Yeah...well...

How time flies whether you're having fun or not....

So, it's been over a year since I last blogged.  And -yikes- what an expensive first year!  They never covered this in those retirement seminars!

2013 was the first year I couldn't do my own taxes. Things became complicated after Mom died. The way she put together her trust involved monies I would get after her death. But these weren't insurance monies. Nope- it meant taxes. Big time. And, for the first time in my life, I paid taxes. I have never, ever written a check that large. And this year I learned:

1. Unless I go back to work, I will never be able to use IRA contributions as a way to lessen my taxes.
2. I will never, ever overpay my taxes through income tax deductions. My former employer via the Pension Office errs on the side of not taking out enough for employees, The days of the income tax refund are gone, baby, gone.
3. Health costs become a big part of deductions. So do charitable contributions,  If you don't have those, you pay a much higher tax bill.

2013 was the year I started addressing my home's infrastructure.  I hadn't been able to do that when I was care-taking and working full-time. So- exterior boards were replaced; my fence gate was replaced; the house was painted; the water damage from the roof leak was addressed. I thought I was making a good start. Then, then, then.....SURPRISE!  

The slab leak.

First, I blamed the cats. I'd taken them with me on vacation and I thought they were paying me back by wetting the carpet. Then, my neighbor knocked on my door. There was a puddle in her living room. Had I had any problems? Uhhhhhh.....  Her landlord's maintenance guy concluded that the leak was NOT on her side. He very kindly turned my water off and managed to turn it off permanently- as my plumber and I discovered later. Well, darn! I started looking for plumbers and renewed my digging out efforts.  

Three different plumbing companies came to give estimates.   

1. The first was not sympathetic about why my house was in such a state and he did not hide it.  Looked great from the outside. Inside- not so much. The first identified the problem as a slab leak- not the 70s-colored hot water heater going out in a flood of glory. Since the slab leak was under the stairs and tearing up the stairway wasn't a viable option, repiping the house was the only way to go. And- as part of the repiping, he proposed running a pipe outside and up the exterior of my back wall.  I'm not a plumber but that sounded wrong. He gave me an estimate which turned out to be the lowest.  
2. The second was a plumbing contractor recommended by a Facebook friend.  He silently went through out the house with me apologizing and explaining. He sent me an estimate that was over three times as much as the first guy. This was his winsome, yet effective, way of telling me that he did NOT want my business.
3. The third estimator was sympathetic.  Like the first, he explained what needed to be cleared and what needed to be moved. Unlike the first or second, he had been through the caretaking experience and understood. He said he would work with me. His estimate was higher than the first contractor's but I felt more secure with this guy. He got the job.

Clean up and decluttering are somehow trickier without access to water. My next door neighbor let me get water for toilet flushing from her hose. Another neighbor gave me keys to her house so I could take showers and wash my hair.  I spent a small fortune on bottled water.  I hired the men who replaced my decayed exterior boards and siding to help with the garage and it was whipped into -at least- good enough shape that the plumbers could get to the walls they needed to get too. I tackled the inside myself. It was a long process.  I had to get help at the last to move a large piece of furniture out of my kitchen. And weeks later, the work I did clearing things up was enough to get the repiping done. For extra measure, I had them install new toilets, replaced the harvest gold water heater, and replaced the garbage disposal unit which decided to die when the water returned.

The house is still a work in progress.  There's a lot to be done yet but I need to save to get them done. 

And- I made my will. Planning for a time when you're not around is a very sobering experience. Yes- another yikes-inducing chunk of change was involved.

Yes, 2013 was a very expensive year.  I do love understatements.

So- do I regret retiring when I did?  No. Having more money to work with would have helped, but retiring meant I had the time to handle these challenges. I would NEVER have been able to get time off work to deal with these challenges. I hadn't had a vacation since the mid-1990s. And I would have been even more exhausted by the staff shortages. And--- I wouldn't have been able to do what I needed to do for me. Like addressing health and well-being issues.  When you don't address your own infrastructure issues as they occur, you pay both monetarily and physically. I'd been flat out ignoring myself while I was a caretaker. I was warned not to do that. But- like many caretakers- I felt there was no time for the luxury of doctor's or dentist's appointment if it wasn't case of dire need. Being retired, gave me the time I needed to make a start on addressing my needs.  And- wow- did that addressing add to the health cost deductions for FY 2013.  

And- if I hadn't stopped working and retired when I did- I wouldn't have been able to take yoga lessons, take Tai Chi, taking a painting class, go on Lunch and Learn trips, join a choir at church, take Wednesday night classes at church like the cooking class, join the local historical society, fully experience One Spark, attend the theatre, do group meditation, or go to concerts.  I would have been sick, exhausted, angry, and resentful and feeling very undervalued. I saw that coming while I was still working because I was feeling those feelings. For me, it was a no-brainer. It was time to go. It really felt more like escaping than retiring.

Would I have done anything differently? Well, yeah! I learned a lot of crummy life lessons this past year and it hasn't been pretty. The phrase "It seemed like a good idea at the time" can be applied to this period in my life--- even more than I thought probable. 

Is retirement what I thought it would be? I hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about retirement. I was busy coping with life at the moment for the past decade or so. My plan was to keep working as long as I could past the 32 year mark and keep feeding that IRA. That wasn't - as it turned out- the best or most workable of all possible plans.  There's a Yiddish saying- Man plans. God laughs.  One of my favorite quotes is from the first Indiana Jones movie: Raiders of the Lost Ark: "I don't know. I'm making this up as I go."  That line resonates with me. I may not always like it but there are always something that happens that is way beyond my control.  That's what makes life aggravating; it's also what makes it interesting.

Making Haste Slowly (or Caretaker Recovery)

So, yes, there's been quite a gap between posts due to illness and a sudden onset of grief. I had really hoped to be further along with the clear out than this.  From the beginning of this whole clear out progress, I noticed I could only work in short spurts. I would be short of breath or nauseated or extremely fatigued. I wondered why.  I still was putting a goodly amount of stuff on the curb for the trash man but my donation piles were becoming smaller.
By Christmas, I cleared a pathway to my sliding door,  By February my extra large walk-in closet (my spare room which has the most ceiling water damage had a path to the windows. My cats started sunning themselves on top of the under window bookcases. I was making progress. Then I came down with an upper respiratory infection. Fearing another bout of last year's bronchitis, I got to the doctor. Took the antibiotic but also took it easily.  The trash pile dwindled to sickroom debris. As I came off the antibiotic, my gastrointestinal track went kablooey as  my appetite dwindled to nothing. The blues hit big time as did grief and I realized that I needed help. Checked with my insurance provider and started the hunt for psychological help. I also made an appointment with my doctor.

So- this is what I've found out so far:

• There are a bunch of tests out there I 'got to' take- some blood, some I had to provide samples of stool, and some diagnostic tools. The stool sample was one of those Catch 22 deals.I had to solve some issues myself beforehand - the ones that brought me to the doctor in the first place- to get a decent sample. Not something I'd want to collect again anytime soon. 
• I don't have celiac disease. So I don't have to be on a gluten free diet. Good news because the foods I'll eat when I have no appetite almost certainly have gluten in them. I widened my food choices. Instead of "I can't have that", it's been "That I can have."  Still- the whole exercise made me more aware about what I eat.
• From the x-rays, the pitter patter of my heart and my shortness of breath are not caused by problems with my heart and lungs.
• I really need to watch myself. I tend to plunge into things too quickly, Instead of self/advice-diagnosing myself,spending money on foodstuffs I don't need to have. Since gluten free stuff has a short shelf life (and takes longer to cook, has a different taste, etc.)  And I need to stop myself from rushing out and buying what Dr. Oz says may "cure me".  I found homes for the gluten free stuff with families that need it.
• The best thing I did was to give up Mail/Web shopping for Lent. Amazon Prime especially makes it so easy to buy things.  Like the aforementioned gluten free stuff and Oz cures. From the stuff I've been clearing out, I've been seeing a lot of waste. Expired medications and herbal cures. Expired food. Just junk. Junk no one else would want.  And a lot that makes me stop and ask myself "What were you thinking when you bought this?"  Retail Therapy has huge drawbacks.
• I have a lot of unresolved anger and frustration about what happened these last ten years and before that- from job changes and challenges to caregiving to hospice, to Mom's death, to Jessie's near death and special treatments, etc. I recognized that I was setting myself up for a fall with all the changes I was going through added to all the changes I made this past year and a couple of months. I recognized that -by the stress list alone- I was setting myself up for something to happen when I retired. But just the idea of staying on the job was stressful, frustrating producing, and limiting that I was willing to risk whatever happened to avoid it.
• The good news is that I'm not so far gone blues-wise that I need to go on anti-depressives.
• The bad news is that I get to go to specialists to find out what is physically wrong. Every now and then Acid Reflux comes back. Can't find a trigger.
• The good news is that the music Pandora finds that sounds like Pat Metheny's Last Train Home is fairly energizing. And available via the Kindle.
• The mixed news is that I have been advised to do something creative in addition to my clear out work. And this blog with its one cherished follower is it.

Back to work!!!

 

The Not So Blank Slate

My backyard -tiny as it is- used to be my refuge. No matter how chaotic my house or my life got, I could go to my garden and escape.  The summer sky I'd painted on my back fence was always blue - no matter what was happening in the real sky.  When my mother came to live with me, she, too, liked my garden. We used to sit out there and read the Sunday paper. One of the neighborhood cats used to come visit and curl up in my lap- much to the displeasure of my own cats. But, as her dementia took hold of her, she became careless and uncaring. She'd leave clothing or paper out there. She'd let one of my cats who was strictly a house cat out and leave her out there. I'd come home to wet and ruined clothing and newspapers and a frantic cat.

As Mom became worse and more of an invalid, the way to the garden was blocked and I couldn't spare the time to care for it.  The garden became overgrown.

 

 

I wish that it looked as picturesque as the garden above.

 

The land takes untended spaces back. Florida's long growning season takes the process a step further. It went native. Big time.

 

This past August, I paid the man who mows my lawn to clear it out. He and a friend went at it with much vigor and thoroughness. And far exceeded my expectations. He left my two trees, my hydrangea bush, and my gardenia bush. Everything else was purged- including the first thing I planted- my azalea bush. All that was left was the stump. Chairs, pots, ornaments, figurines, hoses, border fencing, and tables went into a pile.  It looked pretty bleak back there. I was in a state of shock but consoled myself that this was an opportunity to start over anew.A blank slate. But I was going to miss the azalea's magenta flowers come spring.

 

I'd given myself a pep talk and a deadline to be able to get out door to the garden by Christmas. I did it by Boxing Day night.  Today was an unseasonably warm day and I went out to the garden to see what survived the onslaught. I dug through the pile rescuing and putting chairs back into place, started putting things in a pile to be taken to the curb, and tried to figure out what I could do with what was left. I noticed a patch of green about the size of a dinner platter. I frowned but then my eyes widened. The leaves looked very familiar and were growing around the stumps of the old azalea bush.  I may not have any magenta azalea flowers in this spring, but, perhaps, by the next.

 

 



Taking Back My Life or What Hurricane Debby Did For Me.

This past summer, I was taking my time trying to get my life back to normal. Or the next best thing to normal. Before my bout of major depression. Before Dad died. Before 9/11. Before changes in my job. Before Hurricane Charley changed my mother's life and -by extension- mine. Before my cancer scare and operation. Before care taking Mom. Before breaking my pelvis. Before Mom went into hospice. Before fracturing my foot. Before her death. Before all that was happening the past 15 years. I was still working. Every day off was spent resting up for the next go-around of workdays. I was not getting much done. Tropical Storm Beryl came and went stripping more shingles off my roof. "Gotta get to re-roofing. Someday.", I told myself. Even my still small voice was speaking up less.

 

 

Then Hurricane Debby charged across from the Gulf to the Atlantic. And water started dripping from my skylight. And wet spots started forming elsewhere. So--my "Gotta-get-to" became "Get it done." First, I needed to deal with all the stuff that had been piling up. Things I had put aside and not dealt with. I started on my miniature foyer and stairway.Clearing paths. Adjusters and contractors' reps came and went. A new leak started downstairs, A tarp went on the roof in early October. The roof was repaired in late October. We had a dry spell. At the end of November, it rained and the skylight leak returned. So- I made the decision to replace all three skylights. This was something my insurance company declined to pay for- not that I was counting on them to do so.

Now the inside work needs to be done. But first comes major decluttering and disposing, So every trash day my curb looks like this times 4 or 5.  Add another trash can, boxes, and more bags.

And I'm donating stuff.

 

I wish I could say that I'm seeing lots of progress. But I'm not. My stress-drained energy levels haven't made a comeback.  I'm still coping with acid reflux based nausea that started as I was leaving the workplace. I'm slowly going gluten free to deal with it but I think there's something else in play. I'm also going to get acupuncture treatments. Until the classes broke for Christmas, I took Tai Chi and Yoga classes for exercise and to deal with stress.

 

Plus, here's an emotional toll to this process. I have to force myself to do this and I'm not always good at strong arming myself. Decluttering means coming across Mom's stuff. It's all over the place. As the dementia took hold, filing systems disintegrated. It has to be sorted through for estate purposes. Coming across stuff from the person I was 15 years ago. It's baffling. Why did I keep this? Did I actually wear stuff like this? What is this thing? Christmas presents I meant to give bob up in the ocean of boxes and piles. I put them aside in their own box so they don't disappear again. I figure I'm set for office supplies for years to come.

 

I'm good at cutting myself breaks. Too good. I let myself watch entire runs of series on Netflix and on Amazon Prime. I have the relaxation part of my new gig down. The self-motivating part- not so much. I know I'll function better without so much stuff. I just have to convince myself that getting rid of the accumulation doesn't mean that I'm getting rid of what I really and truly need.

 

Plotting The Escape

I almost always get in trouble when I don't listen to that still small voice. Just that month it had urged me to go home- not to stop at the supermarket. I ignored it and my car was crashed into. Still, I hedged my bets. I did what I call my acid test: Ask yourself: What happens if you do this? What happens if you don't? What happens if you stay? What happens if you go?

 

The thought of staying - the very thought of it- filled me with something akin to terror. Leaving with all its uncertainties and years before I really felt I should - the thought of that calmed me down. As events unfolded, I realized. My still small voice was right. It was time.

 

When you've been working as long as I had and have as many hours of leave as I did, you have to negotiate your retirement (or as I had started thinking of it: my escape). I had retirement leave and annual leave coming to me. Lots of it. I could roll my regular leave into a retirement account. But not that retirement leave. If I took the retirement leave in a lump sum, I'd see very little of it after taxes.  My ideal plan was to run out both my retirement leave and annual leave. In the current fiscal climate, that wasn't going to happen. I finally got the word. Yes- I could take my retirement leave. I would have to roll over the retirement leave into a retirement account. My last day after retirement leave would be January 10, 2013. I cleaned out my cubicle giving away a lot of what I had collected over the years (but not nearly enough) and wrote up my retirement letter. Around me, layoff and demotion meetings and restructuring conferences continued. I felt a mixture of relief tinged with survivor's guilt.

 

 

I always wondered how I would feel about leaving. I thought I'd feel bereft. I thought I might feel like I'd lost my identity. I thought there would be a library-shaped hole where my heart had been. While it took me over a month not to say "We" when referring to what was going on in the library, I realized that all the gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, spirit-draining events and outrages that had happened in my professional life over the last 15 years or so had given me this gift: "Regret nothing. That was then, This is now.  You're a person too apart from the labels of caretaker, librarian, daughter, friend, employee. It's time to take care of yourself - way past time, in fact. You're overdue. Escape to a new adventure."

 

On September 28th, I was one of 500 city staffers who escaped to new adventures.

The Decline

It's been a long long time since I posted to this or any other blog. In the intervening year and several months:

•  I continued to have problems with my car. Bad trouble. Stranded at night troubles. Dead in the water on Riverside Avenue at rush hour troubles.
• My mother was in hospice.
• One of my cats was diagnosed with diabetes.
• I was transferred to a direct public service department at work.
• I got a new car.
•  My days were full of work, going  to see my mother and advocate for her, going home and care taking the cats, and zonking out on the couch. Repeat every single day.
• My mother got worse.
• I went down for the count with bronchitis.
• My cat came down with pancreatitis and went into the animal hospital.
• My mother died and dealing with what was left of the estate began.
•  It looked like my cat was going to die too. Instead, she to be fed via feeding tubes.
• The annual Summer of Uncertainties at work began anew. Layoffs were threatened. Anxiety rose, and rose, and rose throughout the summer. I felt the darkness of depression swirling nearer and nearer.
• Hurricanes and storms passed by and passed through. My roof started leaking both upstairs and downstairs. I needed a new roof.
• The Director announced the layoffs, demotions, staffing and hour cuts, and transferring of staff were now a certainty. I hadn't been in my new department a year. The Director said it would be even worse in the next fiscal year. Base pay would be cut again in the coming fiscal year. Proposed new schedules came out.
• My new car was hit by a woman who made a premature lane change and who is probably still telling people it's everyone else's fault, not hers. I was back in rental cars again for a while.

A still small voice inside me said: " Enough. You have worked in your job over 33 years, You can retire. If you stay on, you will only be more miserable, angrier, and sicker. The new schedule means you won't get to do all those things you wanted to do for the past 8 years." I hesitated. "DO IT!" screamed the not-so-still, not-so-small voice.

The Continuing Adventures of Zippy the Wonder Car

Zippy's Doppelganger

My beloved Little Blue Car is finally getting fixed RIGHT. (Lesson Learned: The dealer may cost more but they know more about the car than the neighborhood fix-it place and may end up costing less by fixing it the FIRST time.) El BeeCee had been refusing to start and was smelling of gas and making the garage smell like gas-- very disquieting in this fire season.  To get El BeeCee fixed meant that it had to spend quality time with the dealer mechanic. So- I needed to rent a car and that car turned out to be Zippy the Wonder Car.

The Zipster is a sub-sub-compact.  It is very responsive, loves to do tight turns, gives one the distinct impression that it takes corners on two wheels,and has some mysterious stuff on its dashboard the function of which is a mystery. I sit higher in the driver's seat. It's similar in color to El BeeCee so it's not too disorienting. But Zippy also loves gas (drinking up half a tank of gas in four days), the horn doesn't work right, and its main drawback is that it is not El BeeCee (easier on the gas, horn works). 

Originally, Zippy and I were to be together four days and then part on amicable terms. There were delays in getting the fuel injectors here to install and then El BeeCee wasn't running as smoothly as the mechanic had hoped. I do want El BeeCee to finally run right. The extra time with Zippy won't cost me any more. But- the novelty has well and truly worn off.  I keep reaching for window openers that aren't there, auto door locks that aren't there, radio settings that aren't there.  I want my elderly, "lived in", scratched-and-dinged car back.  El BeeCee doesn't zip like Zippy but it has a more solid feel when I close the door. I feel safer in it.

Update: Finally got the LBC back after nearly a week and am acclimating myself to sitting lower, A/C that works well, taking corners on four wheels,better sounding radio, and non-Zippiness.  It's amazing that you can get used to a car in a such short period of  time.