practicing for retirement

I worked New Year's Day, and took Friday, January 3 off as compensatory time. Between the usual holiday folderol, my Excellent Mother-In-Law's stroke and her first steps towards attempted recovery, The Excellent Wife (TEW)'s other responsibilities, and whatnot, I had a number of things to which to attend that I had put off until that Friday off.

I spent the day getting a much-needed haircut, doing shopping, doing chores around the house, rehabilitating the heavy steel Krakow Monster bike (there will be a future post about that; I'm drafting notes), installing a SSD drive in the desktop computer (and reinstalling everything, and learning how I can save settings to make future reinstalls easier, and finding some backups I thought I'd lost...), and a few other things.

I had a great time. TEW was delighted to see my mood, and said it was a sign that I needed to take more days off... and then she said it was a sign that I'm likely to be successful in retirement, which, frankly, is the way I see it. I've heard a number of retirees say they have no idea how they found time to work, because they were so busy now.

TEW and I hire a cleaning service once a month, which will be dismissed after I'm retired; even with my (now considerable) back pain and stiffness, there's no reason I can't replace her. I have some ideas for part-time work to keep me busy (I bet I'd be a pretty good Weight Watcher's coach, for example), but I don't think we'll be desperate for the cash (we have a CFP appointment this week to see if our instincts are correct).

That day was practice for retirement, and I think I'm gonna be at least passable at it. Two years, four months, fifteen days is the planned date, as I write this. Good heavens; I'll be 65 in a few months.

I'm looking forward to retirement, partly because I've been working in my chosen field for 35-or-so years, and I don't hardly know anything. I certainly know much less than I did when I had two years of experience. It's time to get out of the way and let some smart people take over. I don't want to have to worry about it any more.