Catching up . . .

 

August 21, 2021

I’m 69 years old, and I’ve been retired for 38 months.

At first, I was traveling and spending time with my grandkids. Then in 2020, I decided to join my daughter in her business selling Color Street nail strips. I had a successful launch in mid-February.

A month later, the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic started, and quarantine began on March 16. I spent the next 2 months hanging around the house reading Facebook posts and watching TV.

In April, I noticed people commenting on not knowing what day it was, so I started posting the day and date. I looked for something more interesting to post, and I found the daily holidays calendar. Every day, without fail, I posted the day and date along with what we could celebrate. Then I started adding images. It was fun! Many Facebook friends commented. Kaycie suggested I add a photo of objects with my Color Street nails.

In the meantime, I learned more about Facebook VIP pages and started posting 3 times a day. Before long, I had 70 members who commented and posted on my VIP page. This social media helped me through a tough time.

Easter that year was a social-distance event on my daughter’s front yard. The boys hunted eggs while I stayed away in the background and watched. Finally, on Mother’s Day, after staying home alone for 2 months, the Tylers came to my house and I got to hug everyone for the first time. I started to cry because it made me so happy. Being isolated for that long was tough. Except for going to the Walgreens Pharmacy drive thru and curbside pickup at HEB, I went nowhere.

Last summer is a blur. I can’t remember exactly what we did, but we walked at McAllister Park, and I watched the boys a couple days a week so Kaycie could work and maintain her sanity. When school started again, she opted for virtual classes to be more cautious.

I went there every Tuesday and Thursday to work with the big boys and their class schedules and classes and watched Luke. That was definitely a challenge. The first day, I crashed on their couch for about 15 minutes because I was exhausted. 2020-2021 The school year ended and life sort of got back to normal.

We continued the Tuesday-Thursday schedule this summer until this past Friday, Aug. 13. By the end of the summer, Tyson didn’t want to come over because my house is boring. It’s difficult to get the 3 car seats in the back seat of my car, so I didn’t take them anywhere. I don’t have video games for them to play. I don’t like to go outside in the summer because I hate the heat. During the last month they brought their tablets, and all they wanted to do all day was play games on their tablets.

We had a 2-month period when the COVID-19 numbers came down and I was comfortable going out in public. I started going back to church in person even though I had been doing altar guild in the background since October 2020. I traveled to Kingsland to do a Color Street in-home party at my cousin’s house (which was very successful).

Once the numbers started going up again, I started staying home more. I’m back to virtual church services and doing altar guild in the background.

EXCEPT I’m having some work done at my house. I hired a guy to reconfigure my deck. He didn’t start the week he said he would because he wasn’t feeling well. My spidey instincts told me he had COVID. When he showed up this past Tuesday, he didn’t look so good. My instincts said to mask, but I didn’t. Then Friday, he called to say he tested positive! DANG!

Friday was Luke’s 3^rd birthday, and I had committed to watching the boys while Kaycie went to work, and today was Luke’s birthday party!

I missed them all because I’m in quarantine. This is the first grandchild birthday party that I have missed. I was close to tears last night thinking about it.

For the last month, I’ve been going through my library and packing boxes to donate to the local library for their book sale (when they have it again), and I ran across the notebooks I had of Jim Rohn’s One Year to Success plan. I faithfully printed the emails I received every week and put them in notebooks. After a while, that was all I did, print and file.

As I was about to throw another batch in the recycle bin this evening, it dawned on me that I spent a year in quarantine getting fatter and more frustrated. I should have been going through this success plan.

 

SO HERE I AM! At a crossroad thinking this is my chance to make my retirement much more than it has been so far! It’s my chance to build my businesses (Color Street, Avon, and publishing). It’s a chance to improve my relationships and health. Instead of watching TV and the sad, sordid news, I will be focusing on personal development.