I’m Retired!

It’s official. As of Friday at 5 pm, I am no longer among the working. So far, it feels damned good! I’m sitting here Sunday evening and I don’t feel that dread about the impending work week. It’s a good feeling.

Friday night I put a pizza in the oven, took Rico for a walk after dinner, then snuggled in and watched a couple movies. I got up early Saturday and played pickleball with 12 other women and it was so much fun! I had organized it and it was well worth the effort. I hand picked all the women and we were all at about the same skill level so the games were so much fun. And I played like an animal! I was so relaxed. So focused. And everyone commented on how much fun I seemed to be having! The same thing happened during pickleball today. And I swear, I’m actually playing a lot better! So retirement seems to have had a good effect on my pickleball!

I decided to take some time on Saturday and finish up the black, white and pink Interweave quilt I had been working on. It only took a couple of hours, and it’s done!

All I had to do was finish sewing one row of blocks together. Then sewed all the rows togethe and sewed the borders on the sides. You can see the side borders in this photo.

I sewed the victory lap in pieces before the quilt top was all in one piece: top and bottom row, and the side borders. it was so much easier to do it this way rather than dragging all that bulk through the machine.

This quilt top seemed to go together really quickly. Maybe because this is the third time I’ve made it.

Here’s some close ups to see the beautiful fabrics better.

It’s now several days later and I am snuggled up on the sofa with Rico sleeping soundly at my side at the end of day-three of retirement. So far I’m enjoying it! I’m getting a lot done and have been tired at the end of each day. A retired friend said I was going to need to pace myself. It’s unhealthy to keep up that mad pace in retirement.

We’ve been having some warm winter storms the last week. Lots of rain but crazy warm temps in the high 50s. We haven’t gotten the same flooding that they’ve gotten up in Washington, but it’s all part of the same storm system and we’ve gotten plenty of rain. I was awakened at 1 am last night as my neighbor’s brand new generator kicked in when the power went out. It was soooo loud! It sounded like a semi truck was idling in my bedroom! There were some significant wind storms that have parts of town still without power.

The neighbor sent me a text this morning apologizing for how loud his generator is. He assured me that they will be looking into ways to abate the noise. When I looked outside at 1 am there were people standing in the street videotaping the noisy generator. I’m wondering if he got complaints from other neighbors.

I got ready for my 7:30 am pickleball session in the dark and my power was back on when I got home.

One thing on my check off list yesterday was to run by the vet and pick up Bender’s ashes. He is now in my living room next to Billie and my beloved Forrest.

It always makes me sad when I feel the heft of a pet’s ashes in my hands.

I impulsively started a new quilt top using the black and white fabric scraps. More on that next time.

For now I’m busy being retired, playing pickleball, and getting my house ready for guests on Christmas Eve.