"I've Got A List" - Part Deux

At the same time you are compiling your “things I’d like to do when I retire” list, you should also be compiling an activities calendar of events, shows, fairs, ‘fests, ‘paloozas, ‘athons, etc., that happen each month in your city, town, borough, hamlet, corner of the world.  If you’re already picking up flyers and brochures every time you visit the library and community centre, if you are already regularly checking the “events” calendar in your local newspaper and subscribing to newsletters published by any organization of which you have any sort of passing fancy, you’re already half-way there.  (Also, you might want to pop into an Ontario Tourism kiosk and rummage around the racks.  That’s how I found about the “Steampunk Festival” in Coldwater!)

Start documenting.  Now.  At least five years before you actually retire.

At home, I’ve always worked with a traditional paper calendar.  So in my case, “documenting” events was a piece of cake.  I just started writing stuff in my calendar.  And at the end of the year, I transferred everything I had written down to the next year’s calendar, kept on writing stuff down, and at the end of the year, I transferred everything to the next year’s calendar and so on and so on and by the end of 2012, when I actually did retire, I already had a year worth’s of fun and frivolity to look forward to in 2013. 

My “calendar” list looked a little like this:

January – New Year’s Day events at City Hall (every city and hamlet will have something planned for the New  Year); Ryerson Image Centre new exhibits

February – Canadian International Auto Show; Canada Blooms

March – Spring Flower Show, Centennial Park Conservancy; One-of-a-Kind Spring Craft Show

April – Alpaca Show, Orangeville; new exhibits, Ryerson Image Centre

May – Farmer’s Markets; Port Credit Artfest; ROM Walking Tours; Open Doors Toronto (there’s an “Open Doors” celebration is most mid-size cities in Ontario at some point over the summer –ie: Stratford “Open Doors” is in June)

June – “Knit in Public” Day; Port Credit Waterfront Festival; Summer Flower Show, Centennial Park Conservancy

July – Ribfest (Centennial Park, Etobicoke; Celebration Square, Mississauga); Art Show, Nathan Phillips Square

August – Steampunk Festival; Port Credit Buskerfest

September – “Art in the Park”, Visual Arts Mississauga; Art Show, Nathan Phillips Square; Kitchener Fibre and Wool Festival; International Plowing Match; new exhibits, Ryerson Image Centre

October – “Soupfest”, Holland Marsh; Port Credit Art Tour; Chrysanthemum Show, Centennial Park Conservancy

November – Royal Winter; Fair Christmas One-of-a-Kind Craft Show

December – Fort York Christmas Market; Distillery District Christmas Market;  Candlelight Christmas Display, Centennial Park Conservancy

(... yes, you may have to pay an admission to some of the events on your list, but a surprising number of them will turn out to be free! ROM walking tours, Open Doors weekends, and the Ryerson Image Centre just to name three.)

Then, what you do on the day you retire, is combine your “what I want to do when I retire” list with your “events calendar” and you too will soon find yourself so busy being retired you will begin to wonder how you ever found time to work in the first place!

And if any one dares rolls their eyes …… just threaten to show them your calendar!