Today is the day that I spend at my mothers. She is still sleeping! That woman can sleep! I have begun researching my next venture and have been studying the retail business. I am really in love with Brooklyn as a location but at this point in the game, I would need to stay closer to home. My first step is to visit various Chambers of Commerce and get demographic and business data, rental data and projected development plans for the areas that I am looking at. I have all day to work on my business plan narrative while I'm here, in between cooking for Mom. Over the weekend we went to Portland, Maine to see the photographs of the 19th century photographer, Julia Cameron. Her works are haunting and melancholy, but so irresistable. She was a friend to such notables as Alfred Tennyson and Lewis Carroll. MOST significantly, is that she began her endeavor when she was 48 years old!' Portland is a really hip city with a nice mix of young and older people. The inn we stayed at was terrible! It was across the street from a paper mill!

One thing I have found out is that commercial real estate peoplr are really bad at getting back to you! In this terrible economy, that is really shocking! Well, it's impossible to type this up on my I phone so I'll end here.

Today was my last day at my old business. It was a sort of a weird day...I only spent a short time answering questions with the new owner. Now I know what "lame duck" is. I didn't tell the clients that I sold the business. They have Alzheimer's and will forget. So it doesn't make sense.

But my nurse and aides and drivers are all sad and I am sad and feel like a traitor. A former client's family member brought in flowers to me and cried and my nurse cried and I feel like crying for the loss. But I am relieved to be able to sell and move on to a new vocation.

I met with a woman tonight to apply for a volunteer job, but declined after I heard how hard-driving she is. I don't want that. I want a pleasant, fun volunteer job, maybe two days a week doing something joyful. Its so weird seeing these overly ambitious types and not relating anymore. Am I just old and spent or relaxed and wise?

Tomorrow we leave for a 4 day trip to Brooklyn to help my son move. We are staying at Baisley House in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. I love Brooklyn, so I am looking forward to it!

Being Attacked By A Monkey

Last night I had a really weird dream. It involved going to this artist's loft or studio where the artist made these funky glasses that has different sized lenses and were kind of broken. He was trying to sell them to me as an art piece and I was doubtful because I thought they were junk but he insisted that they were art. I remember they were those amber color frames, like a light tortoishell, so I guess I dream in color. (but I knew that because once I dreamt my Dad, who is dead, drove up to my house in a yellow cab and left me a yellow boxed present and drove away waving from the cab) Later, as I was leaving the place, I was in the hallway and I saw this monkey (kind of big) in front of a door, noticing it as one might notice a squirrel in the yard. It didn't register at first, and then it did, and I thought "oh shit, that's a big monkey!" And the next thing in the dream, this monkey attacks me head on (I could his teeth and jowls clearly) but then as he's attacking me, I'm not really being hurt and then he just sort of disappears and I say to Frank, "My mistake was in letting him see my fear!"

So, maybe that's the moral of the story, but the dream imagery books would tell me I was dreaming about deceitful people. I will have to ponder it a bit.

A Day from Double-Hell

I still have three more weeks until I am completely free from my commitment to "the old business". Today was a day from double-hell. A really nasty lady, with whom I was following up with (a potential customer) told me to stop "harrassing" her and two of our clients (we care for elders with dementia) were beyond agitated today. People just don't know what a heroic job we do with these folks. Then I contacted another potential customer, and she had decided against us for the big-corporate-mega-center with a gazillion rooms and 40+ patients...thinking it was a better environment for her husband (who has AD). Oh my God! Don't people know how agitating large crowds are for people with Alzheimer's?? Its like those people who choose Nursing Homes because they have chandeliers and pseudo-oriental rugs and think they are getting top of the line. What they don't know is that the people that work there get paid shit and have a similar shitty work ethic. So that the owners can AFFORD the chandeliers and the stupid rug.

I am so glad that I am getting out of this business. I love the clients but I can't stand the ignorance of these caregivers who think that bigger is better!

So now I think I'll just go and drink heavily (not really).

Note to self...choose a new career that delivers me from people who can't figure out the obvious!

Welcome to my blog other career changers!

I'm writing this in the hopes that others like me may share their stories of change at mid life. I am about to sell a business that I built from scratch 13 years ago. It has been very successful, but I wanted to sell it when it was still "on top" and thirteen years is a LONG time doing the same thing. The thing is, I don't really quite know what I want my next business to be. So I've decided to take a year (or more) off to do things I've always wanted to do, but never could because of time constraints. Am I part of the slow movement?

There is a book in my "favorites" list by Elizabeth berg entitled,"The Pull of the Moon". In it, the 50ish woman heroine decides to go off on a driving trip and just pay attention to the ordinary things of life and ponder her own life while she's at it. She doesn't tell her husband where she's going, but checks in just to let him know she is safe. She watches people in small, nothing-towns interact with each other, she speaks to strangers, she stops at strange tourist attractions. She learns a lot from her experiences and goes home eventually with a greater handle on herself.

Well, I don't really want to do that per se, but I do want the time to explore the world, try new things (like wallpapering), revive old things (like sewing) , read on the porch, garden, volunteer and maybe work at a manual type job, just for the "zen" of it.

I wasn't going to write much on this first post, but once you get going...

I feel sort of scared and brave at the same time. But ultimately, I feel that I've made the right decision.