TO PLAN OR NOT TO PLAN DURING THIS RETIREMENT THING

NOW, as of this week, I am feeling this retired thing here.  Last weekend, my family and friends asked how I was liking retired life, and I had to respond with "it hasn't hit me yet, because I have been traveling the road for the past week".  But now, once returning home from Tazewell, waking  without setting the alarm (ahhh), not having a bedtime, walking every morning, and going to the movies yesterday in the middle of the afternoon, because I can...well, this is just fantastic!  And on day three of being retired and at home with Ray, we seem to be settling into a bit of a routine.  Sort of.  We have plans here and there, but what do we do on those days when nothing is planned?  Dilemmas.  

Things fell into place for the second weekend of my retirement when it still felt like I was on a ten day vacation.  Upon our return from Tazewell, we did normal "back from a trip" things such as grocery shopping, stopping at Costco (of course) and laundry.  Then Friday was spent catching up with my sister here at the lake house floating, drinking Sangria and grilling chicken apple sausage for dinner.  She has not been to the lake house many times, and it was a beautifully warm, sunny day to share all of our latest stories.  Only one lake house roommate came for the weekend, and she arrived after I had put myself to bed that night.  The weekend brought more blue skies and warm temperatures with low humidity.  So the three of us caught up with each other while doing none other than...floating.  Ray and I would wake in the morning and start walking before the sun would come up over the trees, stop at The Barn for the newspaper, and then we would float.  Saturday night we had big plans to go out to dinner to a favorite Mexican restaurant, but we were so full from our late lunch, that we only managed to get out to the new ice cream shop in Mineral, VA.  It was tough to do, but someone has to break in these new businesses!

Sunday, another gorgeous day (what is going on here!), we met with my sister (again, wow!) at her house along with our daughter, her boyfriend, my nephews and my brother-in-law (I want to leave "ex" out when I "title" him, because he isn't ever an "ex".  He has been a constant in the family since he and my sister divorced sixteen years ago.  And he came up with a FANTASTIC new name for my blog once we do move to Panama--stay tuned.)  We were celebrating my sister's next door neighbor's 70th birthday on the block.  My parents lived in the house my sister has since bought, so this neighbor has been a constant in our lives for forty years.  A beautiful party and a great time spent with the family.  These events are appreciated even more, because Ray and I don't have to think about preparing for work the next day (him having to go to bed by eight pm to wake at three am), and we are celebrating family again.  We enjoyed being on familiar Benson Court, celebrating our neighbor's birthday, her one year mark from battling breast cancer, but also feeling my parents right there by my side with us.  

Which brings me to Monday with Ray.  Now what do we do? Okay, we have to get into some sort of routine or find things to do or we might go crazy here waiting for things to happen.  There are things that we do have planned such as going to see my former co-workers for a party on Friday, seeing our daughter Saturday, dinner and movies with friends in Richmond next week, trivia night with our daughter and friends about ninety minutes from here on a weeknight next week (such a drive for us during the week, but oh yeah, what else are we going to do!), July 4th celebration, a trip to Nashville with our daughter just because, and a road trip to Pittsburgh to catch up with Ray's friends and former co-workers at that office.  All of the things that are "around the corner" are keeping us busy, getting us to those final good-byes before we leave, but there are those days where nothing is planned.  I am in no way planning the days at the lake house.  Ray told me I was not allowed to make plans for him or me for that matter.  There is no direction.  It looks like on these days our "routine" is to wake up, walk, catch up on emails, stalk facebook, clean the house or do laundry just a little bit, float, watch the birds, squirrels and crows attack the bird food (slowly getting Ray to like birds--through the window), clean out the gutters, trim back tree branches laying on the roof, and now we have added Spanish lessons to the mix!  

One squirrel shaking the feeder to help his three friends below.

Gutters need a little emptying.

At night time, sometime after we decide to have dinner, Ray and I sit on the couch together practicing Spanish.  Duolingo is the program we are using for now.  You really have had to have Spanish to work with this program.  It seems to assume we remember, if we ever knew, what "el oso" is in Spanish (the bear).  Or that we will need to know the word "bear", but it does get Ray and I into the phrases again, the verbage, and this now gives us something to talk about on those early morning walks!  When in Panama, we will take lessons.  Maybe we will be considered Spanish 2 by then!  I will say these hearing aids are the best, because I can hear the woman now when she says those phrases REALLY fast!  Here's hoping I will understand SOME of what I am being told when I have a little more Spanish under my belt.  Maybe with our four ears, Ray and I will be able to figure out what has been said, and with our two brains, we will be able to come up with what to say back.  

As far as our retirement to Panama goes in less than eight weeks, Ray has scheduled (and hopefully all things go according to our "planning") and actually PLANNED our first week to look like the following:  

The first day we meet with the attorney to get our permanent Visa.  She will need one and a half days with us for this.  The second day he has coordinated time with an insurance broker to hopefully start the paperwork and process of getting us medical insurance along with car and renters insurance. Thanks to our great friends, Clyde and Terry Coles, for providing us with her email information.  And on day three, he has scheduled time with Luis (a driver that we used for airport shuttling on our last visit) to take us to get our drivers licenses.  Sometime during those three days, we are also shopping and maybe buying a car!  

Sheesh, I better relax now!