“Free to Invent Your Life.”

Had lunch today with my sweetheart at Pearl of the Orient in Rocky River.   When I opened my fortune cookie the message was:  “You are free to invent your life.”  Guess that is the definition of retirement.

It has been two months now.  Read on if  you want to hear what I am doing.

As you all know I went to Sundance.  Loved it!  Going every year is now on my bucket list.

I joined the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Art and Literature Book Club.  My good friend Mary told me about it and asked me to join with her, which I did.  I just finished reading the book, Pompeii by Robert Harris.  The first meeting is Wed. afternoon, March 6th.  This is in conjunction with the museum’s Last Days of Pompeii exhibit.  There are two additional meetings on the following two Wednesdays.  Ralph’s nephew had given me that book several years ago so it was meant to be.

Robin set up this website for me while I was with her in Park City for Sundance.  This has  been a godsend.  While working at Jones day I had a hundred problems to be solve in my head all the time.  Anytime I had a mindless task to do I would just grab one of the problems to think about.  Then in one day that all became my successor’s life and I had nothing to solve.  As one of my good friends said about quitting her job to become a consultant:  “I had hundreds of people to serve and a zillion balls in the air and the next day I was trying to make a to do list from nothing and my only companion was the refrigerator.”  That describes it pretty well folks.  Writing this blog takes some thought and has replaced at least some of that emptiness.

Last week I hosted a Tastefully Simple tasting party.  Some of you were here.  Thanks for coming.  I really over-achieved on that.  Made dishes showcasing 23 items from the catalog including 2 or 3 for some items.  I was busy for 3 days and was happy as heck.

I arranged for my 10-year old neighbor boy, Elliott, to come over to play after school one day a week.  Last week we played a fun game Categories.  This week it is my turn to plan what we will do.

Learning to maintain the website is actually in preparation for two future activities:  Robin purchased another domain name for me – CLEhelpdesk.com.   Next step is for us to populate that as the basis of an inhouse CLE consulting business for me.  Other activity is for me to maintain and administer three websites she has set up for her company, Whitney Advertising & Design.

This month marks the 10 year anniversary of The Book Club, which I formed 10 years ago.  So I have until March 24 to pull together something to commemorate that event.

This sounds like a lot but every day I am wondering what I am going to do with the rest of my life.  Hope my next fortune cookie contains the answer.