Whatcha At?

My blog friend Tom has a great post on retirement.

Which got me thinking about successful retirement. Redefining oneself.

There are many retired teachers and some retired professors in my community. And truth tell they "do" a lot of TV and shopping. By "Shopping" I mean driving in and out of town, which here is the capital city of St. John's about 1-1/2 hours one way on the "Old Road", maybe an hour on the highway. And it always involves many carts rattling out of Costco.

Shed life is big here. The Boys gather in sheds and work on "stuff" like trucks and snowmobiles and boats and generators and ATVs which are used for hunting. Hunting and fishing are huge and there's no retirement age from either.

Women volunteer in church: cleaning and altar fixing and choir committees and parish committees and church fundraising. If they have spare time (church volunteering becoming a dead art, so to speak) they community volunteer in card games for seniors, exercise class and library duty and 50+ club events.

Whatcha at? Is an all purpose catchphrase here. Used when you pick up the phone. I've adopted it as it is quick to the chase. "Whatcha at?" they say to me. "Oh, I'm knitting," I say, or "Getting ready for a walk", "watching Netflix", etc. And you're off and running with a conversation.

I hung out a small tax service shingle, metaphorically speaking, this year. I had basically terminated my tax business a few years back, apart from a few diehards, but felt a little financial need due to power bills being so enormous in NL. You can be freezing your arse off and the bill can be $400 for the month. Full heat would be close to a $1,000. And that's with a wood burning stove. As I type this, I'm cold. And I have had a huge cold tolerance. No more. I'm looking forward to moving in the fall so that next winter won't be a financial worry. I will be warm and the bill will be less than a quarter of what I pay now!

My time is always full. I had 3 clients drop in this morning. I have my volunteer municipal job that I love. I'm building a data base for the town library. I continue to write. I am taking bookings for my hospitality Airbnb and that will keep me busy from Spring on to late September. Needs must. And yes, knitting products for sale. Thinking of getting an Etsy account to sell on line perhaps. And cards. I sell my own cards too.
I'm a wearer of many hats.

Bored? What's that?

So - Whatcha At my friends?

30 Days - Day 11

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It made for a long day today as I was volunteering for all of the afternoon followed by the Volunteer Dinner. Pro bono, I put together the monthly financial statements for a recycling/recreation/community project group. Bigger than it sounds as there are quite a lot of transactions needing the right pocket to fall into for presentation to council, etc.

The photo above I took in the general area, I drove out a ways on the "arm" (i.e. localese for "bay") and took Ansa for a walk and found this old boat which begged of me a shot. I wanted to lie down and angle a little upwards but the dirt was not accommodating and it wouldn't look well to show up for the din with clay falling off me.

Food was cold plate which always leaves me hungry, don't know why. But a jolly evening, I escaped just before 8 as there were reports of moose gallivanting along the road, released from winter confinement in the hills perhaps.

Right now, I'm boiling up some kidney beans on the woodstove having soaked them for 24 hours. I'm going to make my famous chili and freeze many wee pots of it.

Oh yes, on Friday morning I have a semi-public read-through of my mystery dinner theatre play. I hadn't read it in 6 months as those who commissioned it wintered in Arizona. But now they're back and rearing to go with it. I did a read through by myself this morning and I must say I'm delighted with it.

Usually with such a time lapse I find many flaws with my writing but these characters hold their own and are hysterically funny and the whodunit was a bit of a shocker even to me.{grin}

I love surprising myself and I'm so glad that the project is back on stream.

30 Days - Day 10

Dear Faithful:

Thank you for the encouragement!

I had the most wonderful email from Grandgirl today. She's off to India for a stretch in a few days with her prof and a few other students. She's just finished her 3rd year university and went to a "tea" last Saturday in a prof's house. 12 out of 130 were chosen. Sorry -
Grandma brag now over. But she is doing so very well and I'm so very proud of her.

I conducted accounting software training today locally. I take on the odd job, it pays a little and it also keeps me fresh on software updates, the whole field is changing so very rapidly. All is now in the Cloud. I am glad of these opportunities to keep me abreast.

I am thinking of renting out more of my house for the summer and have evaluated the situation with regard to furnishing an extra room here and getting some painting done. There is a huge shortage of accommodations in the hospitality industry in Newfoundland and it might be an opportunity to bring my income to above the official poverty level. For some reason I aspire to New Mexico for the whole month of February. Year uncertain. But. Dry heat. Desert. Georgia O'Keeffe.

Tomorrow night I (along with some others) get honoured at a volunteer appreciation dinner. I honestly don't think I deserve this as I would have done more earlier in life but I was a single mom with two kids and two jobs followed by Grandgirl duty (and I cherished every single minute I had her to care for) and there was never a minute it seemed.

Now I have the minutes and they give me a prezzie AND a din-din and applause. I never got that as a single mom of two run ragged did I? {smile}.

I sincerely wished they didn't do this but it would be so rude not to show up.