November Over the Years

I love November.

It is my favorite month.

Not just because of the weather change for us Floridians, although that is a prime reason, but because twenty years ago yesterday we made a move that took us a long way from family and friends.  My company was transferring me to Florida as we were being spun out of Baxter Healthcare with a highly successful IPO as Caremark, Inc.  I would eventually leave Caremark to work as a health care consultant while I completed my degree at Eckerd College, graduate with high honors, return to corporate life with ICCA, Inc. and then Lincare, Inc.

I have been retired for a little over 9 years now.  And I still "work" every day.  I "work" as a volunteer with the Friends of the Library and the Woman's Club of Tarpon Springs.  My husband thinks I work harder now than when I was being paid.  I don't think so.  Maybe because, in my eyes, what I do now is so worthwhile.

So every October I think back to the excitement of getting ready to move to Florida twenty years ago and the freedom that retiring brought me 9 years ago.  I like that word. Freedom.  That is what retirement meant to me -- and still does.  I finally had the time to read as much as I want to and to explore those things I always said I would like to try.

Reading.  My first love.  And there is nothing like taking a beach chair out to Howard Park Beach or to Sunset Beach and sitting under a tree with a good book in my lap.  Of course, things have changed in that regard.  I still go but not as often because I am busy.  And when I go, it is a Kindle DX full of books in the Amazon archive which is now my TBR pile.  They gather no dust while they wait for me to read them.

Once I had caught up on my reading for pleasure and gotten through the holiday season that winter of 2003-2004, I decided to take a painting class.  And I was hooked.  I painted every day for months.  It is still something I love to do several times a week.  I started with acrylics and still enjoy them but I see watercolor as a challenge and love the unpredictability of that medium.  So much of that work is in the nature of "happy accidents."

The volunteer work gets in the way of doing as much of this as I would like, but it also gives me a chance to paint for a cause as well.  This month we will be having our Art Mart which is held every November to raise money to fund a scholarship for an outstanding art student at our local high school.  I typically sell hand painted cards and bookmarks so I have been working on them the past month or two.

And I am working on a project for the Tarpon Springs Woman's Club annual charity fashion show.  We're decorating gift bags and making cards and bookmarks for the guests at the luncheon on March 23.  Everyone will go away a winner.

This project gives me a chance to use the photos I have taken for the past 25 years.  Photography was my first love and remains an important part of everything I do.  I've discovered that my cellular phone makes an incredibly convenient camera!

I'll bet some of my friends thought I would be writing about Thanksgiving.  Nope.  It's just a day.  I am so very thankful every day for everything in my life.  Not a day goes by that I don't thank God for her generosity.  ;-)

I guess I am trying to make up for the time I have spent away from this blog.  I've spent enough time here today.  I need to go work on something in my little studio.