It is October 7 and I decided it’s about time I start Letting Go of Summer. When retirement number two came along last spring I made many plans and goals for the summer ahead of me. It has been hard for me to accept that summer is officially over. However as I was on my morning hike I marveled at the change of colors I saw everywhere, the crisp morning air that warms to the perfect temperature and remembering that fall is my second favorite season.

Time to Embrace Fall before it is over.

Fall season here in the Rocky Mountain region is beautiful but it can also be very short. You just never know when the snow and temperatures will start falling so I have to start to take it all in while I can. At least it is usually sunny here in winter.

Retire to Something.

I like to plan for everything and then leave space for the unknown and hopefully wonderful adventure of life to fill it in. My summer plans were more than met and as I close out summer I want to close out those events and look forward to the next seasons and months ahead.

Schedule –

I was very busy for a retired guy. I always start my day at 7:30 AM reading the news-paper and spending an hour on-line reading the latest and figuring out what I will do on the Leisure Freak site. My daily priority was my health. I would spend 2 to 3 hours a day hiking, mountain-biking and hitting the weight room. I love being outdoors but this will have to be altered a bit going forward now. Then chores, errands, projects, the blog and a little social-time would round out each weekday.

Hobbies –

I went to six really fun car-shows this summer and participated in three of them. I missed one in California that I hoped to attend but it was scheduled a week later than when we were there. All in all I had a very enjoyable automotive hobby summer. Now it’s about some maintenance I will be doing and maybe a little work to fix some paint blemishes on my truck that I painted a couple of years ago.

Hold Weekends Sacred –

I kept weekends free for family and recreation. A few date nights, many grill nights on the deck, and just kick back time. Perfect. No changes for this.

Travel –

From when I retired mid-spring to now I have traveled six weeks. All were by car this year. No flying. We traveled to or through six States. I did break budget by $1490. I did extra travel to visit my mother and then there was the incredible beach and Disneyland trip with my daughter’s family that I posted about. We generally do all travel in summer so I will only be doing our planning for next year in the coming seasons.

Family –

I keep family as my number one goal both near and far. For most of our travel we made a point to visit family and this year I even brought my mother and aunt back to spend a week with us at our home. I couldn’t have asked for a better summer of staying close to family. It will be all about the kids and grand-kids now with staying close to distant family by telephone and Facebook until next summer.

Social Life –

I stayed active in the community and met many more new people in my town. I regularly visit the same Coffee-Shop/PUB and just this last weekend volunteered to help with the Downtown Merchants Association’s sponsored Oktoberfest. I worked the beer taps all day and not only had a blast but met even more people I hope to see again. No changes to keeping a social life through the coming seasons.

Opportunity –

I wasn’t actively looking for any opportunities but still did get a dozen or so emails from recruiters. These come primarily from LinkedIn. I always reply to their email thanking them for the heads-up but I wasn’t in the position to pursue opportunities at this time. Other than the Tax class opportunity that posted about, there wasn’t anything that I was interested in or passionate about doing. Even though I am not looking for anything something has just come my way from out of nowhere that looks very promising and I will have to continue to see what comes of it. It seems that the less you demand from the Universe the more it tries to give you.

Letting Go of Summer – The Good and The Bad

I had some silly summer goals that I just loved to do. Never wear long pants or collared shirts, everyday go bare foot or flip-flops/sandals other than athletic shoes during exercise, and leave the top down (off) from my convertible truck all summer long. I did get rained on briefly a couple of times but I didn’t melt. I am still on these goals as long as the weather holds.

The summer did have 3 unplanned catastrophes and all were plumbing associated. The front yard irrigation system needed to be completely redone due to a big Austrian Pine-Tree’s roots crushing the pipe. A $233 one month water bill that was due to a main-line in the irrigation system in the backyard silently dumping 20K gallons of water underground. The last was when we returned from California last weekend to the sound of water running only to find a pipe had sprung a leak behind the basement bathroom’s plate glass mirror. Causing me to do a big wall demolition and reconstruction that took me all of last week. I did hire out the copper pipe replacement using a trusted handyman instead of a more expensive plumber.

Other than that I was the worker on these messes. I sure hope they only come in threes. If I hadn’t been retired I would have had to pay big bucks to get these done so not working saved me lots of money. I will keep telling myself that.

How about you, have you had trouble Letting Go of Summer?