by Pa Rock
Busy Retiree
For those who picture retirement as sitting at home all day peacefully watching endless reruns of NCIS and Criminal Minds, please allow me to disabuse you of that notion. It just doesn't work out that way. Even without a regular work schedule, humans tend to devise ways to keep their lives complicated - and schedules persist.
My life accepted a certain amount of structure on the day that I brought the box of baby chicks home from the feed store. Now I am up and outside early in the mornings to free the birds from their pen, feed and water my feathered dependents, and look for eggs. I always make at least one pass through the pen during these hot August afternoons to make sure the waterers haven't been turned over by the thirsty and clumsy poultry and that things are relative calm in bird land. In the early evening I make another pass to fill the feeders and waterers, and during daylight's last flicker I go out to the poultry pen one final time to shut and secure the gate and tell everyone goodnight.
During my spare time I work on projects around the house, haul trash, and mow. This blog usually takes about an hour of my day, and, on good days, I slip in thirty minutes or so of reading during my lunch and at bedtime.
Wednesday evenings, of course, is reserved for pinochle at the senior center.
Now I have added another major item to my schedule. Five days a week, Monday through Friday, I head into town immediately after finishing with the birds and report to the hospital. I am in cardiac rehab on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays - where my current routine is to walk briskily for forty minutes on the treadmill. That should expand to fifty minutes later this week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I am in physical therapy working on issues with my arms. I have a hard fifty minute routine that is done under the direction and watchful eye of a physical therapist.
The five-day-a-week medical experience feels like a job, and it leaves me with a sense of increasing well-being. Not all of my past jobs have been like that.
So I am staying very busy in retirement, and seldom have the luxury of feeling retired - and occasionally, when the mood hits, I still manage to catch the odd rerun of NCIS or Criminal Minds!
Busy Retiree
For those who picture retirement as sitting at home all day peacefully watching endless reruns of NCIS and Criminal Minds, please allow me to disabuse you of that notion. It just doesn't work out that way. Even without a regular work schedule, humans tend to devise ways to keep their lives complicated - and schedules persist.
My life accepted a certain amount of structure on the day that I brought the box of baby chicks home from the feed store. Now I am up and outside early in the mornings to free the birds from their pen, feed and water my feathered dependents, and look for eggs. I always make at least one pass through the pen during these hot August afternoons to make sure the waterers haven't been turned over by the thirsty and clumsy poultry and that things are relative calm in bird land. In the early evening I make another pass to fill the feeders and waterers, and during daylight's last flicker I go out to the poultry pen one final time to shut and secure the gate and tell everyone goodnight.
During my spare time I work on projects around the house, haul trash, and mow. This blog usually takes about an hour of my day, and, on good days, I slip in thirty minutes or so of reading during my lunch and at bedtime.
Wednesday evenings, of course, is reserved for pinochle at the senior center.
Now I have added another major item to my schedule. Five days a week, Monday through Friday, I head into town immediately after finishing with the birds and report to the hospital. I am in cardiac rehab on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays - where my current routine is to walk briskily for forty minutes on the treadmill. That should expand to fifty minutes later this week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I am in physical therapy working on issues with my arms. I have a hard fifty minute routine that is done under the direction and watchful eye of a physical therapist.
The five-day-a-week medical experience feels like a job, and it leaves me with a sense of increasing well-being. Not all of my past jobs have been like that.
So I am staying very busy in retirement, and seldom have the luxury of feeling retired - and occasionally, when the mood hits, I still manage to catch the odd rerun of NCIS or Criminal Minds!
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