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Today is Valentine’s Day, 2010.  I am very, very lucky to have a partner who is fun to be with and who truly cares about me and about us.

All relationships take effort to maintain, and while he is the easiest man I’ve ever been with, it still takes conscious effort to keep everything healthy and on track. Not a huge amount of effort, but conscious effort and attention, none the less.

So today I am grateful to have had a fun day, in fact, a fun weekend. We had brunch at Moonstone Grill (the old Merryman’s) and watched the turbulent ocean froth and play with the mouth of Little River. Not too many people out on the beach today, but lots of activity from Mother Nature!

We’ve spent lots of time together these past two weekends, and it’s been great to just “be” together without having to put too much focus on specific activities.  It’s easy to do that when you genuinely like the person you are with.

Whatever your current relationship status, be grateful for the people who share your life – they make it so much more interesting, fun and rewarding.  Thanks, Hubby for a wonderful life and a wonderful marriage. I am truly blessed!!

Goodness, how time flies!!  Last year was a very busy year, with mixed results! I did do a lot of travel, and met some really cool people I will always consider as friends.

I lost 60 lbs, which was phenomenal. The last 20 took the longest and unfortunately came back on again. So, at this point I am net -40. Whoopee!! Very proud of that. Now to work on releasing those 20 that came back, and the remaining 15 I wanted to lose in the first place…

In February I broke my foot, and it took a few months to heal totally. That seems to be fine, although I notice I walk flat-footed, so am being conscious whenever I notice it, to make sure that I step on the heal first.

This past summer I embarked on a new endeavor as an apprentice to a body language expert. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control (the person did not follow through on her promises), I was never able to actually participate in the apprenticeship program so I withdrew from it. Then I spent the rest of the year trying to get my money back. So far I’ve received 70% of it and am currently deciding if I want to spend the time and energy to file in Small Claims Court against her. It will have to be filed in her home state, and although it is a large enough to warrant going after, I’m not sure I want to go through the hassle.

As a result of my experience with this person, I took time off from my intended endeavors to re-evaluate where I was headed and what I wanted to do with my time and my life. I decided it was time to re-evaluate EVERYTHING.

I realized that even though I “retired” at the end of 2008, I had continued through 2009 doing everything the same way as before…without conscious evaluation and reflection. So, I took the time to reflect.

So, what do I appreciate about last year? Well, in no particular order:

1) All the new friends that I resonated with
2) Spending so much time with my daughter at events
3) A six week vacation to Idaho and British Columbia with my husband
4) Learning new skills that will serve me well
5) Expanding my jewelry business – using recycled glass
6) Getting 70% of my money back from someone who has “stiffed” several other people
7) Having a body that heals quickly
Losing 60 lbs
9) Only gaining 20 back (!) and knowing I can let go of it again
10) Having the 2 youngest grandkids come stay with us for 2 weeks
11) Living by the ocean and being able to go down there whenever I want to
12)  Having a wonderful husband
13) Being retired, with a pension and able to make my own choices about what to do from now on
14) Having the time to reflect on exactly what I do want to do
15) Doing it!!

Today (December 29) was my mom’s birthday. If she was still alive she would have turned 79 years old today. But she left us in 1989, at 59-1/2 (to the day), so in my mind and heart she will always be 59.

Today was also my last day working for someone else.  Or, the last day when I have to work for anyone else.  I chose today as my last day to honor my mom who basically worked up until she was too sick to work any more – which was only about 6-8 weeks before she passed away.  I also chose to stop working this year because I, too, am 59, and I choose to enjoy the rest of the time I have here on earth instead of feeling like I have to keep striving.

Through a number of “lucky” circumstances, I can take my pension now and not have to worry about working for anyone else.  What a wonderful freedom that allows me!

It’s interesting that I never really thought about being here – at retirement age – and having worked more than 20 years for an organization that has given me this opportunity.  I don’t think anyone consciously makes the decision to work someplace for 20 years!  I did leave a few times – in fact I was gone for about 18 years – and if I’d worked straight through, I’d be completing year 34. 

But, I had other plans, and so I went off and did other things.  Things that allowed me to grow as an individual and gave me direct experience of other work cultures.  A job that gave me a nice 401k. A job that gave me lots of confidence in my ability to run a large organization. A period of small business partnership and one working as a solopreneur.  And then I came back and applied what I learned to a job that seemed worth doing at the time.

In all honesty, I am now at a point where I am glad I made the decision years ago to go to work for this organization, as creatively stifling as it mostly was. I was smart, and alert, and generally able to mold my job into something I enjoyed, or able to promote into something new. I like the benefits my husband and I will now enjoy as a result.

At the same time, I can see what it cost me to work here in the first place and I remember clearly why I left the first two times.  I know the toll it’s taken on my aliveness, on my enthusiasm, even on my happiness and peace of mind.

I am lucky that I have usually been able to maintain a sense of myself and my integrity regardless of the circumstances surrounding me.  But that’s not the same as doing a job you love and feeling appreciated and rewarded for doing it well.

So that’s exactly what the rest of my life will be: doing the work I love and being rewarded for doing it well.  And I’m lucky my rewards can now extend beyond just cash compensation – they include my own satisfaction, my sense of contribution, and my shear delight.

So yes, in some ways I’m sorry I wasn’t able to permanently institute this shift before now.  I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit and love working for myself!  Since I have almost always had part-time businesses I guess you could call me a serial entrepreneur.  But I don’t regret the choices I did make.  And somehow, I think Mom would be proud of me for getting to this place of being able to do what I want, simply for the joy of it.

Tonight, as I left work, the sky was pretty amazing! The sun is setting just slightly before 5 pm right now, and that’s about when this was taken:

Sunset over the Eel River, Fortuna, CA on my way home tonight

So I was able to get a short video of it.

I am so grateful to have these beautiful moments to share! And there are only 18 working days left of this view…..

Tomorrow we are having dinner with some lovely friends who live a bit south of where the video was taken. We hardly get to see them, and after the Oregon plans fell through, I thought they might be up for a visit – which to my delight, they are!

Then Friday Tom and I are headed to Briceland for their annual wine tasting – good food, good wine, and hopefully the friends will come along.

Whatever your plans, have a fun, safe and gracious Thanksgiving day, and remember to be grateful for your blessings.

Today I have two totally different things that deserve my appreciation.

The first is in reaction to a personal gripe.  For the past 4 months I have been battling hackers who have been adding bogus email addresses into my accounts and sending spam from them.

I have been working with my webhost, but it seemed like it was a continual battle to eliminate the addresses, change the permissions and change the passwords.  I was doing it about once a week, and it included about 30 accounts (my own and some other folks’ too), taking me several hours.  I was finding the problem late at night, necessitating me staying up to fix them and dropping into bed in the wee hours of the morning.

Well, knock on wood (knock, knock), it’s been over a week now and no hacker email accounts so far.  For which I am very grateful. Which makes me appreciate the new web host so much more than the previous one who didn’t even have a PERSON to talk with (sometime in the 5 years I was with them they opted out of personal contact and switched over to email support only).
And the second blessing, which is the larger of the two, is that today I sent in my retirement paperwork.  I have worked for this employer for more than 20 years over the past 35 (in fact, if I hadn’t left twice, I’d be starting into year 35 in just a couple of months!).  And on Christmas Eve I get to leave all of that behind and move into doing what I want to do.

I’m so appreciative that I had the opportunity to be hired on when I was a young single mother raising my daughter by myself.  And that it was a large enough organization that I could move around every 3-5 years as I needed change or promoted into higher levels of responsibility. I appreciate the wisdom of my younger self in taking such a job and staying as long as I did.

I also appreciate that they allowed reinstatement – this last time after having been gone for over 15 years.  I appreciate that I was able to buy back the retirement time I had cashed out, and that I was allowed to buy an additional 5 that will give me over 50% of my current income beginning in January.  I appreciate that my salary, along with my husband’s allowed me the opportunity to take advantage of the buy-backs.
And, I am deeply appreciative that I will have a wonderful health benefit plan that covers both me and my husband and only costs me about 5% of what the full plan would otherwise cost.

I appreciate that I can do this at a time in my life when I am still relatively healthy and relatively young enough to expect many more years of doing what makes me happy.  And that for the first time in my life I get to decide what it is that I want to do that makes me happy, simply for the reason that it’s what I want, without having to worry about supporting myself or anyone else.

Ahhhhhh, now that’s something to appreciate!!

It’s been a REAAAAAAALLLLLLLY long summer!

Hubby was up north putting in a bridge on the Smith River.  I only got to see him on weekends, and then he’d be gone again on Sunday afternoon.

Fires ravaged California & I was sent to Ukiah (!) for 4 weeks to do fire billing because we had so many Corpsmembers out fighting the fires (nearly 1000).  I was there for 4 out of 5 weeks between July and August.  I finally got smart & the last week I brought home copies of everything I needed so I could stay home to complete the last part of the billing.

Totally shifted what I thought I’d be doing all summer with my evening hours!

And, then the economy tanked, thanks to the wise handling of other people’s money by the wizards of wall street and the banking gurus, plus the strong need for the government to step in.

People are scared, so they are trying to hold on to what money they think they have.

Then my external hard drive died – totally mangled all the work I had done since July when I got so busy I forgot to back it up!

However.  Thursday night my guy came home from construction for the season.  It’s the last week of October and the sun is still shining – very lovely fall days here!  Much appreciated since once the rainy, windy winter hits, it tends to stay through February.

And I just finished installing my July backup so I can now go find all the books, emails, etc. I had transferred to the external drive & re-install them, too.  And contact all the vendors for the new products I had purchased since July.

After the first of the year I will be doing a lot of purging of papers, electronic files, etc., so this kind of feels like a trial run!

Hubby’s out playing poker tonight, so I’m finishing up this post and heading out to make some new glass.  Now, if only I could find those bails!!!!

Today started out a beautiful day. Living on the coast, we get lots of fog, especially during the summer when it’s hot in the valley – it creates an inversion layer that holds the fog close to the coastline. Which is why folks from the valley love to come over to escape the 100+ degree temperatures just on the other side of the coastal range.

So, generally, spring and fall are our very best times. Well, today started out with a weak sun, and then moved right into wonderful balmy spring weather.

Hubby and I transplanted various plants into larger pots. We planted the tulips that we misplaced, and which were actually starting to sprout! Now I’ll be able to see them come up from my kitchen window, right next to the artichokes which seem to love our foggy weather!

And, my lovely ficus – a birthday gift eight years ago – finally got transferred to a bigger pot. It is getting rather leggy, and I want to trim it back some, but I wanted to transplant first, to give it a chance to get used to a bigger space before I started to give it a haircut.

I know ficus’ tend to be a bit resistant to change – every year I have to be careful when Christmas comes that I don’t move it to a location it dislikes. One year after I moved it so we could bring in the Christmas tree, the poor thing dropped so many leaves I thought it was in shock – and all from a simple 8 foot move (to a slightly warmer location, no less!).

Anyway, we planted and transplanted and had a great time. The rosemary was blooming on the back porch ( picture on the left), and the hummingbirds were loving it!

The cherry tree finally has some blossoms on it (picture on the right). It gets so pretty – but we never get any cherries – the birds seem to strip it bare in just a couple of days once they get ripe.
I decided to trim back the geraniums and try them in the stone flower beds on the front porch. So far nothing has seemed to grow there, but the geraniums have done great in pots next to the door, so we’ll see how it goes.

I never used to like geraniums very much – I particularly didn’t like the smell of the leaves. It’s so cold up here, though, fuschia, azaleas and geraniums seem to be the only things I can count on. Sometimes we’ll get dahlias, hydrangeas and snapdragons, and sometimes the deer leave the roses alone long enough for me to get a couple of buds. Oh, and gladiolas grow in the fall. I even had some irises show up after 4 years in the ground!

So, everything is kind of hit and miss – except the geraniums. And today I noticed that I don’t mind the scent so much. I think I am getting to where I appreciate the color so much that I am willing to include the smell of the leaves as part of the package!

In the midst of it all, I discovered we had our own crop circle!! (—>) So of course I had to photograph it!

Most of all, I appreciated the sunshine and the time with my husband.

Oh, and by about 4 o’clock it was raining!!

Today I changed this blog from “My Gratitude Blog” to “My Appreciation Blog”.

This may seem an insignificant change, but it happened because of an interesting distinction I heard the other day.

I was listening to a tape by a spiritual leader whose words resonate with me on several levels. The leader was talking about the difference between gratitude and appreciation.

Gratitude implies being grateful for “this” in comparison to “that”. Appreciation, on the other hand, is unconditional – it does not compare to anything else, and it expresses only in a positive direction.

When we compare, we continue to activate (look at, review, remember, focus on) whatever is the lesser or more negative or more undesirable comparison. When we think about the goodness or the thing that we are enjoying, without comparison, we are focused only in that positive direction.

And getting what we really want is always easier when we stop focusing on what we don’t want. Take it out of the equation totally, and look at what you are enjoying right now.

That’s my shift, and I’m sticking with it!!

A quick entry today about being creative…and bringing out the hidden gifts we all have.

All my life I have been creative.  I’ve made things, designed things, put together things and thought up many more things than I could ever hope to get into physical reality.

Years ago they did a study to discover what separated creative people from those who didn’t think they were creative.  They looked at education, training, income, you name it, they considered it.  What they found was very interesting.  The one trait that all creative people had is……..

They believed they were creative. 

So why is this important?  It speaks to everything we achieve as a manifestation of what we believe about ourselves. 

I don’t know what my life would be like if I wasn’t creative.  I am always looking for ways to improve, develop and increase…everything!!

But most important, I use my creative endeavors as a way to engage my left (logical) brain in the work at hand while my right (holistic/creative problem solving) brain works on the issues that are affecting me at the deeper levels.

It’s how I maintain my sanity when I’m stressed, and how I resolve imbalances or issues that are disturbing me.  I ”retreat” into my studio and create something.

And I always emerge refreshed and regenerated.  Or, since it is about getting back to source, I emerge re-sourced and re-source-full.

And that always makes me see things with a keener and clearer eye, to consider things in a way I might have overlooked previously.  All of which, of course, makes me realize how creative I am!! 

And so continues the cycle. 

 

Lately my husband and I have been talking a lot about how much “stuff” we have.  We have so much “stuff” that it’s beginning to get in the way.  Like not being able to find the “stuff” we really want/need at the moment.  Or spending so much time looking for the “stuff” that we don’t get done what we started out to do.  Or that it just looks cluttery with all the “stuff”, and we can’t find places to put everything!!!

Blast From the Past 

We both grew up with parents who lived through the Great Depression, and they were so afraid to be without, that they simply held on to everything.

This is not a bad trait.  In fact, it’s come in handy more than once!!  And, for sure, we are very avid recyclers – not to the point of obsession, just to the point of being responsible. 

So, after our February holiday in New Zealand, we’ve been thinking a lot about what we want our lifestyle to be like, and a mobile lifestyle (one where you don’t own a lot of “stuff”, but you have access to other people’s “stuff” that THEY have to care for) is very attractive.

To achieve this, we have to remind ourselves that WE didn’t grow up with the Great Depression, just with the after effects of the Depression.  And nowadays it is so easy for us to acquire just about anything we want or need that holding on to lots of extra should become a thing of the past.

But then there’s that recycling thing, and the desire to not be wasteful.  I don’t know about you, but I find it very hard to simply throw out something that still has usefulness, or to abandon it without at least trying to find it a good home!!  I keep remembering my sparse youth growing up in a family of 5 kids.

Planning for the Future 

So, now that we’re looking at the next phase of our life (our “retirement” from working and creating the mobile lifestyle that we want), we are actively cleaning up our portfolios and making sure everything is the way it’s supposed to me.

Part of this means making sure our retirement calculations are correct. I have been trying for about 10 years to get my pension plan straightened out, especially the past 2 years.  

Details, Details….. 

First my plan said I owed a substantial amount to shift back into my original plan from a change I had made many years ago.  So I set up that repayment amount.

Then they said I owed an additional amount because of a refund I had supposedly gotten.  So I set up that repayment amount.

Then they said I could “buy” some part time work credit from before the time when I officially became a member.  So I set up that payment amount.

Then I asked about buying some additional time.  They sent me the paperwork.  Just before I sent it back in (and set up that payment plan), I noticed that the last calculation they sent me showed 2 more years than it should have. I pointed that out and asked them to recalculate my service.

Well, yes, I was right and they were wrong.  I didn’t want to get to “graduation” only to find out I still had another 3 units to complete before I could graduate!!

But Wait, There’s More

Then I got the letter saying they had made a mistake and I now owed an additional $17,000 to get that full credit!  Well, that was just before our five week trip to New Zealand.  I didn’t have time to get it straightened out before we left, and a decision had to be made while we were gone, so I set up the minimum amount possible for repayment, which also allowed me to make any necessary changes after we got back.

After we got back from our fantastic trip, I actively pursued getting this corrected. 

It took me several calls (repeating myself over and over) during the next 3 months until I met this lovely person over the phone – Patricia – who promised to get it all straightened out by the end of the week. 

Three weeks later I was tired of waiting and I called again.  When Patricia wasn’t in, I asked to speak to a supervisor.  By this time I was again losing patience.

Luckily Patricia walked into her office while I was on the phone.  She told me she my case was so complex that she had to ask for help from her associates (well, yes, I knew it was complex – I’d been trying to get someone to straighten it out for years). She promised to call me back by the following Tuesday.  I said I would call on Wednesday if I didn’t hear from her.

This time she kept her promise and the following Tuesday I received her call.  The really good news was that most of my service credit should have been taken care of with my initial repayment.  And, because of all the money I had already paid, they actually owed me over $1000.  I received the refund checks yesterday.

Onward and Upward!!

So now was the time to buy that extra time, right?  WELL, maybe.  I wanted to use an old rollover IRA from a job I left 14 years ago in order to take advantage of the tax benefits.  It isn’t huge, but it will take care of 3/5ths of the payment, and pre-tax is always good!!

EXCEPT…since I rolled it from a 401k into a rollover IRA, my pension plan needs certification from not only the current plan administrator, but also from the original administrator!!!  And they won’t accept the pre-tax money unless they have the documentation.

Now, this was a Silicon Valley start-up company that I left in 1992, and was sold in 1999.  The company (as such) didn’t even exist any longer!  And when I rolled my 401k over into the rollover account, I didn’t think I’d ever need that paperwork again.  After all, it was 14 years ago…

When I called the current IRA custodian, they could tell me when I started the account, but had no record of where the money came from (!).  They also said they are only required to keep records for 7 years, and although they keep them for 10, they didn’t have them 14 years back.

Problem Solving 101

It wasn’t my first reaction, but once I got over my upset, I started thinking about how I could find the original plan administrator.  I googled my prior employer’s company name, and found several articles about them.  I was able to discover that they had been sold again a few years ago, so I wrote down the contact info for the new company. 

Then I found the vice-president.  Very cool.  He had written a book, had a new company, a blog, lots of internet presence.  I could contact him and find out who had administered the plan – after all, he and the president had started the company.

So now I got thinking, hmmm, was this a blessing in disguise?  Was it an opportunity to reconnect with an old friend?  I wrote his contact info down so I could call on Friday.

Full Circle…

On the way home I got to thinking about the company – it had been a good solid company and I had enjoyed my 4 years with them as their international training and consulting manager.  I was looking forward to catching up on what had happened since then.

That got me thinking about when I left (it was to move up to Humboldt with the man who is now my husband of nearly 14 years).  Suddenly I remembered the paperwork regarding the 401k.  I had seen it over the years, always thinking I should throw it out, but I just couldn’t remember if I actually had ever done so.  I couldn’t remember exactly when or where I had last seen it, but I was going to dig through my papers until I could find it.

So tonight as my husband and I were getting his paperwork together, I started looking for my own. 

EUREKA!!

Not only did I find the letter from the company regarding the distribution (although I never found my copies of what I had signed), I actually found the first statement from the current plan administrator (the month after I rolled the money in).

Now, this is not a story meant to encourage you to hold on to every piece of paper you ever receive.  I found the documents in files where I had somehow had the foresight to place them years ago.

And, about three years ago I stopped keeping old copies of these monthly statements.  I now keep them for a year and then dump them when the next year starts.  Somehow I never got around to dumping those old records.

And I did manage to keep the original documents that will now save me a lot of taxes (and a lot of frustration).

The morale of this true story is to be judicious with what you chose to keep.  And to make sure that your financial records are in a place you will be able to find them.  But also, to remember that if you’ve got way too much “stuff” crowding up the place, you might never find that necessary whatever you’re looking for.

I was lucky that at least my filing system is relatively well organized and I was disciplined enough to have actually filed the papers!  And I’m grateful that I won’t have to spend any more time, effort or frustration trying to figure out how to find those folks!! 

I still want the mobile lifestyle, so I’ll keep downsizing and eliminating what’s no longer useful.  And I’m also still thinking it would be fun to call up Phil and find out where about the adventures he’s had over the past fifteen years.