69 degrees this morning, possible high of 86 degrees.
The Reunion is over, except for a possible breakfast with several as we all return to our daily lives.
Sunday was the traditional reunion activities, visiting, a brief meeting and group pictures. A highlight was a 95th birthday celebration for my Aunt, who turns 95 this year. It was a good experience to watch the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren (and nephews/neices, and great/great-great nieces/nephews celebrate this occasion, especially since she is still very active and is still, as they say, “sharp as a tack”. A great example of graceful and productive aging.
The rest of the day involved visiting, eating and swimming. A great Reunion!
The Reunions have always been a measuring stick for me. Obviously, at the last Reunion in 2013, I was aware I could be in this situation, and, I think I can say my worst fears were realized in some aspects. As one of my Aunts’ told me some months ago, when one door closes, another opens, but sometimes you have to beat on the other door to get it to open”. Or words to that effect). I do not plan for retirement to be the other door.
The Reunions are close to my birthday (although it was en earlier day than usual this year, but it worked well), so each Reunion, I start to think about the meaning of my next birthday. Birthdays were perhaps important because it was a highlight in my childhood. I have a brother and sister who have a birthday the day before mine, so my parents would usually celebrate all three birthdays with a big birthday party with a picnic and swimming at the Holton swimming pool.
The only birthday that really bothered me much (in the sense that age was a problem) was my 39th, by the time I was 40 I had accepted that aging is not a bad thing and it really has concerned me since. It is part of life and I plan on enjoying each stage!
We plan on being busy this week, finishing up the major aspects of moving in and getting to the point where we can somewhat resume our lives in our new location. We will tackle the items stored in the garage, and I will also need to finish changing our address etc.
Another phase of moving I don’t like is getting all new Doctors, Dentists, etc. and other professional services. Perhaps I should say I will miss the ones I have now and know we will face having to search for new professional services and be ready to evaluate and search more until we find ones we can trust and relate to. We are now in a position where many medical providers may not accept our insurance, but at least we have it!
Still trying how to decide my morning paper dilemma. I had it perfect in Lakeland (an good local paper, early home delivery of the local paper, NY Times and WSJ) to a lousy local paper that I’m not sure I want to subscribe to, no delivery of the NY Times and only mail delivery of the WSJ which is unacceptable even if it is on the same day. This leaves me with digital reading of the WSJ and NY Times (which overall is acceptable, just not as enjoyable) and no local paper. Also, it is hard to break the habit of 50 +- years and not read a local paper, or at least a newspaper every morning. I actually prefer the electronic version of the USA Today (which I read this morning has only 15% of the stories in joint use with the print version).
I still get disgusted at the emphasis on putting sports and basically gossip about “stars” on the “news” section of the newspaper. (In a recent cases, over 50% of the “news” section was on sports and gossip.) I could really care less about it, and feel they should put sports on the sports page and gossip on the gossip pages. Anyway, at least the digital editions make it easy to skip over them and the digital counting they do make it obvious one small voice is not reading them!
That’s it for now, as I return to establishing new life routines, Monday, July 14, 2014.
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