Sunday, April 17, 2016

It's My Time Now

This Friday, I retired from work - 19 years with Australian Clothing Company and prior to that 12 years with Cash's. How's that for consistency? One could say - didn't anyone else want you?
At this age I didn't know what retirement was. How far have we travelled in life.
So far we are the lucky ones and hopefully we now do what we want.
Work has had its ups and downs but mainly ups. The rewarding part was the close business relationships both inside and outside the organization. Ours is a small company but that is what made it special. We had names, not numbers.

I had a philosophy about success - realize your use by date before others do. I had reached that stage and it felt right to retire. I turned 66 this April, one year after our official retirement age, that's if we choose to. The age of 65 is also our opportunity to apply for the pension.

After I announced that I was going to retire I found people were asking what would I do with my time as if I would get bored - HA!
Let me count the ways...............many of my retired friends wonder how they found the time to work!!!
This may have been the start of seriously considering retirement. Sue and I travelled back to France and spent 7 weeks with our friends in the Loire - all retired. Their lifestyle made me envious and inspired me to plan my retirement.
I thank you all so much - you know who you are.
So, where do we go from here? Firstly on Monday I don't need to shave or get up to go to work BUT, I'll be up to enjoy a bike ride in the country, then I'll begin to write the first words from my research of my third book.
Sue and I have the new house project on our block in Trentham that will take much of our time over this year.

Do other retirees look back on their past life or do they look forward to the future - I think you move on to the new experiences while nurturing those precious past memories.

On with the show and a resurgence of this Blog. (I promise)

7 comments:

  1. Congratulations! Welcome to the club. :)

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  2. Congratulations. It is a wonderful freedom to be retired and have so many interests. Have fun!
    Janine
    Warmer weather has arrived and spring blooming trees and flours are a mass of colour. The bees are very busy.

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  3. Should read flowers ... Auto correct catches me out at times. Janine

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    1. I knew what you meant. - sounds the same - different meaning but I knew.... Thank you for your good wishes minwks

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  4. Congratulations from us!
    Personally I couldn't wait to retire and for the last two years at work was very unsettled. I have never looked back, literally. I have occasional bizarre dreams about work but within weeks of leaving could hardly ever remember going. It took a few months to stop rushing around as if I was still working and to develop a new routine but I can highly recommend it!
    It certainly sounds like you will be busy.....enjoy, it's for the rest of your life!

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    1. Thanks Jean - I rang the office on Monday to say I would not be in - for the rest of my life!!!! Tried not shaving for 5 days but caved in today and now clean shaven. Thanks for your good wishes.

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