Retirement Status Update

My first full month of retirement is now in the books. Almost everyone I know when they see me they ask, “How’s retirement?” My answer is always some version of “Great!”. Of course, it’s only been one month, so no definitive answer is available at this point. I should also point out that retiring in the middle of winter isn’t optimal. If I had a do-over I might have retired the end of March or something when I could have celebrated by playing golf or going to an opening day baseball game. But, that ship has sailed. Still, January has been, despite the cold and snowy nonsense, quite fun. Here are a few of the highlights.

I got to attend my daughter’s 20 week sonogram. I found out his name, which is at this point still very much top secret. I have managed to remove three carloads of junk from our attic, which represents approximately 7% of the junk in our attic. This means that in a mere eleven more months I will be done! I have had six shifts at Hope Cafe plus at least that many paying customer visits which I spent mostly writing and engaging in harmless mischief. I might have made a couple videos to cheer up a sick friend, which featured me disparaging the already suspect reputation of my friend, Tom Allen. Speaking of writing, I wrote my first post-retirement work of fiction, a short story called Clara and Vincent. I distributed a dozen hamburgers to the volunteers at Hope Thrift and some Krispi Kreme doughnuts to the teachers at River’s Edge Elementary. Pam and I went to an awesome baptism at my church on a random Tuesday night. I gave Lucy a bath. We picked out and purchased all new exterior lights for our house and I hired real honest-to-God electricians to install them. I shared a fair number of top quality Dad Jokes to my many breathless fans. I met all of my siblings for lunch at Cracker Barrel in Fredericksburg. I fielded numerous phone calls and answered many texts from the new owners of my business who needed clarification on this thing or that. Most of these calls and texts began with the phrase, “Doug, I mean…what the hell?” I logged 48 miles on the stationary bike and another 10 miles walking the neighborhood when it wasn’t too danged cold. I also managed to do 705 pushups, curls and lateral raises (Yes, I keep records of such things). All of these healthy activities has resulted in me losing 2.8 pounds. I read two books. I have not shaved the beard yet but probably will the end of February. I have prepared only one dinner. 

There are several things I have not done since I’ve been retired. I have not checked on the travails of the stock market 100 times a day. I have not felt the weight of responsibility for the financial health of 300 people. My total “screen time” has decreased 42%…or so I am told by my cell phone’s analytics. 

All in all, a wonderful month.