This blog done rushed and little proofing.   I am starting week 3 of retirement 2.0.  Very busy.  Working on yard, couple projects for fall, deep clean house, have company,  lost our older make dog, putting up rest of apples, visiting family,  adopting new dog (pictures soon), getting wellness checkup new doctor,  DH dental surgery, wonton a phenomenal hike, crocheting 3 fans on order...

I will catch up blog.  I have missed writing and reading others'!

Waiting on plumber to get here (outside water faucet runs hot!?).

A lot of boring, mundane tasks.   But I am enjoying getting them done and checking them off, while spending time with DH, yoga and gymn schedule being tweaked and cuddling in evenings with our dogs.  Stay warm, its cuddle worthy here in my south.

Great first day of retirement  2.0.. we went on a scenic ride with our car group.  Beautiful crisp fall day.  We bundled up and took my convertible.   We had the heat on.  Day started out 34 degrees 8am.

There were about 20 cars.  We stopped at a quaint little rustic bu
rger place.  So fun!

Seems suitable to cone home wash both my car we took and DH garage queen.  Then we washed the summers bugs off my commuter ride.  She took hood care of me, so we washed her up and polished her nice.

I took some of my ground cover I had going in couple pots with my ivy and thinned it out, spreading it out around our ivy trellis.

This ground cover bright green, roundish leaves, loves the sun.  I will find name of it.. and post before and after pics soon.  The ivy trellis is really coming along.

Excited to watch Sheriff Hopper actor from Steanger Things on SNL tonight.  Have a great weekend to al

Countdown to Retirement 2.0

Or at the very least a long 3 month or so vacation.  I gave notice 2 weeks ago tomorrow, so tomorros is my last day!  Today is my last full day. 

My boss was great, there is still no opportunity to telecommute.  There are too many others like me ready to come in and do the very same thing I have been doing for 6 months.  They have already started to give out assignments to others in my department who are doing the work on part time basis, along with their other assignments.  I figure this is the way they will continue. 

I will spend some time looking, see if I can do something from home down in Retirement Home state area.  It is a smaller area and so won't have big firm like I work at now, may have to get more creative and outside my comfort zone.  That is not so bad.  We shall see.  I do have several projects at RH that will make mowing easier/pretty to enjoy and the insulation will help our utilities costs.

I already told DH he needs to start reading again, stop shopping.  I am trying to lecture my inner 5 year old as well.  But I really think I want to get one of those air fryers.  I will just ponder for a while and see if that idea persists...maybe I will find a Black Friday deal.

I think this time I am ready, for sure for a break.  Like several months, lol.  The difference this time around is two-fold...I am not deciding anything long term, just see how it feels, I can always find something closer to home and 2nd, I think my expectations are more realistic.  I.e. about my level v DH level of activity, about day to day life.  I am more realistic and less concrete.  Trying to remain more open minded - let things settle and sort of sort themselves out...We shall see!

I will miss my friends here at work and my autonomy, but I think I am more ready this time and in all likelihood will find something closer to home, at least part time because our budget otherwise is very tight. 

I will post more soon!

Expensive and exhaustive weekend

I am here at work this week doing Wed thru Friday, since my DH had dental surgery yesterday.  After he was finished, we got our smoothies and I took him home, fixed soup and some yummy zucchini bread for him (soft foods).  We were so concerned about how quickly our elderly male dog had deteriorated in past 3 days, we took him to vet.

She confirmed he was in congestive heart failure.  Had fluid in lungs, around heart/heart enlarged and in abdomen.  She suggested a medicine for us to see if we can get him to breathe easier and give us some time to accept we are in process of losing him - but more likely to be a more peaceful decline and little longer.  W/o medicine he was struggling to breathe.

That, plus dental surgery + several household problems - was an EXPENSIVE weekend.

Thursday night I got home from work in the city.  I took this cool picture of the moon and planet/star? with the train.

We caught up, I enjoyed a show to relax and then we went to bed.  I heard an owl outside, so I went to open the blinds so I could open the window and the blind broke the bracket.  We could have just replaced the one blind hardware - but they were the ugly thin (and yellowed) cheap looking kind - so we just went ahead and replaced all 3 windows plus door - yikes, cost like $370 and was a LOT of work for DH.  I mostly just handed tools and provided moral support.

Then next morning our dryer broke.  So we googled what might be wrong and DH watched a couple videos on You Tube and off to the appliance place we went!  We got the small part and DH put it it - viola!  Saved $1200 there!  So happy, we went ahead and went to a 'junk' festival in a pretty town about 30 miles away.  SO glad we went, we found a metal trellis that perfectly fit in between our garage and detached carport-turned-shop.  Looks very nice and prevents people from just creeping in there (I watch too many Dateline - type shows!). 

I got some more landscaping finished in my yard.  Some I was NOT planning.  We got over 6 inches of rain on Sunday, washed a bunch of my mulch out - so I will now gradually switch out the mulch to river rock.  Since it is pretty expensive, I will have to do it gradually and perhaps over time, the time saved not always having to replace mulch from a portion of our yard that has drainage it will pay for itself.  You can sort of see the water flow under deck from right and go out the far side.  I need better pictures.

Next day I was going to vacuum but my $600 Dyson (about 4-5 years old) just quit.  We tried getting it to start again, just not working.  So we bought a Shark this time.  Hope it works well and lasts a while!

Now I am tired and broke!  At least this is my last week of work for a while, which makes me have anxiety.  I just hope that my DH and my sweet boy do OK for 3 days without me. 

Another Whirlwind Weekend

Worked on another border area up next to my house, doing the same halfway buried brick type paver border.  Only this entire back border next to house, I am just doing decorative rock.  This area does not have gutters, so there is always an area where the water drips and beats down anything planted here.  Not sure why gutters never put here, but I am not spending the money to do that now. 

Also, this border will border on one side, the flagstone patio I am installing in between my deck and back porch foundation.  So, it will look neater and more uniform to include decorative rock here to border the small river rock I am putting around the flagstone for the shallow foundation edges that would make it hard to dig/plant.  I got 1/4 of the work finished yesterday.  My DH was good enough to run and get the 200 additional pavers for me.  I already had gotten 100 last week.  The pavers for all the border and the flagstones will cost less than $400.  The lava rock I got free I am leaving - not wild about it.  But hey it was free and coordinates nicely with the brick foundation trim on the house and the red dyed circle fire pit pad the prior home owners poured and we completed with circular stacked pavers around a metal ring for our big fire pit.

I love working in the yard and was disappointed I had to come to work today and could not keep working!  It was high 70's and pretty high humidity yesterday, but that is much better than the high 80's/low 90's we have had mostly lately.  Check out my cute little figs starting on my fig tree!

Friday and Saturday there was a huge bike rally in our area of the state, so DH and I took off and had fun Friday and Sat.  Friday we took my convertible to the vendor area and walked around looking.  We bought me a good knife for cutting my apples from a local young man trying to get his start as a knife-smith.  We had a sign on the convertible and some guy asked about my car I am trying to sell - cross your fingers he really is interested.

Sat after we mowed the yard (I pulled so many weeds, my hands got tired!) we got the bikes out and rode to a car show and walked around and looked.  It was fun.  Then we stopped and had pizza on the way home. 

Sunday I rode to the city with my sister and we helped my Granny in her new place get pictures, mirror, curtains and shower curtains hung.  We are a little concerned that this retirement place has a conventional tub (?!) and a low toilet, but at least there are things you can do to raise the seat up on the toilet.  All in all, my aunt did a good job moving her mother.  Sis and i just helped with the finish work, then drove home 4 hours!

Then Monday landscaping and yoga.  I was so tired after yoga, I was asleep in like 5 minutes - 8:40 or so.  For my 2nd to the last 3:30am wake up Tuesday and 4 hour drive to work in the city.  One more week after this one!

Hope all you out there have a great week!  Happy October!