And The Beat Goes On

I am in my glory planning a party or planning a cruise.  Since there are no parties on the immediate horizon, I have been busy planning the latter.  
We are down to 22 days and a wake-up for our cruise to New England and Canada and I am so looking forward to "authentic" fall weather...crisp and clean.....and seeing the trees in a blaze of reds and oranges and yellows and browns.
We embark from New York, and will set sail for ports in Newport, RI, Boston, MA, Bar Harbor, ME, St John, New Brunswick and Halifax, Nova Scotia.  
This will be our 17th cruise since that first one, a Christmas gift from our neighbors, in 1996, and our 4th since I retired in 2008.  
One of the fun things I like to do in preparation of our cruise or a very special vacation, is to make a "countdown" calendar.  I love "exing" the days off the calendar and turning the pages to the final countdown!   When I was still working, I would get requests all the time from co-workers, to make a countdown calendar for them for their cruise or special vacation!!!  And I had as much fun making the calendars for them as they had in checking off the days until their vacation.  Next year, we will be renting a beach house in New Smyrna Beach for our family vacation with the boys and all the grand kids and I will be making calendars for everyone to mark off the days. And then, in the fall of 2011, we hope to be going over to England to visit our friends and take a trip to Scotland, so I will need a calendar for that vacation.  
After a busy 2011, I will have to start thinking about cruising to another destination, on another ship, and yet another countdown calendar........

The Day The World Cried

I believe everyone who was alive on that fateful day remembers clearly what they were doing at the precise moment they found out that America, land of the free and home of the brave, was under attack.
I was getting ready for work, listening to and catching a peek, now and again, of Fox and Friends, when a bulletin came across that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers.  What a horrible accident, or so we thought.  The news began a live feed of the tower, with smoke pouring out of her windows.  The reporters questioned whether or not this could be a terrorist attack....but that was mere speculation.....until.
About 10 or 15 minutes later, as I sat glued to the television, and the sight of the tower burning, another plane came around and flew directly into the second tower.  This was no accident.  America was under attack.  
I fell to my knees, overcome with fear, as tears began to run down my cheeks.  I could not believe what I had just witnessed.
I remember that evening, on my way home from work, a man standing along the highway with an American flag...just standing there.   If you didn't own a flag, you went to the store to buy one and proudly hung it on your house.  Soon, cities and town across the country, were awash in red, white and blue.  There were flags hanging from houses and on cars and trucks and boats...they were everywhere.   It didn't matter if you were white or black, young or old, Christian or Jew, Republican or Democrat.  We were united and we were strong, but after nine years, all those things that "didn't matter", seem to matter now.  Have we forgotten what happened?  Are we to believe Newsweek's article that says the United Stated "overreacted"? (http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/04/zakaria-why-america-overreacted-to-9-11.html)  I don't think so, nor do I think most Americans believe that as well.
We should take pause on September 11th to remember, and never forget, what was done to all of us by terrorists that hate us and everything we stand for.

What's It All About?

Retirement is about many things to many people.  For some, it may be a time for hobbies that you've had precious little time to devote to. For others, it may be about traveling to exotic places.  Sometimes, it's just about not having an alarm clock to wake you up each morning at the crack of dawn.  For me, it's about time with my family and grandchildren, first and foremost, with a little bit of everything else thrown in for fun!
The smell of fresh ground coffee and the drip, drip, drip of the coffee maker in the morning, wakes up your senses in a whole new way, once you have reached those glorious retirement years!  It's amazing how, when I look back, that I never really noticed how wonderful a fresh pot of coffee could smell and taste!  
I enjoy sitting on my patio, listening to the birds singing a beautiful song, just for me, I am sure, and calling all their friends to the bird feeder, once they discover that it has been refilled with a tempting assortment of bird food.  But their feeding is usually interrupted by those little rascals called squirrels, who are smarter than a 5th grader and able to figure out how to steal food from a squirrel proof bird feeder!!
Sleepovers at Grandma's are a treat for all of us....the grand kids get to stay up late, do whatever they want and Grandma gets to spoil them in the morning with a breakfast of homemade waffles, smothered in butter and real maple syrup from Vermont.
The Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are the icing on the cake!   It is a blessing not having to go back to work the day after Thanksgiving and having all the time in the world, over Christmas, to "haul out the holly" and shop and bake til the "cows come home"!!!
Meeting friends for lunch, in the middle of the week, is a simple pleasure that I treasure.  Or watching my 3 year old grandson "mow" the lawn with his toy lawn mower, going back and forth, up and down, over and over and over... makes me smile and grin, like I did on the day he was born.
People would ask me, when they found out we had 5 boys, "are you Catholic or crazy?", to which I would reply "both".  But I knew God had a reason why He blessed me with 5 sons, and I knew one day I would find out what that plan was.  Retirement has made everything crystal clear.  Thank you God.
  

The First Year

My first year of retirement was quite busy, with many babysitting gigs, travel and, of course, my beloved cruises!  One of the main reasons I retired when I did was to be available to babysit  when the grandkids were sick, so their parents wouldn't have to take any time off from work, and also, if the parents had appointments, I would be able to pitch in and help out in those situations.  Needless to say, my calendar was full!
As luck would have it (no pun intended), in March of 2009, we had the opportunity to go to Las Vegas for a few days with some family and friends.  We took in the sights and had a great time!!

After Vegas, it was back home to get ready for the cruise of a lifetime....a 10 day cruise in the Mediterranean to the Greek Islands, preceded by four glorious days in Rome!!  We left for Rome in mid April to meet up with our dear friends from England, Joyce & Tony, for the start our vacation.  We stayed at a lovely hotel, right on the main road, which was convenient for getting into Ancient Rome and all the sightseeing we were about to do!!  We dined at lovely restaurants while in Rome and did all the sightseeing we could cram into four days.  The highlight for me was our visit to the Vatican, the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel.  
The one island I always wanted to see in Greece was Santorini and it lived up to my expectations...it was absolutely gorgeous!  In addition to Santorini, we went to Athens, Croatia, Turkey and Messina, Sicily. 

Our hotel

Palatine Hill, with Joyce & Tony and Richard & I

On the tender to Santorini

 We got back home at the end of April and began plans for a road trip to visit family in upstate New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. 

Richard, Steve, Heidi, Kyle and me

First stop was Gloversville, NY to visit our oldest son Steve, wife Heidi and grandson Kyle. We decided to bring Kyle with us for the rest of the road trip and then back to Florida for a little vacation.

From Gloversville, the three of us headed to Philadelphia to visit our nephew Andy and his wife Debbie.  We had some wonderful Philly food, including cheese steaks from Gino's.  While in Philly, we drove in to New York city to visit Ground Zero, which was an unforgettable experience.  While in New York, we did a lot of walking and sampling of "street foods" along the way...from Times Square, to Wall Street to Battery Park and a ride of a double-decker sightseeing bus, we had a great time!

Kyle and me @ Battery Park, Statue of Liberty in background

We also spent a few days at the shore in West Wildwood....beach and boardwalk..nothing better!!

After a wonderful visit, we set off on our final leg of our road trip, to Chicago, to visit our son Hal and my brother and his wife.  We actually picked a good time for Chicago, as they were having their annual Taste of Chicago event, which we had never been to.

Hal, me, Kyle and Richard in front of Buckingham Fountain

Chicago is all about the food!  I couldn't get enough of it....pizza, Italian beefs, hot dogs, Swedish Flop, and delicious breakfasts in some wonderful Greek restaurants!!  

Having one of many tastes at the Taste of Chicago

After several fun filled days, it was with a heavy heart that I had to say good-bye to Hal.  

Keeping Busy

My objective was to have a daily routine, much like I did when I was working....you know, get up early, make coffee and read the paper before showering and getting ready to go to............OK, so I don't have anywhere to go.  So what do I do instead of going to work?  I don't knit,  don't like working in the garden (too hot, bugs and it gets my hands dirty), and I can't figure out Sudoku (although I used to like crossword puzzles, but it's been so long, I can't even remember a four letter word for Ireland).

Brian, standing,
l to r,  Matt, Hal, Steve & Gregg

I decided to take on the gargantuan task of going through and sorting all those endless boxes of photographs, sorting them and making albums for each of our five sons.  I set up a craft table in the computer room, and began to sort....and sort and sort and sort :(  Why do we need 2 pictures of everyone and everything, including the grass and some unknown person? Okay, that goes in the trash, as do hundreds of others.
I have finally narrowed things down and I now have separate boxes for each of the boys, and labeled accordingly...Steve, Hal, Brian, Gregg, Matt...and I begin the process of now going through the pictures, once again, and putting them in their proper box.  I was beginning to feel like a mailman, putting all the mail in their little appropriate slot.  I diligently worked on this project from October through November, when I had to put it aside for the holidays.  I was only able to manage getting  Brian's album finished in time for Christmas. The rest would have to wait until after the holidays.
Right after the holidays, I started back in with the project, although not with the same enthusiasm as I had in the beginning.  Nevertheless, I was able to finish Hal's and gave it to him when we visited Chicago in the summer of 2009.  But that will be another posting, another time.
I still haven't finished the albums for Steve and Matt....Gregg took his box of photographs home with him, so I guess he will be making his own album :)
And I was worried about not having anything to do!

The Beginning

Me and Mary Lou

Well, there I was, it was June, 2008, and I was anxiously counting down the days to my retirement, when the recession started to take hold with a thunder!  The housing market was beginning to tank, banks were in trouble and people were in trouble, as they were being laid off by their employers by the thousands.  Now I'm having second thoughts about this retirement thing.  I wanted to have more time to enjoy my grandkids and family.  I didn't want to wind up like my mother, who worked her entire life and finally retired at the age of 72, only to be diagnosed with colon cancer a few months after retirement and died two years later.  The vacation to Austria was never to be.  So I did what any other sane, intelligent woman would do in such a perplexing situation...I called my best friend!  Mary Lou is like a therapist...she'll never tell you what to do, just ask you some questions and then let you figure it out, which will always lead you to the answer you were looking for.  When I told her of my fears, she simply said "do what is in your heart".  That was it. Done.  And so it was.  I continued with the countdown, until there were no more days to cross off the calendar and had the biggest, happiest, celebration ever, with all my family and friends joining me!  What a night!

Some of my co-workers

Son Gregg & nephew Andy