What do you think of when you imagine retirement? Sleeping in – tackling that to-list – getting to all of those things “when I retire…” Golfing, traveling, quilting, volunteering. The sky is the limit. It’s going to be SO GREAT! I can’t WAIT to retire! I worked all of these years and now it’s RETIREMENT!!!!!

Well, the reality of retirement – at least at first – is not quite as ideally perfect as we imagined it would be for the last 20 years of working. You feel a bit aimless. Purposeless. Not very productive. Sure, you have a to-do list. But the deadlines are pretty iffy on most of those projects – not like at work, where deadlines meant business. After retirement, the garage SHOULD be cleaned today. But it COULD be cleaned tomorrow. And no one would be the worse if it got cleaned next week, or…

So – I guess this is my way of presenting to you that I am finally retired! And a bit adrift. It’s only been a little over a month, and in that time I did some traveling with my husband (he’s an actor and a financial advisor – yes, they are two separate things!) We went to the East Coast for four shows he was performing in – Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and upstate New York. Living in Wisconsin, we couldn’t wait to get to the east coast and have some CHOWDER!

Halfway through that trip, Randy walked off the front of the stage during a performance and broke seven ribs and his shoulder. Randy performs a one-man show on Winston Churchill. He’s fantastic in this role, and over the years, he has “grown” into a pretty close physical likeness of Mr. Churchill. More on life with Winston Churchill in a later post…

Needless to say, the remaining shows were canceled and the next few days were spent in the hospital (Randy) and an extended stay at the Holiday Inn Downtown in Concord, NH (me). And so, the first few weeks of retirement have been spent traveling, coming home sooner than expected, and ferrying Randy to the doctor and PT once we got home. He’s ok – feeling better each day – but broken ribs are no fun.

So…about that sleeping in part… Retirement is not yet overly productive, but it sure is nice to sleep in!