My mother is 72 years old and still works full time. When I told her I was pregnant, she claimed she was going to retire, but that hasn't happened yet. I'm not sure it will any time soon. She told her friends (who are all retired) that whenever she sees the old lady working at Hardee's she thinks she doesn't want to have to come out of retirement to work at a place like that. My father, on the other hand, still talks about getting another job driving a cab or the like. I'm not sure he understands what retirement means. When Rich was in the Army, he had a first sergeant who had joined when he was 18. His plan was to put in his 20 years, retire and drive a beer truck. He had it all figured out. That was his plan. We're not really sure if he fully understood that driving the beer truck doesn't mean you get to drink the beer in the truck.

If you've seen the E Trade baby commercials, I'm sure you've noticed that planning for one's future is important. Everyone talks about making sure you have what you need for retirement. But most of what they're talking about is just the money part.

This brings me to our Living Out Loud theme for the month. Tell me what your retirement plan is. Do you even have a retirement plan? Do you figure you're just going to die at your desk? Do you want to travel? Do you plan on starting a side business? Do you think you'll be a Wal-Mart greeter? The point isn't really about the money. It's more about where you see yourself when you're in those "autumn years" or if you plan on getting a head start on those in the summer years of your life. Do you have ideas of what you'll do in the next phase of your life?

Details include:

• Write something personal about yourself using the previous paragraphs as a guideline. Do not feel that you have to address each issue above. The spirit of this project is to share something about yourself; I'm just throwing out ideas.

• Once you have completed your entry and posted it, please email me the link at genie [at] inabottle [dot] org. Remember, if you don't email me, I'm likely to forget to include you in the recap!

• If you do not have a blog to host your story, you can email me the story directly and I will add it here as a guest post giving you credit. The more the merrier!

• The due date for entries is Sunday, March 7th (the first Sunday of the month) at 5pm Eastern.

• Once I have collected all the entries, I will post a wrap-up to list them all and announce a winner. The winner will receive some sort of prize to be determined but all participants will receive fame and glory and a link on our Living Out Loud blogroll.

Because it took me forever to pick a theme this month, you've got less than two weeks. But if you're like me, most of you wait til the last minute anyways. I look forward to hearing what your plans are!