Retired! Now what??

I've been out of work less than a month, but already I've been spinning my wheels, feeling restless and out of sorts. I need some new goals! I don't want to spend the rest of my life in my pajamas, sleeping til after noon every day. I want to do something worth spending time on and not be sucked in every day to cyberspace, wasting time in contentious forums, or playing games on Facebook. So, what's my next step?

I was thinking about this last night, while I had another restless sleep, plagued by insomnia. I can think of many worthwhile goals and projects to do, but the thing that came to my mind most forcefully was that I need to keep an eternal perspective and seek the kingdom of the Lord first, and then everything else will fall into place. To me that means my church callings and genealogy must be first place in my schedule, along with my study of the Holy Land and the JST.

Tentatively, these are the goals I want to work on for the rest of this year:

1. work on the Olson side of the family, and get 5 names ready for the temple.
2. finish my courses on the Holy Land and JST
3. learn 5 hymns on keyboard and guitar: practice 30 minutes a day, and don't worry about the neighbors! Also, practice conducting 30 minutes a day, so I can do a better job at my RS calling.
4. plan and make Christmas gifts for family
5. plan and prepare some new recipes, experiment with vegetarian recipes
6. work on finances.
7. set up exercise routine and stick with it. 30 minutes a day, at least 3 times a week.
8. work on writing: set up a routine and stick with it.

All this should keep me busy and out of mischief! It should increase my contentment, too. I will be much happier, and less bored and restless, when I'm accomplishing worthwhile goals. So, I guess goal #1 really should be to set up my schedule!!

And, looking over my list of goals, I should be more realistic and not give myself only 2 months to accomplish all this! So, this goal list will be for the rest of this year and into next year. After that, I'll see what else I can do.

ADHD/ADD

A month ago, I got curious and started doing some research, and discovered one of my main problems in life, the thing that has caused so much havoc, so much trouble and so much embarrassment is that I have ADD!!! No wonder I've spent most of my life spinning wheels, late everywhere I go, lost with no sense of direction, and dazed and confused. No wonder I've had so many problems fitting into the office jobs I've so often had. No wonder even my home life has been one big mess after another, while I've lost important papers, held onto worthless junk, stumbled around clutter, and been afraid to open my door to neighbors and friends because of the embarrassment of being a disorganized, messy housekeeper. No wonder I've never completed any project, or fully developed any of my talents.

It's like I'm only half-there. My mind is rarely still, I have trouble staying focused (a big problem with the job I had) on boring things, and yet hyper-focus on things I'm really interested in (like Facebook, etc.) to the point that I lose track of time and stay up way past my bedtime. And I'm so easily distracted, it's a wonder I get anything done at all!

I've started taking some nutritional supplements, and I need to work on getting more exercise, eating right, and setting up a routine for myself. I can't afford medication for this, nor do I really want to take meds, because of dangerous side effects at my age. So, this is my plan to overcome, or at least live with my ADD. From everything I've read, it can be controlled and become a blessing instead of my worst enemy.

Major Changes: Update

I hadn't realized I haven't been to my blog in such a long time. It's high time I returned and updated my life story.

There have been some major changes in my life. The biggest change is that I got fired from my job a few weeks ago, September 16, 2009. I was with ICT just short of 6 years. I can't say I'm sorry I got fired, or that I will miss that stress I was under. I liked the people I worked with, but I hated the job. I will NEVER work in another customer service job, especially in the mortgage industry. If the sales job I had been promised when I transferred to Morrilton had come in from Wells Fargo, I would have done better. I always enjoyed that. But Wells Fargo never came back, so I was stuck in customer service with Indymac/One West. Recently, the job became too much for me to handle, I was sick all the time and missed too much work, which is why I got fired.

With the economy the way it is, my age and my health problems, and my ADD adding to the confusion in my life, I decided to get out of the rat race. I took an early retirement! I will probably get a part time job sometime down the road, but for now, I'm enjoying an extended vacation. Financially, I'm just getting by, but I'm not too worried. Between my social security and my 401-K, I'll be alright for several months, which should be long enough to find a part time job somewhere.

The Neighbors Probably Hate Me

I did something stupid. I was up way too late, as usual, so I was dead tired this morning. Rather than being intelligent and setting my clock for a later time so I could sleep in, I set my clock for the usual time, and ended up hitting my snooze alarm every 10 minutes for 2 hours! Not only did I interrupt my sleep, by having to get up each time to hit the snooze button, but I ended up sleeping much later than I would have if I'd just set my clock just a little later. I hope it didn't disturb the neighbors. It probably didn't. My alarm buzz isn't that loud.

I feel awful today, stomach cramps. I wonder if it's from eating 3 slices of whole wheat French toast with walnuts last night for dinner. Too much wheat does that to me, sometimes.

We had a scare last week.

Katey was diagnosed with RSV, poor baby. She was really sick for a few days, and in danger of dehydration. She didn't want to nurse, or take any food, and she couldn't keep it down anyway. She didn't run a very high fever, just 99.F, so I guess that was a good thing. Diana kept her on Pedialyte for several hours, and said she's much better today. What a relief! I'm thankful that our prayers were answered. I would have hated for her to get seriously ill. She's only 6 months old.

Update on Laurie

She's fine! The biopsies turned out negative! Now I just hope her testing this coming week will go as well. She is having blood tests and other tests in preparation for an endoscopy, to find out if she has an ulcer or celiac disease. That poor girl has been through so much lately.

Blogging and the Church

I'm so glad the Church is so into the Internet! It has so many great missionary tools available to us. I love the You Tube channels, the official web sites, the LDS Network, and the Facebook LDS Application. I love finding so many of my friends from church on Facebook. It makes it so convenient to contact people about church events. It's also fun learning more about the friends you only see once or twice a week. Now we have a blog for Relief Society! Woohoo! How cool is that!
My cup runneth over!