Retirement: The Honeymoon Phase

 It has now been two weeks of Toby being home with me - Retirement. So far, so good. Haliburton had a cake for him in one of the conference rooms on his last day.  People came by to visit and have cake.  I surprised him by having Jesse and Bo there. Lots of workers from different parts of Haliburton came by. And then we were free. 

It has not really set in yet that he is retired. We are staying up later and sleeping a little later. It is the sleeping in that we don't do so well at. We are both  morning people. Last week when it was rainy and cold here, we stayed in our PJ's most of the day. I don't think we will make a habit of that, but it was fun for a day. There has been a lot of napping. I consider it "catching up" from all the crazy work hours he has put in for the last several years.

We are getting along fairly well - as well as we ever did - which has always been fairly well with an occasional discussion or argument. I guess we are still in the honeymoon period of retirement - however long that lasts. We certainly don't have a routine. Mostly we are just relaxing and getting used to being together more.

One thing that I have discovered about myself is that while I am mostly easy going and a "wing it" sort of person, I do some things very specifically and have done them that way for 45 years. Toby has been very helpful around the house, but he doesn't know my way or my way of thinking. Like hanging the laundry on the line. I don't hang things, especially sheets, on the line when there is a 40 mile an hour wind out of the north. Toby just knew that it could be done with enough clothes pins. I tried not to argue, but I did finally say something like, "Fine! I like buying new sheets."

It is really nice having him around to help with the housework and errands. This morning he said we should make a run to Goodwill. I was excited - junking! But no, he meant each of us loading up one trash sack full of clothes "that we don't like" and taking them to Goodwill. He loaded up his sack fairly quickly. I had to try things on. It's not that I "don't like" my clothes. It's that I have all sorts of sizes of clothes that are too tight around the...well, you know. I pulled a sweater out of the closet and put it on. Hey, it was comfy and I thought I might just wear it today. When I came out of the closet wearing the sweater, Toby gave me the thumbs down. What? I love this sweater! Toby said it looked all stretched out and baggy. Exactly why I love it! Men! What do they know?

Then we went to Walmart. He does know that I have very particular Walmart etiquette, and he tries to abide by my Walmart rules. He still doesn't park in the right space, and we had a discussion about it today. Once inside the store, he did follow my usual track around the store. And he did stay in my line of sight (unless you tell me where you are going) Don't make me come hunting you. After Walmart, we went by the Dollar Tree. I was afraid he would freak out at the mess that is our store, but he did great. 

I think this retirement thing will just get better and better. It is certainly entertaining at this point.