beyond cinderella

It’s been awhile since I’ve written a blog post. Not because I have nothing to say, but I just haven’t had the time to sit down and really focus on what I wanted to write about… I know, Bill and I are retired, and for many retired people that means having lots of extra time on their hands. But, that’s not how Bill and I choose to live our retirement years. No, we are making the most of every minute of our retirement, and making sure we are first, and foremost, having FUN!

We love our motorhome, and we love being able to work a few shifts per week in exchange for our space rent, utilities, and propane… Once we’ve covered our work commitment for the day/week, Bill and I love to come home and just relax together. Sometimes we put music on and dance, sometimes we cook together, sometimes we read together.. There are all sorts of “things” we love to do together now that we have the time, and have “found ourselves” again in our new retirement life.

Bill and I don’t feel the need to run all over the place in search of entertainment… Like many other’s have done, we spent the majority of our marriage running from one place to another as we worked in our careers, raised our children, helped our parents, and everyone we could…,

But now, it’s our time. Time for Bill and I to do what we want to do, when we want to do it etc… Believe me, if we let it happen, Shantel, and my mother, would have us running constantly everyday to be with them and/or help them take care of this or that…just like we did before we retired… But we stopped all that when we retired. We let both mom and Shantel know that we can no longer be there to meet their every need… We are going to travel in the summer and they need to know how to get things done without us then, and that can just as well carry over to the winter months when we are here. And guess what?? They managed just fine when we were gone all summer, and they manage just fine now too. So when we do see each other it’s really quality time together. Not time spent out of guilt and or resentment… It’s time we choose to spend together, and we make sure we do see each other at least once a week which is enough for grown adults don’t you think?

During my visit with my mother last week, I am happy to say that she is doing better in that she is not as paranoid but she is still very much living in her own little world… She told me that another resident, who happens to have dementia and is paranoid herself, wouldn’t talk to her and that upset her. My mother kept asking the resident what her name was but the woman wouldn’t answer her so my mother decided the woman didn’t know what her name is and my mother took it upon herself to “teach” the woman her name is Mary. My mother said every time she saw the woman, she would start telling her to say “my name is Mary” over and over and over again… until the woman finally started saying “my name is Mary.” Now the woman says that to everyone…. I asked one of the Aids if the woman’s name is really Mary and she said no, but your mother convinced her that her name is Mary so that is what we all call her now… OMG, I guess it’s all about whatever makes them happy… 🙂

When I talked to Shantel the other day she told me a story about yet another adventure she and her best friend, Jaz, had at the grocery store. Those two girls seem to always have one thing or another go wrong when they are shopping for Shantel’s groceries… Most of the time when they get the groceries back to Shantel’s apartment parking lot and are carrying the bags to her apartment, the bags break and Jaz ends up searching the parking lot for Shantel’s lost groceries that may roll under cars etc… This week they found out that Fry’s has new shopping carts that are designed to help keep people from stealing the carts from the store. Apparently, if you take the shopping cart too far away from the store, the wheels will all lock-up so you can’t move the cart… Well, after Shantel and Jaz finished buying Shantel’s groceries, and were about to leave the store to take the groceries to the car… for some reason as they left the store doors, all four wheels on the cart locked up and the girls had to carry the shopping cart, full of groceries, to the car.. Can you just imagine what a sight that must have been…?I thought I would die laughing when Shantel was telling me that story.. 🙂

I will close this post with some pictures of more beautiful hiking trails here at San Tan Mountain Reserve Park. Bill and I took a two-hour hike today, something we try to do at least four times a week… so beautiful, peaceful, and just a great way to, as a fellow hiker we met on the trails today put it today “put more years in your life and life in your years…”

One of the things we learned during our time here at San Tan is when you see a cactus under a tree or growing up within a tree is that the tree is called a “nursery tree” in that it protects the cactus until it is big enough to stand on its own, then the cactus helps support the tree… who knew?

We also learned that there is an invasive form of Holly that gets into many of our desert trees and takes over the tree and will eventually kill the tree…

Hard as it can be… what we love about the San Tan Trails is the diversity of the trails… Up hill and down hill… Here is Bill making his way up this steep incline. This is when we love our hiking sticks…

Just can’t say enough of how thankful Bill and I are to be retired, and living our retirement dream, this lifestyle might not work for everyone… but it couldn’t be more PERFECT for us! 🙂 🙂

Stay Tuned!