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023 i had already been experimenting with another supplement golden milk a mixture of turmeric and pepper it had a moderate effect but it wasn t enough one thing i had wanted to try was a grounding mat in may 2025 i had time to read about electrical grounding and its possible effects on inflammation i bought one conductive carbon leatherette mat to try when i noticed what seemed to be a positive effect i ended up buying several more i placed them throughout the house on my bed on the sofa and on my desk so that i could spend about twelve hours a day in contact with them the grounding mats didn t cure my ra but i felt that they had an anti inflammatory effect mainly locally for example when my knees hurt i could place them directly on the mat and the pain would lessen but i felt that the inflammation would then show up somewhere else in my body which i would treat with a homeopathic remedy in november 2025 i learned about methylsulfonylmethane or msm and its potential anti inflammatory properties i started taking 1 6 grams per day this seemed to help my knees even more by christmas 2025 i no longer needed either knee bandage this post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement you can find the table of contents with links to each chapter here share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading decluttering august 13 2026 august 6 2026 karin leave a comment not only did i shed body weight in retirement i also decluttered our home interestingly just as the weight loss came effortlessly so did the decluttering at least compared to an earlier phase in 2012 back then i had felt an intense almost obsessive need to declutter for about ten weeks i could think of little else besides clearing the house of unnecessary possessions this time i felt no such urge i was probably too preoccupied with helping my parents so why did i declutter at all because my younger son felt the urge instead isn t it interesting that a twenty one year old would want to declutter his parents home he had already started encouraging us to do so in late 2023 before our early retirement and in early 2026 his enthusiasm returned he went through the house pointing out clutter in the basement overstuffed drawers and neglected corners encouraging us week after week to let things go i was grateful for his persistence and gladly joined in my husband was more reluctant and occasionally annoyed but eventually he too went along with it as i reflected on it i realized something while i was spending weeks in berlin helping my parents and many hours each week managing their administrative affairs my son was helping me in return perhaps that is how life works the support we give has a way of finding its way back to us this post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement you can find the table of contents with links to each chapter here share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading shedding weight august 6 2026 august 6 2026 karin leave a comment in the spring of 2025 i went back to my old office to meet with former colleagues as we stood in the hallway chatting another colleague walked by and exclaimed in a concerned almost reproachful tone look at you you have become so thin are you sure early retirement is good for you i was baffled yes i had lost some weight but i didn t look sick or alarmingly thin well yes i replied i ve lost about nine pounds then i added when my mom retired early from her stressful job as an elementary school teacher she lost so much weight that she had to buy new pants so maybe it s normal to lose weight once all the stress is gone that conversation made me reflect on how my weight had changed over the decades in 1990 during my first year at university i had a bmi of 19 and was quite skinny studying working and raising children gradually took their toll i ate more to cope with the stress and over the next two decades i gained about fifty three pounds reaching a bmi of 26 around 2012 during a work life balance workshop offered by my employer the instructors encouraged me to lose weight and suggested eating fewer carbohydrates in the evening i took their advice and gradually adopted a low carb dinner it helped but only modestly in 2019 i received several hints as i interpreted them to try fasting for better health i completed two five day water fasts one in 2019 and another in 2020 they were interesting experiences but they had little lasting effect on either my rheumatoid arthritis or my weight around 2020 during the covid 19 work from home period i switched to intermittent fasting not to lose weight but because i hoped it would improve my sleep i ate breakfast and lunch but skipped my afternoon snack and dinner i slept better on an empty stomach as a pleasant side effect by the end of 2023 my bmi had dropped to 22 by early retirement my bmi had fallen further to 21 without any deliberate effort even though i was eating a full lunch in the company cafeteria every weekday and exercising less than before it may not be true for everyone but for me letting go of work related stress seemed to have a greater effect on my weight than years of dieting had a note of caution intermittent fasting is not suitable for everyone some premenopausal women report menstrual changes this post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement you can find the table of contents with links to each chapter here share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading back to the book july 30 2026 july 29 2026 karin 2 comments work had receded and the new responsibility of helping my parents had taken its place but that wasn t the only thing keeping me busy until the middle of march 2025 my husband and i were occupied with our own little it migration project we bought and set up our own laptops transferred our personal data from the company hardware and prepared everything for its return there was so much work and so many technical issues that i sometimes felt i hadn t really left my corporate job compared with some other early retirees however we were fortunate we didn t have a company car to return which would have added yet another layer of logistics by the end of march the migration was complete we returned the hardware another milestone although i often thought about the sign i had seen on my last day at work reminding me to finish my book there simply hadn t been room for it helping my parents the it migration and my weekly blog had filled the available time in addition i was dealing with an ra flare up and experimenting with grounding mats in the hope of easing the symptoms i didn t feel guilty about putting the book aside however on may 16 2025 i was lying in bed when i felt a sharp stinging pain along the left side of my rib cage rather than assuming something was medically wrong my first thought was that perhaps one of my guides wanted to get my attention i asked them to send me a dream that i would remember the pain stopped that night i dreamed i was sitting with author carrie triffet don t you feel guilty about not working on the book about your spiritual journey she asked yes a little i replied then i told her how much i had enjoyed her first two books i had never met carrie triffet only read her books i took the dream as a rather broad hint that it was time to return to my own five days later i created an account with an ai and began editing the manuscript with its help to my surprise i genuinely enjoyed the process previously i had only used an ai based editing tool to find grammatical mistakes this was different the ai not only corrected my english but also provided editorial feedback as a non native speaker and a first time author i found that incredibly helpful the back and forth process of submitting a chapter and receiving thoughtful suggestions was motivating over the following weeks i managed to edit about 85 percent of the manuscript at the end of july 2025 my progress slowed again our remaining vacation entitlement had ended so we no longer ate lunch in the company cafeteria and i was once again cooking almost every weekday at the same time my parents care situation became more demanding the book would have to wait a little longer i trusted that the right time to finish it would come this post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement you can find the table of contents with links to each chapter here share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading a new responsibility july 23 2026 july 22 2026 karin 2 comments i was often reminded of the saying that nature abhors a vacuum as work receded something else quickly filled the space at the end of january 2025 i traveled to berlin for my mother s birthday i had planned to stay for one week but my visit stretched to two and a half weeks when she became seriously ill her leg became swollen red and extremely painful and she developed a fever there were repeated visits to the doctor antibiotics and other medications dealing with her alzheimer s disease was already challenging this additional illness made everything even harder i did what i could to help my parents were grateful for the support it was fortunate that i was already retired and didn t have to take time off from work it was also fortunate that my husband had retired as well while i stayed in berlin he took care of everything at home i remembered reading advice that newly retired people should take a long vacation right away to break out of their old routines my extended stay in berlin certainly accomplished that although not in the way i had imagined my mother had another episode with the swollen leg in june 2025 this time she spent a week in the hospital my original plan had been to visit berlin every other month for about a week although i made six trips during 2025 as planned the visits often became much longer whenever an unexpected need arose one welcome side effect of those trips was reconnecting with old friends in berlin one friend whom i had last seen in 2019 before the covid 19 pandemic had always been traveling during my previous visits in the spring of 2025 we finally managed to meet twice back home i took care of my parents paperwork paying bills from doctors and care providers submitting reimbursement requests and learning a surprisingly complicated set of procedures the work often felt stressful and overwhelming so i tried to confine it to the hours between 6 and 9 p m each evening it gradually became clear that caring for my parents had become a new part time job this post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement you can find the table of contents with links to each chapter here share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading settling into a new rhythm july 17 2026 july 18 2026 karin 2 comments the first weeks of our early retirement did not feel special at all because it was the usual christmas vacation period which lasts until the epiphany holiday on january 6 in this part of germany afterward the familiar treadmill of work would normally have started again but for us it didn t only then did it really sink in that we no longer had to work we no longer had to get up before sunrise but could sleep until daylight in winter that meant until 8 00 or 8 30 a m what a luxury during the remainder of our accrued vacation time which lasted almost until the end of july 2025 we were still allowed to eat lunch in the company cafeteria my husband and i did so almost every weekday and thoroughly enjoyed it for half a year i didn t have to cook lunch during the week fantastic once a week we met other early retirees for lunch and shared our experiences i enjoyed hearing about the many different ways people approached retirement some started working again immediately at another company perhaps part time others traveled extensively or volunteered with longer nights of sleep regular afternoon naps and walks outside before lunch i finally gave my body the rest it had been asking for we gradually settled into a new rhythm our weekly grocery shopping moved from thursday afternoon to thursday morning on the other days until about 6 p m i was busy being retired sleeping in going for a walk before lunch and taking a long afternoon nap after 6 p m i felt refreshed and ready to spend a few hours at the computer blogging or taking care of administrative tasks until about 9 p m with a family dinner in between i joked that early retirement felt like working the late shift the sunday afternoon dread disappeared that familiar queasy feeling before another workweek was simply gone my husband also took on more household chores than before i appreciated not having to do everything myself despite all the freedom we felt surprisingly busy sometimes we wondered how we had ever found the time to work this post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement you can find the table of contents with links to each chapter here share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading three days of darkness july 9 2026 june 22 2026 karin 2 comments december 31 2024 my husband had now also entered his first official day of early retirement another milestone we celebrated new year s eve quietly at home as we did every year the most noteworthy event was that the external blind on the large floor to ceiling window in our bedroom broke and could no longer be opened when we closed the second blind as well the room became completely dark it remained that way for three days until we obtained the necessary spare parts and my husband was able to repair it on january 3 2025 interestingly on that same day i watched two youtube videos that mentioned the abbreviation cpr which usually stands for cardiopulmonary resuscitation in one video a man said it stood for church pray read in the other someone associated it with courage perseverance and resilience i couldn t help thinking about the symbolic meaning three days of darkness occurring synchronistically just as we had both officially entered retirement followed by the repeated mention of cpr it felt like a message of a system reset the darkness was the shutdown the cpr was the reboot this post is part of a blog series about my transition into early retirement you can find the table of contents with links to each chapter here share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading renewal july 2 2026 june 22 2026 karin leave a comment december 28 2024 i took a walk through the fields and rested on a bench across from the bench among some weeds at the edge of the field sat a small bird it chirped at me for quite a while i had to look it up it was a chiffchaff that was unusual chiffchaffs normally migrate south for the winter but this one had stayed behind and why had it remained there for so long right across from me it felt as though it had a message to share i looked ...