Inspiration | Page 2 of 7 | Living Life Retired (LLR)

Becoming a CASA volunteer

April 30, 2019 by Sherry

Tonight, I begin my training to become a CASA volunteer. What’s CASA? It stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates. I have been searching for a meaningful way to make a difference after retiring from teaching and I believe this opportunity is a great fit for me. I’m excited.

https://casaforchildren.org/

According to the promotional brochure, “The Court Appointed Special Advocates program recruits, trains, and supports volunteers to advocate for children who have been victims of abuse or neglect. CASA volunteers are appointed by judges to represent the best interest of the children. Volunteers visit with the children weekly, gather information from family members, medical professionals, teachers and therapists, and then make recommendations to the court regarding services for and placement of the children.”

In the process of becoming a CASA volunteer, I attended orientation, filled out an application with references, been interviewed, observed court proceedings and had my background checked. Starting tonight, I will complete about 30 hours of training (in person and online). If all goes well I will be sworn in May 29th as a new Larimer County CASA volunteer, but more importantly I can once again make a difference for kids.

If you want to get involved in Larimer County CASA or find out more about it, go to www.casalarimer.com.

Change your retirement life in 2018

January 1, 2018 by Sherry

As 2017 ends and 2018 begins, it is a time of personal reflection. I began 2017 feeling quite bored in my retirement life, even though I was writing this blog and learning about search engine optimization, as well as substituting part-time. Then, I read Ernie J. Zelinski’s book, The Joy of Not Working.

I especially enjoyed the chapter titled Somebody is Boring Me; I Think It Is Me. I got to work on “abolishing my boredom.” Zelinski wrote, “By undertaking difficult and uncomfortable activities, we experience satisfaction and accomplishment in our lives. This means being truly alive, with little or no room for boredom.” That chapter changed my retirement life.

In March of 2017, the homeowners’ association (HOA) where I live held its annual meeting. I attended and volunteered to serve on the board of directors for three years, a “difficult and uncomfortable activity.” At our first board meeting in April, I was elected president of the HOA, another “difficult and uncomfortable activity.” After basically “righting the ship,” the new HOA board is now preparing for the 2018 annual meeting.

In July, I read in the local newspaper that the school district was looking to add new members to its master planning committee. It was a three-year commitment. As a long time education advocate, I filled out the online application and sent it. I was accepted as a member despite the fact I told them I was a fiscal conservative. We meet the first Monday of every month during the school year and discuss topics such as boundary changes, school closures, etc. The politics are “difficult and uncomfortable activities” but I feel I bring a new perspective to the table since I voted against the last bond election which was defeated.

In August, I saw a real estate posting on realtor.com for a 1938 cabin on .78 acres for sale in Glen Haven, a small town about 15 minutes outside Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. I had looked for a fixer upper project or a cabin get-away for several years. This cabin needed a bunch of work and was listed for $98,900. I offered $85,000 and got it. My son-in-law, Dave, and I took on the “difficult and uncomfortable activity” of demolishing the mold- and rodent-infested cabin addition by hand this fall. Now, the original cabin is buttoned up for the winter and it is, more importantly, dry and rodent free. We plan to begin rebuilding next summer.

Zelinski said, “Only by doing the difficult and uncomfortable can you make your life more interesting and fulfilling.” I have taken on “difficult and uncomfortable activities” this past year and in doing so I have felt more alive and less bored. I am more happy and content than I have in a long time.

I am glad I read Zelinski’s book and followed his advice. I am also glad you follow this blog and I hope you consider taking on “difficult and uncomfortable activities” in 2018 and change your retirement life.

WISHING YOU HAVE A HAPPY, HEALTHY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!

Cause for celebration – six week cabin update

November 1, 2017October 31, 2017 by Sherry

Six weeks, three 18 yard dumpster loads and 145 “man” hours later, we have completed the demolition of the non-permitted, mold and rodent excrement filled cabin addition. All that is left is the flooring and the lower level deck. This accomplishment is cause for celebration!

What I learned from the demolition:

Wear protective clothing, goggles, and a respirator. You can never be too careful as my son-in-law found out when he opted for hiking boots instead of professional work boots and took a nail through the bottom of his foot.
Make sure you’ve had a tetanus shot in the past seven years.
Try to place the dumpster as close to your work site as possible. Due to all the large beautiful moss-covered rocks and the slope of my property, we were unable to have it close to the addition. This less than ideal placement required lots of walking, carrying and pushing a wheelbarrow of debris to the dumpster about 50 feet away from the work site.
When working remotely as we were, it was important to bring the necessary tools each day to the work site. We often needed nails we didn’t have, so I often removed nails from the demo debris to reuse. One day I forgot to bring the circular saw so we ended up cutting some ceiling joists with a hand saw made to cut tree branches. We could have left our tools in the cabin but felt that it just wasn’t secure enough.

The sign I needed

November 2, 2017October 23, 2017 by Sherry

Years ago my late Father visited my family in Colorado to help with a basement electrical installation. I believe it was around Thanksgiving and while having a meal in the dining room, my Father saw a bald eagle for the very first time in the sky outside the window. He was very moved and excited to see America’s majestic icon.

My Dad passed in December of 2013. Several months later, I was speaking to my daughter on the phone. We talked about my Dad and the subject of my receiving a small inheritance from his estate came up. I told my daughter I hoped to use that special gift to purchase a piece of mountain property some day as my Dad loved the mountains. Right then a bald eagle flew toward me on the deck and then flew over my house. I felt it a sign that my Dad approved of my use of his gift.

Last week, I realized I needed reassurance that buying and fixing up the cabin in the mountains was what my Dad wanted for me. I needed the sign of an eagle. Today, I got that sign. While driving home from a beautiful afternoon of work at the cabin, I spied a bald eagle in a tree along the North Fork of the Big Thompson River.

Thank you Dad for the sign and the gift of the cabin in Glen Haven. I love you for it and I hope you are proud of me!

Peaceful and content – week four cabin update

October 9, 2017 by Sherry

October 2nd was the beginning of week four cabin renovation, but also the first day of Highway 34’s restricted usage due to the 2013 flood reconstruction project. During the week, I worked on projects closer to home and substituted on Thursday and Friday at a middle school.

On Saturday, October 7th, it was forecast to be a balmy 70+ degrees so I headed up the cabin around noon, outside the new normal morning canyon access hours of 6:00-8:30 a.m. Leaving at noon meant I had to go an extra 25 miles along the detour through the cities of Longmont and Lyons. Little did I know, “leaf peepers” were also headed up to Estes Park on the same route.

Normally, when I drive directly from my home to the cabin on Highway 34, it takes me about 40 minutes to turn onto Memory Lane. On October 7th, it took 105 minutes (1-3/4 hours). I tried to enjoy the fall orange and gold scenery. The mountains had received a fresh dusting of snow. I was not going to get stressed out by the huge delay due to the crowded detour.

Once at the cabin, I worked for about 2-1/2 hours on more repointing of the old stone foundation, picking up and disposing of tar paper, siding, and lumber into the rented dumpster, loading miscellaneous metal into my car’s trunk for recycling, and spraying a bleach/water mixture on the original cabin’s tongue and groove moldy pine ceiling. Not glamorous work but I relished every moment in the warm gentle breeze, utter silence and the picturesque forest. I didn’t want to leave. It was so peaceful.

Following the pilot car on my way home down the “normal” Highway 34 route (I was within the evening access hours of 4:00-8:00 p.m.), I discovered how truly peaceful and content I feel for the first time in my retirement.

In Walden, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Funeral, repointing & another nail – week three cabin update

October 3, 2017 by Sherry

At the age of 100-1/2, Marguerite died on September 21, 2017 and her funeral was September 27. May she rest in peace. Marguerite was my son-in-law’s only surviving grandparent and he attended her funeral this week in western Iowa. I continued work on the cabin’s property cleanup and began “repointing” the nearly 80-year-old stone foundation.

cabin repointing — Stone foundation before

You can learn how to do almost anything on YouTube.com, including “repointing.” According to Wikipedia, “Repointing is the process of renewing the pointing, which is the external part of mortar joints, in masonry construction.” I watched a This Old House video and then drove to Home Depot to buy the necessary supplies.

Spackling and repointing are similar in my opinion. You are filling in gaps or holes with a compound and smoothing that compound out so it blends in. I think it turned out pretty well for my first time at repointing. Doing the work myself saved a lot of money by not having to hire a stone mason to perform the tedious work and it was rewarding to know I could do make the stone foundation secure again.

Demolition exposes many nails and other potentially dangerous elements. Another nail made its presence known this week, this time to my son-in-law. He was working alone on the second story demo when he stepped on a nail and it went through his boot and into the bottom of his foot. After applying first aid, he went back to work for several more hours but he too wondered, like me last week, when was his last tetanus shot?

As Highway 34 is only open on a limited basis beginning October 2nd, we worked hard and fast to try to accomplish as much as we could this week. We finished tearing down the second story section of the cabin addition, tarped a portion of the roof and boarded up part of the original cabin. Work will slow now as the weather changes and the road closure restricts our access.

Much work remains but we are making progress and who could ask for a better working environment than in the Roosevelt National Forest in Glen Haven, Colorado.

Tetanus? – week two cabin update

September 27, 2017 by Sherry

My critical demo question this week was “When did I get my last tetanus shot?” While helping my son-in-law remove the second story windows of the cabin, I slightly ripped my work pants just to the left of my knee. I walked too close to a three-inch nail protruding out of one of the window frames. I felt some pain at the time but I didn’t think it had done any damage until later that evening.

After a much-needed shower and putting on comfortable clothes including shorts, I was eating dinner and watching the news when I noticed a deep bloody scratch to the left of my knee cap. It hurt when I touched it and that’s when I wondered “When did I get my last tetanus shot?”

Working under dangerous and unsanitary conditions on this cabin rehab has been interesting and a real test of my “guts to take on a fixer upper.” We knew we would be working with mold in the drywall and insulation. We knew there was low levels of asbestos in the floor tile. We knew we would be working around black widow spiders as we discovered two during our inspection. We also knew we would be working with rusty nails and wet, sagging floorboards. We didn’t know we would be working around large red ants and removing at least eight large garbage bags of animal excrement and pinecones discovered deposited in the walls and attic space.

Despite these working conditions, we accomplished a lot this week, as you can see from the photos.

I finally remembered I was immunized with the Tdap vaccine when my granddaughter was born in 2012. At that time I was employed as a high school teacher and my daughter wanted to protect her newborn daughter from pertussis (whooping-cough) so I was vaccinated. Now, that same vaccine is protecting me from contracting tetanus from the rusty nails I encounter during this cabin demo/build.

When did you get your last tetanus shot?

Becoming a CASA volunteer

Like this:

Change your retirement life in 2018

Like this:

Cause for celebration – six week cabin update

Like this:

The sign I needed

Like this:

Peaceful and content – week four cabin update

Like this:

Funeral, repointing & another nail – week three cabin update

Like this:

Tetanus? – week two cabin update

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: