Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Time to quit agonizing over how to do it and start a journal. I already went on at length in an introduction post viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8316, and reading that first might shed some light. For the tl;dr folks, I'll summarize here:

Female, late fifties, self-employed (work from home) accountant, married 36 years, living in Western Washington. Retired to the mountains for 10 years, then started working again.

And therein lies a tale.

First, though, I'm going to try making a table of contents so I can skip around between telling my story, financial updates and stream-of-consciousness rambling advocated by Dragline. DutchGirl said I can create the table of contents, though she probably meant "someone familiar with website posting can do it". I guess I'll just lay it out here, then come back in edits and refer to posting dates or pages -- or maybe URL links?

The table of contents can serve to help me look organized without posting any graphs. I'm graph-challenged. My brain doesn't seem to get the messages they're so clearly conveying, which is a handicap for an accountant.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Life up to 21. Nothing in this box. Move along.

2. The homestead/accumulation years (Western Washington, 12 years)

3. The retirement years (Eastern Washington, 10 years)

4. Going back to work and almost losing my mind. Literally. (Western Washington, 10 years)

5. Cutting back to part-time work and regaining my sanity. Sort of. (Western Washington, 4 years)

6. The Great Unknown. Or not so great. The jury's still out.

I'm looking forward to hearing about your experiences. Welcome!

Thank you, Gilberto de Piento!

As far as financial posts go, I'm trying to figure out why I shouldn't fully share. I'm a security-minded person, but I can't come up with a potential risk (didn't plan to list financial institutions or account numbers). Any friend or family member who might read my posts (not likely but not impossible) would know who I am, but I don't think it matters. Have to think about this some more.

I keep all of our finances, including those for my business, in one QuickBooks Pro file and have for some years. Because I'm a sole proprietor, this isn't a problem as long as I have documentation. I assign a class to each in/out transaction: Personal, Rental, Business, or Tax-Deferred. That way, I can easily produce a Profit & Loss statement the shows each class as a column for analysis, or I can produce one that shows each month as a column for cash flow. I can also print a Balance Sheet comparing any period with a previous one, an Income by Client summary, etc., etc. Treating our entire financial life as a business works for me...and warms my little accountant heart. It helps that I've used the software professionally for years.

THE HOMESTEAD/ACCUMULATION YEARS

I met DH at 21 when we both worked in a busy and expensive 24-hour restaurant in Seattle. At the time, I had $1000 in a savings account, a short-lived marriage under my belt, and a love of walking/biking around the city, going to jazz clubs and eating in new restaurants. DH was exactly twice my age. I spent about a month courting him until he finally asked me out. (DH likes to claim that I asked him out, but it's his word against mine.)

DH turned up for the date in a suit and tie, and we ate dinner at a nice Seattle restaurant. He asked me what I wanted to accomplish in my life, whether I planned to work as a restaurant hostess forever (he was a waiter). After we returned to the car, DH took off his tie and said, "Thank God that's over! Now I want to show you something." Then he drove almost an hour out to the boonies. Way out in the woods. At night. On a first date.

At the end of a long gravel driveway, we got out of the car into complete darkness. No city light in the sky, no houses. DH took out a flashlight and shone it on a couple of Holstein calves: "These are my cows." Then an old, abandoned one-story building: "This is my house. It needs some work." I don't remember what I said; I was probably in shock. DH took me home, shook my hand, and left.

The following day, DH picked me up again, drove back out to the boonies, and taught me how to shoot a pistol (I had previously expressed interest in this, though it was pretty much just an eye-batting ploy). Then we went back up that long driveway and walked to a plateau on his property overlooking the "house". DH said he wanted to move out there from his place in the city and fix it up. He kissed me and asked if I would move there with him. I cried a little and said yes.

That was 36 years ago.

To be continued.

Wonderful, please do continue. Broken wrist makes writing slow, but reading essential. love your story. Welcome.

Thank you, saving-10-years!

A broken wrist sounds pretty miserable; one of those things designed to make you appreciate a body function that you always took for granted. Can you use some sort of speech-recognition software to write? I know absolutely nothing about this, but my DH's Windows 10 laptop keeps offering to do it.

not using windows 10 but good idea for future. Currently trying to get practice in at not being so reliant on right hand. and being more succinct. ERE type solutions? I may report on one armed spinning in my journal. Perhaps using voice recog. But loads of interesting reading here. Always.

Great story. Please continue.

Thanks, Farm_or_! Comments are crack.

saving-10-years wrote:Currently trying to get practice in at not being so reliant on right hand. and being more succinct. ERE type solutions? I may report on one armed spinning in my journal.

I tried googling "one-armed spinning" and got a bunch of sites about pole dancing. I assumed you meant spinning fiber, but pole dancing might have some ERE benefits.

You've got me hooked on your story and I'm just waiting around to read more! Wow! 2 dates and a "move in with me" !? Was that a serious exchange or sort of a light joking to test the waters?

@C40,

I'm so glad you're hooked! The "move in with me" offer was dead serious. DH is an all-or-nothing kind of guy, and I'm a hopeless romantic.

@C40,

Maybe you can help me since you post so many photos (or anyone else, please). I'm trying to figure out how to add a couple of photos to the next part of my story. It looks like I have to use a URL? Does this mean that I have put the photos somewhere online first? If so, can you recommend the easiest site to use that won't require signing away my identity or suffering spam? Thank you!

halfmoon wrote:@C40,

Maybe you can help me since you post so many photos (or anyone else, please). I'm trying to figure out how to add a couple of photos to the next part of my story. It looks like I have to use a URL? Does this mean that I have put the photos somewhere online first? If so, can you recommend the easiest site to use that won't require signing away my identity or suffering spam? Thank you!

I made a post with a video a few years ago of how to post pictures using Flickr,.. but.. it's outdated now, so don't bother finding or trying it.

The easiest site to use right now, ATMO (According to my opinion), is http://www.imgur.com. I'll try to remember to come back and post a little summary of how to use it.

Its fibre spinning! One type (long draw) really makes little use of one hand. The problem is that your dominant hand wants to rush forward and do things. When its in a clumsy cast and has no strength its not helping. Pole dancing would require a lot more strength I feel. And a different body in all.

I use imgur for ERE. First make an account.
Next find the image file on the computer that you want to share. Drag that file to imgur and drop it. This will upload the image.
Now click that image. You should now see the image as well as a list of links on the right side of your screen.
Click the link for BBCode. Copy it.
Paste the link into your ERE post and the picture should be embedded.

C40 & Gilberto de Piento,

I appreciate the coaching. I followed the link and created an Imgur account. Now I'm going to try putting photos into my upcoming post.

saving-10-years wrote: Pole dancing would require a lot more strength I feel. And a different body in all.

Oh, I'm with you there.

THE HOMESTEAD/ACCUMULATION YEARS page 2

April 1980. I had been living in a Seattle apartment, but just before my date with future DH, I found the perfect place to move to: the top-floor *turret* (really!) of a grand old house all to myself. One huge windowed room with a sink/toilet and a clawfoot tub. It was cheap because the house owner didn’t really want me to use her gourmet kitchen, which would have been no problem because I never cooked. It was all about cold food or restaurants for me. I paid rent on the place for 3 months, but I only spent one night there due to moving in with DH. When I gave notice, the owner said she was sad to see me go because I was the quietest renter she'd ever had.

DH had a small, older house in north Seattle. He also had 3 large, hostile dogs and a 15-year-old son he had brought up by himself. At the time, I had little experience with dogs and none with teenagers aside from my own checkered youth. I still find it amazing that DH and I ever got together, because we were polar opposites in many ways.

We spent the summer laboring on the house and land during the day and working in the restaurant at night. At the end of August, we sold the Seattle house and moved onto the property so DS could start school in the area. I originally told DH that I had two pre-existing requirements for living there: Hot running water and no dogs in the house. When we moved, we had NO running water. The dogs came in after about a week and never left.



The approximate look of the turreted house I could have been living in:






The house I moved into (before some improvements):




This is your brain in love.

Holy smokes!! That guy must have been really charming

C40 wrote:Holy smokes!! That guy must have been really charming

He was (and is) smart, funny, inventive, resourceful, rebellious, driven, capable, loyal and romantic.

Charming...not so much. He told me once in all sincerity: "You look very good for your age group."

On the other hand, when I asked him if he would still love me when all my hair has fallen out, he said: "I will never love you less, and I couldn't love you more." Who needs charm when you have that?

halfmoon wrote:The dogs came in after about a week and never left.

LOL... Wife agreed once upon a time to let an afghan hound into our life. We had talked through all the boundaries and rules we'd enforce, mainly that it shouldn't be allowed on the furniture. Dear dog was delivered by former owner. He walked into the front door and immediately plopped into a plush leather armchair. Ever after, that was "his" chair, LOL! Good thing we could be flexible.

He also wasn't supposed to climb into the bed. That was more my wife's idea, but somehow when she was feeling unwell about a month later, he hopped up into the bed and she felt so comforted that she didn't shove him out. THAT was big, because she's not a dog person!