Practicing For Retirement

I had a long weekend and no must-do, carved-in-stone commitments, so I thought it would be a fine time to practice retirement; to see if I liked it. More to the point, I wanted to know if I was capable of not working. The experiment was a mixed success.

Early on Day One of a three day weekend, I washed everything that was not nailed down and a few things that were. I ordered and received (I do hate Amazon but hey, if you impulsively need a cordless handheld vacuum overnight…)my small vacuum and scoured the place for dust, crumbs, earring backings, and all the other stuff that has been evading my failing vision. Until I got this cute little dust sucker, I hated vacuuming more than anything else that isn’t a person whose name begins with T. I would rather scrub the grout in my tiles, but that’s another fascinating story of how I found the perfect cleaner for grout. As it turned out, I enjoyed the little vacuum cleaner. My silverware drawer is a model for any homemaker.

At the end of the morning of the First Day, I considered these activities successes, but now I wonder if they failures; sometimes I can't tell the difference.

It gets worse………

After coffee, I organized my friends into a play-going group with themed cocktails first and reviews afterward. Carolyn warned that we are all in trouble if I have too much time on my hands. Yes, my retirement will be hard on my friends. But, I persisted – this was my experiment with retirement.

I felt lost without a schedule. I do love schedules… My solution, of course, was to create a schedule. I will not bore you with three days but a scheduled Day Two went like this: coffee (a very special treat) while I do Wordle, Strands and Connections and send the results, with comments, to my little group of Wordlers; then I laid on my yoga mat with my head in my new StillPoint inducer and listened to thunder storms waiting for relaxation. When that didn’t happen, I got up and did a few neck exercises (very few) and went out to buy flowers. Wow, the morning was gone.

Flower shopping was a success. My balcony looks like a cemetery on Mother’s Day, but my garden is all real, no plastic except for a comely statue of St. Joseph that I found the other day. See photo above. He's happy on my balcony watching the lobelia grow. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon folding the mounds of things I washed yesterday and eagerly awaiting going back to work.

Upon reflection, although I enjoyed the practice, I don’t think I am quite ready for retirement.

If you want a break, read Not The Trip We Planned and then review it using glorious adjectives. If you have already reviewed it, do it again and use a fake name.