2009 - The Year of Dreams

2008 has come to close and 2009 has begun. I think that 2009 will be the Year of Dreams. I have spent 2008 preparing for the next stages in my life and I have establish many of the things necessary for me to settle into the next few years.

I've completed the transition into retirement. I've worked to live within my retirement income having briefly reached a six figure income while working. When I got to that level, I realized that I had a few good years to prepare for the kind of life I wanted after retiring. My 2004 heart attack and subsequent quadruple by-pass made me realize that I had many more things I wanted to do but couldn't while I was working fulltime. It maybe accelerated my movement toward retirement, but I haven't looked back from that time onward.

By 2008, I knew I needed a place on this Earth to call my own in retirement and so I purchased and readied my 10 acres and cabin for my retirement. To return to my interests and education as a naturalist and field biologist I knew that my place would need to be in a natural area and the woods and trout streams of northen Michigan would fit the bill. While the move pushed me out of the cities, it also allowed me to feed the birds, grow some of my own food, walk in solitude through the woods, and spend time watching and studying the natural world outside my windows.

The cabin was new, but just a shell. I wanted to invest myself in finishing it off and so I wired, hung dry wall, plastered and painted, floored and bought the things I wanted and needed to live here. I worked weekends and days off to transition the cabin from walls and a roof to a place where I could be comfortable and spend my time.

Needing to understand the full cycle of the seasons, I decided to stay in residence for a full year - including through an entire winter. I rely on wood to heat with supplemental electric heat and had to learn to hold a fire overnight as well as all day. Because of my health, I needed to eat healthy and learned to plan meals, store foods, and better balance health and eating.

And now that 2009 has arrived and I'm finishing my first taste of Winter, I can begin to dream of how I want my future to fit and feel. I am a man of lists, and even though I haven't checked off everything for my first year, I have sat through the passing Winter days making my lists for 2009. Lists of vegetables and fruits to plant, structures and sheds to build, goals to set and tasks to accomplish.

While the rest of the world struggles through the changes of the coming economy, changes in leadership, and changing Earth, I am ready for 2009. Armed with my lists, I await the end of Winter and the start of another Season in a cabin on my 10 acres.