seventeen years four months and six days later (approximately)

Right now, I'm sitting at home in my chair by the fire looking out over the deck and back yard on a Monday morning.  For all these past years, I would have been sitting at my desk at work.  But last Thursday, January 26, 2017, was my last day of work.

I retired.

I was done.  And I am done with that stage of life.  It was time to move on into a new stage of life--one of actually living every day instead of slogging through yet another day.

Things I will not miss:

• Getting up and dressed and made up early.
• Thinking in my head that I am a valuable contributor while idling away the day waiting for work or interactions or conversation.

Things I will miss:

• Interactions with coworkers, good people.
• The thrill of a project--figuring it out and completing it.
• The beautiful view out of my office windows.
• Driving to and from work with Jack.
• Lunch with Jack.
• My paycheck.  Probably.  At least a little.

Things I am looking forward to:

• Free time
• More--skiing, reading, movies, time with kids, grandkids, parents, friends, etc., etc., etc.,
• Gardening
• Cleaning/Organizing/etc., etc., etc.
• Projects--big and small
• Travel--road trips (short and long), fly-away trips, etc., etc., etc.
• Jack's retirement--which should have happened on the same day as mine but for an annoying management snafu that will hopefully be resolved soon
• Naps

One of my major goals is to improve the behavior of the animals I live with.  Everybody needs to settle down and learn to get along with each other.  I will be conducting extensive research into how to get dogs to stop barking at EVERYTHING; also how to stop dogs from chasing the cats EVERY.TIME they see each other.  Seriously.  Just calm down you guys. We are now together in the chill-out time of life.

And we're going to rock this.