Being retired for three weeks

While the hotel was closed for three weeks, I pretended I was retired.  (Without a pesky pension, I must admit.)  There was nothing I needed to do, no job do, no alarm clock to jolt me into wakefulness at 6:10 in the morning.  Time was on my side, as the song says, and I made the most of it.  Drove to Los Angeles, flew to Oregon, drove to Sacramento, spent the weekend in Guerneville and did not once set an alarm clock.

Two of my brothers and my ex husband John are all retired. I am jealous, I must admit and I want that kind of life. It would take a very long time for me to get bored, and the things I like to do take very little money as long as purchasing airline tickets is not on the agenda.  Reading, walking, sleeping, following someone else's lead, visiting friends, sleeping some more; all of these are activities that are pretty much free. But realistically, retirement is not going to be on my horizon for many years unless I either win the lottery or Ed McMahon shows up at my door with the winnings from the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.  (The odds of either one of those things happening are about even, especially since Ed is dead.) 

So I have decided to really put the brakes on my frivolous spending this year and save money to take more days off.  But wait!  What frivolous spending?  Unless I stop buying alcohol (the odds of that happening are about the same as winning the above mentioned lottery) and never get my hair cut again, there isn't much spending I can cut out since I simply don't spend much.  Alas. However, I am still going to find a way to take more time off from work. There's a lot going on in the world and I am hating missing so much of it.  I wanted to get to Europe this year but that didn't happen. (It's been more than 7 years since I last visited the Old Country.)  So I will go to Europe in 2016.  Even if it's just for a week, I am going there.  Mark those words!

Hope your holidays have been enjoyable and without stress or too much family drama. Mine have been lovely.  Excellent Christmas Eve with the kids, nice quiet Christmas day.  The hotel is now re-opened so I am back at work but I feel a lot more relaxed now than I did at the beginning of the month.  That's what retirement does for you: it makes you slow down a little and enjoy each day and get to do small things that have a big impact on your psyche. At least, that's what it did for me.

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