Well, we have technically owned this home in Florida for 6 months now. It's been quite an adventure for us two midwesterners. But even though we have owned the home for 6 full months, we've only lived here for just over 2 months.
I am struggling with the decision that I made in January to retire in 2012--I did in fact retire in January. While I don't regret that, and don't think it was a mistake, I am rethinking the decision not to work. Back in January, I was not very healthy. I was stressed all the time, I could see no future at Blue Cross for me that did not include working for the boss I had. And I just could not work for him anymore. I was approaching a job frustration level that I don't think I had ever felt before. The situation was just not good.
After I 'retired' I felt more isolation and loneliness than ever before. I adore my Grandkids, but the only time I saw them was when I drove up to help take care of them, and that wasn't often enough, even though I tried to see each Grandchild once a week. I didn't feel the purpose that a parent feels, and it was just very hard. I never had a Grandma, my kids never had a Grandma, and I just didn't have any idea how to be one.
Florida was more of an investment opportunity, I thought, than a move. I never wanted to move completely down here. Now I'm thinking that what I really wanted was to get out of Ellsworth. I never really liked Ellsworth and it never really liked me. When the kids were smaller and still in school, I decided that even if Ellsworth didn't like me, I loved our farm, it was home, and I was going to be there whether Ellsworth liked it or not.
So now, we're in Florida, and the weather is even better than imagined. It is summer all the time. Right now, I really miss the kids, and Christmas. I feel like I worked all my life to make Christmas traditions for them, and those things really aren't relevant down here. I think that Christmas starts with COLD WEATHER. I want to come home for Christmas and freeze a little. Even though this is a really healthy, active, and good place to live, I still want to come home for Christmas. And HOME is where the kids are. Not really Ellsworth, more St. Paul, I think.
One problem with my 'retirement' is that I don't have any income. And we, together, don't really have much income. It's not a matter of having this second house, it is just not having a job. There are jobs down here in South Florida, for which I am well suited, and I certainly would love to make the money. But I just cannot commit to a full time future in the sunshine state. It is too far from the kids. So I'm trying to find a full time job up in Minneapolis. The house here in Florida is set up well for absentee ownership, and I would love for it to be the vacation home I was thinking of.
Wish me luck!
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
The Fitness Project
One goal I had in coming down here was to get fit again.
I was really fit once. Of course I was 26 years old then, and I had no good car, so for one year I biked everywhere, and everything was a long way from my home.
Then I got married, had children, moved to Ellsworth, etc.
I tried to regain my fitness when I worked at Blue Cross by joining Lifetime in Eagan. I had a personal trainer, Anthony, and worked out hard, a lot. But then I switched to Fitness Influence in Ellsworth and the whole plan sort of fell apart.
Down here, I've been walking the dog. 2.6 miles per dog-walk. And I thought that was pretty darn hard.
Today I rejoined the Port Saint Lucie Fitness Center, at the Civic Center, and actually had a personal training session with Matt. Matt looked like a very recently retired body builder--of the Mr. Universe variety. The workout actually wasn't too bad, and I plan to continue working out and meeting with Matt for at least a while. I am sure he took it very easy on me, knowing how unfit I had been. For one of the exercises, He didn't even give me any weights!
I am not going to set ambitious goals this time. I want to keep getting progressively more fit, and continue to lose weight. Progress is the goal. Of course, I have some hidden goals, but if I write them down and don't make them, I'll feel disappointed and might get derailed. So I'm sticking with the 'progress' goal.
I was really fit once. Of course I was 26 years old then, and I had no good car, so for one year I biked everywhere, and everything was a long way from my home.
Then I got married, had children, moved to Ellsworth, etc.
I tried to regain my fitness when I worked at Blue Cross by joining Lifetime in Eagan. I had a personal trainer, Anthony, and worked out hard, a lot. But then I switched to Fitness Influence in Ellsworth and the whole plan sort of fell apart.
Down here, I've been walking the dog. 2.6 miles per dog-walk. And I thought that was pretty darn hard.
Today I rejoined the Port Saint Lucie Fitness Center, at the Civic Center, and actually had a personal training session with Matt. Matt looked like a very recently retired body builder--of the Mr. Universe variety. The workout actually wasn't too bad, and I plan to continue working out and meeting with Matt for at least a while. I am sure he took it very easy on me, knowing how unfit I had been. For one of the exercises, He didn't even give me any weights!
I am not going to set ambitious goals this time. I want to keep getting progressively more fit, and continue to lose weight. Progress is the goal. Of course, I have some hidden goals, but if I write them down and don't make them, I'll feel disappointed and might get derailed. So I'm sticking with the 'progress' goal.
Monday, November 12, 2012
What's Different in South Florida
It's been a very quiet day in South Florida, and I paused to reflect on things that I have noticed that are different than Ellsworth or the Twin Cities. These are what I noticed first, I'm sure there will be more.
1. It gets dark early. Of course, it gets dark early up north also, but up there, when the weather is in the high seventies it is light later, because of course, it's July then. Here we have summer weather and winter hours of daylight. And it feels very strange.
2. We have neighbors. Everyone has neighbors, but in Ellsworth they are at least a tenth of a mile away, and here they are 20 feet away. Very different. Luckily, the houses are made of cement, so sound doesn't carry very well. The neighbors next door have teenagers, so sometimes they have pool parties on weekends, which we can sometimes hear, but it is no big deal.
3. Half the neighbors, and really, half the people down here, speak Spanish. One neighbor, from Chicago, has lived here 22 years and still has a very Spanish accent. There are a lot of Indian people here also. Lots of diversity compared to Ellsworth or Wisconsin.
4. It is FLAT. There are no storm sewers here. There are, instead, drainage ditches that cut across all the neighborhoods. So the roads are a kind of maze that goes around the various drainage areas. Sometimes you'll be walking the dog and may be tempted to cut across a block only to find you can't because of the drainage. (I've never tried this)
Some things are the same. Home Depot is the same except that the plants are significantly different.
Target is pretty much exactly the same, and Target really feels like home.
1. It gets dark early. Of course, it gets dark early up north also, but up there, when the weather is in the high seventies it is light later, because of course, it's July then. Here we have summer weather and winter hours of daylight. And it feels very strange.
2. We have neighbors. Everyone has neighbors, but in Ellsworth they are at least a tenth of a mile away, and here they are 20 feet away. Very different. Luckily, the houses are made of cement, so sound doesn't carry very well. The neighbors next door have teenagers, so sometimes they have pool parties on weekends, which we can sometimes hear, but it is no big deal.
3. Half the neighbors, and really, half the people down here, speak Spanish. One neighbor, from Chicago, has lived here 22 years and still has a very Spanish accent. There are a lot of Indian people here also. Lots of diversity compared to Ellsworth or Wisconsin.
4. It is FLAT. There are no storm sewers here. There are, instead, drainage ditches that cut across all the neighborhoods. So the roads are a kind of maze that goes around the various drainage areas. Sometimes you'll be walking the dog and may be tempted to cut across a block only to find you can't because of the drainage. (I've never tried this)
Some things are the same. Home Depot is the same except that the plants are significantly different.
Target is pretty much exactly the same, and Target really feels like home.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Feeling Like a Tourist
Today we were taking a motorcycle trip through the flat land of central Florida, and I realized that I really feel like a tourist here. I thought, I will always feel like a tourist here. Florida will never be home to me, as it is to so many Floridians down here, because I am just too old to ever become a "native", and also, I'm a very Midwestern person.
I got to thinking about feeling like a tourist, and I realized that I have felt like a tourist in the places where I lived for so much of my life. When I was twelve, we moved to Phillips, where there were two kinds of people, Phillips people, and 'tourists'. The Phillips people I knew always thought I was a tourist. They say your hometown, the place you are from, is the place that you graduate from High School. Well, for me that was Phillips. Yet, I never really felt like a native, even when I lived there.
Between High School and my marriage, I moved 14 times. That counts a lot of moving from apartment to apartment. I did really feel at home in St. Paul. I would have to say that was the one place I totally felt was home. I more-or-less belonged. I worked and lived in the same town, St. Paul, and I knew people there.
When we moved to Ellsworth, I felt again like a 'tourist'. I carpooled with people who actually called Bob and I "rich people from the CITY". To our faces! I never lost the feeling of being a visitor. After I'd had a child in St. Francis school for 12 consecutive years, the principal still got my name wrong. And there was only at most 75 or 100 kids in the school at any one time. You can't be a native in Ellsworth unless you had a great grandpa or grandpa, at least, that was born there. When the kids were gone, I decided that I loved our farm, and it was home to me, in spite of the community. I'd lived there longer than anywhere else.
Now I am a tourist again, for real. That is just fine. At this moment, I'm happy to think of my home as still in Ellsworth, and my final resting place, still in St. Paul where my girls are buried. I'm good with that. I embrace the tourist gig in South Florida for the time being.
I got to thinking about feeling like a tourist, and I realized that I have felt like a tourist in the places where I lived for so much of my life. When I was twelve, we moved to Phillips, where there were two kinds of people, Phillips people, and 'tourists'. The Phillips people I knew always thought I was a tourist. They say your hometown, the place you are from, is the place that you graduate from High School. Well, for me that was Phillips. Yet, I never really felt like a native, even when I lived there.
Between High School and my marriage, I moved 14 times. That counts a lot of moving from apartment to apartment. I did really feel at home in St. Paul. I would have to say that was the one place I totally felt was home. I more-or-less belonged. I worked and lived in the same town, St. Paul, and I knew people there.
When we moved to Ellsworth, I felt again like a 'tourist'. I carpooled with people who actually called Bob and I "rich people from the CITY". To our faces! I never lost the feeling of being a visitor. After I'd had a child in St. Francis school for 12 consecutive years, the principal still got my name wrong. And there was only at most 75 or 100 kids in the school at any one time. You can't be a native in Ellsworth unless you had a great grandpa or grandpa, at least, that was born there. When the kids were gone, I decided that I loved our farm, and it was home to me, in spite of the community. I'd lived there longer than anywhere else.
Now I am a tourist again, for real. That is just fine. At this moment, I'm happy to think of my home as still in Ellsworth, and my final resting place, still in St. Paul where my girls are buried. I'm good with that. I embrace the tourist gig in South Florida for the time being.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Bundled up in Red Tape
Today was the day we decided to get our Florida Drivers licences. I guess we need them so that we can get Florida car insurance, so that we can get Florida tags, so that, ultimately, we will be Florida residents, and thus less likely to be stopped for speeding or other violations down here. Hmmm. I sure hope it works that way, because I feel like I wasted about 3 hours of my wonderful life sitting at the DMV explaining things.
First of all, we each had to have an original Birth Certificate, an original Social Security card, and 2 pieces of mail, with our name and address on them, that were less than 60 days old. Oh, I also had to have an original marriage certificate because I changed my name when I got married. We actually had saved a bill that had come here with Bob's name on it, so he had one piece of mail. (Good ol' Florida Power and Light!) But he was still short one piece of mail. So, thinking this would work, we took the Warranty Deed on the house, which had both our names on it.
Well, they didn't like my birth certificate because I'd gotten it in 1977, and it was hard to see the raised seal. And they weren't crazy about my marriage certificate, either, because the clerk had misspelled my name and used whiteout to change it. Back in the day when nobody cared about that sort of thing. And they weren't going to give me a license. So I told them that my Wisconsin drivers license was good until 2019, and I was sure it was valid in Florida, so that was what I'd be using. Then, suddenly, the problems with the documents got better. At least mine got a little better. As it turned out, the piece of mail from Florida Power and Light could be used as a proof as long as Robert signed a document stating that I lived at the same address. But then, it turned out that the Warranty Deed didn't actually have our ADDRESS on it, just the legal description. The nice ladies at the DMV were able to solve that problem through the magic of computers. So we registered to vote, wrote out one big check, swore that we were truthful, and happily waited for our new cards.
But, unfortunately, when mine came out it said 'Laurie Ann Larson' which is not my real name, and renders the drivers license pretty useless. Luckily I caught the mistake, and we were able to correct it and get a new card and new voter registration with the correct name. I caught it because Minnesota made the same mistake 3 times, and I think Wisconsin made it once also.
Anyway this process has taught me two things, which I kind of already knew, but am now way way more aware of.
1. It is going to very hard for people to get voter identification if they don't have it. Old records aren't so good, even if they are valid. Never let your drivers license lapse. When new rules are applied to old records, the process can get very messy.
2. The process is harder on women. Girls, keep some bills in your name so you get some mail in your name, in case you ever need it. And the whole marriage certificate thing is just stupid. We should be able to prove our name based on other identification. I had a perfectly good unexpired Wisconsin license that had my correct name on it, and that document should have been enough. They were willing to accept a check with my name on it, without a marrige certificate.
Next up: Insurance and vehicle plates! I can hardly wait.
First of all, we each had to have an original Birth Certificate, an original Social Security card, and 2 pieces of mail, with our name and address on them, that were less than 60 days old. Oh, I also had to have an original marriage certificate because I changed my name when I got married. We actually had saved a bill that had come here with Bob's name on it, so he had one piece of mail. (Good ol' Florida Power and Light!) But he was still short one piece of mail. So, thinking this would work, we took the Warranty Deed on the house, which had both our names on it.
Well, they didn't like my birth certificate because I'd gotten it in 1977, and it was hard to see the raised seal. And they weren't crazy about my marriage certificate, either, because the clerk had misspelled my name and used whiteout to change it. Back in the day when nobody cared about that sort of thing. And they weren't going to give me a license. So I told them that my Wisconsin drivers license was good until 2019, and I was sure it was valid in Florida, so that was what I'd be using. Then, suddenly, the problems with the documents got better. At least mine got a little better. As it turned out, the piece of mail from Florida Power and Light could be used as a proof as long as Robert signed a document stating that I lived at the same address. But then, it turned out that the Warranty Deed didn't actually have our ADDRESS on it, just the legal description. The nice ladies at the DMV were able to solve that problem through the magic of computers. So we registered to vote, wrote out one big check, swore that we were truthful, and happily waited for our new cards.
But, unfortunately, when mine came out it said 'Laurie Ann Larson' which is not my real name, and renders the drivers license pretty useless. Luckily I caught the mistake, and we were able to correct it and get a new card and new voter registration with the correct name. I caught it because Minnesota made the same mistake 3 times, and I think Wisconsin made it once also.
Anyway this process has taught me two things, which I kind of already knew, but am now way way more aware of.
1. It is going to very hard for people to get voter identification if they don't have it. Old records aren't so good, even if they are valid. Never let your drivers license lapse. When new rules are applied to old records, the process can get very messy.
2. The process is harder on women. Girls, keep some bills in your name so you get some mail in your name, in case you ever need it. And the whole marriage certificate thing is just stupid. We should be able to prove our name based on other identification. I had a perfectly good unexpired Wisconsin license that had my correct name on it, and that document should have been enough. They were willing to accept a check with my name on it, without a marrige certificate.
Next up: Insurance and vehicle plates! I can hardly wait.
Friday, October 26, 2012
The trouble with working
The trouble is, the working...raising a family..doing everything. life...doesn't really prepare you for retirement. It's like you were racing towards a brick wall or an abyss, and then you are THERE!
I think I could have given this more thought when I was working, but who had time. I was at Blue Cross about 10 hours and day, commuting 2 hours, and trying to make sense of me the rest of the time. Luckily Bob was taking care of the food business (which I do not like to deal with) and necessary shopping.
You think that it all will unwind peacefully into the FUTURE. But here I am, 60 years old, still feeling like I'm 24. Or maybe 44. With no clue as to how to go forward. This Florida thing has sort of 'distilled' the problem. I could have sat home in Ellsworth, forever, waiting to get older and eventually die, but I didn't. I'm here in South Florida, and I need to make new friends and find new things to do, just like when I really was 24 and moved to Minneapolis.
Today, at least, I worked out and took a spinning class. I have always found new friends and a new social order through fitness things. I'm hoping this will still work for me, even though I am old. Maybe not so old.
I think I could have given this more thought when I was working, but who had time. I was at Blue Cross about 10 hours and day, commuting 2 hours, and trying to make sense of me the rest of the time. Luckily Bob was taking care of the food business (which I do not like to deal with) and necessary shopping.
You think that it all will unwind peacefully into the FUTURE. But here I am, 60 years old, still feeling like I'm 24. Or maybe 44. With no clue as to how to go forward. This Florida thing has sort of 'distilled' the problem. I could have sat home in Ellsworth, forever, waiting to get older and eventually die, but I didn't. I'm here in South Florida, and I need to make new friends and find new things to do, just like when I really was 24 and moved to Minneapolis.
Today, at least, I worked out and took a spinning class. I have always found new friends and a new social order through fitness things. I'm hoping this will still work for me, even though I am old. Maybe not so old.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
First Post!
My first blog post.
I started this blog adventure to describe my feelings about the bigger adventure in my life, which is moving my old mid western girl self to Florida. And all the other changes that go with that, or along with that big change. Such as not having a career any longer, my Mom's illness, leaving my wonderful children and grandchildren for a big part of the year. Knitting and quilting have always been a big part of my life, and they may be less so in the future. Hm mm. What will happen? What will life be like in Florida? We'll see.
I started this blog adventure to describe my feelings about the bigger adventure in my life, which is moving my old mid western girl self to Florida. And all the other changes that go with that, or along with that big change. Such as not having a career any longer, my Mom's illness, leaving my wonderful children and grandchildren for a big part of the year. Knitting and quilting have always been a big part of my life, and they may be less so in the future. Hm mm. What will happen? What will life be like in Florida? We'll see.
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