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On Retiring Early (before the age of 50) - NEW
1969-Watched the first moon landing
1981-Graduated college with a Bachelor's of Science in Mechanical Engineering
1981-Commissioned in the USAF and moved to Los Angeles, CA
1984-Met an engineer of whom I became
1985-Bought first house, left USAF for aerospace firm
1986-Was laid off, Married that engineer
1989-Began building addition designed by us to house ourselves, got a new job
1990-changed jobs (back to first aerospace firm, different division)
1994- Laid off again, Finished addition alone after husband transferred out of state
1995-Moved to Virginia
1996-Designed and had second house built
1997-Got my dog Rocket
1998-Went on-line in mid August
1999-Sold my very first car at an auto auction; my 1982 Honda Civic "Spiny Norman"
2000-Husband retired early, we sold the house, moved to northern Michigan, bought a house in the woods from the profit and have no idea what will happen next!!!!
Birds seen since we moved to Michigan
A Few More Interesting Science Fiction Novels
Some favorite fantasy authors
My favorite science movies
One of the worse made for tv movies in history
Hmmmm
Favorite Televison Series
Babylon 5 (over, sad to say) I did not enjoy the first half of the 5th year as much as the first 4 years. Getting rid of Ivanova was a mistake, her replacement was a force fit, and Byron and his telepathic buddies drove me nuts! I was not sorry to see him go! That final year had an entirely different feel to it.
The X-Files Why does Scully always need rescuing? Is she just terribly unlucky?
Millenium Too bad they didn't let them finish the series, atleast they sort of did in an X-Files episode. Still, it was an awfully depressing show at times.
Now I was hoping Crusade (the spin-off of Balbylon 5) was going to be a favorite of mine, I have seen all the episodes now and believe it is a series looking for a captain. The premise is interesting but the execution...*sigh*. I watched the last episode and it seems they ought to do a few more, sort of left us hanging.
The SCI-FI Channel
I have attempted to watch some of the Sci-Fi channels offerings, First Wave, etc. Farscape started slowly but it has been getting more interesting once you get used to the muppet and Darvo's ridiculous make up. In fact it's gotten rather good, and I recently joined a message board at www.scifi.com.
Non SF television favorites (just for variety)
Homicide: Life on the Street - How could they end it!
Law & Order
Okay I joined the Air Force because I was going to become a pilot and then an astronaut. We won't need to discuss why I didn't become an Air Force pilot, lets just say that at the time I was in college there were only 10 women pilots (their great experiment to appease congress) in the USAF and they weren't too keen on getting any more. As to the astronaut part, people with heart murmurs and only a BS degree need not apply.
However, while growing up in the midst of the exciting parts of the manned space program (Mercury, Gemini, Apollo) I got to live vicariously through the reporting of Walter Cronkite and Jules Bergman.
A few things that REALLY ticked me off!
Really Neat Things.
I would like to take this moment to remember Pete Conrad who died July 8, 1999 in a motorcycle accident in California. He was the Commander of Apollo 12 and the 3rd man to walk on the moon. He was only 69. |
Perhaps I should describe my gourmet cooking experiences as eclectic as opposed to gourmet. I am not flaming dishes in brandy. I have yet to "present" my dishes by placing the steak just so in a pool of sauce or on a bed of fennel, and I have yet to make pate. My meals may not look fancy but I'm told they taste good. Neither am I a fanatic, there are weeks at a time where I am mainly preparing the traditonal meat and potatoes courses. Probably because I am married to a meat and potatoes kind of guy. In fact I can easily get into a cooking rut. Then there are the times I have cookbooks scattered all across the floor looking for neat things to try out. Sometimes these things are fairly exotic for an old New Englander, as when I taught myself to make sushi (technically these are the California roll version, rolls of seaweed wrapped around rice with a center of raw fish or vegetable, not the slices of fish laying across a small bed of rice but it's easier and just as tasty). And yes I do use raw tuna, it just has to be REALLY fresh.
It's been a long time since I've made a souffle, or veal scallopini. Things like this take time and time seems to get broken into smaller and smaller chunks. Generally I cook "gourmet" when I am in the MOOD. Mood is an important ingredient in my fancier cooking. When I am not in the mood and I am cooking because no one else will, you can end up with canned soup. This does not happen often, usually only if I am ill, or ticked off, or very depressed. Every day dinners can vary from burritos to venison chops.
Now venison may seem exotic to some, and perhaps even gourmet. However, when you marry into a family of hunters, you can end up eatting venison 3 to 4 times a week. How many ways can you cook a venison steak? How many ways can you slice one? I actually miss chicken. I know people who would give their eye teeth NOT to cook chicken every week. I get positively gleeful when my freezer has enough room to throw in a few chickens or fish fillets. And as to eating beef? HA!
Now that I've finished with my intro, I'm not quite sure what to actually DO with this section but for the moment I will list a few of my favorite dishes that I cook and maybe one of these days I'll throw in a recipe. So here they are:
This could get interesting. My husband and I are currently in our early 40's. For the last 6 years he has been the only one working outside the home for money. (I am a twice laid off engineer and finally gave up beating my head against the wall in 1994 though not without feeling guilty.) Towards the end of 1999 while his company was eaten by a larger one in one of those "mergers" my husband got fed up and started toying with the idea of retiring early. While perusing the internet for information he stumbled upon the Motley Fool. This is an extremely useful, educational, resource for people who want control of their finances. And it is fun to read. For a person like me who has had no interest in finances up till now other than having an IRA and an employee savings plan, I have learned some interesting things including that it IS possible to retire and live well before the age of 65.
It has many message forums from credit card over-spender support groups to advice on how to find the best banks, interest rates and discount brokers as well as investment strategies. They explain how doing your own investing is not a s scary or as difficult as the full time, full service brokers and the media make it out to be. And it is far, far far less expensive. But until I have a better handle on it than I do now I suggest going to their site and checking out the 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly. (In this case the term foolish is NOT a bad thing.) And for lighter reading they have off-topic forums like Pet Lovers and Recipes/Cooking.
I hope in the near future to describe what we are going through to achieve this wild idea of retiring and enjoying life early. So far both sides of our family think we are nuts, I presume because it just isn't done. The American Dream is to buy the biggest house you can afford, have 2.5 kids, a dog and/or cat, 2 luxury cars and a 30 year mortgage which will be paid off by the time you are 65 and can get social security. And then of course six months after you retire, you drop dead. Well I don't want to live alone, off my husband's insurance so I thought I would go along with him on this wild idea of early retirement even though in our case it means:
1-moving to a less expensive part of the country (but one we BOTH like) (Michigan)
2-not keeping up with the Joneses, (who really needs to do that anyway, who needs the stress?)
3-we will only have 2 cars instead of 3 and one may be a pickup (and a tractor)
4-renting a house rather than owning one for a year while looking for the right place to live (this is not such a bad idea, who wouldn't mind not paying property taxes for a whole year) If you don't like the area, try another
When he first hit me with this idea I was none too pleased. I loved the house we designed and had built for us, the neighborhood, the neighbors, the view out my back window is incredible. But my husband leaves at 6:40 am and returns at 5:30 at night or later (he used to not come home till 7:30). This is not unusual for a lot of people, but really, do you LIKE it? He's too tired to do anything when he gets home and if some of you have kids, that is a tough thing. And if both of you work, like we used to, nothing gets done till the weekend and then after the house work how much time do you have for each other? If you like work, then perhaps this is not for you, but after being unemployed for so long, and getting over the guilt that I should be working too, after all I DO have a BS in engineering, I am rather enjoying being "retired" and so why can't my husband? Well it turns out we think we can, and because we both have an IRA, he has a 401(k), a ROTH IRA (check these puppies out) and to be honest, no kids to put through college, we may be retired before he turns 43 this year! And a lot of this is from what he learned at the Motley Fool and the Retire Early Home Page.
So give it a try and I'll let you know how things are progressing.
Progress Report:
May 15, 2000- last day of work for my husband
May 22, 2000-left VA with a 26 foot truck and trailer load of stuff, I followed with a carload
June 15, 2000-left with another 26 foot truck and a 2nd load of stuff, I followed with a carload
July 2000-left VA with last load of stuff in our 2 station wagons
August-after a lot of house hunting we found a former hunting camp on 80 acres, mostly swamp. But the house was cedar sided with a pine interior and sited on a hill. The swamp really isn't that bad, watery in some places but only spongey in others. When mosquito season gets here, then I will know how bad it is!
August 31, 2000-house closing in Virginia
Sept. 6, 2000-closing on house in Michigan
We've been in this house a month and a half now. I still miss our old house, the kitchen especially, but this place is rather nice, I just don't know how to decorate something when I can't use paint on the walls.
Landscaping the new house in Michigan will be interesting. It's surrounded by trees and the soil is mostly sand. Plus the house is on a hill and the septic tank and drainfield are in the front yard so there isn't much space to work with. Then of course, being in the woods, deer are going to be a bigger problem than they were in Virginia. Plus I am in Zone 4 now. So far I am thinking about rhododendrons (which deer didn't eat in VA but I hear they DO like them) and daffodils, I haven't gotten much beyond that. Amending the soil is going to be the biggest project. I'll need to set up a compost bin immediately.
Landscaping in Virginia (archive)
Our new home in the woods presents some challenges. It is a former hunting camp. The loft has about 11 mattresses lying on the floor for aforementioned hunters. The great room which includes the kitchen, dining and living room is vaulted with huge rough cedar beams. The walls are tongue and groove pine, the ceiling pine boards. The vinyl floor in the kitchen is a brown and white stone pattern. The carpet is beige. The new kitchen cabinets are hickory stained to match the pine! You would think the previous owner was trying to camoflage the kitchen. Fotunately, they happen to be the cabinets I would have installed if I were building, I might have changed the color and, of course,nor would I have put in a blind corner cabinet, but atleast I get to design and install the island myself.
Painting
What painting? The house is completely covered in tongue and groove pine! Where am I going to get my colors? Looks like in wall hangings, plants, curtains, carpeting (too bad the current beige carpet is too new to be replaced, and they glued it to the floor, no padding, argh.
In Closing
Decorating is an on-going never-ending process and you must control your urge to "do it all at once". Unless you are made of money and know your tastes extremely well, you can really screw up. I can not afford nor desire to hire an interior decorator. I don't care what they say on TV or in the magazines; even if they think just like you they still want to "accessorize" and since I don't have enough "stuff" to accessorize with, I do not want them running around buying paintings and wall hangings, vases, knic knacs, etc. to fill up the empty spaces for some strange "theme" or other nonsense that has nothing to do with "me". I would then find myself living in rooms with which I have no connection. Instead I will slowly acquire over time paintings I like, photographs I take, things given to me by loved ones, etc. Things that may not look fantastic in a magazine photo spread but which to me mean something.
Decorating the VA House (archive)
Collecting for the Non-Collector (the pelican stuff)
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