Week 35 - Not Quite Yet

It felt fabulous to have a whole week at home after getting back from Rhode Island in the middle of last week. But it wasn't 100% retirement yet because I was going into the office all day on Wednesday for my retirement food day and had to be on 2 zoom trainings because they were Dana's first time leading the training. That left me working for 3 days so full retirement would wait. Despite having to work a bit more, I attempted to get something done each day - sometimes social, sometimes productive.

On Monday, I took Lorri to lunch at The Branding Iron as a thank you for watering my plants while I was gone. I did some laundry and made a blueberry/peach pie to take to knitting, using up some of the fruit in the freezer. Just easing into retirement.

The weather was mostly hot so I spent a couple of mornings getting some yard work done early before it heated it. After deadheading my containers and digging my potatoes, I planted lettuce and peas in the newly empty spot. I cut some weed trees and took them to the burn pile. After watching a YouTube that said we still had time to plant zucchini, I went in search of seeds in Wahoo. I failed at Dollar General, the hardware store and the farm store before finding some on clearance at Family Dollar. I planted those around the remaining squash plants, which were hanging on after being ravaged by borers. Having never done much fall gardening, I was excited to be planting again. Not much to lose - the seeds only cost 38 cents.

I joined Dana's training zooms on Tuesday afternoon and Thursday morning. She did great on both considering it was her first time. Wednesday was my retirement food day so I went into work for the whole day, which clearly no one expected. I was the first one in and the office was already decorated with flowers and garlands of socks I'd made for Cindy and Lana. Mike bought a gorgeous (and delicious) cake. The food day was wonderful. I got to talk to lots of my co-workers and the speeches didn't make me blubber. It was exactly the send off I was looking for. I did do some actual work too after setting my computer up in Ben's old office because Dana's old cubie was full of crockpots. After taking the last bits from my old cubie, which Dana had boxed up when she moved in, I went to Anne's for pizza with her and Rene to celebrate my retirement just a bit more.

After Thursday morning's zoom, I went to the eye doctors and ordered my new glasses then drove to St. John's in Weston for their sale. I found 2 big boxes - 1 of yarn and another with vintage linens and old sewing supplies. I picked up BK on the way home and spent the afternoon sorting through the boxes, ending up with some for Dottie, some for me and a bunch for Becky to sell at her next Stuff for Strays sale. All good. Before it got hot on the weekend, I had time a couple of afternoons to read outside on my bench while drinking tea. Believe it or not, that was high on my list of things to do during retirement.

Since it was too hot to be outside, I spent all weekend inside and a chunk of that was in the basement making a start on slogging through my craft room. I went through the biggest section of my Ikea wall unit, boxing up lots of books for Becky. I went through some spare room stuff too. Of course, there was some streaming and knitting too.

So not a full week of freedom but enough to get a taste. Even with work, I had time for social things, gardening and starting the slog through my house, which is my main goal for the rest of 2024. I am going to like retirement. : )