Adjustments

The weather has been nice. We haven’t got much rain so in addition to my regular chores–filling the birdfeeders, feeding the cats, and letting the chickens out of the coop–I’ve been watering the fruit trees, flower garden, and herb garden. I have a system developed so I can water the cherry trees in the back yard and the apple trees and flower/herb gardens in the front yard at the same time. EJ didn’t plant a vegetable garden this year because he was going to concentrate on organizing the garage. However, it’s also good he’s not planting one because we don’t have to worry about roof dust and debris getting on the plants when our roof is redone next month.

Richard VI is mostly behaving himself. He hasn’t been escaping the fence more than once or twice a day for the last week. Sometimes he sees me coming and flies back over into the garden. (We still call it the garden even though EJ didn’t plant it this year.) Yesterday I looked through the window and saw Richard on the other side of the fence. When I went out to herd him back in–it didn’t take me long–he was back inside the fence acting as if he had never been out. I complained to EJ that I was being gaslighted by a chicken. Richard is a stinker, but we really like him.

A week ago EJ made a “pet door” in the fence so the outdoor cats could get out of the garden but not the chickens. So far neither Theo nor Harvey has found it. We’ve seen Theo climb over the fence and Harvey go under it.

Friday is EJ’s last day of work. Four more days and then he’s officially retired.

Transitioning into retirement requires rethinking and rearranging our lives. This is nothing new: Every now and then through the years, EJ’s work schedule has changed and we’ve had to make adjustments to our schedule. Retirement just requires a few more adjustments.

Retirement will be the first time that EJ hasn’t been employeed–even as a child he worked on his family’s farm. Now that he will be “unemployed,” he wants to make sure he still has purpose and work in his life rather than just sit around moldering. So he/we are developing a list of major projects to accomplish–things that he struggled to find time, energy, and health to do while working. It has things like replacing the floor in the exercise room. Also fixing “Elf 9.” Elf 9 is an error code on the washer. It actually is E1 F9. When I first saw it last winter, I wrote a note to EJ to let him know about it. He asked me, “What on earth is Elf 9?” So now we always refer to it as Elf 9.

We also will maintain our list of little tasks that don’t take long to accomplish. Most people would call it a To Do List, but we call it the Ta Da List because we say, “Ta Da!” whenever we complete a task and cross it off the list.

I think the major adjustment for me will be finding uninterrupted time to study/write. I’ve done most of my studying and writing while EJ was at work because I have fewer interruptions or distractions. If I had a laptop, I’d shut myself in our home library, but a laptop is far down our list of “things to buy.” It’s more of a want than a need…although my current desktop is very sluggish. It reminds me of the old dialup connections when a person could almost begin and finish Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” while waiting for a website to load.

After EJ retires, we also want to develop a new menu, decide when to run errands/shop, and schedule bill payments. Currently EJ gets paid every week but our Social Security deposits come at different times of the month. EJ also wants to develop a regiment of exercise–to lose weight, stretch his back, and get into better shape. When we get the floor done, the exericise room will be well used. We also anticipate more time to enjoy coffee on the deck in the mornings, looking at heavens at night, camp fires…

EJ’s co-workers are concerned that we won’t be able to survive on just Social Security but a lifetime of having to tighten our belts, and tighten them again, has taught us frugality. We don’t have an extravagant lifestyle. Most importantly, we trust God to provide for us, as He has always done. So we will be fine.