Practice Retirement

This social distancing has people confused as to what day it is. Everyday begins to look the same. For me, life has not changed so much, and I kind of like not having to be anywhere at a certain time. Although, I didn't really have that much that I had to do before the pandemic. Most of my going and doing was by choice. With Toby still working, I keep up with what day it is fairly well.  When he takes a couple of days off, though, I get fairly confused. And he just took off a few days last week.

Since we are so close to being retired, we think about what it will be like, and talk about it lots. Of course, I look forward to it, but there are times that I worry about it a bit.  For years, I have planned my weekends around what Toby wants to do. After all, weekends are his free time, and time to spend together. I have the week days for my free time - time to do what I want. But when he retires, that will change. I worry that he will expect me to do things with him and plan around what he wants all the time. So, I have been purposefully letting him do more by himself - without me hanging around, helping, sitting and talking while he piddles in the barn, etc. I figure he likes alone time somewhat, but sometimes he says, "Aren't you coming?"  I also need to work on doing things I want or need to do while he is home. Ex: I don't usually do laundry or clean house on weekends, because that is Toby-time. When he retires, I will need to do my thang whether he is home or not. This may seem silly, but it takes work to find yourself and change things after years of doing the same thing.

Toby took Thursday and Friday off last week making a four day weekend. It was a good time to practice retirement. We did do a lot together, and we enjoy our time together. We also did a bit of our own things. too.  Besides our shopping on Thursday, we worked in the yard, took walks, napped, cleaned house, and set around reading (my favorite). I don't really like yard work, but I did help Toby clean out some huge junk piles in the yard. We had old wood piles and brick piles from building the house - yes, that long ago. Grass and trees had grown up in the piles. They looked like tiny jungle islands in our mowed yard. No more! They are gone. Well, we still have a brick pile, but it is better.  That was lots of work.

We also worked on the man cave/pottery room. We did more sheetrock. It is coming along, but we are older and slower, so it just takes more time. It was hard work.

We also walked out to the pond and looked at the serious erosion on the spillway. Last fall Toby had lots of dozer work done on the dam to move the spillway and fill in a huge gully. It had been looking good, but with the heavy rains this spring, we have the same problem we had before - a huge washed out gully where it is not supposed to be. I mean HUGE. It makes me wonder: Scientist say that it took millions of years to form the Grand Canyon. I'm thinking it took about 40 days and 40 nights of flooding.

In all, I think the time with Toby home practicing our retirement went well. At one point he said, "I could be happy just working around our little farm." I like working around the farm too, but maybe not all the time. It will take some adjustment, but we'll will work out.

Side note: I've had lots of little jobs in the last 20 years or so, but mostly I have been a housewife/artist/ranch-hand. Recently people have referred to me as "retired." I find that odd. I work. I just don't get paid. How does that make me retired? Do I get to retire someday?