San Diego in 72 Hours

 It didn’t take me long to say yes to my friend Grace’s suggestion to tag along on a short getaway to see her daughter Jackie in San Diego.  I had only been there one other time, and a trip to perpetually sunny San Diego seemed like a nice diversion from the unpredictable weather of Chicago in May.  Although the trip was considered a 4 day getaway, after taking away travel time, we would have 72 hours to work with, so Jackie built an itinerary around as many must-sees and must-dos as we could possibly squeeze in - wine tasting, beach, sight-seeing and of course cuisine!

Immediately after arriving in San Diego, we were in the mood for authentic Mexican dishes, so we dined al fresco in Old Town at Fiesta de Reyes on rolled tacos, quesadillas, homemade tortilla chips, guacamole and delicious margaritas!  Fiesta de Reyes is surrounded by dozens of boutiques and historical sites so a little walking, shopping, and sightseeing helped burn off a late lunch.  

You can't go to San Diego without visiting the Gaslamp Quarter!  The Gaslamp Quarter in historic downtown is a 16 block walkable urban playground of restaurants, nightclubs, shops, boutique hotels and entertainment that’s definitely worth exploring.  To experience a great view of San Diego (especially at sunset) visit Altitude Sky Lounge.  Another rooftop destination with stylish surroundings and craft cocktails is Rustic Root.  If you like country and western music, Moonshine Flats has live music, line dancing, and an open-air extension with backyard style games, tailgate food and various bars.  (Don’t worry seniors - you see all ages!)  

How do you visit California without wine tasting?  About an hour north of San Diego is Temecula - a beautiful city known for it’s wineries (all 37).  It’s definitely worth the drive.  Select a few wineries to visit, take in the scenery, sit and taste wine and select your favorites to take home with you.  One great thing about the wineries in Temecula is that they are close together - basically one right after the other - you don’t have to drive far to get from one winery to the next.  We visited Wilson Creek and Ponte and loved both of them.  Briar Rose Boutique Winery looked enchanting enough to see on the next visit!  Tastings include a take-home wine glass so it’s kind of fun to collect wine glasses from the different wineries.  Dinner in Old Town Temecula at the rustic-chic 1909 was delicious and a relaxing way to end our day. 

We started our Sunday with strawberry/mango mimosas and out-of-this-world lobster bisque at World Famous and a stroll along Pacific Beach.  A trip to San Diego Zoo was a definite and we were not disappointed - so pretty.  My favorite had to be the adorable koala bears.  Your ticket includes a ride on the Skyfari aerial tram which takes you on a ride for a birds-eye view of the entire zoo.  I love walking, so the walk through the zoo was perfect!  Early evening, we took a journey to beautiful La Jolla Cove (loved watching the waves hit the rocks) to see the sea lions and seals sunbathe.  For dinner, Jackie suggested Herringbone for martinis and small plates in La Jolla - magical atmosphere and yummy fare!  

The last few hours of the trip were spent shopping at Seaport Village.   At Seaport Village, you can shop in dozens of specialty shops, eat, or just sit on the boardwalk and watch ships come into the harbor (or people watch).  We had such a great time in San Diego, we have already planned our next trip!   

Loving Packing Cubes for Vacay

Have you ever said to yourself, “Why didn’t I invent that?”  With two friends (who love to travel) retiring this year, I found myself reading travel blogs to get some gift ideas for my soon-to-be newly retired gal pals.  One common suggestion in many of the blogs was to use packing cubes.  Checking out reviews led me to words like, “long-lasting, practical, organization, compression, affordable” and sounded like the perfect gift for a new retiree.   

In case you are unfamiliar with packing cubes, they are zippered fabric containers used to organize the items inside your luggage.  Unlike compression bags, they can be used to organize all kinds of gear, not just clothing.  Twenty-something years ago, I created my own version of packing cubes that worked like a charm every time we traveled.  Packing individual outfits in Ziplocks for each day of vacation was an organizational lifesaver for our family.  The kids would each grab a Ziplock and change into their outfit for the day.  Easy Button.  So why not just use Ziplocks?  I decided to see for myself and give the packing cubes a try on a recent mini-trip to San Diego.  

After researching various brands using travel blogs and Amazon, I decided to order the Shacke Pak 5 Set for each of my retiring friends and a set for myself.  The Shacke Pak sets arrived from Amazon in 2 days (yay for free shipping).  My first impression was, “all of my stuff is going to fit in here?”  I began folding, rolling and organizing.  Soon I had a generous array of clothing, shoes and essentials neatly packed into the five cubes ready to be placed in a carry-on for a four day getaway to California.  There are various ways to organize the cubes - by clothing categories, weather, travel outfits - depending on your situation.  The obvious choice for me was to organize by clothing categories, so the five cubes were used for bottoms, tops, dresses, shoes and cosmetics/other.  A fan of carry-on only for mini vacays, my goal was to fill all five cubes, fit them into my carry-on luggage, and use my tote bag for wallet, laptop, book and phone only.  

My evaluation of the packing cubes?  Awesome!  I was able to organize more than enough clothing and essentials for my trip, and use all available space efficiently to allow for plenty of room.  Compared to the Ziplocks I used years ago, they are more durable, larger and makes packing so much easier.  The shape of the cube easily accommodates rolled clothing without wrinkling.  After taking my rolled clothes from the cubes - hardly a wrinkle!  

Check them out - you won’t be disappointed.

Every Day is Mother's Day

Mother’s Day - the one day a year when Moms everywhere get to hang up their capes, at least for a while.  We have two new Moms (already becoming Supermoms) in our family who will be celebrating their first Mother’s Day.  The girls are already becoming pros at juggling work with taking care of their babies and are off to a pretty good start at finding a balance of marriage/baby/career/everything else!  It’s no wonder they have easily slid into these superhero roles since their Moms were both Supermoms.  (Shout out to Supermom club member Vicki.)  Think about it - those of us who enjoyed some hard-won equality battles and became strong, independent power women of the 80s now have daughters whom we have empowered with the same boldness.  And they have hit the ground running.  These new parents are having their year of firsts with their babies - first smile, first rollover, first giggle, and now first Mother’s Day.  So what is it about this day that makes it so precious?  

Mothers give their children gifts every day of the year.  A Mother’s love is one of the most powerful gifts we can give our children.  A Mother’s unconditional love creates gifts to our children that are intangible and touch their hearts with a value greater than any treasure. Faith, security, confidence, intelligence, good health, affection, patience, forgiveness, generosity, imagination, determination, resilience, discipline, and hope are just a few of my favorite gifts to my children.  My beautiful Mother gave me all of these gifts, I gave them to my children and now they will give them to theirs.  

Although many will say that being a Mom is a thankless job, I have never believed that being a Mother was ever a job and I never needed to be thanked for it.  For me, it was a privilege granted to me by God.  Raising two amazing little humans, watching them grow into happy and independent adults contributing to the good of society, now with families of their own, was enough thanks for me.  Although I do enjoy the occasional “Mom we’re taking you out” or thoughtful gifts from my kids, I know how much I am appreciated by my children.  That’s part of being in the Mom Club.  We just know.  To the two new Mommies in our family - every time your baby smiles at you, stares at your face or immediately turns his head when he hears your voice, he is saying he loves and appreciates everything you do for him. He is telling you how thankful he is that God picked you to be his Mommy.  Your children tell you "Happy Mother's Day" every day.  When they grow up to be teenagers and tell you things (you may not especially want to hear), or ask you for a "few bucks," they are telling you that they know you will understand and guide them in the right direction.  

So one day a year, all of the members of the Mom Club get to officially have our day.  There is no recipe as to what this day should look like.  For some, it might involve taking the family to the beach, others may want to cook for the clan, and some Moms may want to take the day to indulge in spa treatments.  My friend Grace goes to the baseball game with her daughters each year.  However Mother’s Day is spent, it is our official day to spend it how we want.

Kristina and Brittany - "A Mother's love is true north always guiding the way home."  Happy 1st Mother’s Day to you and all other Mommies out there.  

New Beginnings

May is like Oscar season for teachers:  retirement parties, Teacher of the Year dinners, honor luncheons, etc…  It’s so much fun to send off our teachers every year and to see all of the ones who retired before us.  Our teacher retirement parties are more or less a retired teacher reunion.  I will be attending two parties this year as two very close friends of mine find themselves where I was last year - in the final month of what seems like a lifetime educating children and ready to start a new life as a retired teacher.  At least, we hope we are ready.  Although I never doubted that it was the right time for me to retire, leaving the workforce after being there for most of my life created a combination of excitement and anxiety.  A year later, although I still consider myself a Rookie Retiree muddling through my new life, I am definitely starting to get my sea legs.  

As the guests mingled at the party reminiscing about old times, taking silly pictures and talking about their current lives it was easy to see that “retirement party day” is one of the happiest days of the year.  On the morning of her party, I told my friend that the party will make it real for her - that she will actually start to feel retired.  For us teachers, retirement is like “finally graduating.”  Now that I am an official veteran retiree, I would like to share my list of the best things about retirement (in no certain order):

• Travel  We can more or less do this whenever we want.  As teachers, we could only travel during the on-season times - summers and holidays - so we paid top dollar.  This severely limited the amount of travel we could do.  And who wants to do leaf peeping in New England in the summer?  I love reading travel blogs and searching for great travel deals.  We can visit all of our friends whom we have been telling for years, “I’ll come visit.”
• Interests  We actually get to have some.  Gardening?  Photography?  Cooking?  Wine Tasting?  Whatever interests we have always wanted to pursue can come to fruition.  
• Family  Although we have always been there for them, we can now really Be There for them.  Whether we are helping take care of the precious grandbabies, or just lending a hand when they are overwhelmed with their busy lives, we can be there for them without having to juggle our work schedules.  My out-of-state son and his family?  No more worries about whether or not I get to see them.  
• Health  Ever wonder why so many retirees look so healthy?  We have time to focus on our fitness and nutrition.  No more squeezing in a workout on the way home from work after we are already exhausted.   We can now put a 20 mile bike ride on our day’s agenda or take a 2:00 Yoga class with our favorite instructor.  We can take time and cook healthy meals.
• Friends  How many times have we been trying to schedule an outing with our friends only to open the calendar on our phones and find it filled with meetings and trainings?  (I used to hate all of those dots on my calendar - and it was never anything I wanted to do.)  Our calendars become more friendly and accessible.  Can’t do dinner Friday night?  How about lunch on Tuesday or $5 martinis at 4:00 on Thursday?  
• Flexibility  One of the things I love the most about retirement is the flexibility.  I always found it interesting that as working mothers we had to be flexible, but also as working mothers we had very little flexibility in our schedules.  Now, if today doesn't work out, tomorrow will.  It’s a great feeling.  
• Pace When I was working, I had one pace - super speed.  When we retire, we can slow down the pace a little and stop and smell the roses.  It’s amazing how much we missed all of those years that we were consumed by our careers.  

For my friends Patti and Carole, and all new retirees out there - you are going to love your new beginning!   

Planning The Best Girls Getaway

It’s springtime and soon all of my teacher friends will be out of school for the summer.  After taking a fun spa trip last summer to celebrate my retirement, we have decided to repeat for friend Patti’s retirement this summer and most likely make these trips annual events in the future.  There’s never a bad time to get away with a group of gal pals or a mom/daughter 3-5 day mini trip.  Girlfriend getaways can be tricky since they involve different personalities of people who have little to no travel experience together.  The main thing to keep in mind when planning a getaway is to get input from everyone throughout the entire planning process.  Organization on the front end is important when balancing activity with relaxation in a short, 3-5 day trip.  There are a lot of things to consider such as destination, activities, restaurants, and accommodations. 

     

“What do we want to do?”  A lot of people choose the destination first, but shouldn’t the destination be based on the primary activity?  When booking our spa trips, we research the best spas in the U.S. and build our trip around one of those destinations instead of choosing the destination and then settling on the spa available in our selected location.

“When do we want to go?” Probably the toughest part of the planning process is choosing dates when everyone is available.  When I was working as a teacher and President of my teachers’ union, one strategy that always worked for me when scheduling for busy people was to give 3 possible dates.  That still seems to work.  

“Where shall we go?”  Based on chosen activities and dates, I like to repeat the 3-choice method.  Offer up 3 possible destinations and get input from your travel mates.  Everyone likes choices and it’s more fun for your travel mates to choose from 3 possible destinations than to ask them to come up with an idea.   

Once the destination and dates have been chosen, the planning gets much easier and a lot more fun!  Book your activities, meal reservations, and work out your travel plans.   I like to use a combination of Trip Advisor and travel blogs to help guide my options of restaurants and activities.  Although the recipe for a great getaway includes options, flexibility, and good planning, the most important thing is to relax and have a good time with precious friends and/or family.        

Go Play Outside!

Remember when our kids were little and we would say, “Go play outside and get some fresh air?”  Maybe we should take that advice for ourselves.  The weather is finally getting nice (at least in Illinois) so last weekend I set the tone for my April to October workout routine:  Play Outside.  April to October gives us 7 months that we can make nature our health club.  My favorites - biking, hiking, and golf (walk, don’t ride).  There are dozens of outdoor activities that will get you moving, from strolling through the Farmers Market to gardening, or just go to a beautiful nature trail and bike or hike.  Saturday I journeyed a 4 mile hike on one of the many nearby forest preserve trails and Sunday the bike came out of the garage for a 20 mile ride.  

There are many factors that make playing outside a much better workout than sitting on a stationary bike or walking on an elliptical inside of a gym:  change in terrain, environmental differences such as wind and temperature, and the mere fact that we are doing ALL of the work instead of being helped by a machine.   Add to that these benefits:  better mental health, breathing in fresh air, and soaking up some Vitamin D.  My “Play Outside” mantra might sound like a broken record but I cannot stress enough how valuable it is.  This is not to say we should completely abandon the health club.  It’s a great idea to mix in some instructor-led classes, like yoga, pilates, or CrossFit, but when the weather is nice, we should try and get outside as much as we can.    

For the next 8 weeks, I will be spending my days with grandson Dominic while his Mom and Dad are working.  So lucky to have the opportunity to spend time with the little man, but it required a change in my activity schedule.  Easy fix - this is a great time to change my routine from going to the health club in the morning to biking and hiking in the evening.  I also found some yoga and pilates classes that fit into my new schedule.  For grandparents who spend days with grandkids, take the kiddos outside with you.  They love going for walks with grandparents and the fresh air/Vitamin D is good for them too!  It seems like more and more people are taking their workouts outdoors.  Many instructor-led classes are meeting outside between May and October.  Use google or contact your local park district to find outdoor instructor-led fitness classes, like the Stroller Strides class my daughter found for new moms.           

What are you going to do with your 168 hours this week?  Whether you're working or retired, young or 50+, devote some hours to playing outside.  

Retiring Soon? "What Will I Do All Day?"

It’s been almost a year since I took the plunge and started my new life as a retiree.  In conversations with a friend of mine, who is making the move in June, we talk about what retirement has looked like for me and how it might look for her.  Making the decision to retire almost always starts with the all-important question, “What will I do all day?” Of course popular responses such as traveling, reading, time with the grandkids, etc. are easy answers.  We can all imagine what our day looks like when we travel or when the grandkids come over.  But what about those days when we wake up in our own home and we have no set plans for the day?  What does THAT day look like?  Eventually all of our closets will be organized and all of the redecorating will be finished.  Now what? What is your vision of your daily schedule?  

After 35+ years of getting up each morning, going to work and leading a scheduled life, it can be exciting, but also a little scary, to start a new life with no schedule.  Those of us who thrive on a fast-paced, scheduled lifestyle (shout out to all my Type A friends) can feel a lot of uneasiness with our impending retirement.  My dad always said, “I’m not ready for the rocking chair on the front porch yet.”  In other words, his vision was not a relaxed retirement, but more an active one.   A great article I recently read from the 50+ Field Guide Facebook page titled, “Which of These Retirement Paths Will You Follow?” talks about 6 retirement paths people take.  I see myself as the adventurer/searcher with a touch of involved spectator.  My uneasiness was not fear of retirement - it was fear of boredom.  

Immediately following my official retirement date, I established a

new routine based on my goals and personality.  One of my top retirement goals was to focus on healthy lifestyle practices, specifically, physical activity, healthy diet, and plenty of sleep.  Many of us try and maintain a healthy lifestyle while working but end up just “fitting it in” to our busy schedules.  Developing a new daily routine gave me an opportunity to dedicate to my goal full time.  After a nutritional smoothie and a morning workout, I have the rest of the day for hobbies, time with grandkids and friends, or whatever tasks I want or need to complete for the day.  Try and end your day with activities that are aligned with your goals as well.  I like to create healthy recipes for dinner and go for a hike (if the weather cooperates).  

Retired friends will tell you, “I don’t know how I had time to work.”  That statement is not far from the truth - if you choose to have a full calendar, you will.  Start your retirement with a routine that makes you happy and healthy and everything else will fall into place.