A Day To Par-tay!!!

I recently told you that my book, Changing My Mind: Reinventing Myself In Retirement, would soon be making its world debut.  I’m happy to announce that you will be able to order your very own copy starting on May 19, 2018.  You can get your hands on this hot commodity by visiting my direct-to-reader sales website.  I will give you the address when the website is up and running. The book will be available in paperback and electronic editions.

You can also get the paperback and electronic versions at the Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites, but I hope you’ll go to my direct-to-reader site and order there because then I get to keep more of your money!  I have spent a lot of time trying to think of a graceful way to say that, but, as you can see, I have failed.  In addition to my greed, the other good reason to go to my direct-to-reader sales page to buy this masterpiece is because I will be offering you, my far-flung blog friends, a special discount code to use when ordering.

My book release is a momentous event in my life and I want to celebrate.  More specifically, I want to celebrate with you. I will be hosting a launch party on Saturday, May 19, 2018, and would like you non-local folks to join us virtually.  The event will be from 4:00pm-5:00pm EDT.  If you would like to join us, please send me an email at terriretirement@gmail.com.  I will provide you with the information you need to call in and celebrate with us. I also plan to have my lovely assistant take photos during the party and send them out to you in real time.  Please let me know in your email if you are okay with me providing your address to said lovely assistant so she can include you in the photo frenzy.   I have some activities planned that everyone in the room and everyone on the call should enjoy.  There will also be an opportunity to win a fabulous prize.  Well, kind of fabulous.

There will be limited phone lines available for the virtual party, so please email me your interest as soon as you know you want to attend.

I hope that you will be able to participate.  Please stay tuned to my blog for the website and discount code to use when ordering book copies.  Because I am incredibly socially awkward and insecure, I will be offering an extra discount for those people who attend the launch party.  I am sure that will incentivize crowds of crazed fans to participate! Or, maybe, at least one or two people who are mildly fond of me.  Either way, I’m good.

As always, thank you all for your support and encouragement.  In addition to celebrating the launch of Changing My Mind, the party will celebrate all my friends- all of you- because, even if you are miles away, you are all close in my heart!

What do you think about the idea of a virtual launch party?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.  If you would like to attend the virtual launch party, please email me soon to receive the call-in info!

Have a day worth celebrating today!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

Hide And Seek

This week, I’ve run away from home. I’ve left behind my day-to-day routine and am bending my reality. I didn’t want you all to think I’d forgotten you, so I figured I’d stop in at the blogsite and say “tag…you’re it!”

Yes, I thought we’d play a game this week. Let’s see if you can figure out where I am. I’ll give you a couple of clues. I spy with my little eye….

A palace
A pillory
A part-Percheron

Where do you think I am wandering? Please take a guess! Everyone who gets it right will win a virtual “prize.” I use the quotation marks purposely. Don’t expect anything of any real value. Let’s not get carried away. This is for just for the fun part of “for fun and profit!”

Where oh where has Terri LaBonte gone? Please share your guess by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have an playful day!  I’ll be back next week with news about how you can get in on the Changing My Mind: Reinventing Myself In Retirement  book launch celebration!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

 

I’m baaaaaack!  I saw:

Governor's palaceme in a pillorytwo percheron mix horses

 

Okay, I’ve been working on this for more time than I wanted to invest and have still not been able to get the pictures to stand up straight.  Heavy sigh.  Anyway, I saw the Governor’s Palace, a pillory, and a pair of Percheron mix horses in Colonial Williamsburg!!!!

 

 

 

Writer’s High

I previously told you that I’ve written a book. I call it Changing My Mind: Reinventing Myself In Retirement. The book is based on this blog, but there is some new information and I’ve structured the content in a new, more effective way. The bottom line is that the book chronicles my observations about navigating the transition from work life to retirement. I poke fun at the comical moments. I vivisect the sad moments. I offer practical tips for thriving during reinvention. I think it will be available for purchase by May 19, 2018. I’ll keep you posted and give you more information when we get closer to launch date.

The reason I am not certain about timetables and purchase sources at this point is that this is all very new to me. I am learning the process as I go through it. The folks at the author services company have been helpful, but there are numerous steps to climb to reach the point where the book will be completed and available for purchase. Each step has its own estimated timeframes, so the total time is going to be highly variable depending on how well each step goes. I am just starting the marketing and distribution piece of this project. The people at the author services company tell me that everything should be done before May 19. Still, I’m not sure I completely believe that. Either I can’t quite conceive that this is really happening after dreaming about it my whole life or I just have trust issues.

I’m not really writing this to educate you on the publishing process. Nor am I writing it to get you revved up to buy a book when they become available (although it would be great if you did get revved up to buy a book when they become available.) I am writing this to report on a momentous milestone.

Throughout the production portion of the book project, I have been making numerous design and stylistic decisions. I’ve also had several rounds of proofreading and editing. I’ve read the typeset version of the book many times and approved the final copy to send to the printer. I’ve worked with the cover designers to select front cover art and produce a compelling back cover. I was incredibly psyched when I signed off on each step. It felt so real and important, somehow. Then the realest and most important thing ever happened. I received the first actual copy of my book to approve for distribution.

When I opened the box and saw my book, I think I discovered a new form of exercise. I wasn’t aware of moving any part of my body, but my physiology sure seemed convinced that I was. I think my pulse rate increased. I immediately felt endorphins explode inside me. I’m sure I was actually burning calories just looking at the book. There is no way that my body was behaving remotely like my usual “at rest” condition. I’m sure I was exceeding the maximum daily allowance of giddiness. My body could barely contain itself. I couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t concentrate on anything beyond the fact that I was actually holding MY book in my hands!!!. Two weeks  later, I am still having a hard time trying to keep my overheated psyche stuffed inside my skin. My excitement and energy just push out from inside me so firmly, my face cracks open into a ragged tear of a grin, even when I don’t know I’m even thinking about it.

Changing My Mind is beautiful. I love it. I hope other people will love it, too. On the other hand, even if no one else loves it, I have to say that I feel something kind of miraculous just knowing that I’ve created this lovely little bit of me. I always say I am an expert at nothing except examining my own navel. The thing is, everyone has a navel and I guess one navel looks very much like another. Hopefully, my navel-gazing musings ring true for other people as well.

So, what do you think?  Do I need to just chill out or is this as exciting as I think it is?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.  

Have a creative day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

 

The Half-Circle Of Life

My blog post about how my life has been very different than what I imagined in my misspent youth inspired a lot of conversation.  I’m glad that so many of you could relate to my observations and commented on them.  It made me feel like a less of an oddball. Not that there is anything wrong with being an oddball, but sometimes it is nice to know I am not the only ball rolling around at a different angle than everybody else.

I think most of the conversation generated from my musings about my childless state.  Many of you seem to contemplate what your life would have been with children, without children, with more children, or with less children.  I guess that is just one of those things about which we all wonder.  In general, it doesn’t bother me too much.  I think of my lack of children to be part of my overall existence.  I don’t know what my existence would have been like if I had children, but I do know it would have been different…. And I’m pretty happy with the life I have.

One aspect of not having children that I think still does bother me has to do with my mother’s death.  I wonder if people who are not parents generally grieve differently when they lose a parent. I did some googling to see if I could find any studies or research to suggest that this is an actual “thing,” but came up empty.  Still, just because no one ever studied something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Truthfully, just because I may be the only one to feel it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

I’ve talked to some other women about it.  I asked women with children and women without children.  No one seemed to have experienced what I described.  Many offered the perspective that perhaps women with children have a more difficult time with mourning in some ways than women without children.  Women with children often have to put the needs of their children over their own need to grieve in their own way.  Women with children are often much busier than women without children.  Women with children may not be able to spend as much energy on their relationships with their own mothers at the end of life, which may lead to more regrets after the fact.  I think all those points are valid and true.  I’m not saying women with children grieve in less pain.  I’m just saying that the grief may be different.

Being without a next generation myself, I sometimes feel I lost not only my mother, but the entire mother-child dynamic.  I’m sure the women who have children often feel a huge change in the shape and balance of the mother-child dynamic when they lose their own mothers, but that dynamic still exists.  I remember, very clearly, the day my mother’s mother died.  I was six years old.  When I came home from school, my mother told me that Nana had died. She sat in the rocking chair my father bought her when I was born. She pulled me into her lap.  In the same way as she must have done when I was a baby, she folded me into herself and rocked me as I cried.  I remember that rhythmic rocking and the soothing sensation.  I also remembered that, on the day my grandmother died, my mother and I were crying together for the first time in my young memory.  Even at that young age, I could feel the transfer of emotion in that rocking.  I could feel her being comforted by comforting me.

When my mother died, I had no daughter to take on my lap and rock.  There was no little person to drain off some of my sadness and to remind me that life goes on and motherly love goes on.  Even seven months later, it is difficult to face the reality that my mother-child relationship in this world is gone.  It is also difficult to face the fact that, when it is my turn to leave this world, there will be no daughter loving me through that transition.

They say that a parent’s death is part of the natural order of things.  Of course, that is true.  The implication is that one generation passes and another rises. They call it the circle of life.  My circle is incomplete though.  Instead of a circle, my life is simply a curved line.

I try not too be too sad about that curved line.  Even though I don’t have any little circle-makers of my own, I still know that life really does go on and motherly love is forever. And I am lucky to have had it abundantly.

What do you think?  Do people without children grieve differently when they lose a parent than people with children?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.  

Have a loving day!

Terri/Dorry  🙂

Easter Eggs

I’ve always enjoyed a good Easter egg hunt.  I have a picture of myself at age seven in which I am climbing to the upper branches of a tree in search of an Easter egg…. Sort of like the Easter egg that shows up quite obviously in the picture at the fork of the tree. Talk about people unclear on the concept. I would have had to actually climb over the Easter egg in the fork of the tree to reach the position where I was.  In the picture, I am hanging upside down from a tree branch at least twice as far from the ground as the egg.  I have no idea how I ultimately managed to get down from that tree.  And I have no idea why anyone was taking a picture rather than untangling me from the treacherous tree branches.  You see, I have never done things the easy way.  Why collect the egg that is right in front of your face when you can risk life and limb (mine and the tree’s) to look for one that may or may not exist?

Anyway, this story simply demonstrates that Easter egg hunting and I go way back.  Still, it has been many years since I participated in the sport.  Last week, I decided to get back in the game.  Max and I went to Epcot to hunt up some eggs.

The Epcot Eggstravaganza is a really cool activity.  The magic-makers at Disney hide large plastic eggs decorated to look like different characters in locations around the park. You can purchase a set of stickers that correspond to the egg characters and a map of the area.  When you find one of the hidden eggs, you affix the correct sticker onto the map indicating the location where you found that particular character egg. After you complete your quest, you can take the map to Egg Central and get a prize- a miniature plastic egg decorated like one of the eggs hidden in the park.

You may think that a miniature plastic egg decorated to look like Minnie Mouse is not that great a prize for an activity that took Max and me about two and a half hours to complete.  Maybe.  The egg was cute and it is sitting on a little knick-knack shelf in my living room to remind me of my fun day pretending to be seven again.  Still, this prize itself certainly does not merit the excitement I put into the event.

As it turned out, the real prize of the Easter Eggstravaganza was the egg hunt itself.  In searching for the twelve eggs, we wandered all over the park slowly and deliberately.  Instead of rushing along with the crowds or obsessing about FastPass reservations, we were looking at everything.  We saw things that we had never seen before, despite MANY trips to Epcot.  The hunt was a little challenging, but not hard enough to be frustrating or demotivating.  Max and I both got into the chase.  When one of us spotted an egg, both our faces exploded with smiles.  We were absurdly giddy each time we posted another sticker on our map!  We found all twelve eggs with only one little hint for the one hidden at the Mexico pavilion (SPOILER ALERT:  It is inside the building!!).  When we took our map to Egg Central, I proudly claimed my little Minnie egg and we took pictures of the completed map and prize.

Of course, as a Christian, I don’t normally believe that Easter has all that much to do with eggs.  For me, Easter is a celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection.  We remember the all-loving sacrifice of our Savior and His triumph over death.  It is our acceptance of the Redemption that His love won for us.

Still, as I thought about our Easter egg hunt experience, I began to think that maybe God has His own Easter egg hunt planned for each of us.  The life he provides is often filled with divine Easter eggs- little miraculous nuggets of total comprehension, joy, inspiration, or faith.  They are the moments of clarity and bliss in which we learn something absolutely true about ourselves, our God, or our world.  We don’t know where God’s Easter eggs are or when we are going to encounter them.  Often, it seems that we most often find them in our desert moments when we really need something to heal us.  Maybe something has happened to trouble us or hurt us or make us feel that we are lost.  Then, we hear something or think something or see something that serves as an electric bolt of love striking directly to the core of our very selves.  That might be one of God’s Easter eggs.  And maybe they don’t really happen mostly in the desert moments.  Maybe that is just when we are most open to finding them.

God’s Easter egg hunt has a prize, too.  His prize is much, much, much more wonderful than any little plastic Minnie Mouse.  It is more wonderful than any prize you could ever imagine.  When we get to the end of our hunt, we will bring Him our lives with all our little Easter egg moments attached.  In return, He will give us an eternal life in His precious love.

In the meantime, as we go through life, we should rejoice when we find our Easter egg moments.  Happening upon these hidden messages from God is sure to enrich our lives.  These moments are sure to expand our ability to demonstrate faith, hope, and love.  God’s Easter eggs certainly merit a measure of giddiness.

There is something else about God’s Easter egg hunt.  The Easter bunny at Disney can only hide so many eggs.  God can hide an infinite number of His eggs in our lives, if we just keep looking for them.

 

Sorry about the hair; it was very windy that day!!!

Have you ever experienced one of God’s Easter egg moments?  Please tell us about it. Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a wonderful Easter!  Blessing to you all!!

Terri/Dorry