02-13-03

We are 6 months into retirement so now is a good time to look back and share my thoughts. We had planned for three years to try to retire early if it was at all possible. Our plans were beginning to come together until Jack lost his father unexpectedly in November. His mother lived with us from October till May, 2002 when we made the decision to put her in the nursing home. We thought long and hard to arrive at that decision. She is suffering from Alzheimers, and it is very difficult to care for someone who has this disease. Trying to hold down a fulltime job and caring for her was very difficult. Having arrived at the decision to place her in the nursing home enabled us to proceed with our retirement plans.

Even though we had a few months setback, we both retired in August, 2002. It was very difficult for me to leave my job at the bank after 25 years of being there. It wasn�ft so much the job itself that I regretted leaving but the people that I worked with. They become a big part of your life. However, many of the ones I had worked with were already retired.

It was a very stressful time in my life. We had to sell and get rid of all Jack�fs folks belongings. Jack had to make the decision to put his mother in the nursing home. Once I turned in my resignation date, I knew there was no turning back. I thought long and hard about it. But once I made up my mind to actually do it, I felt it was a good decision. After that we put the house up for sale. Looking back on what we did, we should have done it differently. We should have quit our jobs a couple of weeks earlier to allow us more time to prepare for the move.

We not only sold our house, but we had to figure out what to do with all the contents in it. We had a fully furnished home in Colorado to move to so very few things in our present house were needed. I started going through all the sentimental items I had saved over the past 57 years. I decided that as I looked through boxes of things I had saved from our boys childhood days that I had not seen for the past 25-30 years it was time to throw it away. When would I ever look at it again. If I didn�ft throw it away now, our boys would have to throw it away after I am gone. And seeing what Jack was going through with his folks�f things, I could see that it would not be fair to put the boys through that. It was very hard for me to throw their baby cards, birthday cards, Christmas card, etc., but it is done and life goes on. I just didn�ft want to have to go through all this again. We gave a lot of our furniture to our son and his family. We had a huge garage sale the weekend I retired to get rid of ours and Jack�fs folks things. We had a final dinner for all the family the day after my retirement since I always had a lot of the family dinners. We asked everyone to take whatever they wanted from the garage sale which came to a close that day. What was left after they took their treasures, was given to charity.

When most people retire, they leave their job and remain in the same community. But we left our jobs, our community and had no permanent place to go to. We did have a townhome in Colorado, but it was rental property which we chose to keep as that until the end of the year. The plan was that we would travel and use our son and his family�fs house for our home base. It all sounded good until you actually do it. This was a lot of change, but this is how we had planned it.

Our decision to retire even though the stock market is down which means our funds are down is scary at times. It is very hard to convince ourselves to spend any money, since we cannot replace any of it UNLESS we go back to work. We are not that well off so we probably should not have taken early retirement. But we took a chance and we don�ft know what the future holds. We are following through with our plans to take the trips that we had planned to do. If we run short of money we can always go back to work. I think it might be fun to go back to work whether I have to or not. But I want to only do it part time and it must be a FUN job.

We have many different options that we can do depending on what happens to us in the future. So, for now, I am going to enjoy our travels, family, friends try to relax and enjoy retirement. I forgot to mention the biggest adjustment for me?spending nearly 24 hours a day with Jack! We have a lot of fun together, but sometimes being together so much can be stressful. And a big concern I have right now, is what Jack will do after we stop traveling. My hope is that he will get as much enjoyment in Colorado as I know I will.