2013 (November) OLLI Google Course Teaching

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Saturday, November 9, 2013

Volunteering: The Missing Link In My Early Retirement

Some months back Suzanne over at Life Out Loud challenged her blog readers to categorize how they spent their time each day in order to see what was really being given priority. In my case, I was able to categorize most of my actions as being related to one of the following areas of priority:

        Mind
        Body
        Spirit
        Travel
        Family
        Friends

At the risk of exposing my less-than-perfect self, I have to point out that the one glaring omission in the above list was Volunteering. In spite of having done much volunteering over the years in the organizations and groups my daughters were involved in, I'd stalled out at some point over the last decade as my job scope grew, and more of my energy got redirected toward it as a result. 

So when I entered retirement in 2011, I did so with the best of intentions to volunteer, even undergoing several weeks of training beforehand with two different organizations, to be sure I had something to step into immediately. To my surprise, however, I very quickly began to resent these intrusions into my newly discovered free time, and ultimately decided I simply wasn't ready to commit my time to anything other than myself just yet.

Recently however, some two and a half years post retirement, a little kernel of wanting to give back has began to grow. As I mulled over what that meant, I knew whatever it ultimately turned out to be would have to both strike a chord of passion, and be able to be compartmentalized into the six months we weren't traveling. Something involving our semester-by-semester Lifelong Learning program (OLLI) seemed to be the obvious answer, but what to do exactly?

I knew I wanted to teach, having enjoyed teaching product and sales processes in my prior occupation, but teach what exactly? The problem with our Lifelong Learning program is that there are a lot of very smart people in it, like doctor, lawyer, judge, engineer and scientist smart, and I struggled to figure out what I could possibly offer that would have value. 

My first step was to begin attending committee meetings in a variety of areas to see what struck a chord. The first few didn't feel quite right for a variety of reasons, but when I sat down at my first Computer Education committee meeting I knew I'd come home. That first meeting was just like the many IT meetings I attending during my working years, but for a much better cause than simply increasing revenue - the goal here was to enhance peoples' lives by helping to improve computer skills in areas that were important, personally, to them.

I really enjoy computers. I enjoy staying up to date on technology, and am a heavy user of Microsoft products, Adobe products, Google docs, social media and social networking. When I mentioned this to the computer education committee as part of my introduction, I received much encouragement to consider offering a class on one of the last two, which is how an OLLI course in Social Media 101 was born.

The class kicked off last week, and to say I was nervous would be an understatement. What if no one showed up? What if I discovered I didn't know as much as I thought I knew about Social Media?

To my surprise, the class was standing room only at the designated start time. It turned out that there are a lot of older individuals that feel shut out of their family's lives because of their family's heavy usage of a medium they don't yet really understand. As a result, I'm finding it so rewarding to disassemble and explain step by step how to use sites like Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook to establish closer family connections, and possibly enhance their lives in other ways as well by bringing them closer to friends, and even causes, they care about. Their enthusiasm in return has been so wonderful, and so rewarding, that I returned home determined to figure out how to bring even more interesting stuff to them going forward. One woman, in particular, touched my heart as she tearfully explained how isolated she had previously felt at not being able to understand how to utilize Social Media to view her far-away daughter's frequent video and photo postings of her young grandchildren.

My involvement in the program will expand next semester to include a class on Microsoft Word, which I'll be teaching in conjunction with a Life Storybook course that focuses on helping OLLI members write their life stories. I'm looking forward to lending technical assistance to those interested in learning how to present their stories in an aesthetically pleasing manner that can then be electronically shared or printed for the purpose of preserving and passing them down to future generations. 

In the meantime, I'm working one-on-one with a gentleman that is trying to document his life story while clearly beginning to lose his mental cabilities. I can tell from the document he is working to transcribe, that he was a CPA previously, and to now watch him struggle to perform the simplest of computer tasks is a humbling reminder of what the aging process can do. And yet, every Friday he's waiting for me with the biggest of smiles, and the most appreciate of attitudes. If he only knew that I'm walking away with far more than I could possibly be hoping to leave him with.

And while I understand that none of these things are going to change the world significantly in and of themselves, I'd like to think that they are significantly meaningful to the individuals being affected. For now, that's more than good enough for this early retiree.

2013 (October)

Early Retirement Journey

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Sunday, November 3, 2013

Happy Fall RV'ing at Yucaipa Regional Park

I'm pretty sure Mike is not going to be a happy camper when he realizes that I've shared the photo above on my blog, but could you resist if you were me? Luckily, he doesn't have to worry any longer about what his co-workers might have to say on Monday morning, so I'm pretty sure he'll forgive me.

That photo pretty much sums up our mood this weekend at Yucaipa Regional Park, located at the base of the San Bernardino mountains and just a few miles down the road from Oak Glen, a town that goes apple-picking crazy each fall. We were here a year ago, and had such a nice time we decided to make a return trip this year. Given how expensive California State Parks are to camp in since prices doubled in 2009, regional parks continue to be a bargain by comparison. Our stay at Yucaipa Regional Park was $37.50 per night for an enormous, full hook up site that included electricity, water and sewer.

We spent the weekend with several other members of our RV club, and as usual that meant lots of lots of talking and laughing, roaring campfires each night, and way too much fabulous food. Otherwise, our spend was almost nil. We sampled oodles of apples and apple cider in Oak Glen for free on Saturday, and dropped a grand total of $29.00 to buy a bag of Fuji apples, two apple turnovers, one apple pie and six delicious, hot-off-the-grill mini apple donuts which we devoured while they were still warm. 

Total spend for our two night/three day weekend:

• Yucaipa Regional Park, Full Hookups incl Sewer, 2 nights/3 days: $80.00
• Gas: $21.00
• Oak Glen apple fun: $29.00
• TOTAL: $130.00

Fun factor? Priceless of course.

One of Yucaipa Regional Park's three man made lakes.

A lone heron

A picturesque post-Halloween 50% off sale display

An old fashion cider press

Friday, November 1, 2013

Falling Into Fall Baking

Like many of you I love this time of year. Waking up in the morning and feeling just a littly bit chilly after so many months of summer's unrelenting heat feels downright decadent. And without fail, my thoughts turn to another decadent pleasure - fall baking.

With the holidays looming, I've begun stockpiling all the items I know I'll need to get through the rest of the year - canned pumpkin, baking chocolate, flour, the three sugars (brown, powdered and granulated) and butter. I've picked up all of these items on sale over the last couple of weeks, and I think I should be good to go. Actually, I may have gone a bit overboard - I now have six cans of pumpkin, plus eight bags of baking chocolate neatly piled in my pantry - but the prices were so low I couldn't resist. Plus, I've gotten so good at chasing grocery sales I'm increasingly being left with a surplus of cash. This week, for example, I only spent $62.00 on actually menu items, and used the remaining $38.00 to stockpile sale items. Like pasta (I confess to having over 15 boxes of it now lining my pantry), pasta sauce (10 jars and counting), wheat bread (six loaves and counting) and Keebler cookies for when I get behind on my baking (five bags and counting).

But I digress. The point of this post was to share what I whipped up this morning using only what I already had on hand in my increasingly well stocked kitchen, my first 'just for fun' baking project of the fall season:

They are called Melt-In-Your-Mouth Coconut and Lime Meringue Macaroons, and that is exactly what they are. The idea to dip just a smidge of one edge into dark chocolate was mine, and if nothing else, I love the way it makes them look. The recipe calls for just seven ingredients, plus the dark chocolate for dipping, and they were  e a s y  to make. The hardest part, actually, was waiting patiently for my Kitchenaid mixer to finish whipping the egg whites into firm peaks.

And as a quick side note about the lime zest the recipe calls for - I picked up this zester from Crate & Barrel last year at the recommendation of a girlfriend and love, love, love it. It makes zesting an absolute breeze. Order at this link if you currently avoid zesting because of the hassle. You won't after you get your hands on this little wonder!

The above recipe is from a series of baking cookbooks I am newly in love with, by Lori Longbotham. I received her Luscious Chocolate Desserts cookbook some years ago from a friend, and have been baking from it ever since, most notably her Kathryn Hepburn brownies. I received an Amazon gift card for my birthday last month, and decided to order the three other cookbooks below, one of which I bought used, not that I could tell which once the package came. They are all in perfect condition.

And, I couldn't bear to throw away the three leftover egg yolks, so I did a Google search and found this recipe for Egg Yolk Cookies. I substituted almond extract for the lemon and orange extract called for in the recipe, and these crispy little cookies ended up tasting much like the almond cookies served after dinner at Chinese restaurants. Very tasty!

Almond Egg Yolk cookies

I'm looking forward to working my way through these cookbooks in the months ahead, and will be relying on my freezer and my daily runs (or bike rides or hikes, depending) to keep me out of caloric trouble!

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Got a cookbook, chef or cookbook series you are crazy about? Please do share if so!

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Southwest RV Trip Planning

Some people in my family have accused me of enjoying the planning more than the doing when it comes to our travels. I politely disagree, though I do admit to relishing the planning that goes into our trips. 

Hence why I'm already at work on our next multi week RV trip to the southwest this spring. Having learned my lesson from this summer's two month trip to the Pacific Northwest, I'll be paying more attention to the little details of what to do once we arrive at each destination, so I don't have a repeat of what I described in this post:

The one big lesson I learned from our Pacific Northwest trip was that I really needed to do a little more research on what to do during each leg ahead of time. I spent a lot of time researching RV parks, and the overall places we should visit, and it was time well spent. Next time I'll spend the same amount of time researching the specifics of what we should do, so I can avoid taking time during each leg to do so. Our strategy, which worked pretty well but was time consuming, was to set up our RV site, then head to the closest visitor center or ranger station to get information on what there was to do. It worked out just fine looking back, but I felt panicked at times as I tried to figure out our game plan, which I didn't particular enjoy.

Similar to our Pacific Northwest trip, our goal in the southwest this spring is to visit as many National Parks as we can comfortable work our trip around. At this point, it looks like we'll be able to work five of them in, plus at least one National Monument. We'll round our trip out by including hiking in nearby state parks, museums in nearby cities, and fun, quirky attractions as we find them.

Like going on a UFO tour in Roswell, NM. And watching the bats take flight at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. And kayaking down the Colorado River in Bullhead City, AZ.

Using the same process I wrote about in this post on planning out a multi destination RV trip, here's what we've plotted out so far:

Tucson, AZ - Saguaro National Park
Las Cruces, NM 
Carlsbad, NM - Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Roswell UFO Tour, Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Albuquerque, NM
Santa Fe/Taos, NM
Mesa Verde National Park, CO
Canyon De Chelly National Monument, AZ
Holbrook, AZ - Petrified Forest National Park
Bullhead City, AZ

This is the point where I start to feel giddy with anticipation. We're still about five months out, but it takes a lot of time to research where to stay, what to do, book everything, then create a detailed itinerary to bring along. Plus, as soon as this trip is nailed down, I'll need to start work on our two month summer RV trip through Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, and North Dakota. 

It's very possible we'll commit to a couple of years of full time RV'ing in the future, but for now, we'll continue to focus on making our out and back trips as interesting and robust as possible.

Monday, October 21, 2013

The Mind Blowing Benefits of Being Physically Active

There are tons and tons of articles on the benefits of physical activity. Some focus on the health benefits, some focus on the physical benefits, some focus on the mental benefits. I'm a believer of all three, but increasingly it's the mental benefits that keep me out there plugging away. I'm never as alive as when I'm working up a sweat.

And at 51 years of age, I'm continuing to exceed my own physical capabilities, which is incredibly exciting. I'm sure the upward trajectory of my physical endurance will slow, and then begin to decline at some point, but not yet. 

Not yet by a long shot.

Last weekend Mike and I ran the Long Beach Half Marathon. Our training was adequate, ensuring we could complete the race with very little residual physical impact, and that is exactly what transpired. We ran solid races, ate well afterward, slept like logs that night, and felt ready to resume normal activities the next morning. I felt satisfied with the outcome, but not necessarily ecstatic.

But this weekend? This weekend was amazing, and blew by everything I thought I was capable of. We did the MS Bay to Bay 100 mile bike ride and it was fantastic. As opposed to my slow and steady half marathon training, my MS ride training had been positively stellar. I pushed myself hard through every training ride, getting stronger each week. As a result, my legs were ready to do the event, my lungs were ready, and most importantly, my saddle was ready.

The MS event was beyond awesome. Super well organized from start to finish, with scores of volunteers and bystanders to take care of us and cheer us in at the end. I rode my heart, lungs and legs out, loving each and every hill and each and every mile. I've never felt so alive in my life as I did on this ride. When we crossed the finish line yesterday in San Diego, to yells, bells, horns and cheers of congratulations, I broke into tears. This ride turned me inside out, all of it very, very good.

Bikes, bikes and more bikes at our Day One lunch stop.

The Day Two staggered start was under foggy skies in Carlsbad, CA.

101.2 miles completed in 8:10 hours. 
Not bad considering the race event crowds and the dozens of intersections we had to pause to cross.

Our event 'bling'

I really don't have the words to express how much joy I experienced both preparing for and doing this ride. I can only say that we're already looking for our next ride event, either a metric or a 'real' century, depending on what the terrain looks like. In the meantime, we woke up this morning feeling fantastic, which I attribute to the hours we spent training, and promptly headed out to start work on our next challenge - building up stamina enough to hike 10+ miles carrying loaded backpacks. 

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More than anything, I would love for others to experience the exhilaration and joy pushing one's own physical boundaries delivers. How powerful a pull is it? Powerful enough for these incredible, physically challenged triathletes to refuse to give up after some pretty damn significant setbacks. It was our privilege to share a portion of the riding course with them on Sunday, and they put what I've accomplished to date in perspective, big time. Click on the link below if you want to feel inspired.

http://vimeo.com/challengedathletes/2012sdtc

Friday, October 18, 2013

Doing 50 New Things to Celebrate Turning 50

After turning 50 last October, I realized I hadn't done anything particularly memorable to mark the day. I had a friend that ran 60 miles on his 60th birthday. My dad had gone out and biked 75 miles on his 75th birthday. I, on the other hand, had done nothing more challenging than spend my Big-0 birthday having fun at my favorite beach campground.

I felt like a bit of a slacker as I got to thinking about it, so shortly after returning home I decided that I was going to spend the next 12 months doing 50 new things to celebrate turning 50. I've been keeping track ever since, and am excited to have the year finally close out so I can share what all I did here.

My 50 New Experiences

1. Traveled to China.

2. Visited Newport, Rhode Island and enjoyed touring several of it's famous Gilded Age mansions.

3. Attended the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

4. Visited a date farm and discovered how delicious dates are, particularly the luscious Medjool.

5. Spent all day making a Caramel Apple Streusel pie for National Pie Day on January 23rd. Why January 23rd? Because baking a pie is supposed to be as easy as 1/23. In hindsight, I'm not so sure about that . . . the state of my kitchen indicated otherwise by the time I finally pulled the completed pie out of the oven to cool.

6. Sampled the works of the three Bronte sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne. I thoroughly enjoyed the writings of Charlotte and Emily, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights respectively, but was least impressed with Anne after finishing Agnes Grey. There's a reason Anne is the least known writer of the three Bronte sisters, at least in my opinion. 

7. Joined a twice a month classic film viewing group, and finally saw Casablanca.

8. Learned to play bridge.

9. Learned to play Sudoko. After the first couple of frustrating attempts, I got the hang of it, and plugged away until I found I was actually pretty good.

10. Traveled to Thailand.

11. Rode an elephant in Thailand, overcoming my fears of being trampled in the process.

12. Pet and fed baby tigers in Thailand, overcoming my fears of being eaten in the process.

13. Learned to meditate.

14. Learned to make yeast bread.

15. Made pizza from scratch. 

16.  Joined a wine society club and began attending quarterly dinners that included wonderful food, interesting conversation and the opportunity to sample over a dozen new wines at a time. 

17. Began listing unwanted items for sale on Craigslist, instead of automatically dropping them off at the Goodwill. Made over $1,000 dollars in the last 12 months as a result, all of which I dropped into our travel fund. Thank you Craigslist shoppers! 

18. Bought two Indian cookbooks and began experimenting. Everything I've made thus far has turned out terrific, but I'm most partial to this slow cooker Spicy Punjabi Eggplant with Potatoes recipe.

19. Learned to make Thai food. My favorite recipe so far is this Thai corn and potato chowder that utilizes delicate, flavorful lemongrass in the soup stock.

20. Tried a Moscow Mule: ginger beer, good Russian vodka, fresh squeezed lime and some elderberry liqueur, served in a traditional copper cup

21. Attended the Santa Ana Art Walk.

22. Enjoyed being a spectator at the Carlsbad 5000, a 5K running event that attracts a world class field of participants.

23. Booked our first long term vacation rental - 30 days in beautiful Mill Valley, California.

24. Ran my first mountain distance event - the Mt. Diablo Half Marathon Trail Run Challenge. It was tough . . . I couldn't walk without whimpering for about two days afterward!

25. Met, hiked and had lunch with my early retirement blog hero - Syd Lagier of Retired Syd, along with her charming husband Doug.

26. Learned to make limoncello 

27. Participated in the Great Western Bike Rally

28. Hiked the Napali trail in Kauai, Hawaii, one of the world's great, scenic hikes.

29. Took a pilates class.

30. Took our longest RV trip ever - 49 days through the Pacific Northwest.

31. Met and had lunch in Portland with my favorite retirement lifestyle blogger - Bob Lowry from Satisfying Retirement, along with his delightful wife Betty.

32. Began Beginning French in preparation for our 2015 trip to Paris.

33. Started checking out e-books from the library online. So awesome! I can download free library e-books at any time, from anywhere, and there are no reservation fees or late fees ever.


34. Explored beer flight tastings.


35. Toured the USS Iowa battleship

36. Came out from under contract with our cell phone carrier, and left inflexible, expensive, annoying multi-year service contracts behind!

37. Saw all ten films nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. 

38. Biked a metric century - 62 miles (.62 miles per kilometer x 100)

39. Joined a music ensemble group

40. Attended a football tailgate party at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena - UCLA vs Cal. So darn fun!

41. Came together with a group of my fellow gal pal runners to promote a new line of running tanks called How Do You Run?

42. Got involved behind the scenes in our Osher Lifelong Learning Program (OLLI), in the Computer Education department specifically. After two years of attending OLLI, which is based entirely on volunteers, I was ready to begin giving back.

43. Changed political party affiliation. Take that you scallywags!

44. Ran our first race as a family - The Long Beach Half Marathon. 

45. Participated in a two day, 100 mile biking event - the MS Coastal Challenge.

46. Stayed at sixteen new campgrounds and RV parks.

47. Visited six new National Parks, bringing our total to 24, which leaves 34 still to go.

48. Visited 25 new National Monuments, Recreation Areas, and Historic Sites.

49. Experienced 12 new entertainment events, primarily by taking advantage of interesting sounding Goldstar deals.

50. Experienced 50+ new restaurants (how coincidental!), primarily by jumping on interesting sounding Groupon and TravelZoo dining deals, plus the large amount of traveling we did.

The sum result of all of the above is that I can say that in spite of my advancing age, turning 50 appears to have been my best year yet. I'm not sure I'm prepared to commit to doing 51 new things this next year -  it took an awful lot of energy - but I am absolutely committed to continuing to look for opportunities to grow and expand.

How about you? What's new in your world?

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

How Did We Know We Were Ready For Early Retirement?

I received a very thoughtful email this morning from a reader asking some very pertinent questions about how we knew we'd reach the point where we were ready to enter early retirement. After reading the email, I reached out to the author requesting, and subsequently receiving, permission to respond to the email via my blog, because I think the questions asked have broad appeal for others likewise considering early retirement. 

Here are the questions, followed by my responses.

- Did you feel certain that you were making the right choice at the time, or did you have some doubts as we do?  

Oh my goodness, yes, I had many doubts, but I kept returning to the point of recognizing that I had lost all my passion for my job, and that increasingly I was just going through the motions at work. When I got to the point of literally dreading the sight of my office, I knew something had to change. I wasn't 100% sure that early retirement was going to be the answer, but I did know 100% that leaving my job was the first step.

Conversely, Mike seemed to have pretty much no doubts. He'd been ready to go several years before me, but held off until I got to a place of acceptance on his decision. His salary was much bigger than mine, and letting go of it was very scary for me.

- Did you toy with the idea for a long time, and analyze it to the nth degree, before actually handing in your resignation? 

It took me two years to work my way through the entire process. About one year in I negotiated a cutback in hours, going from five to four days a week. That took a little pressure off of my dissatisfaction at work, but I still felt pressured to stay on top of things on my off days, due in large part to the constant buzzing of my BlackBerry. I finally realized that nothing I might do was going to cause me to become excited about my job again, and that's when I knew I was finally ready to to tender my resignation.

- What about financially... Did you "know without a doubt" that you had enough money set aside to do all the things you wanted to do?

It took three years and three independent financial check-ups before we reached a point of confidence that the lifestyle we wanted could be achieved within our portfolio, and that the portfolio would last throughout our lives. We worked with 1) an online financial program, 2) our assigned account manager at the investment firm handling a portion of our portfolio and 3) with a privately hired financial advisor. 

During that three year process, we established our retirement budget, and 'practiced' living on it for a year first. In hindsight, that turned out to be an excellent decision. It created a change in how we viewed our spend, but it wasn't negative. We actually found that by knowing how much we had to spend in any given category on any given day, we were much more conscious about our decisions, and experienced greater overall satisfaction as a result.

Did you face that paralysing fear of "what if we make the wrong choice?  If we run out of money, or realise that having an extra 70 hours free in the week isn't actually as good as we thought it would be".  If so, how did you move past that?

Because we set up a practice retirement budget a year in advance, we were able to identify and eliminate a lot of waste, which resulted in driving down our fixed expenses to less than 50% of our annual spend. That gives us a lot of leeway should something ever go terribly wrong in the financial arena. We also have additional contingency plans, such as moving to a smaller home or taking out a reverse mortgage. Neither are actions we anticipate taking, but both are available to us should it become necessary. We're also pulling out considerably less than the prevailing retirement withdrawal rule of 4%. We should actually be in the position of increasing our withdrawal rate once the first of us reaches Social Security and Medicare age, which is kind of exciting.

Plus we could always return to work should it become necessary. We wouldn't need to earn salaries anywhere close to what we earned before to cover our living expenses. Two entry level jobs would be more than adequate.

Creating a new set of routines and hobbies to fill our time was a multi month process, but there were no concerns that we'd run out of things to do. It was more a matter of finding the right things. Currently we have no shortage of things we enjoy doing, but we do sometimes have a shortage of energy! 

The above questions are, I think, pretty universal. If any of you reading this would like to provide additional thoughts or perspectives, please do so. I'm sure we'd all benefit.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Here's To Girl Power!

This morning a bunch of my girlfriends got together to go running and promote some fabulous running tanks designed by the very talented gal to my left above (I'm in the middle) who owns and runs Zarah-Marie Designs.

I love these gals!

We've been running together for over 15 years now, and in that time we've shared breakups, marriages, divorces, accidents, illnesses, heartaches, new babies, new jobs, and pretty much everything in between. We've cried, celebrated, disagreed, made up, agonized, sweated, and rejoiced together. Being all together feels effortless, even when large blocks of time pass in between. 

There's something about runners - we're all a bit crazy in our own way, and being with other runners makes us feel normal in a way being with non-runners doesn't.

So as we spend the rest of the day picking up our racing packets in Long Beach and getting our clothes and running 'stuff' ready for tomorrow's half marathon event, I give thanks for still having the will, stamina, good health, legs and knees to remain involved with this amazing, vibrant group of women.

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You can order these cute, inspiring workout tees by clicking on this link.

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Future girl runner in training!