Year One - Where did it go?

[jimnjana]

Friday marked my 1 year retirement anniversary. Wow, time flies. Here is how I see my progress in terms of the three areas I wanted to work on this year.

HEALTH - Take care of myself/Get in Shape – Well I have lost more than 10 pounds, I’m determined to get off of my blood pressure and cholesterol meds. Diabetes runs in my family, and I want to do what I can to keep from developing it, as long as possible. Only 20 lbs to go! Fitness wise, I’m back at biking about 7.5 miles a day, as well as walking about 2 miles. I will start jogging again as well, DW and I are going to join either the fitness center at Patrick AFB or a local gym. Eating better as well, one thing we found is to eat our big meal at lunch time. Many times at Dinner we just have salad or ice cream (oops, we’re trying!

FINANCES Budget, Stop spending so much time watching stocks/worrying about finances – well not doing to well on this one. I created a budget and bought quicken with the intent to stay on top of actual expenses etc. Not doing so well, with the monitoring part, spending too much time watching the stock market instead. Still spending several hours a day, really just wasting time on-line. I realize how counter productive this is, but its almost like a compulsive disorder. I’m hoping that by staying busier doing other things I can cut this time out of my day. The worrying part, I compounded by buying the vacation rental earlier in the year. Because I did not have a lot of cash on hand, I sold some stock at a loss, which I spent the rest of the year so far watching them recover a great deal of their price….oh well. I also canceled one of my whole life polices to use for upgrade expenses on the property. Managing the rental is now my job, as my wife said she already is working (at home travel agent). Still concerned with LTC and whether our strategy is sound for dealing with it.



MINDSET – Stop worrying/whining/procrastinating – I keep telling myself that I can stop worrying, that life is good. I guess I’m still working on the changing my mindset. It seems that I can always find something to worry about. My problem is I just don’t like surprises and try to wargame everything. Which contributes to my knack for procrastinating. Stop procrastinating – I’ll have to get back on this one, very hard to do, maybe I’ll do better next year.



This year, besides continuing to work on these areas, I want to focus on doing more "dates" with DW rather than just the routine out to eat nights. Also, want to volunteer more than the 100 hrs or so I did last year. We also want to travel a bit more, taking advantage of some of the great travel deals available.


Jim



Jim