What’s the best thing you’ve ever found randomly on the street?
Money. That’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever found in the street. I don’t think I ever found more than $20, but one time a twenty-dollar bill floated right in front of me in the ocean. It glided by on a gentle wave. Turns out that a wet twenty needs to dry out in the sun, but then it works just like a regular twenty. 😉
Quick update on the fruit trees—the fruit picking tool arrived! And there’s plenty of fruit left out there. The squirrels are still MIA.
My second Winesap apple pie of the year just came out of the oven. I’m using the recipe on a ceramic pie plate that I’ve had for at least twenty years. I believe my mother got it at a “garage sale” for me.
So maybe this pie plate is a better answer to the prompt. Around here, “Garage sales” typically take place on the street in front of the home.
I am happy to report that the young fellow we hired to install some new garden beds and a deer fence for my husband was successful. Matt was our “plow guy” last winter, but we discovered he also does landscaping (as many plow guys do). Matt brought along two actual children with him as helpers and they worked all weekend long. When I asked if the boys were his nephews or younger brothers, he said that they were just two industrious boys who asked for work. It turns out they were 14 and 15 years old. I have never seen boys that young work so hard. I was a bit worried about them, but the weather was perfect and they seemed fine. I brought out snacks a few times and my husband gave them each a cash tip.
Matt in the new garden area on Saturday morningHere’s how it looked Saturday night And here’s how it looked last night after they left—my husband entering the raised bed enclosure for the first time. Does it remind you of anything??I’m sorry, but to me it looks like a bunch of freshly dug graves 🤣If we got more trick-or-treaters, I’d attempt to create a graveyard scene for Halloween. I mean, it would be PERFECT.A blank slate for my husband to pursue one of his great loves (plants) in his upcoming retirement. You can see two of our fruit trees behind the raised beds, and the big clump of cannabis plants on the right. (They’re going to get moved inside the fence next season.) If this were an actual family graveyard, I think I’d want to be buried in one of the big containers inside the deer fence. This big grave seems too exposed. It is slated to become a butterfly garden 🦋
So, back to the prompt (sort of):
What’s the kindest thing someone has ever done for you?
I think it was pretty darn kind of me to help make one of his retirement dreams a reality. (I found Matt and had the bright idea to contact him for this job.) Last weekend was supposed to be my Bucket List trip to Acadia National Park, which I canceled mostly because my husband was not feeling well enough to travel. (Weather would’ve been perfect for it too.)
I trust my kindness will be repaid in organic vegetables, pretty flowers and cannabis galore in the coming years. And I’m sure I’ll make it up to Acadia – eventually.
We hired the young man who plowed our driveway last winter to help install my husband’s new vegetable garden (aka The Retirement Garden), which will have four large raised beds, irrigation, and a deer fence. (Fingers crossed the kid is up to the job. The soil where the fence posts need to get sunk in is very hard.)
In the meantime, a few of the many fruit trees my husband planted about twenty years ago have survived deer and other blights and are producing fruit. And for some reason, this year, the squirrels are missing in action. Typically, they would’ve had these trees stripped by now.
I made my first ever pie from the apples in our yard yesterday.
According to Google, “Winesap apples are a classic American heirloom variety prized for their deep, cherry-red skin, exceptionally crisp texture, and unique, tangy, wine-like flavor. Dating back to the colonial era, they are famous for an intense sweet-tart profile with spicy undertones, making them a premier choice for fresh eating, cider brewing, and baking.”
My Winesap apple pie was really good. I used the basic recipe that’s printed in the bottom of my pie plate, but these apples definitely have a complex, spicier taste than the usual store-bought varieties.
Thank you squirrels for taking a vacation this year.
Bosc pear tree
Asian pear tree
I have done some baking with our Asian pears in the past, but they’re very sweet. They’re best eaten fresh off the tree.
These beautiful pears are hanging just out of my reach, untouched by squirrels. We finally broke down and ordered a fruit picking tool so we can get these down, but it’s not being delivered until Tuesday. 😕 I really I hope we beat the squirrels to these.
And here’s a throwback photo (August 2002). Check out that harvest. My husband grew all that food! He actually remembers the exact moment he went Organic after reading the ingredients on a bag of grub killer at our first house in Canton, MA in 1995.
Growing some of our own food again has become increasingly appealing in Trump’s America. Between skyrocketing food prices, never ending news of American food supply contaminations, and now an absolutely ridiculous trade war with Canada, we want to put our sunny yard back to doing something useful.
But I haven’t really been anywhere for over a year now. This is due to my husband’s health. His shitty knees took a turn for the worse after our trip to Ireland last summer. He ended up getting two total knee replacements in 2025/26. If you haven’t heard, knee replacements are a real bitch. After that, he got a mysterious set of symptoms that may be partly related to the knees that I hope are finally subsiding. Fingers crossed! He’s back to planning for the future—he’s mapping out a new vegetable garden and signed a contract to purchase solar panels for our home.
I’m hopeful that we can start to travel again soon. I’ve rebooked a trip to Acadia National Park in Maine, which I had to cancel last year due to his knees.
Nowadays, everything I book is cancellable. For decades, I never canceled a single trip, but now that I’m in my sixties, I know that shit can and does happen. I had to cancel my planned weeklong Dance Camp because I got plantar fasciitis in my left heel. Oh well. These things happen.
My calendar is always marked with the last day I can cancel any trip without losing too much money.
Magical moment in Yellowstone National Park, August 2024, shortly before we became grandparents for the first time
I’ve been enjoying participating in the arts (a lifelong love) more than ever, now that I’m retired from paid employment.
I took my first watercolor classes at a lovely community arts center in the fall of 2025 and spring of 2026. I was asked (as all students were) to submit something for an end-of-year student art show. I did not win a prize, but I got to see my painting up on the gallery wall and mingle with lots of other students at the opening reception. Also, I figured out which teacher I want to learn from next.
All photos by Gregory Ciccarelli.
The theme of the Student Summer Showcase is S³: A Moment of Reflection, which was described like this: “We are experiencing difficult times with heightened division and misunderstanding, and we believe that art is the great connector. Art helps us take a moment to be introspective, muse about our personal mission, express feelings and emotions that can’t be described in words. S³: A Moment of Reflection means to give our community a space to come together and reflect on our personal journeys as student artists, community members, and human beings.”
My husband and me checking out the art
A friend I met in class and me looking at my piece (top right)
My friend and her piece
Some of the abstract pieces were really great
There were ceramics too
There was art on two floors
Me and my piece: a portrait of my granddaughter at 9 months old
The piece they’re looking at here is titled “Have You Seen My Glasses?” 😂 It won a prize.
The Grand Prize Winner is an oil painting called “Waiting” which is very cool. Reading the judge’s comments, you can see how a good title can truly impact a viewer’s understanding of a piece.
“Martha Owen’s painting, Waiting, attracted me immediately. It seemed to radiate moonlight and mystery. It suggested a story that the viewer had to create. The power and simplicity of the stark, tight composition added to the drama. I enjoyed the fresh vision and originality of the subject matter. All the visual elements of the painting worked together to reinforce a feeling of emptiness, stillness and longing, capped off by the title.”
The judge fully acknowledged that art is subjective. She said she chose pieces that spoke to her.
I’ll definitely take another class here next year.
The whole thing felt supportive and not competitive.
Yes, but I “study” what I want. I got my BA in History and never went back for a graduate degree because they all sounded so boring and cost too much money. MBA? (snooze fest) Law School? (are you joking?) A Master’s in History? (not interested)
And when I was working, I was never big on “professional development.” I only took the required stuff on topics like cybersecurity. All those LinkedIn courses and certifications on business-y topics were available to me, but I hardly ever opted in. I felt like the best way to get better at my job was to do it, and since I was a fundraiser, the proof was in the pudding. I raised millions of dollars for my employers and clients. Nobody cared that I didn’t have an MBA.
Courses I took outside of work included Italian, photography and music (singing lessons). Now that I’m retired, it’s been studio art classes that interest me most, particularly watercolors.
In fact, just yesterday I participated in a 2.5 hour class called “Yoga, Meditation and Abstract Art.” It was my first time using acrylic paint in decades. My abstract piece really wanted to become some sailboats on a green sea, so that’s what happened.
This started as an abstract, but then a couple of sails emerged. “The FDT” is part of the Resistance 😜
In the spirit of trying new things in this new phase of my life (aka Retired Grandma), I performed a full length solo song in a “Café Musicale” fundraiser at my church last night. It was set up like a cabaret with lots of round tables and a decorated central buffet with desserts & apps and twinkling lights and candles. There was a variety of acts, including a couple of bands, duos, trios and two other soloists (one of whom was a professional).
I sang Anthem from the 80s musical Chess. In the show it’s sung by a Soviet chess player who is thinking of defecting. When I heard it recently, it resonated with me in a new way given all that Americans are experiencing with a wannabe dictator in office. I had a fantastic professional accompanist on piano.
I think it went well. I wasn’t overly nervous and I got warm applause and some very heartfelt comments afterwards.
So, as my 60th year is about to wrap up next week, I can truthfully say I’ve already tried some new things in this new decade.
I took watercolor classes and started painting again, successfully performed a solo for a room full of people, and registered for week long Dance Camp.
Oh, and as an update on that art show (where I was disappointed that my painting was hung so high), I found out last night that it was moved and placed at eye level. The organizers apologized for where it was hung originally and said it was one of their favorite pieces in the show! It’s going to travel with the rest of the pieces to a real art museum in October.
Proof of performance. I’m not a professional singer so I’m not going to upload the video of me singing, but it’s a very moving song. You can listen to “Anthem” from the Original 1988 Broadway Cast Album here. The show was recently revived and is currently playing on Broadway.
Undoubtedly the best thing about being 60 has been spending time with my granddaughter. The second best thing has been engaging more in my foundational love of the arts. Painting, singing, dancing and writing this blog have all been so fun and important to me this past year.
As GenXers will remember the old public service announcement: You Gotta Have Art!
Despite continued pain and swelling, my husband is attempting to get on with his life after two total knee replacements, the second of which took place on March 16.
Gardening is something he always liked and is good at. I’m very pro-gardening for him. I think it’s healthy and without the excessive strain and physical danger of his other hobby: powerlifting. (It’s like, you have two artificial knees dude…would you just not.) But as most people in longterm marriages know, you cannot control the other person. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do and you gotta decide if the good outweighs the bad. (You’re free to go, if you’re not into it.)
Therefore, I’m happy to report he planted a bunch of dahlia bulbs, trimmed some shrubs, planted my spur-of-the-moment purchase of a lovely lupine in bloom, bought some clones from the dispensary, and potted up two of them as gifts for our kids. This represents a small but significant return to gardening. Yay!
My new lupine, expertly planted by my husband who got his BS in Botany.
We bought 3 types of clones at our local dispensary’s big plant sale: The Hive (Honey Banana X Papaya), Terpgasm (Sin n Juice X Udder Madness), Tail Dragger (Alligator Wine X Pearl Cadillac)
Don’t you just love the names of weed strains 🤣
Q: Why are weed plants called clones?
A: Weed plants are called “clones” because they are literally exact genetic replicas of a parent plant (called a “mother plant”). Instead of using seeds, growers cut a branch off a thriving plant and encourage it to grow its own roots.
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UPDATE: photos of my husband kneeling for my friends considering arthroplasty
Right knee was replaced November 24, 2025Left knee was replaced March 16, 2026He says it feels weird to kneel but doesn’t hurt.
This prompt is N/A (not applicable) to a retired person.
Sometimes I have to wrack my brain to remember what day of the week it is, when I wake up in the morning. As other retirees know well, you want to take advantage of weekdays to do stuff like grocery shopping, when other people are busy at work. I had to learn this lesson the hard way over the past year. I messed-up several times. I specifically remember fighting for a parking spot at Costco in tax-free Nashua on a busy Saturday last year when the lightbulb went on: Why on earth would anyone go to Costco on a weekend unless they had to?
Back when I was working and raising children, work-life balance wasn’t a huge problem for me. I mostly worked as a part-time consultant/contractor, except at the very end of my career when I went full-time. I liked my job a lot and was happy to leave suburbia and go to the city a couple times a week. I especially liked going out to lunch with my work friends, most of whom had no children. It was great to talk about non-mom things with other adults. They couldn’t have cared less about the outcome of travel soccer try-outs or which kids were recommended for Honors Math.
One of the biggest issues for me back then was traffic. Getting back to the suburbs from my Boston office could take over 2 hours on a bad day. It was hell. I got involved in several road rage incidents. I was sometimes late to pick-up my son at his afterschool program.
In conclusion, if the powers that be want to help people have work-life balance they should fix traffic. And retirees should stay the heck out of the way and do their errands at 11am on Wednesday.
The 10 US Cities With the Worst Traffic: 1. New York 2. Chicago 3. Los Angeles 4. BOSTON 5. Philadelphia 6. Miami 7. Houston 8. Atlanta 9. Washington 10. Seattle
I’ve registered and paid for a five-day dance retreat in Maine in August.
I’ve been hearing about “Ferry Beach” from my fellow Unitarian Universalists for decades. This mythical coastal retreat center has transformed many a life. They’ve got retreats for everything from Yoga, to Women’s Healing, to Buddhism. My church friend Ron, who leads our monthly Sacred Circle Dance, is co-leading a week-longSacred Circle Dance retreat. I brought the flyer home and stuck it on the refrigerator about a month ago.
With my husband’s knee replacement recovery taking for fucking ever, we have zero travel plans. Nothing booked. Nothing to look forward to. And I have noidea when or what type of travel he’s going to be up for.
This led me to Dance Camp. I tried to convince my two friends from high school that I rarely get to see to join me there, but so far, no dice.
So…I went ahead and registeredfor five nights by myself in the mythical UU retreat center. Dancing 5 hours a day with strangers, could be a terrible idea. I mean, I like our monthly dance, but this is going to be waaaay more than that. There’s a chance I might hate it and bail out after a night or two.
In any case, I’ll have finally experienced Ferry Beach.
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