from the other side...

...still alive, and exploring the byways of non-wmeployment i.e. retirement...

I can't pretend that I've accomplished anything very spectacular. Even the office is not yet completely emptied; but I'm afraid if I blitz it and bring everything home at once, I'll just settle down among the cardboard boxes and become completely torpid. So I've been trying to pause and integrate what I've brought home more or less into the pre-existing clutter here, before I bring in more.

And keeping in mind that I'm not gaining on the too-much-ness of it all except by filling garbage and recycle bags. I was taking great delight in emptying book-boxes...and then realized that I had emptied two boxes and replaced them with six piles on the floor. So now I unpack with disposal bag at hand.

Exploring also the ramifications of budgeting on retirement income...rehabilitating the Very Small slow-cooker...and scanning the grocery flyers for the weekly loss-leaders. As I said to a friend -- re-learning how to be "pore" -- and rejoicing very much that I haven't forgotten how...buying in appropriate bulk, catching the discount-days...

Ideally I would do a monthly blitz on meat and staples and then just scoop up fruit and salad makings and so forth week by week. Milk comes to the door (I think I may have the last living milkman in creation); and I buy my bread in bulk quantities from the bakery-outlet as needed (if I catch their discount day, that's a bonus).

Thinking about gardening, come "the season." Growing things I might even like to eat...

Much to think about...and I'm going back to work! But only 1/4 time, which feels just about right.

homebody

at the conclusion of a very quiet and pleasant day.

This is one of the days when I think the Old Lady game is Da Bomb...

Got up at a reasonable hour; checked in on email, FB, and my bookmarks; had a nice bath and shampoo and strolled over to Local Stellar Hairdresser for a very overdue cut.
Trundled home again and had some lunch, wrote my final Rector's Annual Report for the end-of-the-month Annual General Meeting; and then had a very nice nap until it was time to get up and negotiate some supper.


THIS ISN'T HARD!

What IS hard, this week...is the news out of Haiti.

Father, I have learned
that one strong
in calculation
is called a
"mathematician."
You are the greatest mathematician
because You can
count all the people
yet still see
each one of us.

From God Is No Stranger, published by Baptist Haiti Mission in 1987, ninth printing April 1990

hello again

...now blogging from home base.
I think perhaps I may blog a series on "temptations of the newly retired" -- starting with the temptation to surge back onto the scene of former glory (or of the crime, depending on one's POV), and slap into righteousness all the folks who are taking action at this point to put to rights ... various trivia.
And I am hearing about it, in my little inbox, yes I am.
It isn't the S4B crowd, it's when the intelligent and kind are overcome by "teh dumb" in their dealings with each other, that one is tempted to rise up and blaspheme.
Or just play another round of Bejeweled Blitz.
Which is its own kind of blasphemy.

blogging later about the leave-taking, which was a good, good day.