Week 1 - My Pandemic Break

I love the week we get off at Christmas. It's one of the best things about working in academia. But normally my break starts in Rhode Island for Christmas then flying home to enjoy a few days before heading back to work. But there was no travel this year and pretty much no leaving my house so I wondered how I'd feel about this year's break. Well, I needen't have worried.

When I tell you I stayed home all week, I mean I barely left my house. I did go to Monday Night knitting on Monday but after that, the only time I left the house was to pick up my grab and go lunch on Tuesday and drive through Pizza Hut to pick up a pizza on Friday night. That's it. Beyond the 2 hours at knitting, I was in my house all but 20 minutes in 5 days. And it was wonderful.

I got up every morning whenever I wanted, sat in the sun watching morning TV while drinking my festive coffee and worked on my to do list in the afternoons. I ate leftover lasagna all week and went to bed when I got tired. If this is what retirement is like, sign me up!

As usual, new year's was a total non event for me. I streamed something (can't even remember what), finished my FU2020 socks and went to bed before midnight. I missed having my knitters' tea on the first so got pizza as a consolation prize. I didn't even wear my new socks after rushing to finish them. Oh well.

I did manage to get some things crossed off my to do list but as usual, not as much as I should have. I spent a bunch of time sorting yarn, which is always fun, and filled my huge trash can for the last pick up before I go to will call again and by the end of the week, my car was loaded with donations. By Saturday, I was ready to go out.

I had arranged to buy a drop leaf end table from Facebook Marketplace so made a day of it in Omaha. I drove through a Goodwill to offload a trunkful of stuff then picked up the table. I then tried to go to Trader Joe's but there was a huge line so I called Lori and we met at ImagiKnit - our favorite local yarn shop. We masked up and shopped for awhile then tried to chat in the parking lot but even in the sun, it was too chilly so we headed out. I went across the street to pick up cleaning supplies and some bins at Dollar Tree, dropped my glass recyling in the parking lot (how convenient) then stopped at Aldi for a few groceries. I was home by dark, driving through pea soup fog again, which was weird because the sun was out east of the Platte River but I couldn't see 2 car lengths ahead in my county. During the day.

Sunday was regular old chore day, getting ready for the coming week. The break had been absolutely wonderful and I was not looking forward to going back to work, even working in my jammies sitting in my comfy chair, with my laptop on my new end table, which was perfect. I even did the math to see how much vacation time I'd need to save over the next 4 years so I can be at the max and retire 2 months early. Yeah, break was that good. Hell, at this rate I might be doing what 1 friend just did and another is planning to do - retire 18 months early and buy health insurance through COBRA until Medicare kicks in. It's sounding better and better all the time.

Now to get through 2021. First step will be the vaccine. I'm ready as soon as it's on offer.