Our One Year Anniversary

Post date: Feb 28, 2016 7:03:35 PM

Blog Post for Feb. 28, 2016: Our One Year Anniversary

One year ago we moved from a large three story house into our Villa at the Windcrest addition of the Western Homes, a 55+ retirement community. It was 20 below on the day we moved, and we were thankful for the professional movers we had hired. Even so, it was a bitterly cold, windy and miserable day. Today, I sit on my four season porch in my wheelchair, looking at greenish brown lawn, with just a touch of snow here and there. It should get close to 50 degrees today!

We have settled in nicely into a three bedroom condo, with two bathrooms, a large four season porch, and an open floor plan big room for the kitchen, living room and dining room. The guest bathroom has our laundry equipment, lots of cupboards, and a special tub with spa jets. Our master suite has a tray ceiling, a large closet for each of us, and a bathroom with a walk in shower, more cupboards, and a sense of privacy. Mike has his own office in the front bedroom, and loves being close to the action: he can see the recreation trail, new construction, and traffic on Prairie Parkway from his window. I claimed the four season porch for my office, which includes a space for our plants and a sitting area. The back door goes out to our small patio space, and we look forward to being able to enjoy it when it gets warmer.

However, it took a lot of work to move. There were numerous decisions in the building of the villa: paint colors, flooring, appliances, cabinets, and even knobs. Even as a carpenter’s daughter, I didn’t realize how many decisions we would have to make. In addition, we had to deal with our house in Waterloo. We did a lot of decluttering to get here: I worked with two retired teachers, Lynn and Kathy, who helped me to sort and categorize my stuff, room by room. They helped me to figure out what to do with thing like excess towels (veterinary clinics and homeless shelters). They worked hard to keep me focused, as we tore into tubs and closets: we started in the basement, with the holiday tubs. Later they helped me collect good boxes and helped me to pack up our possessions, label boxes, stack them, and clean the now decluttered, emptier space.

I took boxes and boxes to Goodwill. My children took or sorted through all of the tubs in the basement with their childhood toys, papers, and clothes as well as some furniture. We gave some furniture to a young teacher I knew. We loaded my car multiple times for trips to Stuff etc., a popular consignment store in Waterloo, where I have now earned $2800 over the past 2 years. We donated items to a yard sale to raise money for the Relay for Life team at Hawkeye. We called St. Vincent De Paul to pick up a load of furniture. We gave away tools, sold the lawn mower, and gave our snow blower away to a friend. I weeded through books and took some to the free box, others to Stuff, and some to Goodwill. Another friend took all sorts of odds and ends (jars of buttons, old costume jewelry, and foreign coins) to her friend, an art teacher.

Then, we spent a fair amount of energy and time in getting our house ready to go on the market: cleaning, tearing out some wall paper and painting, and work on the yard and garage. It felt good to get it sold in late summer, and not be running back and forth between the two places.

The day of the move was amazing: our movers got all of our furniture put in place, put together the beds, stacked additional boxes and tubs where we could access them and left. Our two helpers were there with hot soup, warm bread, and they got our bed made, towels up in our bathroom, and enough put away in the kitchen and pantry that we could function. The next day, my friend LaVonne and son Jon and daughter-in-law Alicia were there to tear into the boxes and tubs. Lavonne and Jon made numerous trips to the recycling center on campus to get rid of all of the boxes they had unpacked. Alicia got our china and crystal unpacked and arranged in the hutch. The sea of boxes diminished hour by hour.

Jon and Alicia came back another Saturday and helped us to put several large shelving units in the garage, for the tubs that we wanted to keep, with holiday decorations, off season items, and all of the other things that end up in the garage. Our helpers came back with Kathy’s husband, Dave, to put up pictures, and soon the walls started to look like home. It has taken a lot of hard work, careful planning, and help to get settled in, but now we can enjoy the results.

We’ve experienced a spring, summer, fall and our first holidays here. We’ve had a number of guests stay in our guestroom, and we’ve only begun to get acquainted with our neighbors, since both of us still work. Last summer, Mike logged about 800 miles on his bike on the recreation trails that go right in front of our Villa, and we did a fair amount of walking around campus in the summer and fall, before it got too cold. We look forward to more biking and walking this summer.

As I look forward to retiring from Hawkeye Community College this summer, I am filled with gratitude. I have enjoyed teaching: I love the interaction with students in the classroom, and all of the access to technology. I love discussing literature with my students, and trying to instill an appreciation of the role that literature plays in expanding our awareness of the world. I love teaching writing, helping students revise their work, and seeing their skill levels improve over the semester. I found a great book that promotes conversation, and enjoy reading their postings on each chapter. I like the process of creating a community in a group of students who start the semester unsure of what to expect and end it as a group of friends. I enjoyed the class that I taught for the Education students, and watching them explore the various kinds of technology we used as they built their Thematic Units.

However, I anticipate great things in retirement: time to read, time to write, time to travel, and time to help more with my two grandsons. I want to build on my mother’s family history research and write a trilogy. I want to continue to blog and write articles about technology. I want to make more friends in the Windcrest and Western home community and eventually find a way to give back in volunteer service. The Bible says that there is a time for everything: and I am looking forward to discovering what that means in my retirement.

Ecclesiastes 3New International Version (NIV)

A Time for Everything

3 There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

² a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

³ a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

⁶ a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

⁸ a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+3

Last updated Sunday, Feb. 28