Letting grass take over

My once beautiful flower beds are now tall grass. With our lives evolving towards retirement and travel, I cannot imagine someone putting the time in that I do, as in a renter. This years flower beds got away from me and I see the writing on the wall. Time to stop fighting. Back to grass.

I’m working on still keeping the flowers but maybe letting the spring flowers cut through the grass. After they have bloomed they die back anyway and by that time mowing becomes necessary. It can still be beautiful!

Grass along the way

As I was pulling grass from my roses, I thought about our everyday life. For example; if you don’t give a rose bush the loving care it needs (cutting back, removing grass, dead heading etc.), there’s a good possibility it will go wild. You

know it has when the rose turns twiggy and the blooms are small. I had a couple go wild. One was a “purple rose”; it was a beautiful lavender color, with big buds and aromatic flowers. Two years lapsed without my paying attention to it. This year there are many dead canes and the flowers look like a red tea rose. Small and red in color. My mom told me when they go wild you never get them back. You either enjoy them as they are (weedy looking) or replace with something else. I’m thinking replace.

Even though we didn’t have kids I think about how that pertains to young people. When we do not prune and shape our little ones, due to no fault of their own, they grow to be wild and mixed up. Then, when reaching adult status, there are no tools in their arsenal with which to live in harmony with nature and each other. Their contributions shrink and die back; and because they’re frustrated and not pleasing in some way, they also become misunderstood and dismissed. Thrown out.

Just as in retirement

Without the planning, cutting back, and hard choices of direction, a desired leisure retirement isn’t as easy to accomplish. I think about hubby and I. We have been working our whole lives focused on the day when we can retire. My husband joined the working stiffs at a ripe young age of 15 or 16. I was a slower starter, not having a steady job until my twenties because I thought college was my future. After a year and a half college was not to be.

A lot of things happened during that time to shape the direction of my life. It facilitated my moving to Texas for 10 years (I recommend that to any young person). Cutting the apron strings and flying without a safety net will put things in perspective very quickly! But, to be honest, I didn’t really think about reaching retirement age. I thought I would not live that long. When I came back to Michigan I was fortunate enough to land a job with good pay and retirement benefits. After that it was getting through the 25 years necessary to draw a pension and finally be able to enjoy life.

The choices we’ve made together in our lives have provided options for us as we near retirement status. We want to live like gypsies for a few years, traveling whenever and wherever. Soon it will payoff and the only thing left will be busying our motorhome.

Prune back or go wild

Me being the impatient one, I want to make as much money as I can to get ahead of on financial path.  This would require that I leave my current job and get a second job, or cutting back our spending even further. We do pretty good with our money and I am not willing to let go of some of the things we enjoy. I believe I will get a little wild and put the feelers out for a second job. I’ve already applied at one place but haven’t heard anything back yet. I leave that part to God and my faith, if it’s his will for me it will be. I can’t go wrong giving up the reins to the Almighty.

I’ve already commenced to removing my stuff from my office. If I have to leave with a months notice, I will already be ahead of the game. Hubby is contented to stay where he is, putting his time in. He is way more patient then myself.  He rushes nothing. I, on the other hand, bounce and richochet off walls all around him.  He tells me not to rush it. It could end up being the wrong choice. I get it; failing to care for and nurture our dream just right will cause it to go back to grass, weedy, dug up and thrown out.

To do

Instead, we think ahead to our moment of travel. Seeing those already fortunate enough to be on their way, we put ourselves behind the wheel of their rigs and imagine our destinations. While taking a break, I will:

• Educate myself on what’s out there as far as used motorhomes. I look at the kinds of aluminum trailers to get an idea what we can afford for our specific needs.
• Downsize my clothes I haven’t worn, things I haven’t used in awhile and do not have room for.
• Clean out the basement of 25 years of storage and re-pourpose, recycle, or trash it.
• Water proof the basement.
• Perform paint repair on the house.
• De-clutter the main floor of the house.

Sit back and smell the roses

When hubby gets the heated floor in the pole barn, I will begin moving things out there that we are going to keep. At that time, it will be necessary to hire someone younger, stronger and more energetic then myself to get it accomplished. Maybe two people. We will be within reach of our goal!!!

I’m living for the day that our toes might be in the sand or we’re held up on a mountain somewhere. We have the tiger by the tail and our bare feet have gone Back to grass.