Timetobeme's Blog

This is a subject that has been on my mind for a very long time. I remember having so many dreams. I remember when I was young, I dreamed of my own apartment, a nice car, and a boyfriend. I have obviously done much better than that. I have a wonderful husband of almost forty years and we share four grown kids and ten grand kids. We are very involved with our family and are so proud of the beautiful family we have . Owning this home with my husband for almost twenty years, and we have good reliable cars and share a lovely life. We are comfortable, do not have to live check to check, but still have to watch what we spend , especially as retirement is flying towards us.

My husband has had two spinal surgeries in the past two years and it is getting harder and harder for him to do his physical job. We had planned on him working until full retirement age, 67,and maybe even 70 , but we are not sure if he will even make it to 62. He will be 60 this month . Four days a week he basically has no real life. He gets up at 3:30 to be to work an hour away by six. He likes time to wake up and eat before he has to leave, and he leaves a bit early in case of traffic issues. He works a ten hour day and gets home anywhere between 5:30 and 6:00 pm, showers, eats, and is in bed by eight so he can be asleep by 8:30 or so. Sometimes he is falling asleep by 7:30 in his chair. So, four days a week, he gets only an hour or two with me to watch tv, so I have a lot of time to myself, time to write, draw, make jewelry, do listings, do YouTube videos, along with laundry , dishes, housework, and cooking. I am in that season of my life when for the most part, my time is my own on the days he works. I usually do not go anywhere, unless it is with one of our daughters. I plan to get so much done, but I just do not.

I think part of it is, I am trying to adjust to our new future. We thought we would have up to ten more years to save, invest and plan for retirement. However, that is not going to be the case. He has to keep working a while longer, he is still being seen by his spinal surgeon and has to have a minor knee surgery. We have to figure out some way to make up what his pension will not cover as he cannot pull social security for many years. We know in 2034 everyones social security will get cut up to 24 percent when the general fun runs out, so we want to make sure he is getting enough that the remainder after the cut will be good. I have always been a stay at home mom for our four kids, and then a stay at home grandma, lol. I have watched many of our grandkids to help our kids out and that is finally behind me.

So, why is it, I cannot come up with a dream ?

I am sort of a jack of all trades. I write short stories and poems, I love photography, I make jewelry , I love to draw, I love to read, cook, garden, bake, do crafts and I want to dabble with painting. I have done water color, but want to try some painting with acrylics. I have a YouTube channel, well actually two channels , several blogs, and three online selling shops. I have all these wonderful interests and yet I am having trouble doing any of them.

I am not depressed at all. I am very happy in my life, but just seem to lack motivation. I think some of it is just all the stuff the world has been through with the pandemic and then the two surgeries, a few dental issues of my own to deal with, and trying to lose weight to avoid health issues. I just ended a five month stint on keto and that really was not fun. I feel much better off of it, but working out my new plan to keep losing and not gain.

I really do enjoy my days, I do some creative stuff here and there , I do watch some YouTube, talk to friends here and there on the phone, see our kids and grandkids, and when my husband is off I enjoy every minute of our three days off together every week. His new position for the last two years, is terrible days off for us. He is off Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. So, all the things we absolutely love to do, we cannot do anymore. No yard sales. No Estate sales, and some antique shops and thrift shops are open on his days off, but not all of them. We are very limited. No flea markets , it is just a really awful schedule for us. I doubt it will change as the guy with the good shift would have to leave, he is not going anywhere. Everything we have always loved to do we just cannot do much of anymore. I am sure that affects me as well. I have no one to go out and do these things with. My best friend works full time and even though we could go out on Sat together she works at a clinic and is exposed every week to patients who test positive so she will not come near me. We talk on the phone some Saturdays, but I sure miss seeing my friend. Our daughters have kids and are busy and it just does not work out going with them. Our sons are out of town, one hours, one an hour, but they both work , our oldest son is in the army . I am blessed with many friends, but none of them live near me. It is very frustrating !!! I do have a couple of friends, but I explained about my best friend and my other friend is not really a yard sale person and not an early morning person which you have to be to do yard sales.

I am just in a weird place right now and trying to figure it all out. If I were unhappy or depressed it would at least explain it. I figured I would just write about it here, that is what this blog is for, and maybe over time I can figure it out. I have always been a word person, I love to write and get my words down on paper, or in this case, here on this blog. I have been doing this blog for a very long time. I may go back and read my old posts and see what I find. I do know that in journaling you can find many answers you are looking for. I do think not writing on a regular basis is a bad thing for me. I think writing for me is vital. I find I am always writing lists, budgets, notes, and I know it is just my inner self crying out to write , something, anything.

I also figure that sometimes when you blog, you reach someone else going through the same thing. Sometimes just knowing someone else has the same struggle helps.

So, I am in a weird place. Sitting in my dream studio, more beads and beautiful things to work with than I can use in a very long time. A computer, which I did not have until our oldest son was 16 and our youngest was 7. But internet life back then was very different. No facebook, no YouTube, and social media as a whole really did not exist. If anyone was blogging, I did not know it was a thing. The computer was simply a place to view the world , and our computer had so little capacity then. It is amazing to me how much computers have changed since 1986. Night and day. I have a cheap computer but yet I can do anything I want with it. I sell online, I do Youtube videos, I do several blogs, read other peoples blogs, watch YouTube on it, search online, I could not imagine my life without a computer.

I have a smart phone, like many people these days. I found I was not getting on the computer anymore. Not reading anymore. Not reading blogs or even selling as much. I have a love /hate relationship with that phone. I feel the smart phones somewhat steal away our lives. Steal away our dreams, I need to stay off the thing. I actually love being here on the computer, I am starting to get on here more often. I need to just put the phone in the corner, I need to be able to hear if I get a call or text, but otherwise stay off of it.

Anyway, there is a lot to figure out. But I think by coming here and just talking it out, it will help. I get so few views that really no one is going to read this, at least not many people will. And the great thing is, anyone can read it if they want, or not read it. I love that I have the freedom to just write and not worry about any of that. I would not write it here if I wanted these thoughts private. But I am not looking for views either. Just a place to let my thoughts out and stir them around and look at them and think about what it all means.

If you are here reading this, thank you, and I hope you are not going through this !!! It is a very frustrating place to be. But I know I will figure it out.

Stephie