green

Omigawd to both questions, Yoda! Re the retirement thing, I was off work on disability for over 3 years before retiring. This was due to my problems with depression, an illness that troubles our family. Two things have happened since I went on disability: my mother and younger brother both unexpectedly died, and I was recently offered a rather large cash settlement if I were to choose early retirement. The company had a number of these retirement packages available, some people refused, and my name came up on their list. At the same time, because my beloved mother and baby brother had both suddenly died within a two month period of each other, I found myself a) really messed up emotionally and about to inherit, along with my surviving brother, enough money that will, as long as it is invested conservatively, provide sufficient income for me to retire. (I'm not a big spender, ya know.) The income from my inheritance would have, had I recovered enough from my depression issues to be considered ready to go back to work, done strange things to my income tax category. This is because my job, that of aircraft assembler, is unionized and pays very well. Now this may sound very strange to many of you, but I am at the point in my life where money is not a big issue unless we are talking about a giant chunk of cash. As things stand we - my husband and I - are able to do whatever we want without having to worry it. This may be because we have never got into the habit of spending a lot of money. As you get older you do find that you have most if not all of those things that a young person who is newly starting out needs. Things like a microwave, toaster oven, pots, pans, dishes, sheets, etc. Well, I am happily rich in all those things and if I were to desire one thing that seems to be outside of my financial framework it would be to have a larger house, one kinda like the one I currently have but bigger, inside the city core and within walking distance to the subway. Such a house will cost well over a million and then there is the issue of property taxes. These are gonna be a bitch! And that, everyone, is green's story and she is sticking to it.:eek: As to how I am going to spend my retirement? Well, grrl, I am still trying to figure this question out. Any and all suggestions will be welcomed by moi, the green one.:eek:

Yep, truth be told, that is what I am assuming. I have been spending a lot of my recent life travelling in third world countries because I figure that there will come a time when my health won't be up to it. Now this is kinda ironic considering the following story: when we pack for travel in a third world country we always take a safety pack of Immodium, Gravol, Aspirin and any other available over the counter remedies even though we find that we often don't need them; however, it was when we went to Halifax for my nephew's wedding this past summer and we had left all this stuff at home that my husband ate a bad oyster and became as sick as I have ever seen anyone be from exposure to local bad news. The poor dude was running from both ends. As it happened, we were staying in a small cottage on the Atlantic coast and I don't drive. Our usual bunch of travelling meds were back home in our bathroom in Toronto. We shoulda brought 'em with us but, heh, this is Canada, eh! Fortunately the wedding was a family affair and folks ran interference for us. We spent a lot of money buying exactly the same stuff that we had left at home but at least we could buy it. My husband didn't see much of the east coast and he missed out on the wedding and this was sad for all of us. What was interesting was that there were a number of doctors at the wedding and they all had their own horror stories about food poisoning to contribute. (Other than that they were useful.) Hah! and LOL! This has turned out to be such a long and rambling post. I guess all I wanted to say is that we never know what surprises we will or will not encounter when we travel, eh.:eek:

I wanted to go and I live 20 minutes away but I forgot to RSVP on time. Since opting for early retirement - I officially retired Dec 1st! - I have become blonder than ever. :eek: There's no bimbo like an old bimbo, I guess....:heh:

That's really nice to hear.:eek: It seems so many people don't.:cry I have lived all but 3 years of my life in the heart of the city and I really like it here. It's an easy place to get around in and there is always lots to see and do and eat.:hungry: What I regret, though, is that I know so little about the rest of Canada. I have never seen northern Ontario nor taken the Polar Express, something I have always wanted to do.

Orillia is a mid-sized town in Ontario. It is kinda on the way to cottage country. I think it might be where Stephen Leacock grew up.

It must have been a relief to know that it was not your band, eh.:eek:

I'm gonna have to pluck up the courage to go into the Gap. Maybe there's an NSV there waiting for moi.

If I was you, I would take some Immodium and call the doctor.

:faint: :eek: and :heh:

An excellent post, BJean. Bravo!

Bitter, we haven't heard how your puppy is doing. Is he okay? I will also venture another comment which may be out of line but here it goes: I do think that taking care of your mother is very, very hard on your emotional health. Is there any chance that you can get a break from this? It sounds as though you could do with a holiday.

Yippee, Yoda!

Hahahaha! Love it!:clap2:

I was done at TLBC and during the full fluid stage I lived on Gardenay soups. I had them for meals and for all those snacks. Walmart sells them.

Yah, it suddenly got cold. My geraniums finally froze and died over the weekend.

Though I do not often find myself on the same side of the fence as Mousecrazy I have quoted her comments in full because I believe that she has made a number of telling points. I am very concerned about the environment but I think that the North American lifestyle is doing much more damage to the environment at this point than the number of kids a minority of families are choosing to have. And certainly it is a minority of families within the westernised countries who are now electing to have large families; many more of us are opting to have two kids or fewer according to all available statistics. Let's face it: Our current lifestyle is far from austere. We are eating up more than our share of the earth's resources per capita. This is because we are reliant on prepackaged goods, automobiles (we do not use mass transit), A/C in our homes and in our shopping malls. And in the winter our houses might be over-heated. We generate a lot of garbage. We own a lot more things and occupy a lot more personal living space than our ancestors did. All of this is terribly destructive of the environment. And it is alienating to see self-righteous politicians and Hollywood types launch themselves into a politically correct issue, such as the environment, and yet continue to live in a way that is entirely contradictory. I think that we are all, at the grassroots level, so very, very burnt out at this point regardless of our political leanings. I certainly don't think that our environmental problems can be solved or even helped by limiting the size of these families. I do, however, believe that the ugly news is that this problem can only be worked on by a significant change in our lifestyles and a complete revolution in governmental policies in order to carry this out. And this isn't gonna work at this time.

This seems to be true. They also tend to marry later and to start their families later. I've periodically read statistics on this in the newspapers. This would make the Kennedy family one of the exceptions, Carlene.

Cats don't work nearly as well. Mine just sniff and leave.

I think that a lot of it depends upon your body shape. I am 5'6" and now weigh 179 lbs but I have broad shoulders and I like to wear loose tops; thus I still wear a 3x but I look a lot better in them now. I have lost a lot of weight off my gut and waist and my boobs now stick out farther than my potbelly. This is great! but I still take a fairly large pant size compared to some of the other women who post here because I am thick-waisted. I always was, even when I was thin. This is kind of a drag for me. The NSVs come slower for me but on the other hand my arms and legs are quite slender.

Bunnies and eggs and spring = fertility, eh.

Wow! Romance and advice all in one neat package. Cool.

Oh yah, I used to do that when I was in uni. And now I am 57 and I still have the occasional nightmare about it!:help: Well, you know what you got to do, grrl. Auntie Green sez just do it!:biggrin1:

And the fact that OJ Simpson could write such a book, whether he is innocent or not, is both just plain weird and deeply disgusting.

Or a rainbow flag and a Black Sabbath cd?

I have been reading over this thread with fascination and I confess that I find that I have ended up in a state of confusion. Let me say that with respect to my own lifestyle and values, I sit fairly squarely in Sunta's camp. I am childless by choice, I am concerned about environmental issues, and I am an atheist. I should point out that I chose not to have children because I never wanted them, and not out of concern for the environment. Though this was an easy decision for me to make, it has been a hard one for me to carry out. It was impossible for me to find a doctor who would sterilize a childless woman and I have received a lot of pressure over the years to have children from all sorts of folks. Most people really don't like to see a person who could have children opt not to. I am also, like Sunta perhaps, uncomfortable with the growth of the extreme religious right and their attempts to hi-jack the government and thus the civil rights of the rest of us. Modern society is a plurality and the rights of everyone cannot be respected as long as there is one group with one agenda in the driver's seat. But when it comes to the issue of the size of other folks' families, here I find myself becoming less militant. As many of us may have heard in the media the birthrate in the industrialised countries of the west is plummeting. Though the American birthrate continues to remain at replacement level, this is not true for Europe, nor for Canada. These countries will be forced to look at immigration in order to replace their ageing populations. This means, for any of you who are racists, that the complexion of these countries will begin to change, and so may the cultural and religious habits. At any event, over-population will not be an issue. What is a bigger issue with respect to our environment is our lifestyle. It is not just question of how many kids you have but how you live. One might argue that a big family might leave a smaller footprint per capita because their resources will be more limited and thus they will manage them better. Certainly the childless couple with all the expensive fossil fuel burning toys brings no joy to the environment. And as many of your varied posts have stated, it is possible to be a member of a large family and to experience great joy just as it is possible to be a member of a small family and suffer from family dysfunction. Our early years are kind of a crap shoot, aren't they?