Following my own advice.

I haven’t written a blog post in several weeks.  I just was too hesitant, to be honest, as some things have really gotten under my skin lately and I don’t want this blog to ever come across as negative, or  “lecture-y”.  I was afraid my thinking, how I was feeling, would come out in my writing, and that’s a self-imposed no for me.

However, a lot of good has happened around me since Christmas and I hope both my outlook and my inner reflection have improved. Do you ever find yourself in a bit of a funk and it just needs to work itself around? That’s what I was hoping for. As James Brown would say “Get up offa that thing and make yourself feel better”.

Hubs retired, his last work day was December 28th.  The night before his very last day we had a bit of a surprise get together at one of our favorite spots, a local brewery. Almost all of the family was there, we are very lucky to have so many close by, and a couple friends. He was completely surprised and shout out to Maple City Dentistry for being in on the secret and shuffling his scheduled appointment around a bit.

We followed that up with a New Years Eve night out, very unusual for us. I have recently reconnected with an old friend and we ushered in the New Year together, our resolution being not to let thirty years go by again.  We were the oldest folks at Journeyman Distillery that night but we didn’t much care, and we made a quick stop in to the Acorn Theater's NYE party as well, super late and time for it to be over, but we listened to a couple songs from the band. It was a good time.

Following that, we traveled to Key West for a week to celebrate retirement and spend money like we have it.  Key West was terrific. Just the perfect response to retirement in that it caused us to slow down, to relax…to retire, if you will. We made plans, we chucked plans. Key West was a good bridge to what life will be like going forward.  

We have always talked a bit about travel. We are not campers or RV people. Seeing RVs shoved into campgrounds practically on top of each other, and I know that isn’t every park, made me cringe. Anyway, we spent a bit of time talking about how to plan for future trips and get-aways.  Our first step is making independent lists of where we would like to go and then compare those lists and start thinking about how to make it happen.  We want to travel in the US a bit, there are so many great places to see.

Christmas is like a blur, now, in some ways.  Our vacation already a week behind us.  We came home to snow and super frigid temps and now it is suppose to rain all evening.  We also came home to a blood red full moon and a lunar eclipse and that’s hard to beat. 

I follow a casual acquaintance on Instagram and she posts a lot of inspirational quotes.  One really rang true for me this morning as I was finishing this post…

One day or day one.  You decide.