59 years 6 months

Among my peer group of baby boomer friends, I am one of the "older" ones.  Nevertheless it may surprise you to realize that I am able now to take money out of my IRA without penalty. As with most discoveries, it is a mixed blessing.

In keeping with the theme of aging, I feel compelled to share with you that I visited the social security office today. It's been on my to-do-list for years, this visit, to correct my birth date. I discovered in filing income taxes online that my birth date is incorrect with Social Security, and frankly, I've had enough lying about my age in order to file online. Besides, I'm quite sure I won't be able to apply for social security a year early just because the Social Security Administration currently thinks I was born in 1949, not 1950.

Carl will be interested to know that marrying him aged me, because it was my name change in 1983 that triggered this error. I was born in 1950 until then.

I was under the wrong impression that after changing my birthday, I could leave my birth certificate with them and file online when the time comes.  Not so.  I have to go in person again when I want benefits.  Phooey to a wasted morning.  I could have lived with lying about my age a few more years if I had realized I could not multi-task my visit.

After I changed my birthday (and felt instantly a year younger), I decided to check a few facts. This only took two more hours of waiting, luckily with a good book to read.

Here are the facts I confirmed today.

Fact # 1. Early retirement is still age 62.
Fact # 2. Medicare is still age 65.
Fact # 3. Deferred retirement is still age 70.

So the only thing that has changed for us baby boomers is normal retirement age, currently age 66 for me.

So, do you want to guess the penalties and benefits of going on the dole early or late? 32% penalty for going early, 32% benefit for waiting till 70. I don't understand the math, but the difference between early at 62 and deferred at 70 is 75%. My brain is hurting trying to figure the rate of return for waiting 4 years or 8 years....but I'll come back with that later if I develop confidence in my calculations.

All that said, I am thinking that before I see a nickel at any age, all the rules will have changed. But today I feel really American. I've stood in line at Social Security.

Step 26 a

 

The saga of restoring "normal" continues. Here's one of the four holes to tile from the foundation piers. Does not look too bad after Carl cut the edges clean and I used a power hammer to chip out the broken stuff. Then I put the new tile down....three times. Some of them kept popping loose the next two days. Finally I quit tapping them to see which ones weren't really stuck down and just grouted the whole thing. I was already going to the chiropractor to restore my hip to balance by then, and there's more to life than stuck tile, I was thinking. Life finishing the landscaping after the foundation repair.

Indeed I was right, there was more to life than tile, there was plumbing! I really did not want this to be a do-it-yourself job, but it was. This man is determined, no? He dug the hole, I took the muck down the street in a wheelbarrow to the next new home to built, aka, currently a vacant lot. Four contractor barrel loads as I remember. Luckily, it was a joint failure from a previous repair near the edge of the slab. All it required was Carl to crawl under the house a bit and smell stinky dishwater from the last few years. There is no way you could pay me to do that. Then we blew 20 bags of sand under the foundation using the leaf blower (my idea). (Just a little aside: did you know that at Lowe's they will sell you a 1,000 lb bag of sand? Picture that in your Smart Car.) After 15 bags of dirt I replanted the flower bed. The next day, I unplanted the bed again when the sink started draining slow. After two power snakings, things are flowing fine again. I replanted once more, hopefully for the last time.

I am SO glad to be done with this roof, window, slab, plumbing spring! But hey, I found a silver lining. The insurance deductible on our roof/windows is deductible from our taxes because Ike made us a federal disaster area. Not that we have much income to shelter any more, but hey, it was a few dollars less in taxes.

So, now, on to better things. We are getting ready, as soon as Carl bicycles 150 miles to Austin, to turn our minds to the summer RV trip. It starts in Sante Fe with a Habitat for Humanity build and goes to points West and back.

Why don't we make a mess? The Aftermath continues

Unintended consequences ( see November blog) keep right on rolling in. If it hadn't been for that darned screen door I wanted so I could take a nap with the door open, we would never have become so aware of the condition of the roof after Ike or the tilt of the slab by the back door (not related to Ike, but probably related to the Texas drought).

The roofer said level the house before the new roof, not after. So, in February, we had the slab levelers come in. That is such profound joy. Dig up all the landscape, put big piles of mud on the drive, jackhammer the tile on the patio, and dig, baby dig. Three weeks later the crew came back to "level" the house. The walls groaned and popped when they jacked it. But now the patio door closes without a daily sanding, and someday I will replant all the shrubs, and maybe they will live. By Christmas I will have chiseled out the remaining broken tiles and retiled the patio. By then maybe the holes where the piers were poured will quit sinking in and I can put back the rest of the landscaping. Shouldn't take more than a year.

Now that the slab was leveled, the new Ike roof could be installed. That required taking off two layers of roof, which translates to a really big mess. Roof dust was coming through every house orifice....down through the light fixtures, the vents, the attic stairwell. We were lucky though. Our neighbors had a roof put on the same time we did. The guy who went through their ceiling in the closet (picture that mess on your clothes and in your shoes) restrained himself and only went through the ceiling in our garage. It had much less impact on me than a closet hole. Want to know the best part about a new roof? Aside from the fact that it was insured, nothing, really, except the claim that it will withstand 115 mph winds. With a $4,000 windstorm deductible, it wasn't cheap, and it looks about the same as the old one. I liked the old one just fine.

Just in case there was not enough fun going on with the slab and the roof, we replaced the three windows that have had water in between the double panes ever since Ike blew through. They gave the impression of rain on a daily basis. Carl wanted to do the labor himself, so it has also been a bonding experience for the two of us. He does the carpenter stuff, and I am the painter/caulker. The layers of dust all over the house from the project won't last more than a month, maybe two.

We are doing our part to stimulate the economy. The taco truck came by every day for a while during our construction. They left a business card. Think I'll order some. That will make me ready for that nap with the screen door open.

Oh, I forgot. No nap for me. Landscaping, tiling, dusting, and soon to come, fixing the plumbing leak under the kitchen that we discovered when the slab was leveled. Carl says he wants to DIY. Eyaiee!!! We're not done with mud yet!

March is for Music

Life List number something, accomplished! I got to see Elton John and Billy Joel in concert this month. Wow! Those old dudes my age still have the punch. Something about dueling pianos just takes me where I love to be. Billy Joel attacks the keyboard. And I've always been a sucker for a saxophone. Sometimes there were three saxophones at once, including one played by Crystal Taliaferro, a really rocking chick who lit up the stage. When the combined bands were on stage together, there was double everything. I think the count was 15 musicians.

I paid big time scalper prices for the upper back corner, but it was worth ten times the price. 35 numbers, 3 and 1/2 hours. Next time the tour comes, I am thinking of re-mortgaging the house to sit on the front row with Elton's good friend Lynn Wyatt.

Today I am slightly deafer and definitely younger. That describes my entire birthday month. Thank goodness for the passing of the January blues, which I cannot explain but got nevertheless, I'm enjoying lots of music this month. With the rodeo in town, I've been four times. Clay Walker was my favorite, a surprise since I have never even considered his music before. Clint Black was a little staid, but I found myself liking Keith Urban, aka Mr. Nicole Kidman. ZZ Top is still to come, and I might bring my earplugs this time.

AND my symphony buddy Mary and I went to see, er, make that hear, Bach vs Vivaldi one night, and some Rachmananoff another.

To top it off, I chose as my birthday present to see Les Miserables for the third time. It will be Carl's first. Can't wait. That's next week!

Practicing

It's important to practice driving and living in the RV. After all, summer is only two months away, that time when I become a full time RV blogger. My writing has definitely been slower when I am not on the road, so I am looking forward to getting back into both pastimes.

The photo is from an overnight chick trip to Buescher State Park, a tranquil little spot at the southern end of the Lost Pines near Bastrop. While in the park, my former co-leaders in scouting enjoyed the fine life of the RV. It was quite a bit bigger than any backpacking tent we ever shared, and even bigger than the hostels we frequented in Europe.

While in the park, we birded from three perspectives. Mz. Becker, who enrolled in a bird watching class on a lark, was spotting them with binoculars. Terry was photographing them. She has a more recent model of my camera with an 18 x zoom (I am jealous). And I was drawing them. I would post my drawings, but I let Mz. Becker take them to class for show and tell.

But drawing class is coming right along. Check this out, baby! I think everyone will want one for Christmas.

You say it's your birthday!

I have had so much birthday cake! I cannot remember the last time I had three different cakes. My friend, photo'd above (the one with the halo) made me dinner and cake. Then I had cake with a neighbor, and then another cake a week later with another neighbor.

This photo is taken a few days later at my birthday lunch. Except for the friend with the halo whose friendship dates back to the 80's (I know she doesn't look that old and neither do I), I know these ladies because we met at Luby's. It is amazing how much we have in common for such a chance event. We've been having lunch for several years now. Seredipity!

Halcyon

 

Okay, I admit it. This is not really a purpose in life. But it does pop, you'd have to admit. Treasure from heavy trash days again.

So, I suppose I will have to pay attention to the little voice, becoming more like an audible conversation, that says I am ready to do something. It has been almost two years of sabbatical, after all.

More to come as I ponder the question.

Feelin kind of funky

Thank goodness January is over. Every January I start evaluating my life, wondering what I should be doing instead of whatever it is I am doing now. It's a chronic holdover from years of goal setting.

So, in order to distract myself, I finished last January's project, this little trash table I rescued from heavy trash week.

So, now when I am feeling purposeless I can just look out the window and say there, that's better. Look at that mosaic I just finished. Can't help but smile.

I'm know I am not alone in feeling kind of blah about the economy. After all, I can't make up for the backwards progress in my savings in the past year by working longer or harder. I blew that off two years ago when I retired, and yes, I could go look for a job, but I really really really don't want to be a banker again, especially not now. So count me among those fixed income folks crying the blues.

I began to act more frugally. But every time I drove out of my way to save 10 cents on gas, I lost another 5% of my net worth in the market. Life was just not fair.

One day when I was feeling my most pitiful, I decided that I should go spend my $30 rebate card from Linens and Things, one of the retailers closing down for good because of the economy. When I got to the store and checked my balance, the clerk said the card had no value. Then I realized the card had expired three days earlier.
I had a spontaneous pity party for myself. The DOW was headed down to 7000, and my gift card was no good either.

I bought the item I had come to get anyway, and when I was checking out, it hit me. Those people that I was crying the blues to about my silly rebate card had no jobs. I asked what their plans were. They were looking for jobs. And smiling and helping me in the meantime.

Wow.

So, no, don't count me among those fixed income folks crying the blues. Count me among the lucky people who can still, with some adjustments in my budget, choose whether or not to go back to work. And please don't let me catch me feeling sorry for myself again.

Unintended consequences

All I wanted was a nap, a nap on a nice fall day, with the windows open. But my windows don't open, so why not get a screen door? After all, the post Ike electric crisis clearly justified a screen door for bedroom ventilation. $40 later, we were on our way home from Lowe's, and I was dreaming of soft breezes cross my face as I slumbered. After several hours of trimming and sanding, the door was in. I bought a vinyl door, so I don't even have to paint it.

Whack! It only opened about a foot. Our low and extended eaves were blocking it. I had a screen door, but no way to get out of the house. Carl began removing sections of the eave. He stopped short of removing the face plate, which would have left a gaping hole under the roof line. The door opens almost 90 degrees now, enough to go in and out without turning sideways. Now there was extensive repair needed on the eave so that animals did not crawl in the attic. And paint. I would need paint, and where on earth was there still a Sears store in business to get a matching gallon? Amazingly, the original South Main Sears store is still there, and they still sell paint. $20, plus $40 in other stuff I bought while I was there, and $10 and 10,000 calories for lunch at a Prince's Hamburgers because the Sears Store on South Main reminded me of the Prince's Drive Inn that used to be next door and the Prince's special sauce.

While working on the door, I noticed a rotted door sill plate, and asked Carl to replace it. He did. Then he said "Well, the bottoms of the cedar siding planks are rotted too. We should cut off about 6 inches and put in a hardi-plank at the bottom. $99.

After the rotted boards were cut off, it was clear we also needed to replace the 1 by 4 battens that the siding was nailed on. $58. And we needed another router bit. $26. I was afraid for a minute we would come home with the router bit set, $99. And a box of screws, better get the big box, $26. And having used up the package of sawzall blades, better replace those, $32.

Now that the 1 by 4 was removed, it was clear that I needed to grout from the edge of the quarry tiles on the patio to the house......this is getting old.......And treated 1 x 4's clearly should be retreated. (Clearly? Wait a minute. This is when I began to question my engineer husband about why we needed to treat treated wood?)

And look up on the roof. The pine needles from Ike have never come down from the valleys and surely they are going to corrode the metal flashing. Better get up on the roof and take care of that.

I have not had my nap yet, but when I do, it is going to be very very delicious as the breezes waft through my $500 three week installation screen door. At this point they will probably be spring breezes, because the hardi-plank is not installed yet, and then there's painting, and oh, those 7 tiles have come loose where the joint cracked in the patio, I think I should replace those. And there's still that section of wall past the patio on the garage wall to repair, and that will require that first I cut all the eave high hibiscus down to ground level....etc etc etc.