Spend a Week with Me in Retirement, Plus an Update

Good morning! The new vlog is up. You can watch it HERE. Just spending a week with me in retirement. We do some shopping, shopping hauls, and have a chatty little time. I might vent a little bit. Mom was not feeling good at all this particular week, and she had me a little worried, wouldn’t go to the doctor but wanted me to come and just sit and watch her. lol. I did not do that but offered to take her to the doctor, if she felt that unstable in her health.

Life Updates this Week

The big news of the week is my new iPad Air 13-inch. I love it. I had wanted a bit of something different with the iPad experience. I wanted to use it more like a laptop for when we travel. And I wanted the Apple Pencil as well. I had considered just ordering a laptop but decided to go with this and I am happy with that. It has enough memory and GB and an M3 chip (not the latest M4) but good enough I can use Final Cut Pro on the iPad to throw a video together if needed if we are away and I want to do one or need it as a back up. The swapping of one iPad for the other as far as apps and set up, was very smooth. Much like your phone changes are.

However, for whatever reason the email did not work. I guess I didn’t have email turned on in the cloud. And so I’ve had an issue getting email set up on it. I really had it last night as I sent test emails and they came through but I had no new emails this morning. That is strange because we are always bombarded with emails. So I don’t know how to fix that. Maybe I can delete everything and start over. But I’m tired of working with it. I can just access emails on my phone but I want to be able to get it on my iPad. I am tired of dealing with it honestly.

I called Mom excited to tell her about my iPad purchase and how I set it up and how excited. I thought she would be happy for me but instead I was met with “I thought you didn’t know how to set up a computer. You couldn’t set up mine.” Instant eye roller alarm!

I think I rolled my eyes so far back in my head they got stuck. I had to remind her that:

1) She was a windows person and I’ve not dealt with Windows except at work and we had IT that set that up. 2) I’m an Apple person and not really great at THAT either 3) She didn’t know her passwords to anything which made her set up worse and 4) Her Word, Excel Microsoft pkg only lasted through 2024 and she had us set it up in Jan 2025. I didn’t remind her that we actually DID get it set up just not her Microsoft b/c it was expired and she did not want to buy a new one. (And I’m also done with trying to set it up as my blood pressure was so high and I was so frustrated (to tears) after trying to deal with that laptop set up. So bottom line…. no she was not excited for me. But at age 62, I no longer have the need nor do I try to get my mother’s approval on anything. I’ve learned to live without it. And I’ve learned not to try.

I am so loving the Magic Keyboard and the Pencil. It really makes a difference. I think it’s worth having the keyboard with charger which also allows the pencil to be attached. So more expensive than other brands but it all went together. It was NOT an inexpensive purchase but it should last a long time, I hope.

I threw my old iPad case away. But I took pictures of it before I did. As it had become raggedy, I began adding stickers to it to give it character. So I had to take a pic of it before I tossed it. It was worn out and no one else would want it. But it served me well.

I have another “regular” case on order because the Magic Keyboard case does not fold back and so I just remove it from that (it’s attaches by magnetic function) and will slip it in the other normal iPad case for reading and hanging out with Maddie in my lap. I discovered that I cannot do a dog and a laptop in my lap at same time. So the Magic Keyboard will best be used at a table. Also the Magic Keyboard is very heavy and the iPad itself is bigger than my other one (because as I age, I figure I’ll enjoy the bigger screen) but it does make it heavier. Especially in the case. I have huge purses and it will fit in them as I travel but it is definitely going to be a heavy set up. I don’t travel that much and the only time it would really be an issue is probably when I fly, but then I’d probably have it in a backpack and on one arm with purse in the other. So I think overall this was a good choice for me.

All my technology is getting outdated at once. I upgraded my watch in 2024. My phone, I won’t worry about until 2026 or 2027. I’ve been fighting with my iMac and it will no longer take the latest iOS software of Tahoe. I have to live on Sequoia and my version of Mac is a 2019. My Final Cut Pro is struggling. I fight with it about 70% of the time I edit. It drives me crazy. George says I may not have to wait until next year though. So we’ll see.

That’s the biggest excitement of the week. Other than that, we have been home more which made me happy. I’ve had time to get a long video edited, play with this new iPad, get *some* housework done, get all the laundry done, and cooked some. I kept the kitchen and bathroom cleaned all week, vacuumed and kept things picked up but I didn’t dust, or clean the fan blades as planned. I also did not get any special projects on my list done except for the iPad research and order, and planning for Vlogmas, the videoing schedule and all that. I did use my new iPad to download Good Notes and I wrote in that my YouTube plan for next week’s video of “Balance in Retirement”. This is what I wanted by detaching from my To Do List. The To Do List was making a work horse out of me and now I can insert some of my creative desires when the mood hits instead of waiting at end of day and the creative flow is dead because I am tired. So yay!

Ok that’s enough for today. I have not been blogging because we have been so busy doing other things. I’ve had HUGE lots of video footage to edit down to 59 minutes because I refuse to take any video over an hour. But the thing is, it works because the best footage is seen and the weeds are cut out. I still prefer a 45 min video but I have to work on not talking so much. And I like sharing my thoughts.

Today’s planning day and we also have that black tie wedding to go to so a big day today! Looking forward to that.

Anyway over and out. Here’s the video again if you want to watch it here.