Active Aging

Our trail companion

My husband and I started our empty nesting with a trip to Isle Royale National Park and the Apostle Islands (WI) this past week. Prior to children, we had been pretty adventurous people. We hiked, biked, rock climbed, white water rafted, and even spent a summer working in Alaska. I’ve been looking forward to returning to many of these activities after the boys were on their own.

During this eight day excursion we hiked, biked, kayaked, and walked. Throughout the trip I came to a few realizations about my current “adventurous” self. 

1. I’m not quite as “active” as I used to be [and that’s okay]. 
2. I still like the challenge of these activities.
3. I can [and want to] do these activities.

We saw lots of people with large backpacks going to Isle Royale on the ferry. I started to feel like a wimp as we chose to stay in the Lodge. Fred reminded me that it was okay. We had done plenty of tent camping in the past and it’s not like we were staying at the Ritz. (The Lodge was equivalent to a normal budget hotel room.) And he was right. When it rained the first night, I was thankful for my warm, dry room (with a bathroom).

Isle Royale

I try to remain active by walking, biking, and swimming. I know I could be doing these at a more intensive level and grasped that even more on this trip. Back in my twenties I had a lot more stamina both during the activity and for the entire day. I also wasn’t as sore and achy after physical exertion. During this trip, I found myself being more cautious with my footing as we hiked and climbed rocks. Where I used to bound down the trail or from one rock to another, my brain and body now told me to take it slow.

After spending 20 years raising kids and focusing on activities that interested them, I had begun to wonder if I’d find enjoyment in my interests anymore. Those fears were dispelled on this trip. Getting to the top of the trail and overlooking Lake Superior or exploring a sea cave in a kayak was still exhilarating (I even giggled when ducking down to go through a small sea cave...twice!). While the trail sometimes seemed long or the rain put a damper on the view, the feeling of accomplishment made it worth the discomfort.

Apostle Islands

Even though I’m not as active as I used to be and not nearly in the shape I’d like to be, I realized I’m still able to do these types of activities. More than that, I want to do them. It doesn’t matter to me if I’m slower than before, I want the challenge and the high that comes with it. I’m not sure we’ll go back to Isle Royale (there are so many places I’d like to see), but if we do, I’d consider hiking from one end of the island to the other (40 miles). There were lots of retired people enjoying the activities the outdoors provided. That gives me encouragement that 10-15 years in the future, I will still be able to hike, bike, kayak, etc. I hope Fred and I have many opportunities to continue to challenge our active selves in this empty nesting phase of our life.

Note to our boys: You’re never too old to explore new places. You would love exploring both of these places so put them on your bucket list.

Trying to Avoid a Wall-e World

One of my all-time favorite movies is Wall·e. Like most of my other favorites (e.g., Princess Bride and Up), they are made for children but have messages that adults understand. At first glance, Wall·e may seem quite boring. Watching it in the elementary school cafeteria with our boys many years ago, I thought so too. Its “no-speaking” beginning had me yawning. The wastefulness, gluttony, and laziness displayed can also be disheartening. But they sprinkled in a little robot romance and message about protecting the Earth (even though it’s not the main message) and ‘Poof!’ it became a movie I talk about often.

I really want to minimize my footprint on this earth, but I have to admit that like any relationship it takes effort. I have to intentionally make decisions that aren’t always easy and sometimes might be uncomfortable. For example, we drove to Florida for vacation. Yes, I brought my refillable water bottle. No, I did not always refill it and sometimes drank bottled water. Every time I saw a plastic straw, I cringed, but accepted them more than I’d like to admit. Even though we brought a few reusable bags, we received plastic bags when we bought groceries. (We did use them for our recycling and in place of trash bags.)

Being on vacation and not in my normal routine or environment has also made me realize, even more, the waste that we as a society accumulate...the plastic cups and straws at restaurants, the trash on the beach, and the many landfills along the highways. But I have also witnessed positive signs...people picking up trash on the beach (even when it was not theirs) and recycling bins in many locations (often overflowing but being used). These examples do give me hope that our Earth will not become a Wall·e environment, at least in my lifetime. So I will continue to do my part in taking care of my small part of this planet as well the parts of it that I don't call home.

Update on My 50 List

• Went to a Red Wings game at Little Caesars Arena, but without Elliott. While it was supposed to be his 18th birthday gift, he and his hockey team decided to play so well this year that they won a spot in the Division 1 State Semi-final game. He obviously was not concerned about going to the game with us.
  
• In February I tried a chimichanga. Not too far out of my comfort zone as I love Mexican food, but I had not tried one before. Bonus is that while doing so, I spent some girlfriend time with my friend, Micki. February was actually a great month for girl-time as I went to the movies with Kim, had lunch with Karen and Tami, spent a weekend in Harbor Springs, and did a snowshoe hike with the ladies from my neighborhood! In March, Amy, Libby, and I went to the high school play, Legally Blonde. It was awesome!
• I completed my last course and renewed my teaching certificate.
• I got a couple of weeks behind in recording in my gratitude journal, positive things about me document, and inspirational notes sent. Back on track this week. 
• I can officially say that I’ve been attending a yoga class regularly and I’m counting it as one of my five days a week for exercising. Other days include walking/running, swimming, and/or lifting. 
• My first 5k run/race toward the 50k has been completed.
• Blog post for March ✔ 

Vacation Reconnect

Five destinations. Ten days. Twenty-five hundred miles. And we are still talking to one another.

While our high school junior spent Spring Break on a school trip in the Netherlands and our oldest is away at college, my husband and I decided to practice being empty nesters by taking an extended vacation alone. Alone meaning together…in the car…for 10 days. Did I mention 2,500 miles? It wasn’t actually 10 days in the car, more like six travel days of four to nine hours with some local driving at our destinations. And it wasn’t quite alone all the time. Four of the five destinations were spent reconnecting with family and friends.

At our first stop in St. Louis, MO, we had dinner with friends we made while working in Alaska 24 years ago. We reminisced about the past and talked about our jobs, kids, and futures. Our second destination brought us to my brother-in-law’s place. Over this three-day visit, we enjoyed lots of laughs and got to know his fiancé and her children. While in Nashville, TN, we really were alone. We walked, talked, fished, ate great food, and listened to some good music. In Gatlinburg, TN we stayed with friends who rented a house in the mountains for their Spring Break. It was a joy to continue this friendship in such a beautiful part of the country. Our last stop was in Louisville, KY where we caught up with Fred’s sister and brother-in-law. While our families may be close at heart we are geographically distant, so every chance we get to spend together, no matter how short, is worth it.

As I reflect on this trip, I am so grateful for the family and friends God has brought into my life. Relationships are not always easy to develop and sustain. It takes time and when we are raising families, it seems there is never enough time to stay connected. This connection also applies to our marriages. As we near empty nesting, I look back and am reminded how important it is to spend time with one another to cultivate that relationship. As we raised the boys we didn’t always make the time to spend together. Sure, there were lots of family vacations and forced family fun times. Fred and I had occasional dates and special anniversary vacations when we were alone, but no regularly scheduled date nights. I hope we are able to help our boys make date nights a priority when they have kids of their own (preferably many years from now).

This vacation reminded me of a younger us, before kids. Thank goodness we have both grown over our almost 23 years of marriage though. There were plenty of times during this trip that could have been points of contention earlier in our lives. Driving (Do I even need to say the word ‘directions’?) and in the mountains no less; mountain biking (Fred is much more adventurous than me on the trails.); fishing (I haven’t fished since Alaska and don’t have the patience he does.); eating (I need fruits and veggies once in a while!); activities (I tend to have more varied interests than him.). In addition, I didn’t over plan the vacation and Fred didn’t complain about driving. We moved a little slower, went to bed a little earlier, were more patient with one another, and sought to make each other happy. We just might survive life without kids if we keep this up.

Did we miss the kids? Of course, but we texted and talked to them, and bragged about what a great time we were having. In less than 18 months, we will officially be empty nesters. We’ll continue to miss them (on vacation or not), but want them to move on with their lives. Just like us.

Hello

Ever since I first heard Adele’s Hello song, I thought of a ‘thousand’ things that could be written in a parody from “your mother’s side.” There are a couple of mother parody videos on the Internet, but I wanted one that my boys could relate to during their teenage years so I wrote my own. This may ruin the popular song for them, but I’m sure they think I ruin plenty of things for them at this time in their lives. Also, I don’t sing (at least not out loud), so the following are just the lyrics.

Hello, it’s me
I was remembering all of the years between you and me
When you were younger and needed me
They say you shouldn’t rush it and now I know just what they mean

 

Hello, can you hear me
I’m at home and dreaming ‘bout the kid you used to be
But now you’re older and don’t need me
You’re independent hanging with your friends instead of family

 

There is so much history between us
A million memories

 

Hello from your mother’s side
I must’ve called a thousand times
To tell you I’m tired of your messy room
Why can’t you pick your clothes up from the floor

 

Hello from the outside
Seems like I’m always your ride
To take you to practice and then bring you home
Did you do your homework or does it need to be done tonight

 

Hello where are you
You’ve been busy growing up and that’s tough for me and dad
I hope that you’re safe
Did you go to that party where nothing good would happen

 

It’s no secret that the both of us
Have made our own mistakes

 

So hello from your mother’s side
I must have cried a thousand times
As I told you I’m sorry for yelling at you
But when I ask you it never seems to get done

 

Hello from my mother’s side
Now I see how she tried
To get me ready for raising your right
I still look for her guidance even though she’s not here anymore

 

Hello from your mother’s side
I must’ve told you a thousand times
Forever I’ll love you whatever you do
Even when you grow up and move from our home

 

Hello from the outside
You will not believe my pride
When you get married and have kids of your own
But don’t hurry it clearly doesn’t have to be soon at all

(I can see all kinds of places where the boys will be giving me grief, but I’m posting this anyway.)

Writing this parody was fun. We were five hours into a nine hour car ride to my sister-in-law’s house for Christmas. Our youngest son and I were in the back seat listening and “rewinding” (Can you rewind digital?) Adele’s Hello song on his phone while we tried to come up with words that made sense and fit into the music. Every time I wrote ‘hello,’ I would spell it hellow. Every. Time. And every time I would laugh at myself. That’s something my mom would have done. As I laughed at myself, I could hear her laugh. This parody may not make the top 10 (or even top 10,000), but the joy it brought me in reminiscing about my mom and making a new memory with E tops my list.

How Do You Prioritize Friendship?

We all must prioritize relationships in our lives, and at different times in our lives, we prioritize different relationships. As a teenager, my relationship priority was my friends, not my family. At the time I realized I loved the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with, my priority changed from friends to him, to the point that I spent a summer in Alaska with him instead of being in my friends’ weddings. (Thank goodness those friends understood and are still a part of my life.) When our kids were born, my relationship with the babes became a higher priority than spending time with others, sometimes even my husband (…remembering the exhaustion).

Prioritizing does not mean that ALL your time has to be on a particular relationship. In fact, that would be quite unhealthy. I can prioritize my husband and children and still find time to spend a weekend with friends or regularly walk the dog, since we have a relationship too (although she’s much better at the relationship than I am). I can even spend time with my family and friends at the same time.

A couple of days ago, I prioritized visiting a friend I had not seen in over 15 years, and I’m so glad that I did! Bill returns from California every summer to visit his parents, yet I’ve failed to get there to see him.  Sure, we are connected through Facebook, but getting a hug and talking do not even compare to my computer screen. This summer, I traveled the five short hours to the house on the lake for a visit. Not only were we able to reminisce about the past and catch up on the past 15 years, I was able to meet his children and fiancé, reconnect with his parents, and visit with his siblings. What made it even more special to me is that my family could be there too, a feat in itself with two working teenagers. I’m so thankful that they prioritized this time to spend with me.

As an added bonus, my long-time friend, Paula, was able to stop out to visit as well. Even though it has not been too long since we have been together (we ran a 5K in May), it’s always encouraging to see her. While her recent blog post (Hat of Many Colors - Friends and Motivators) mentions that I inspired her to start running again, she also inspires me to keep going with this blog (even if Bill was the instigator this time around).

I have moved around quite a bit in my adulthood and have left many friends. I have had close friends move away from me. But friendships are for a lifetime, if we only make the effort. With lifetime friends, it’s easy to pick up right where you left off. This is one lesson I see my children already learning. After moving away from the only home they had known for their 13+ years, our boys have made some wonderful new friends. They still keep in contact with their many of their old ones as well. Technology has played a large role in this, but they also make an effort to see those friends face-to-face whenever possible. As their lives get more complicated with college, careers, and families of their own, I hope they will successfully continue to prioritize and re-prioritize their relationships in life.

So to my boys (who I hope will be reading this in the future, but who are also “proofing” this post for me today)…Which relationships are you prioritizing today? Is this a season in your life where your friends are a priority? Maybe you are in a time period of your life where you should be prioritizing your spouse or your children (this time is shorter than you think).  Maybe you finally stumbled upon this blog in your empty-nester years and you realize that your relationship priority needs to be your parents. Don’t worry, I’ll forgive you for all those years when you had other priorities.

Summer Relationship with the Kids

As summer approaches, I get that excited feeling of a new schedule and a little more freedom. For ten years, I was able to spend extra time in the summer with our boys. We would spend hours at the beach, riding bikes, and going to playgrounds/parks. We spent more time sleeping in (at least they did), being outside, and just being together.

Over the years my time spent with the boys during the summers has been enjoyable and fulfilling, finding a good mix of what they wanted to do and what I wanted to do. For many years, the main activity the boys wanted to do was go to a skate park. While we’ve been to quite a few different

Skatepark in Years Past

skate parks, they have their favorite where I have spent countless hours planning for the next school year, reading a book I told myself I would get to during the summer, or visiting with friends and family that I could cajole into coming along. (I do have a good friend whose son wanted to spend as much time at the skate park as my kids.) The memories I have of watching them grow and improve in their skateboarding/biking/rollerblading skills, seeing their interpersonal skills increase, and discussing various topics to and from the skate parks has been worth every minute, even the ones where I complained about going or being there.
My favorite thing to do in the summer, or any time, is to travel. It doesn’t really matter where we go; it’s just the enjoyment of spending time together, getting out of the regular routine, and creating memories that make travelling appealing to me. Whether alone or with friends, I have subjected the boys to numerous trips to Grandma and Grandpa’s, camping, waterfall viewing, historical sites, a mine tour, and our yearly visit to Castle Rock. They have spent countless hours in the car, listening to my music, reading their books, playing video games, and watching movies. Even when plans didn’t go as expected, like when we experienced mosquitos so thick we had to stay in the tent, I loved being with the kids.

One of my fondest memories of spending time with the boys was the summer reading program we did each year. For many years there was a theme, such as a bookshelf, a refrigerator, and a tree. After the boys read a book, they would add it to the bookshelf, choose an item to go in the refrigerator with the book name on it, or add the book name to an apple for the tree. We set reading goals, starting with something simple and inexpensive, like read 25 books (when the books took them a short time to read) for ice cream, up to 100 books to go to Michigan’s Adventure. As they got older and read chapter books, we used a certain number of chapters instead of books. A few years ago we read the Hunger Games trilogy as a family, sharing the same book. That was interesting!

Now that the boys have gotten older, they don’t want/need to spend as much time with me, so I have to look for other ways to continue to build our summer relationship. They are old enough to have lawn mowing jobs, but not old enough to drive there themselves. By taking them to their lawn mowing jobs, I still get the opportunity to talk with them about various topics. I am helping them track their time, invoice it, and manage the money they make, all skills that will benefit them in their future. Whether I am driving them to a friend’s house, providing food to their friends here, or supporting them at an athletic event or other extra-curricular, I am showing them how important they are to me.

In a child’s life, summer is a very precious time. In a parent’s life, the summers (and years) go by all too fast. I want to take advantage of every minute I can to develop my relationships with the boys, before they are on their own. I know that our relationship will change then, and I want to have a strong foundation for what is to come. After my relationships with God and my husband, my boys are the most important relationships I want to keep until I no longer breathe. In order to do that, I have to continually work at them, finding ways to connect, keeping communication open, and being there when they need me. The best part about it is that I don't mind working at it...especially in the summer.

Family Vacations

We recently returned from a family vacation to Ft. Myers Beach, FL for Spring Break. I love to go away with my family. It doesn’t matter if it’s a day trip, weekend trip, or an actual “get out of Michigan” vacation. Over the years I have realized how important vacations are for relationships.

Our vacation began by leaving late afternoon on a Thursday. The five of us left in our 168,000-mile, somewhat five-seater Santa Fe vehicle. Fortunately, our 55 pound chocolate lab was the fifth passenger, and she was getting dropped off four hours down the road. The traffic was light, the weather was clear, and we were making good time. After leaving the dog with some very good friends, we were on our way to warmer weather. My husband and I prefer to drive through the night when we drive to Florida. The traffic is lighter, and by the time we get tired, it is beginning to get light out and a new day is beginning. After 20 or so hours of driving, we arrived at a hotel to spend the night. Reaching this first leg of our trip at 1:00 in the afternoon was awesome as we sat by the pool in the warm sun, relaxing our crowded minds.

When we reach Florida the next day, we were definitely in vacation mode. While there, we spent time at the beach, time at the pool, and time with friends and family.  My husband was able to fish, I read, and the boys did what teenage boys do on vacation…have fun. No matter where we go on vacation, how we get there, or how long we stay, I always appreciate the time we get to spend together, away from the daily grind of life. Even cooking, doing dishes, or washing clothes on vacation seems easier than at home.

Our vacation this year was even more special to me due to the

relationships we sustained. We were able to see my husband’s brother, who actually lives in Montana. He happened to be working a couple of hours from where we were staying. We also

spent time with two of my husband’s uncles and a cousin, who he hasn’t seen in over 13 years. The time we spent with friends was just as enjoyable as the time we spent with family. Isn’t it ironic that we have to go on vacation to find time to spend with friends from home?

This may sound like the perfect vacation, but I don’t think we’ve ever had one. The trials we endure on vacation are just as important in building our relationships as the fun parts. Driving home to Michigan from Florida on I-75 after the Easter holiday week is like waiting in line for a ride at an amusement park. You don’t move very fast and you see the same people (cars in this case) over and over again. While my husband has little patience for this type of driving, even I was getting frustrated with how long it took us to just get out of Florida. We had planned on spending the night somewhere on the road, but we had lost so much time that we decided to push through and drive through the night. As difficult as this was, the fact that we were able to spend a stress-free day at home, before our busy schedules of school and work, was worth it.

We’ve had other vacations that were less than perfect. The Christmas my husband and I got engaged, we were driving from the Upper Peninsula in Michigan to the Detroit area. As we were crossing the Mackinac Bridge, the 1968 Ford truck we were driving started to make a humming noise. Within five miles after crossing the bridge, one of our back tires rolled past us into the median. We’ve had plenty of mishaps on our sailing vacations as well. There’s a running joke that we honor the water gods every year because we lose something overboard. Sometimes it’s a small thing like a tool or a towel, but there have been much bigger items like the grill grate or the dinghy. On every two week vacation we’ve attempted, we’ve realized that nine days is our family’s max. By day nine, my husband wants to sleep in his own bed, the boys miss their friends, and I want to get back to some normalcy in our lives. Even with all the trials, I look back at these times and am thankful that we continue to go on vacation.

We may not have had any vacations like the Grizwold’s (i.e., Chevy Chase’s family vacation movies), but even with the disagreements over where to eat, worrying about spending too much money, and situations beyond our control, I wouldn’t trade any of the time we’ve spent together as a family. Every time together is an opportunity to learn more about each other. It’s a chance to create memories that we can tell to our children or grandchildren. It’s the sense of pride in knowing that we endured some discomfort and survived…while having fun in the process (well, at some point we had fun). I’m looking forward to the next vacation, wherever it takes us.

Miles driven: 3,500

Eating at fast food restaurants: $200
Gas to drive 50 hours in a smallish car: $500
Watching my family while they sleep in the car: Priceless