During the past three months I have stayed close to home and hibernated during a harsh Canadian winter. With retirement there has been no need to leave the house on miserable days and I don’t stress out about commuting when there is snow or ice or very cold weather. I don’t ‘have’ to go anywhere. […]
Lifestyle
A week of reading and media deprivation
I did it. Last week I began a week of reading and media deprivation lasting from Sunday evening to Sunday evening. I made it through the week. While the experiment yielded mixed results, it certainly made me aware of some of my habits and provided incentives to make some changes in how I spend my […]
Are you sick and tired of winter yet?
It’s January 26 and I’m getting sick and tired of winter. Short Ontario days with limited sunshine, lots of snow, treacherous icy sidewalks and cold temperatures make outside activities difficult especially with my limited mobility after the hip surgery. My beautiful leather boots are salt-stained. My car resembles a big dirty ice-cube from driving around […]
How Life Changes can Decrease your Holiday Stress
Two weeks to go before the big day! Everywhere there are reminders that the holiday season is here. The morning paper arrives filled with sale flyers; the email in-box is full of promotions, radio stations are playing Christmas tunes, and TV stations are re-running the classic Christmas movies. By today, most people are deep into […]
For Everything There Is a Season
Pete Seeger’s well known song “Turn! Turn! Turn!” popularized the Biblical phrase ‘for everything there is a season and a purpose under heaven”. Weather patterns, daylight hours, and the angle of the sun changes as the Ontario summer evolves into autumn. The pace of daily life also changes with the change of seasons. Suddenly the […]
Guess who's coming to dinner?
Sunday night dinners are sacred in many families. In our home, these events have often been rushed with the over-riding anxiety of all of the Sunday evening commitments that needed to be completed before leaving for the office early on Monday morning. No more. Now I am able to plan and to enjoy the fun […]
Summertime
“Summertime and the living is easy” is the first line of a well-loved Gershwin song. Making a choice to retire just as a Southern Ontario summer begins was fortuitous as this season offers unlimited delights for postworksavvy. During the past five days I have savoured freshly picked raspberries, celebrated both Canada Day and Independence Day […]
Every day is a choice
As the post work era begins making choices that will lead to happiness is important. Because so much of the time during the work and career phase of life was programmed and scheduled, the freedom to hear the beat of a different drummer can be a challenge. You are responsible for the choices you make. Each […]
Retirement Reflections
A few days ago I had the privilege of attending a ‘retirement reflections’ seminar that was presented by five former colleagues and their spouses. They were presenting to about a dozen people who were working in similar leadership roles in child protection agencies and who were in the happy position of contemplating retirement within the […]
Those gloomy days
This is a day when I am fighting the heaviness of an overall gloomy feeling — not because anything particularly ‘bad ‘ has happened but because the day has passed without any strong sense of accomplishment. For someone who has been psychologically programmed to expect daily accomplishments through constant reinforcements that come from career achievements, […]
