Living a Golden Years Life

Is our retired life the golden years? For us, I’d have to say yes. And in sync with our photo challenge theme color of the month (yellow/gold), it’s time to share some of our golden world.

For us exiting careers and jumping into projects and travel was a no brainer and we were both ready. Steve’s retirement was unplanned, as many are, but the timing worked for us. I already had started up a less stressful, remote role which gave me the freedom I needed and when I was ready to work less and less, the company supported my wind down. Downshifting my career to a simpler role and then into less and less hours was a great way to transition into full retirement. And yes, I was also ready for it.

The golden years of life were underway for the two of us. We made our own schedule, devised our own projects, invested in current or new hobbies and made naps a norm.

Finding the Golden Spot

Traveling and exploring became our new norm and then we doubled down on hunting for a future forever homesite. With no preferred locations but a few basic must haves in mind, we set off to discover what could be possible.

We settled on a region and then found the build lot; After buying we needed to plan how to maintain it until we could be onsite. The beauty of our lot was that it was full of mature trees. The downside is we now needed to keep them healthy. For this region, southern Idaho, that was HUGE! Many build sites we looked at were basalt, dirt, and dry grass. Yet, we found the oasis of green, green and more green. We set out over 2+ years to make sure it was irrigated and continued to be as lush as possible.

We’d setup irrigation, do cleanup work then leave for weeks. The weeds were tremendous. Like our old working lives, we diligently worked to retire them. We’d spend 2-3 weeks post travel doing more cleanup!

We returned 3 summers repeating the effort before we were able to start building. Now that we’re onsite through spring and summer the yard is better behaving.

Building Started Summer 2023

If you’ve been here, reading our blog, we are well on our way building this shouse. Here’s our framed structure amidst the fall turning leaves.

We’ve been back on site since early March 2024 and have continued to make progress on the build. I don’t know how we’d have accomplished getting this far as our own general contractors (not by choice) and not being retired. This is by far the biggest project we’ve ever undertaken. Even though the camper build was 7 months it didn’t feel all consuming like this project is. I suspect Steve will agree with me, especially as he’s been doing the systems work since May all by himself.

More Gold Found

It is sunflower season and although I didn’t plant them, I ended up with a small clump of them in the perfect spot of the yard. This one below was a singular sunflower along the road where I venture off for my walks.

One of our new habits is we started eating out more. That does sound like bored retirees, doesn’t it? Living in the small camper means we do need to get out sometimes. Needing access to the Home Depots of the world means when we go shopping, it’s more than half a day adventure! Large retail is obviously not close so we make it a big outing. Just a new way to gets away from working and the camper life. Once we catch up on all our building and food needs we can enjoy a lunch or dinner out. All of that is tiring until you realize you’re in the middle of a magnificent sunset in the making.

Yellow and Gold from the Archives

Part of the fun blogging and especially participating in a photo challenge group is rediscovering my photos. Hope you enjoy them as well! Let me know which one is your favorite.

Back to the Question

Are you ready to kickstart your golden years? Many will say yes because they’re just tired of the grind or job rut. That’s not a sufficient measure of readiness. Two goals need to exist to pull off a satisfying and rewarding retirement.

• Financially can you support your lifestyle? I find this to be the easy part only because I’ve been focused on saving, then investing and growth starting when I took my first job in high school! Yes, I’m a geek. I succeeded in living very low below my means for years and years. That lifestyle choice enabled us to retire early.
• The second goal can be an afterthought but, it’s equally important. Setup a hobby, sport, activity, trip(s), projects or even part time work/volunteer to fill your days. Not only does that keep your mind and physical self active (versus being idly bored), it’ll expand your social circle. Many of us only socialize within our working world. If that’s you, then really spend time developing relationships beyond work. Having that network outside of work will also lift you up and out of boredom.

Let the golden plan hatch your golden years. I don’t know if we’re a minority of early retirees but we’re so busy, we might need to retire from this version of retirement in the future. Perhaps when the house is done? Who am I kidding, there’ll always be more house projects to be done too.

Hope you enjoyed my golden pictures. Drop me a comment with you favorite.

About the Photo Challenge

A weekly themed photo challenge hosted by Terri. Check out her Blog and come back to visit for more SundayStills and traveling posts!

More Sunday Still Posts

Thanks for visiting our travel blog and I hope you enjoyed finding the #SundayStills Challenge. You can join the weekly challenge by visiting our hosts blog Second Wind Leisure. and checking out Terri’s post for this week, Monthly Color Challenge Nature’s Golden Yellows.