26 days left in my countdown

20 work days with three weekends in between.  I am not looking forward to going to work tomorrow. On the other hand, I'm really glad the time is going by so fast and certainly don't want to slow down the progression.  I'll wish for slower time when I'm finally retired.  I've started making small changes, or it feels like I have.  It seems I have a bit more energy at home.  I'm getting more done, although I can't really say what I've accomplished.  It's more of a feeling.  I think I've slowed down a bit and am enjoying relaxing.

This weekend was wonderful.  We didn't do much, but spent time just being together.  I enjoyed it very much.  Today we went for a drive in the woods, took a little hike, partly in the rain and saw some moose.  I had never seen moose on the eastern slope before.  Indeed, I'm not sure I have ever seen a male moose, or certainly not like these.  They were huge animals and had huge racks and I could't have been more than 20 feet from the closest one.  They were eating like they would never eat again.  The bushes were tall and the moose were deep in it, but I was able to catch this shot with one of them looking up.

Day 33 - out of order

33 Days!  24 Work days!  Wow!  I really can’t believe it is coming so fast. 

Work has become difficult.  As one of my team members put it today – I have senioritis.  (I’m amazed that the Word spell checker actually likes that word - Ha)  Anyway, it’s difficult for me to concentrate on my work.  I am trying and getting things done, but certainly not at my usual level. I’m somewhat annoyed about it – with myself of course - but can’t seem to get my head around it.  The announcement finally went out to the company today.  I’ve received quite a few emails and been stopped in the hall a few times already with congratulations. 

I’m beginning to see how I’m really going to miss these people and the regular interaction.  I am going to have to find lots of ways to be social that I do not currently have in my life.  I will need to talk a lot more than just with my husband, weekly evenings with my best friend and weekly phone calls to my mom.  Otherwise I’ll start driving my husband and the store clerks crazy.  I can see it now.  I go to the local Whole Foods to buy some cage free and organic eggs and as I’m checking out, I start telling the cashier all about my week, the jeep trip we took, the art I’m currently working on, how beautiful my walk was this morning, how I found the perfect smoothie combination…  See what I mean?  Not good.  They’ll all be talking about me in the break room and asking to go on break when they see me coming into the store.

Anyone have any good suggestions on how to make friends for a person who has never spent any time cultivating friends and – yes – at the ripe age of somewhere close to 60 has no idea how?  Really!

It’s day 29.  I truly have been writing my blog each day but just couldn’t get it posted.  Why not you wonder?  Well, mostly inertia, but partly my severe addiction to an online farm game.   Is there a bigger waste of time out there somewhere?  Probably not.  I love the game, even though there isn’t really much challenge and you never “win”.  I don’t understand my addiction.  I guess it’s just my personality type.  Although truly, I’ve never been addicted to anything else in my life except maybe food – but I’m not sure that counts – does it?

I decided to start doing some crochet in an effort to avoid the game, but instead I ended up crocheting and then updating the game afterwards resulting in going to bed later, not getting enough sleep, and causing me to be exhausted today and not able to muster enough energy to go to the gym before work.

I need a new plan.  Does anyone have a good idea for how to break the habit?  I tried just deleting it, but what I found out was that even after you delete it, your farm stays there.  I reloaded it and it was like I’d never left.  Not good.  I need some way of really deleting it. 

Meanwhile, on the work front, I have serious senioritis.  It’s difficult to concentrate.  I’m ready to be done.  Somehow I didn’t think that would happen to me, but alas, it has – big time.  It’s only 21 more work days, but they are going to seem like months I’m afraid.

Not much to tell on the art side of things.  I’ve done absolutely nothing.  Well, there you have it.  I’ve got to muster some energy and get rid of that game!

35 and counting

I'm sure I've told you that my husband, rather than counting down the days till my retirement is actually counting down the days till his freedom is taken from him.  Well today I realized why.  I'm unable to relax and do nothing or even entertain myself.  He's told me that for years but I haven't listened.  I was going stir crazy.  I kept bugging my husband to ask what we should do next.  Felt like I needed to do something, anything, but didn't know what.  I ended up going to the gym and working out for 1 1/2 hours.  That did the trick.  I felt great after that.  I could sit and enjoy relaxing on the patio.  I've decided I need to create a list of " what to do in case of craziness" list and give it to my husband so that when I get like that and need some direction, he can simply hand me the reminder list to set me straight.  What will be on my list?  Well, go work out for starters.  I'll have to think about what else. 

Here is a pic of the cottonwood we sit under after we recently had it trimmed.  It was a major improvement and seems quite happy.  Funny thing...the squirrel that used to raid our bird feeders hasn't been in the yard since we had the tree trimmed.  Now we can enjoy watching him from a distance and spend a lot less on bird food.  A happy side effect.

Happy Birthday America!

36 days ... today is the 4rth of July.  Happy birthday America!

We had the most wonderful day.  We took our inaugural trip in our new jeep that we have named Rubi Too.  Our old Jeep was Rubi of course.  We started off by removing the hard top and installing the "premium" soft top.  Then we took off up the Boulder Canyon.  We headed up Magnolia Road and then just kept turning onto dirt roads that presented themselves.  It was great fun and we got good and lost.  Then we discovered we could ask our GPS "Where am I?" and it would give us coordinates and  the closest address. Gotta love GPSs.  Isn't technology wonderful?  Actauly we were't really lost as we just kept going and eventually came out on highway 119 between Black Hawk and Rollinsville and knew exactly where we were, but since we didn't know where we would end up or even if it was a through road - I can say we were lost.  I love getting lost.  Thanks to the GPS, we can find this place again which was truly beautiful - as you can see below:      

While we were out there, we found a group called SCA who apparently like to dress up and live for a weekend like people from England during the 8th to 16th centuries and fight and shoot each other.  Fake shooting of course.  They have a king and queen and various barons and earls and things who get their titles by winning fights and hold the title for 6 months until the next meeting and fight,  They invited us to come walk around, but sine it was beginning to rain and we had no windows in out jeep because we left them at home along with our jackets and anything to eat, we declined the invitation.  You'd think we'd know by now not to ever go out in the Jeep without bringing all the proper things like food and clothing, but truly we did not think we were going out this far or for so long.

On the way home,we went to Pasta Jays for dinner and that is where I took the first picture here of the bikes decked out for the holiday.  A bit of Knob Creek at home while writing this blog and then off to bed.  An absolutely perfect day for celebrating our wonderful countries birthday.  America the beautiful and greatest country on this earth.

I can't wait to be done with this!

It's 37 days till I no longer have to do anything I don't really want to do.  Well, ok, maybe that's a bit of a stretch since I really don't like doing housework, and I'll have to do housework.  Perhaps now that I will have plenty of time, I won't mind doing housework.  I can always hope.

The first thing I'm going to do is clean and organize my studio.  It's a great space in our unfinished  basement.  We are in the process of hanging some new daylight florescent lighting to add to the not large enough north windows.  I am also planning to add an exhaust system over my encaustic table.  I'd love to also add an exhaust system on my pastel easel but I need to do a lot of research first.

I also plan to join some local artist groups for networking in hopes of finding a mentor and some people to plan plain air outings with.  I will also attend sketching sessions regularly instead of only occasionally.  That's as far as I've let myself go with the planning.  37 days......

38 days to retirement

In 38 days I will begin my adventure into retirement.  I’m excited and feeling very ready.  I thought it was going to be difficult to leave my job, but I don't feel that way at all today.  I'm am very ready and anxious to start the adventure.  I've always had difficulty waiting for things.  I embrace change and once I know a change is coming, I want to go for it.  I know the 38 days will go quickly, and I'm glad of that.  I also think it's going to become difficult for me to concentrate on the job.  I've already experienced a bit of that today.  I will need to keep myself very busy and ensure I don't have time to dwell on the future while at work.

Funny thing is, I'm not really thinking much about it at all.  I love lists and planning and setting goals and yet I've not actually made any lists or plans for what I will do once I retire.  Perhaps that's for the best, since the more I think about it, the more anxious I may get to be there.

Changing the subject for a minute, we bought a new Jeep this week.  We traded in our old Detonator Yellow Rubicon for a brand new Flame Red Rubicon.  I'm hoping we can do a  trail this weekend and get it a bit broken in and dirty.  It's beautiful!

Countdown to retirement- day 39

I have 39 days until retirement!  My intent is to blog about the transition into retirement and dedicating myself to my self, my husband, family, friends, my art, ...life.

What about just relaxing, rejuvenating from the craziness that was my job over the last year and half?  Of course, that goes without saying.  There will be lots of time to figure out what my retirement will be like and what I want to accomplish.  Meanwhile, I will relax, enjoy some playful art and enjoy my free time.  Meanwhile, I'm off to work!