planning for the future

at my age, 48, most people these days have at least a nebulous idea of what they want to do for their retirement - if they get to retire at any rate. They've been to meetings on investment plans, GICs, RRSPs, time shares, pension plans and payouts, tax shelters etc. Up to this point I have kind of just ignored them and thought - I've got lots of time. I was possible planning to go back to school and do my Master's, maybe at the University of the South Pacific and had started to investigate what coursework was available on what island. But nothing really specific.

Now. I am motivated. My retirement destination is Jamaica. And I have been investigating all the things that I will need to plan/arrange/investigate/prepare for in order to make my dream come true. I figure a cool quarter million should look after me for at least 20 years and I'm not likely to last much past that. If anyone out there has dependable resources that apply to my list please leave me a comment.

1. What is required to be allowed to live in Jamaica.
2. What is required to maintain Canadian citizenship.
3. Can I have dual Jacanadian citizenship or is that even a good idea
4. Tax laws for above.
5. Do I need a work Visa for Jamaica?
6. What is the best real estate company to deal with when purchasing internationally.
7. Investigate health care alternatives.
8. Shipping costs for a PUP and a car, Canada to Jamaica.
9. Expenses, what will I need to live on? Power, Water, Gas, property taxes, beer.
10. How much interest will I be earning on my lump sum investment?
11. Best way to invest lump sum?
12. Onshore or off shore account?
13. Boat and motor, mooring costs?
14. Annual travel budget for hurricane season ;)

personal principles

Recently someone convinced me to throw away a singular personal principle that I thought was very important. It turns out it wasn't important all - at the time. Oh look, it still isn't. Was it ever?

Some pretty amazing things can happen when you let go of the boundaries you have set for yourself. You may not even be aware that you've fenced yourself in so tightly that it is your own thrice damned fault that you cannot escape from a self imposed prison made up of non sense. And that once you start to pull out the fence posts your world does NOT fall apart but opens up into the grand vistas of possibility that you used to thrive in.

What made me build that particular fence? External pressure. From friends, from society in general, from the media, from the family, the parents, the mores that were pounded into me as I grew up.

Does that make it right?

No. No it does not.

A personal principle is by definition personal. It should be made based upon how YOU perceive a situation/event/behaviour. Certainly you take into account the perceptions of others in the process of forming them, but when it comes right down to it, you are the one who will live by it, be affected by it, and will have to deal with the consequences on your future choices by that principle which you choose.

Be careful.

One little principle can cause immeasurable harm to yourself if it is not chosen for the right reasons. And if you make a mistake, and are not lucky enough to escape from it later, you just may fuck yourself for good. And not in a good way.

I escaped. Thank the hundred little gods.

GIST number i dunnow

1. Mondays that are at least nice out first thing in the morning.
2. Fake baking on the flatlands in the winter.
3. Getting into pants that didn't fit 5 weeks ago.
4. Family that's not quite so batshit crazy as it used to be.
5. An unexpected phonecall that is sometimes nothing but breathing and that's all good.

and it's Friday ... whew! made it.

Being away from work for 6 days ended up snowing me under in a blizzard of letters which in most cases is something I can plod through and catch up but this week some of those were already 7 days behind on my timeline and it was a mad but focused frenzy to get at least caught up if not ahead just a teensy bit. Thought I might have to go in on my day off but no, by quitting time yesterday the sherpa for the newsletter had been approved and printing was to commence - ON TIME no less, and the closest due date was Mar 3, except for one piece of correspondence awaiting the return of the content owner.

Then it was off to fake bake with the roomie, a delusional grab at some tropical heat that makes me feel all warm and happy, a quick pint at the pub, and a lovely visit with one of my favorite ladies to share vacation stories and catch up the last month. YAY! no more tangles though I absolutely do not like to lose any of the length I figure it's a fair trade for some manageability. I have been assured that the demi will tone down a bit over the next couple of weeks and the beach hair will reappear, I'm sure along with the white roots ;)

A return to the pub after girl time saw Canada win the hockey game, another gold in speed skating and raucous crew having a fair good time. More people for me to catch up with and a quiet glass of wine with my flat mate Deb.

All in all - a damn fine day.

Today - well - sort of up in the air. I should do a load of laundry - but there are 3 days in this weekend. I should go grab some groceries. I should do a number of things but I think today is on island time so I'll just sashay along and see what adventures present themselves.

like the pocket buddha says - peace y'all

levels

For years now my intimates have persisted that I need a man. I maintained that I did not. A little history required here: I've been unsuccessfully married twice, was engaged to another man for 3 years in between the marriages, and after the 2nd divorce had a wonderful 3 year casual but monogamous relationship with an absolutely lovely man. The last relationship was the only one that ended with both my wallet and my dignity intact. HUGE HUGE HUGE indication that maybe I had gotten to the point where I was at least getting the general idea of how to pick a good man. That was almost 7 years ago.

So after the singularly successful relationship in my life, I decided to stay single for awhile and work on MY shit, since except for the last one I tend to subsume my whole life into my relationship, and then at the end of it have to try and figure out where all my friends have gone. So I bought myself a condo, got myself out of debt, set out to rebuild friendships old and new ( some of them have become seriously great friendships that will always be there when I need them - thank you - you know who you are)and was working on physical self improvement, when I hurt my back in 2004. That was a biggy, I was flat out for 3 months and very limited for another 6. I diagnosed myself with diabetes and had it confirmed by the medical community late in 2006,FUCK! Of course it WOULD be something that requires me to monitor everything that goes in my mouth (almost), and requires even MORE self awareness and control, and after getting those changes integrated into my life I joined a belly dancing class to become more active and healthy, where I promptly broke a piece of arthritic build up in my knee in October 2007 and underwent a knee operation in 2008. I continue to have sporadic issues with the same knee and occasionally my other foot - mostly due to my weight. I am currently waiting fot the specialist to call with an appointment, and at the same time determined to dump the poundage so it's not such a problem.

Self disciple always being a struggle for an impractical hedonist. every time I lost mobility I let the pounds come back. You know the drill up and down but always a little more up... And truly, the more weight I put on the lower my self esteem dropped, the less effort I made to fill that "empty space" in my life. However, while I lost and gained weight before my holiday but with a net loss. YAY! I lost maybe a little over 20 lbs ON holiday. And I'm fair dinkum sure that there's another 15 or so more pounds gone missing since I returned to the frozen Popsicle land. I am on a roll.

So when I put together the noticeable weight loss, the boost to self esteem from my holiday and the new leaves I've turned over I am pretty much on a spectacularly positive path. And part of that was the whole "need a man" business. I must admit the ladies and gents were correct. I'm a fair transparent individual so good friends know what's going on with me. I am a loquacious piece of work.

However, it may not have been in the way you may be thinking. What I needed was to have someone actually make me believe that I was desirable. To give me concrete proof that I could not later deny. I had lost my sense of "I am woman hear me roar" that has been a lifelong mainstay. I needed to ignite my inner sparkle and unabashed joy in life. To regain my sense of being soft and vulnerable yet strong, without feeling like a patsy being played.

And I got that. On several levels. And once I was past my own bias and the stuck emotional doors were reopened, I actually REALIZED how much I'd missed those pieces of me. I can even look in the mirror - straight on, and say "pretty good dorlin'" - which has been totally unheard of in a long fuckin' time.

I have also determined that I still want to be single. I want a lover not a "permanent relationship". A space where I can continue to explore my newfound me-ness with someone else who also wants to maintain their independence of self. I want to regenerate the saucy wench that I love so much. I do not want to lose myself to twoness again and I probably would. My singleton status was hard fought and I have never been able to really explore it without all the entanglements of children and family and outside responsibilities. Now, it's just me, free.

Look out, the demon has been released!

ides of February : GIST

1. Though it still gets crispy, the weather is trending toward warmth.
2. My knee is feeling MUCH better.
3. I've caught up with most of my framily since I went on holiday.
4. I only had one load of laundry to do today.
5. Busy integrating lost bits back into the personalities.

pushed too hard

I was all happy about getting the dagnabit laundry done and then found out that carrying too much up the stairs at one time to reduce the number of sets of stairs I need to traverse is not - I repeat not - very good for my personal mobility.

c'est la vie.

a good week so far - 2 more days to go ;)

Work is humming along, managed to visit the kids and grands today and have a chat with the rapscallion about the value of honour and truth. I know he's only 8 but it really is never too young to learn that your word is your bond. People cannot take it away from you, you cannot generally sell it for anything, it is simply a precious jewel thst should be gently held and never tarnished.

Laundry is done.

And I appear to be getting around a little better. Woop Woop.

dented expectations

Have you ever noticed that there are a couple of principles that are so near and dear to your heart that they have just become part of you.So much a part of you that you think your friends and acquaintances are also aware of how important they are to you, so that when those principles are ignored or otherwise trampled upon(often unwittingly because how are those people supposed to know what is going on in your head when you only know half the time) your expectations of the people feel a little dented. You aren't angry or even really hurt, there's just a dissonance, a note off scale, kind of jangly along the nerves. I think I will have to share a java with my friend and talk it out.

Thursday

I am happy to report that I do not have the apres vacation doldrums. Nor do I have all my laundry done, but I'll get to it eventually. Timing being everything, the curse showed up Monday morning - YAY! In an attempt at waxing philosophical - better now than when I wanted to be in the ocean. I was a little sad on Monday, exhausted on Tuesday and back to work on Wednesday. Today appears to be getting better.

Man - do I have a great boss. The big year end project I was dreading that would still be waiting for my return was completely done. AND there were only 5 files waiting for me and one article to write for the quarterly.

I had supper at Amanda and Chris' and delivered the grands' presents on Monday night - psgetti and meatsauce - tasty tasty, and everyone seemed to like their gifts so all's good. Then it was over to the boy's to see him and Miss Enchanting to drop off the requested spices, etc and BrownBoy's custom made rasta hat which I am pretty sure has room for all of his dreads and room to grow. Also found out that the boyo knows the gentlemen who chatted me up on the plane on the way to paradise - most interesting and 2 thumbs up.

Anarchy got home from their trip to Cuba and Trinidad late Tuesday. I ran into Abigail at Jill's place when she came to pick up the fur babies, who BTW had jest been scooched back into the house after escaping the yard not 20 minutes before they were to be picked up. There's poor Darryl driving around in no coat with the window open trying to find Mr. Patches who had immediately headed for the hills upon gaining freedom from the yard and then did a uball right for the back door, bypassing Darryl altogether. We are all having turkey dinner tonight at Dill & Jarryl's.... mmmmmm.

Wednesday was back to work and I actually woke up happy to go there - though given half a chance I would've crawled right back into the nest of warm blankies. The only real fallout since my return is that I appear to actually get chilly now and again, my cough came back 20 minutes after landing, and my eye are dry and itchy. Need that humidity.

Spent a couple of hours over at sister Patty's yestereve, took her my rum cream ....mmm my new fave ... had a great little chat fest - started on plans to move to Jamaica and I even got a kiss from Hailey - what do you know;)

Friday it's pints at the pub, haven't made it there yet and Saturday is scrabble with the ladies and Vman's bday party at the house of pain, and I need to have a java with Chedley in there somewhere too.

Definitely not in island time any longer mon....

back on the tundra

If it is only at the end of your vac ation that you begin to list the negatives - you had a great vacation. And if the negatives are a short list and truly inconsequential, it was even better.

I am grateful for:

1. Having the best 2 weeks of my life - hands down.
2. Missing the blizzard and spending that day at the swim up bar, in the sunshine with great friends.
3. Having people stuck in Sask who dug out my car and toted me to and from the airport even when my flight home never got here till almost midnight, and hauling the luggage up the stairs for me;)
4. Enjoying a standard of living not seen in a great portion of the world.
5. Finding parts of myself that were long lost and forgotten and realizing that I need to told onto them now that I'm home.

Even the shift to -20C cannot possibly get me down. The parking ticket for snow removal is paid, I have rum cream for my coffee, and my jeans are now too big.

I do need to get some Canadian cigrets though.