My partner, S, and I struggle constantly to balance between work and leisure time, between being productive and having time to recharge our batteries. Sometimes, it feels like we are more successful than others.
First, we FINALLY settled things with our roofing contractor from the remodeling we started eight months ago! He had one dollar figure in mind; we had a lesser one in mind (surprise!). We negotiated and settled on splitting the difference ... hopefully with everyone satisfied and feeling okay about the resolution. With that agreement, we got several pesky, lingering issues resolved and promptly wrote him a check.
During our week of vacation over the Fourth of July, we FINALLY met with a financial planner, something we've been talking about for some time now. Olivia is an energetic and enthusiastic young woman, whose father I know from 30 years ago (hello, Cherry Lane apartments, Rich and Mickey, in labor with Josh at Sparrow!). More recently, S has made some investments through him. Olivia now works in concert with her dad, which gave S and I some added peace of mind. Through Olivia, we are going to consolidate our investments and 401(k)s, making it easier to track them and to make future decisions. We are hoping as are most boomers, that we are not at the edge of a precipice, preparing to watch our retirement savings be washed away in a tide of Wall Street pessimism and nosediving funds. Let's be hopeful.
And, our third giant was cut down just this past week, in the front yard of our pied-a-terre. It was the tree that was split in half by the OTHER falling tree. S cut all its branches off last fall, rendering it the quintessential Halloween tree: completely leafless, stark and scary-looking. While intentions were good, the follow-through was not and our Halloween tree was threatening to close in on its first birthday in such a state. This past week, S and I and our neighbor, Jan, felled the thing, FINALLY! S wedge-cut and sawed and shaved it down as Jan and I gamely pulled on two ends of a rope, trying to steer it away from the house and cars and anything else we didn't want damaged. Thankfully, S notched it and cut it just right. Then while she removed its limbs, Jan and I yanked and pulled and finally rolled all the pieces into one, lumpish-looking pile. Hurray for the three Amazons!
Stay tuned! More giant-slaying to come ...
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