Anybody else enjoy the 'doing nothing' aspect of retirement?
13 years ago
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- 13 years ago
- 13 years ago
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Anybody else just pooped out from it all?
Comments (10)it seems.. that your only problem.. is that you want it all done yesterday ... how about his ... TAKE A WEEK OFF ... drag your lawnchair around ... with an adult beverage of your choice ... and decide where you need to go in the future ... what bed to make this fall.. so you wont have to do it in spring ... what plants need to be moved in fall ... gardening does NOT have to be all about hard work .. take some time to enjoy and plan ... and when your butt starts getting motivated again.. go at it a bit slower ... work smart.. not hard ... trying to do.. too much.. all at once.. can very easily become overwhelming ... take timeouts.. to enjoy that which has been accomplished.. sooner or later ... you will get itchy to get back out there .. and if you did nothing more this season ... so be it.. you have already done a great amount ... relish your accomplishments.. rather than fester in your expectations of failure .... the ONLY person you have allegedly let down is you .. i am positive everyone else is mystified with what you have accomplished ... declare the garden job done.. and find some other excuse to avoid housecleaning ... lol .. how about residing the house while you are at it ... maybe a new roof ... maybe a garden on the roof??? .. so many options to avoid housework ... good luck ken ps: time to join a garden club.. and go visit other local gardens .... for more inspiration ......See MoreWANTED: Have lilac, but nothing else. Need so many things...
Comments (20)Wow, bejoy2, I'm sorry I missed you too, I'm not sure how we did but as another poster said, maybe we need name tags or labels. I had no idea how the plant swap is done, so I was pretty shy and wasn't sure who to introduce myself to. We wandered around for maybe an hour and a half, visiting with people and trying to get them to take our cookies. We were given so many plants that I'm not sure we could have fit much more in the car! Ok, that's not really true, I would have kept them in my lap if I had to. (grin) I was soaking wet anyway. Thanks for thinking of me, and offering to save things for me! I am so grateful for everyone's generosity and I hope the lilacs are useful to someone. We will bring more next time, and more sweets or something healthy even. I was sorry the humidity was so hard on the cookies! I hope they didn't get too limp. I have lots of things that I do remember the names of, and lots that I don't. Do any of you have ideas for how to deal with that? Like a grease pencil or something that will will write on pots in pouring rain & not wash off for a long time? Or a way to make tags on the spot? What pens do you like? What labeling devices? It seems like a grease pencil & plastic bags might have worked for all the stuff not in pots, but we would have needed an awful lot of bags, and it would be a shame to waste them. Maybe the stick-type labels, & rubber bands? Any thoughts? Thanks again. Laura...See MoreDoes anybody else open-kettle can?
Comments (38)> I don't imagine things are different in Canada, Zabby. Actually, there are some significant differences, which is why there's work for me on accounting texts here, most of which are adaptations of U.S. books. But the overriding principles we're arguing about are universal. > In the U.S. there are 7 sets of GAAPs. I don't know any accountants who talks of "sets of GAAPs" --- they're not like the ten commandments, but a large body of principles and customs. > However, "So the overall cost of my life doesn't go up if I start using that shovel to grow veggies." doesn't ring true in this case. We are not measuring the total cost of your life. We are trying to make a comparison between the costs of a home-canned jar of something with what it costs to buy that something. So, in this case, you have to include all those bits and pieces in order to compare like to like. Ah, but here is where I think your logic is truly faulty. As I said, accounting is a decision-making tool. It helps businesses make decisions about their finances, governments make decisions about how much tax to charge you, and people make decisions about what to do with their money, time, etc. (though of course it's not the only or even the most important factor in those decisions, as we have all agreed in the case of canning and gardening). So accounting helps you ask various questions and get answers that compare things. Now, you seem to be asking the question "How much does it cost a company, starting from building the factory, to make and sell a can of tomatoes, vs. how much it costs a person, starting with absolutely nothing, to make a can of tomatoes?" As an academic exercise, it may be interesting, but it's irrelevant to most real situations. The question I was talking about is the useful one: what is the overall extra cost (or savings) to my life is I can veggies instead of buying them? If I already own a shovel to grow my flowers with, that shovel has been already "paid for" out of my "growing flowers as a hobby" cost centre in my life. If I "charge" some of it to my canning cost centre, then I'm double expensing it --- a no-no according to GAAP in any country. > There's also another aspect we haven't begun to look at: Cost of possession. When you are buying things you generally buy for immediate needs, or maintain a very small inventory. Not necessarily. I know plenty of people who buy canned goods by the caseload from Costco or Price Club. But the general point is true that there is a cost of maintaining inventory --- though it can't be generalized to a particular percentage for most situations. It depends a great deal on how the inventory is managed and where it's kept. (That cost is much higher, for e.g., in places where space is expensive, or for goods that require special circumstances --- so the cost of possession was way higher for things I stored frozen in the city than for a canned good in my larger small-town home.) A much bigger often-uncounted cost by many people is the land --- I would have bought a home with a smaller yard if I hadn't known I wanted a veggie garden. So part of my mortgage every month should reasonably be costed to my veggies. On the other hand, the veggies I grew in Toronto were in my BF's backyard which he wasn't using anyway, so it would have been UNreasonable to apply the space cost there. It's comparable to, say, vacant land that a municipality donates to a company to help entice them to move to that municipality. SImilarly, one's labour time should be charged only if, realistically, one would have been making money if one wasn't canning. (In my case this is sometimes true.) If one does it for sheer joy, then it's comparable to volunteer labour. > The fact is, most opportunity costs are unrealistic. Sure, if you weren't canning you could spend that time on a ski trip. But would your _really_ make that trip? Probably not. Opportunity costs are hard to measure, because who can say for sure what one WOULD have done? But they are absolutely real, and companies that ignore them in their accounting make worse decisions. In the case of many people who regard canning as a hobby, if they weren't canning, tney'd be doing something else recreational, very possibly something that costs money. > Number one: You cannot can food less expensively than you can buy it. Well, the main difference between us probably really is that I think you're using a definition of "less expensively" that is irrelevant to the question most people trying to make this calculation are actually asking --- and I mean quite apart from including the whole "priceless experience" factor. One that I suspect would, in fact, be rejected by an auditor. Even under my definitions, mind you, I think many people, probably including me, don't save money by canning. But I think some people do. Sigh. I am tired of arguing this one, too, GL, and I don't actually have any expectation you will change your mind; the only reason I am bothering, is that actual cost, in a realistic, practical sense, DOES enter into it for some folks. (I have one friend, for example, who canned fruit during grad school to save money.) And for those people who might want or really need to economize in this way, it's not helpful to say categorically it can't be done, nor to claim that some supposed "rule" of accounting means they "have" to count certain things as costs that don't make sense in the real situation. It shows a misunderstanding (all too common) of what accounting actually means. > Number two: Who cares? We can for all sorts of great reasons, and actual cost hardly enters into it. For me it sure doesn't, I am 100% with you on that! And we do agree on the main thing that the experience and great product are the most important, for us. Z...See MoreRetired, living single, and enjoying it?
Comments (19)My Dad didn't mind travelling ... if there was a friend or relative at the other end to make the trip worthwhile. I like it better than he, but did trans-Pacific three times, and round -the-world once, so have done a good bit of it, in earlier times. On the first trans-Pacific trip (I'd never seen the ocean till that summer of '53) we left Los Angeles on a Swedish ship with six passengers, travelled north of Hawaii, not too far from the Aleutians, I think, on our way to the Philippines .... out of sight of land for 18 days: gives one an idea that this world is a big place! As we entered Manila Bay, about 30 miles long, we passed Corregidor, the last hold-out as the Japanese took the Philippines, from which Macarthur departed by sub, vowing to return. I thought that, had our ship been in those waters, 10 years earlier, we'd have had two choices - go into port, to be interned ... or go below. I figured that in that great war, those guys and gals had bought us some time, and that it was our job to learn how to build a world where we could get along with one another, not just "without fighting" ... but where we could have really positive lifestyles, respecting and caring for one another. I get some lonely at times, but have lived alone for over 40 years, some of it sharing with an arm's length friend, and have learned to build pretty well the life that I choose. Some have suggested that I get on with life - to remarry, etc. but I maintained a sense of affection for the former spouse, even though we scarcely ever spoke. Part of it related some to the situation that, after one had been run over by a truck ... when one heard truck wheels coming down the road ... one started to shake. She died nine years ago. Not having come to terms with that and having taken more active interest in finding another candidate for a closer relationship may have meant a less interesting life ... but we'll never know about that. One offspring married for about 5 years, broke up and has had a couple of relationships since, one currently operational. The other hadn't had a close relationship till past 40, has built one in recent years but is keeping that at somewhat arm's part-length (his instigation, I think). I have a number of interests, including that mile of garden row last summer, that I did only a half-assed job of operating: last summer was not a good time for gardening, many local gardeners claim. I have interests at church and in the community, and friends in different areas of living. I've sometimes suggested to folks approaching .. or in ... seniorhood that it's a good idea to keep making new friends ... cause the current ones tend to die off on one: a tendency that becomes more pronounced as one advances in years I've heard. I find that as I move about in the community, I'll make a comment to strangers on the street, in the checkout line at the store, etc., and suspect that I'd do less of that if I shared house with someone(s). Usually there's a good, short, exchange ... and seldom do I get chopped of, and seldom by women, either: I look rather old and harmless, I guess. I enjoy living in the country, grew up on a farm, and figure that I can live in what used to be uncle's house as long as I can drive. I've suggested to landlord that one of his becoming-adult sons may want the house, but he says that I can live there as long as I choose. I think that the eldest might want to have a fancier house than the one that I inhabit. He and his girlfriend broke up a while ago, which set him back on his heels some. We have a non-contributory government payout program, (term of residence required) and a mandatory contributory national pension plan, plus my partial private pension and personal retirement program ... and I am able to manage, Frugal Fella that I am (by choice) to live within them. While many clergy in an earlier time lived in employer-provided housing, they knew that when they became unemployed or retired ... that deal would die, so they'd need to provide their own. They had the advantage of being able to save for that, not be living in accommodation only partly theirs, and partly the bank's ... for which the bank expected (reducing) compensation, over many years. Along with that saving plan, however, it was important to put some current income aside for possible need during one's retirement years. As I live within my pensions ... I regard my investments as more or less "play money" ... ... that I may need in case of health problems or need for care in future. Or can leave to offspring and charities. As my body has seldom told me, "Listen, you darned (now 'old') fool - I can't do that for you any more!" ... I've been sort of spoiled, over the years. I think that one of my major concerns is the possibility of becoming disabled, of the physical or mental variety. All in all ... I'm pleased with my life as it is. And very thankful. ole joyful ... well - that, too!...See More- 13 years ago
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