/scraped along the top. And I will likely carry the image along the sides and bottom like I did for the goingdown Rocky's driveway painting. I think I'm on to something. At any rate, it's fun, and it's a new body of creative work for me. Ya.

I met Rocky's at Cody's right at  did not do 9. We had eggs over easy, bacon, grits, and biscuits and gravy. A heavy breakfast but it served as lunch as well. I did not do my mandolin class. Instead, I decided to change my strings on my damaged A-5 Gibson mandolin and my father-in-law's Framus classical guitar. That took, friends and neighbors, around 2 1/2 hours to do right. Then it took maybe 45 minutes to play it into keeping a tuning, as strings kept sliding and thankfully finally tightened up. I had to google how to tie classical guitar strings at the bridge. I don't think the beautiful guitar had been restrung in 3 decades or more--my father-in-law had it hanging on his wall and to my knowledge never played it. It all worked, and I then noodled on the thing, improvisationally, for another 45 minutes. Time flies when you're having fun. 

I did treat the hot tub. I did not go buy flowers, though I did toss the old ones out and get the dishwasher run and the kitchen parred up to neatness. Nor did I drone. But look at how many good things I have to choose from tomorrow, and the next day! Today, Lee Ann's home and we're planning a Saturday together. That, I love

So, that's a one-shot window into my retirement plan. I will not be doing this sort of blog post often. My retirement plan is: do something creative every day, spend good time walking my old pup, fish when I can, exercise and eat well, be with friends or enjoy my own company as often as I can, and spend time with my lovely love whenever I can. Music. Art. Writing. Gardening. Being. Exploring.

More later.

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Scheduliberated!

 Happy birthday to me, celebrating 72 trips around Old Sol. AND happy retirement, only 2 days away as I write. I want to say a few things about retirement, or rather about the generally accepted social descriptor for it: "retired."

Thinking about actually being it, I began letting friends and colleagues know my plans a month or two ago. It took a good long while to jump through the hoops a "retiree" needs to master, but I was generally feeling pretty darned good about it all. Then I began noticing:  Nearly everyone who discusses it with me brings a number of negative connotations into our communication. 

"What are you going to do?" "Won't you be bored?" "You'll be looking for a part-time job, won't you?" "I'd be so bored." Or, from several folks' personal experience, "I got tired of sitting around at home, so I got this job/volunteered here. It keeps me busy." That's the  story I have heard from a tenured now 120 day former retiree in my school, from a clerk in a liquor store in Chattanooga, and from a dear man who brings meals to my school (soon my former school) on a weekly basis. I am certain that I'll hear it again.

Well. My dear old daddy used to tell us whiney boys, "If you're bored it's your own damned fault." Really, he did. And I took it to heart, I guess. 

  1. I will not be looking for a part-time job. Or a full-time job.
  2. I do not get bored. 
  3. I love my home and keeping it a nice place to be (which is work, by the way). 
  4. And I will be just as busy as I want to be. I'll fish, I'll write, I'll get better at my mandolin and my guitar and my  bass guitar. I'll draw and paint. I'll spend more time enjoying my life with its one true love, Lee Ann; I'll be more available to my beautiful children--Miranda and Tim and Colin and Kat; I'll explore Tennessee; I'll travel frequently/ I'll, I'll, I'll...God knows what, you can bet if it's interesting I'll be doing it.
What is a way to refer to retirement that does not drag in all the negatives? 

A search for synonyms at Thesaurus.com yields 29 synonyms for "retired." These are arranged in three tabs for one's viewing pleasure, according to that respectable resource. The next time a new aquaintance asks me the most common question any adult asks a new aquaintance, "What to you do do?," how do you think I might reply? Should I choose to respond with one of these? 
  • The first tab is "adj. having withdrawn from active life." Ow. Its examples are:
    • elderly
    • resigned
    • superannuated
    • emeritus, emerita (I kind of like that one)
    • in retirement
  • The second is "adj. having been withdrawn, with
    • detached
    • removed
    • secluded
    • sequestered
    • apart
    • isolated
    • retreated
    • seperated
    • withdrawn
    • distant
  • The third? "adj. done working"
    • discharged
    • humble
    • sequestered
    • withdrawn
    • inactive
    • retiring
    • immured
    • shy
    • cidevant
    • otiose
    • cloistered
    • secluded
    • superannuated
    • emeritus
    • unfrequented
What the hell does "otiose" mean, anyway? Further investigation brings up "idle," "indolent," "listless," and "slothful" as synonyms for otiose. Dig this: its definition at Dictionary.com is 

adjective
        1. being at leisure; idle; indolent.
        2. ineffective or futile.
        3. superfluous or useless.
So friends, I'm over it. That may be a little odd, since, really, I'm just beginning it. But here, I'm coining a word. Right here, right now. Ready?
New acquaintance: "So, what do you do?"
Me. "Oh, I'm(image from cooltext.com).
There. And, from my dear friends Matt amd Anitra, a birthday treat:






Aaaaaaaaand, May

 Hi y'all. May 6th here. Up in the morning and dedicated to getting something online for this month so here: Up at 6:30 a.m. after sleep...