TheBanyanTree: stop the presses!

[Teague, Julie Anna]

Robin, I didn't get the picture, and I NEED THE PICURE of your dahlias!!!!  If the list doesn't allow it, send it to jateague at iu.edu.



-----Original Message-----
From: TheBanyanTree <thebanyantree-bounces at lists.remsset.com> On Behalf Of Robin Tennant-Wood via TheBanyanTree
Sent: Thursday, January 4, 2024 3:07 PM
To: A comfortable place to meet other people and exchange your own *original* writings. <thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com>
Cc: Robin Tennant-Wood <rtennantwood at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: TheBanyanTree: stop the presses!

WooHoo! I can almost hear the sound of champagne corks popping from here (albeit 49 days prematurely). And did you mention backyard flower farm?
Here's mine. I specialise in dahlias. Big, colourful, kick-arse dahlias!

Enjoy the next 49 days.

cheers

Robin

On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 at 04:56, Teague, Julie Anna via TheBanyanTree < thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com> wrote:

> Dear Tree Folk, some of you have known me forever and a day, and 
> during the whole time you've known me, I've been here at a computer 
> screen, pressing my silly little keys and keeping my silly little life 
> afloat by writing computer programs which ostensibly provide 
> those-in-charge with the information they need to keep charging.  
> Well, I did some calculations this morning.  Or, rather, I opened the 
> handy-dandy Excel spreadsheet in which I had previously coded and 
> saved the calculations almost three years ago (when the numbers seemed 
> impossibly high and nearly insurmountable).  And what these 
> calculations told me, in the form of a single number with a lot of 
> backstory, is this--
>
> Ahem.
>
> Little Julie Anna Teague,
>
> who was born into a dirt poor family in Nowheresville, Indiana 
> (population 500), who has worked her entire life at jobs with varying 
> degrees of meaningfulness, including almost 41 years for Indiana 
> University, who has written a story or two, climbed a mountain or ten, 
> and been owned by a cat or twenty (and currently one very spoiled 
> dog), who has done yoga, breathwork, meditation, acupuncture, reiki, 
> vision-boarding, primal screaming, long distance running, art therapy, 
> sound therapy, talk therapy, and several things that were 
> self-destructive but felt good at the time, who has loved and lost and 
> loved again, ad nauseam, etc., and so forth, who has tried always to 
> be kind and giving to her friends and family and animals and the 
> environment and other good causes, who has scraped and saved, made do 
> and paid off, re-used and re-grouped, eaten all the leftovers and 
> composted all the scraps, and raised two damn good kids,
>
> has FORTY-NINE actual working days left in her working life at Indiana 
> University.
>
> Forty-nine.  LESS THAN FIFTY DAYS, FOLKS, and, to paraphrase the great 
> MLK, I am free at last, free at last, Thank God Almighty, I am free at 
> last to live my life no longer beholden to a forty hour work week or 
> shackled to my computer with the proverbial golden handcuffs.
>
> I get the key to the handcuffs in forty-nine days, and guess what, 
> they aren't real gold anyway.  I've mostly stopped worrying that I'll 
> end up eating cat food, but getting my teeth cleaned twice a year will 
> become my budget luxury item.
>
> And before anyone responds with, "You'll need a PLAN to get through 
> your retired days."  I think every person I've told has said that to 
> me.  No worries, I have plans.  I have grandkids to nurture and am 
> gaining two more in the Spring.  I have reading, classes, art, and 
> volunteering I want to do.  And my big plan, already in the works for 
> many months now, is that I'm starting a micro-sized flower farm in my 
> urban back yard and will be selling at the Farmer's market.  It is 
> hard work, but it's the work of my heart and never feels like work.  I 
> can be in my garden all day every day, doing the crappiest of garden 
> tasks, and come in exhausted and filthy and with my back aching, and it still feels more like joy than work.
>
> So, that's where I'm at.   Let the countdown commence.
>
> Julie
>
>
>
>
>
> Need to change your name, email address, or password? Or have you 
> forgotten your password? Go here:
> http://lists.remsset.com/listinfo.cgi/thebanyantree-remsset.com
>

Need to change your name, email address, or password? Or have you forgotten your password? Go here: http://lists.remsset.com/listinfo.cgi/thebanyantree-remsset.com