2025 52 Card Project: Week 30: Daydreaming About Retirement
Aug. 1st, 2025 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrLast week was hot and humid, culminating in a blisteringly miserable weekend. I continued to cough and felt entirely disinclined to exercise or go to work. I parked myself for the weekend on the couch in a surly torpor, escaping into fanfiction.
I found myself lost in daydreams for much of the week. I have truly enjoyed my job, but I am going to be retiring in a few months, and that is taking up more and more of my mental space. I look at my portfolio and think about the switch from saving for years to starting to spend down my savings. I think about traveling. I think about starting to take classes, just for fun. I have a new grandchild. Two of my siblings have already retired, and another will also be retiring at the end of the year. I don't want to be the only one in my family still working.
I have always been a conscientious worker, to the point where my friends have frequently joked that my employers have taken advantage of my willingness to go above and beyond. But I am starting to check out mentally.
I am ready for my working life to be done.
Image description: A silhouette of a woman sits beside a window, her fingers parting the curtain to gaze out. Overlaid: a red hammock with a woman's feet sticking out. Lower right corner: a gold piggy bank.
Daydreaming About Retirement
Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
I found myself lost in daydreams for much of the week. I have truly enjoyed my job, but I am going to be retiring in a few months, and that is taking up more and more of my mental space. I look at my portfolio and think about the switch from saving for years to starting to spend down my savings. I think about traveling. I think about starting to take classes, just for fun. I have a new grandchild. Two of my siblings have already retired, and another will also be retiring at the end of the year. I don't want to be the only one in my family still working.
I have always been a conscientious worker, to the point where my friends have frequently joked that my employers have taken advantage of my willingness to go above and beyond. But I am starting to check out mentally.
I am ready for my working life to be done.
Image description: A silhouette of a woman sits beside a window, her fingers parting the curtain to gaze out. Overlaid: a red hammock with a woman's feet sticking out. Lower right corner: a gold piggy bank.
Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
2025 52 Card Project: Week 29: Under the Sun
Jul. 25th, 2025 01:18 pmpegkerrEvery week, as I go through my daily routines, I have a continual thought running in the back of my mind: what will this week's collage be about? What is at the top of my mind? What am I mulling about? How can I put it into visual terms and make it interesting?
This is the sixth year I've been doing these collages every week, and so perhaps it is not a surprise that certain thoughts and themes come up repeatedly. This week, I've been preoccupied with my ongoing cough, which seems to be the result of a terrible summer cold that has jump-started my asthma again. Well, I'm sick of talking about my problems with coughing, and I hate the thought of being an aging lady who has nothing better to do than complain about my health. And I've made collages about this subject before.
So I thought I would do a collage about my bedroom, as I'm quite pleased with the artwork I've put up. But again, I have done several collages on the subject already. See this, this, this, this, and this.
Realizing this, I felt stuck. Wouldn't I just be boring people? And that, I noticed, roused a strong reluctance in me to get started on doing something this week.
That thought triggered the memory of another conversation I had this week. I was moaning to Pat Wrede about my struggles with the book I'm attempting to write, the sequel to Emerald House Rising. "The things I struggle with the most in writing are twofold: I have a difficult time coming up with a plot. I just have such a hard time figuring out what happens next.
And I get stuck because of the paralyzing fear that I am boring people, because I have nothing interesting to say."
As I struggled with the decision over what my collage should be about this week, I recognized (again) that this is a significant neurosis of mine. I was so dreadfully wounded years ago when my best friend of twenty-five years cut me entirely from her life. In her last conversation with me, she made it clear that she had become weary of listening to what I had to say about my life.
Even now, sixteen years out, I still haven't entirely gotten over it.
Here is the artwork I have purchased that I love so much: a tree (you know my affinity for trees) that is a static silhouette on the wall that somehow gives an impression of movement:
I stared at that tree and I thought about the fear of boring people, and of things that come up over and over again--and then I saw the connection. This tree is an embodiment of autumn: the leaves are blowing away in the wind. Soon, all the leaves will be gone. And the winter will come and the tree will become quiescent, and then the leaves will bud out again.
As I contemplated that, my fears seemed absurd. Who would be so nonsensical as to say that because spring comes around every year, it is meaningless? Is that not what nature does? What life does? Is that not the nature of reality itself?
Suddenly, a verse from Ecclesiastes 1:9 came into my mind: "That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
I am entering the last third of my life--looking at retirement and moving toward the ending where I will have to sum it all up. What has my life meant? Does it matter that things come up over and over again? I have always taken such comfort from ritual (St. Lucia Day, washing my face with dew every May Day, eating strawberries every July 6, holiday gatherings with my family), and what is ritual, after all, but things that repeat?
This, as I said, is an inner neurosis. But because I am aware of it, I challenge it in my mind when it starts to oppress me, and I will not let it overcome me.
Yes, things come up again and again. But that does not mean that my life is meaningless, or that my thoughts are not of interest to others. There is comfort and wisdom that may be gained from seeing things with new eyes, even as they recur. And I need not be self-conscious about that.
Here is this week's collage:
Image description: An artistic rendering of a tree made out of wood, blown by the wind. Birds and windblown leaves give an impression of movement. The tree is silhouetted against the sun in a sunset-colored sky.
Under the Sun
Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
This is the sixth year I've been doing these collages every week, and so perhaps it is not a surprise that certain thoughts and themes come up repeatedly. This week, I've been preoccupied with my ongoing cough, which seems to be the result of a terrible summer cold that has jump-started my asthma again. Well, I'm sick of talking about my problems with coughing, and I hate the thought of being an aging lady who has nothing better to do than complain about my health. And I've made collages about this subject before.
So I thought I would do a collage about my bedroom, as I'm quite pleased with the artwork I've put up. But again, I have done several collages on the subject already. See this, this, this, this, and this.
Realizing this, I felt stuck. Wouldn't I just be boring people? And that, I noticed, roused a strong reluctance in me to get started on doing something this week.
That thought triggered the memory of another conversation I had this week. I was moaning to Pat Wrede about my struggles with the book I'm attempting to write, the sequel to Emerald House Rising. "The things I struggle with the most in writing are twofold: I have a difficult time coming up with a plot. I just have such a hard time figuring out what happens next.
And I get stuck because of the paralyzing fear that I am boring people, because I have nothing interesting to say."
As I struggled with the decision over what my collage should be about this week, I recognized (again) that this is a significant neurosis of mine. I was so dreadfully wounded years ago when my best friend of twenty-five years cut me entirely from her life. In her last conversation with me, she made it clear that she had become weary of listening to what I had to say about my life.
Even now, sixteen years out, I still haven't entirely gotten over it.
Here is the artwork I have purchased that I love so much: a tree (you know my affinity for trees) that is a static silhouette on the wall that somehow gives an impression of movement:
I stared at that tree and I thought about the fear of boring people, and of things that come up over and over again--and then I saw the connection. This tree is an embodiment of autumn: the leaves are blowing away in the wind. Soon, all the leaves will be gone. And the winter will come and the tree will become quiescent, and then the leaves will bud out again.
As I contemplated that, my fears seemed absurd. Who would be so nonsensical as to say that because spring comes around every year, it is meaningless? Is that not what nature does? What life does? Is that not the nature of reality itself?
Suddenly, a verse from Ecclesiastes 1:9 came into my mind: "That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
I am entering the last third of my life--looking at retirement and moving toward the ending where I will have to sum it all up. What has my life meant? Does it matter that things come up over and over again? I have always taken such comfort from ritual (St. Lucia Day, washing my face with dew every May Day, eating strawberries every July 6, holiday gatherings with my family), and what is ritual, after all, but things that repeat?
This, as I said, is an inner neurosis. But because I am aware of it, I challenge it in my mind when it starts to oppress me, and I will not let it overcome me.
Yes, things come up again and again. But that does not mean that my life is meaningless, or that my thoughts are not of interest to others. There is comfort and wisdom that may be gained from seeing things with new eyes, even as they recur. And I need not be self-conscious about that.
Here is this week's collage:
Image description: An artistic rendering of a tree made out of wood, blown by the wind. Birds and windblown leaves give an impression of movement. The tree is silhouetted against the sun in a sunset-colored sky.
Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
I was wrong!
Jul. 25th, 2025 01:44 pmdreamsharkSilver Sneakers DOES let you join more than one gym at a time, unlike the similar but different Silver and Fit where you have to choose just one. My Medicare Advantage program switched us to Silver Sneakers a couple of years ago, but I just figured out this new wrinkle. So now I can go gym shopping without having to give up the obviously most practical health club choice (YMCA).
So now I am embarking on an exciting new round of Gym Tourism. I've always enjoyed trying out different Y locations, but now I can expand my horizons. On Wednesday I joined LA Fitness and did a little workout at their Richfield location at 65th and Lyndale. Here's my review.
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LA FITNESS RICHFIELD (65th and Lyndale)
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LA Fitness seems to be an unremarkable mid-tier health club with a national footprint and a dozen Twin Cities locations. They accepted my Silver Sneakers ID with no fuss and I was a member within about 5 minutes. The bored young receptionist showed no interest in welcoming me to the club - no offer of orientation session, club hours, class schedules, or even "the locker rooms are over there.". I guess it's all in their phone app (doesn't EVERYBODY have a smartphone?) so no point in using IRL communication tools (like your voice, or even hours posted on the front door). So I just treated it like a video game where you wander around and take in clues from the environment.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The main room past the front desk houses the exercise machines and a very large weight-lifting area in the back. It is spacious, quiet, cool, and surprisingly uncrowded at 4:30-5pm. The weather outside is unpleasantly hot and sticky, but the A/C is doing a spectacular job in here. There are no TVs hanging overhead, no sounds from the mostly empty side rooms. It feels... restful. There's a cute little juice bar off to the side selling tempting protein-fortified fruit smoothies. There is a large mat room for stretching out, and a full set of exercise machines. There isn't a great deal here that interests me, but it feels like an inviting space, especially on a hot day. I can imagine dropping in here for a short workout and leisurely stretching session and then treating myself to a mango smoothie.
ODDITIES AND DEFICIENCIES
- The stretching spaces are nice and big, but have little to no equipment besides mats. Just a few rollers, one BOSU, a couple of exercise balls. No stretchy bands. No mirrors or stretching bar on the wall.
- There is no walking/running track.
- The space allocation is peculiar. There is one very large group exercise room, an absolutely CAVERNOUS spinning room (empty), and 2 small racquetball courts. It's hard to imagine that this little club could ever muster up a spin class that would come close to filling that room, which looks kind of like a university lecture hall. I would think that some smaller group class rooms would have allowed room for something that might actually get used, like a pickleball court? But what do I know? I have only designed gyms when playing The Sims.
- The pool is clean and new, but small, clearly not intended as a lap pool. So I won't be coming here for swimming.
- The ambience of the workout area is very appealing, especially on a hot day. My home gym is the handy but cramped old Blaisdell Y, where the A/C struggles to keep up with the humidity, so this is a big draw in summer.
- The locker room is fantastic! It's spacious and clean, has nice individual showers and changing cubicles, and the most beautiful lockers I have ever seen in a health club. Look at them! They are twice the width of the usual skinny metal ones, wide enough to hold my bulky gym bag with ease. And they are made of wood - an unexpectedly retro design choice in such a modern building. Oh, and there's a warm, cozy sauna right there in the locker room! Usually only the most expensive clubs have a sauna/hot tub that you can use without having to put on a swimsuit and tromp through the pool area.
The juice bar is adorable, and the smoothies aren't even as over-priced as you might expect. I'd try one of those.
This place is great! Now serving lunch and dinner
Jul. 22nd, 2025 09:08 amdreamsharkIt’s Lake & Bryant Cafe (again). On steamy days like today I sometimes 🚴2 Breakfast here before it gets really hot and treat myself to their amazing breakfast sandwich. This plucky little cafe opened in the heart of the pandemic, and continues to do its part to revive Uptown from the edges inward. It’s never crowded, but doing well enough to expand their hours and menu. Give it a try.