I guess part of adjusting to retirement is finding a healthy balance in what you do every day. My wife and I just spent three relaxing weeks in Palm Springs, having gone back there after having returned home a month earlier. It’s a lot nicer to sit out by the pool in the sunshine than hide in our regular home from the rain. We didn’t do much – pool for a few hours in the morning and then again in the late afternoon for a few hours (4:30-6:30 or so). In between we either hid in the air-conditioned house reading, surfing the net, or went to the air-conditioned mall or movie theater. The trips to the theater resulted in my seeing Ironman 3, Star Trek: Into the Darkness and The Great Gatsby. Ironman 3 and Star Trek were both viewed in IMAX 3D which was awesome.
I’m one of those people who is interested in lots of stuff; that is, I know a little about lots of things but not a lot about a few things. In short, I’m kinda curious. The internet, wonderful tool ( read: time eater) that it is allows me to explore the many things that pique my interest which ultimately leads me down the rabbit hole that is difficult to escape from.
I don’t know how I got there, but my latest line of internet queries has led me to the possibility of building an electric car, energy self-sufficiency, earthship construction (environmentally sustainable housing – query it), emergency preparedness including living off the grid and preparing for the coming (armageddon, collapse, peak oil, nuclear war…insert your favorite tribulation here_________). Interesting stuff to be sure, but it’s a little unsettling to know that so many people are expecting things to get really bad in the short term. And here I am a mere 14 months into my retirement. Having said all this, there sure are a lot of creative people out there practicing their skills at keeping themselves and their families safe no matter what is thrown at them.
Spending most of my money on a remote plot of land, building sustainable housing off the grid, and raising chickens, cows, pigs and operating a garden or greenhouse – as romantic as that notion is – seems like an awful lot of work – which certainly doesn’t fit with my view of retirement. If the shit hits the fan, I, like most other people will have to figure out how to get by on the fly.
Note to self: Stay away from scary internet sites that suggest the world as we know it is about to end…and find something else to do…
On the running front I’ve settled on running 5k’s every second day or so, with the occasional longer run thrown in. Much more than that and I start hurting in places that force me to back off a bit. All in all I’m happy with the fact that I’ve been running consistently for over a year without a significant injury.
Back to digging my bunker…Just kidding…. 🙂