It’s been a year now since I returned from a three-month wander through France and Italy and settled in to life as a post-career woman of leisure. Since then I’ve been sewing daily, reading and studying subjects that interest me, keeping two blogs and working on music skills so I can make it onto an international stage before I need a walker.
Not bad. I’d interviewed quite a few retired women before it was my turn and discovered there were two kinds — those who didn’t really know what to do with themselves, and those who had too much to do. It would seem I’ve landed in with the second group. I’m so thankful!
Some days I’m kind of paralyzed because I don’t know what I want to do next: sew, read, write, sing or get outside for exercise. It makes me think of blocking my days into one and two hour time slots as if I were at school and scheduling everything.
Still, this month I started feeling restless. Just spring fever, maybe?I’ve spent a couple of weeks on a tear of cleaning up and cleaning out. Which didn’t stop me from buying some more fabric in a response to an ad I saw on craigslist when I was listing some furniture for sale.
I immediately sewed up another pair of stretch yoga pants with some of it. Hardly worth posting about. The only interesting thing about them, and about the sewing of them, is that I attached a band of fabric loosely to the top of the waist. I can fold that down and hide the fact that these are standard elastic-waist pants.
Here’s a pic.
The rest of the fabric is in the stash, waiting for summer. I’ve got a list of about a dozen summer projects, some of which I have the fabric for and some of which I have the patterns for.But I feel like I need to take some time building up foundations, like exploring online sewing resources. Speaking of which, has anyone sewn anything from the Cali Faye Collection? I’ve seen about a half dozen of her patterns that I like (on Craftsy), but can’t find any reviews at all.
In my last post I mentioned I was singing chorus in a semi-professional company’s production of La Boheme last month. Thought you might like a pic of the rehearsal. I’m third woman from the right.
Is anyone else here a person of leisure? If so, how do you fill your time? Are you satisfied with what you’re doing?
older babe sews clothes 
What an inspiringly pro-active lady! I’m excited to see more sewing projects 🙂
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What an interesting post – I too hope to be in the second category. I reckon I’ve got 5 to 7 years left – recently I had an expected break for three months – my first time of not being in ful time continuous employment for 37 years. I felt quite paralysed by it – joked about calling it my Sewcation but now I am working again I can see that I did nothing during that time – I was destabilised. But … it has made me realised that I do need to plan for retirement carefully so that I can be a super-active babe like you!
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I think it’s easy to feel destabilized when you work full time and then suddenly don’t work at all. I found that what happened for me was that the “hobbies” I had before I quit had a chance to grow into the new unlimited time, and did. May that happen for you too 🙂
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Well done you!
I’ve always had more to do than time & plan to continue.
😉
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Thanks. I was worried that I would have too much time, and am glad that I feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day. I did not feel that way when I worked.
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Great post, sounds like a lovely life. Good plan with the scheduling, I can see how easy it would be to get caught in the perfectionism of using the time “best”
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I’m thinking that what’s easy for me is to forget to relax and do nothing. I think that’s another thing I need to learn 🙂
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It’s much, much better to be busy, active and engaged than sitting about – you’ll only get old that way. You are an inspiration to us all.
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Right, and who wants to get old? Sometimes I take note of politicians — in their seventies and still running things. Clearly age has nothing to do with a number.
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Oh, how I admire your “get up and go”! I was retired when company had some major restructuring and haven’t come to grips with it yet. Getting more inspired daily, and soon hope to be your camp! Love those hot pink yoga pants.
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It took me a while, but my 3-month trip to europe really helped to “shake the dust off” of work life, and reorient me to a new way of life. Good luck getting your grip 🙂
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