Once you retire, you no longer have to follow a tight schedule designed to insure arriving at work on time, going grocery shopping on your way home, making sure dinner is ready before 6pm, stay on top of the kids so that they finish their homework by bed-time, throw a load of laundry in the washing machine, do the dishes and mop the kitchen floor before the drying cycle is completed, then take a hot shower and drop exhausted into bed. Good Lord!! Did I actually live a life like that? Thank God I’m retired and can just goof off all day, every day. No more disciplined life for me.
Now my days are relaxed and filled with “want tos, not have tos”. I’ll give you a glimpse of one of my normal days. Up at 7am (I rise and fall with the sun), make coffee, empty the dish washer, drink a cup of coffee while I begin my morning prayers, take Guinevere, our Golden Retriever for a 30 minute walk while I finish talking to God. As I walk through our yard I see how spring gardening will soon be upon us. It means an hour a day of hard work, every day from April 1st to October 15th. Then I come home, make the bed, check my email, eat breakfast while I watch the news and spend 45 minutes cleaning part of our house. Wow! Thank God I’m retired.
Then I drive over to a friend’s house to visit with her. She has cancer and the doctors have given her two weeks to live. She is under hospice care and gives me a run down on what all they do and how good they are to her. Father David has been to see her many times and her brother and his wife just left after a three day visit. She speaks regularly with her 97 year old mother who lives in a different state. I ask her to tell me about her life (part of which I know already but I want her to think on pleasant things). She and her husband spend several minutes relating how they met, where they worked, how much they traveled. They have traveled all over the world and I asked them where their favorite place was. They tell me Singapore. I visit until I can see my friend tiring. She needs morphine and a nap. I hug her and her husband goodbye and promise to come over on Monday to stay with her for a few hours while her husband (who also has cancer) gets some blood work done and then goes to a friend’s to say the weekly rosary along with several other parishioners. My friend and I decide that when I come on Monday we’ll say the rosary together.
I’m home in time for our popcorn and half a movie break. It’s my husband’s favorite time of day. It’s mine too. Guinevere, paces restlessly in front of Harry Potter’s Room (we call it that as it’s a small room under the stairs) waiting for her daily treat. That’s where we keep them and awhile back we made the mistake of leaving the door open. She managed to help herself to a few biscuits before we caught her.
Movie time’s up. I watch the 3pm news while cleaning another part of the house (we have a 3 story, 15 room house so it needs a lot of cleaning). Now I head for the library on the third floor to begin working for The Lamplighter Movement. I check my emails again, find a few who need help. I wrack my brain to find the right words to say. Then I check the numerous social organizations I’m in; Facebook (I have 3 pages on Facebook), LinkedIn, Twitter, my webmail account, my yahoo account, and Red Room and a few others I don’t check very often. Once that’s finished I begin doing work on my website, additions, subtractions, changes, creating new pages and making sure that my website is all I want it to be. Then I turn to my folder that says “Possible Facilitators” and begin sending emails to people who are interested in starting a chapter. With one eye on the clock I then turn to the file marked “Pending Lamplighter File” browsing through it to see if I can take care of any unfinished business. After that I look over my notes on the Blue Ribbon Campaign to see what’s been left undone. As the Lamplighter Founder I’m spearheading a campaign to try to get as many people as we can in the Verde Valley where we live to wear a blue ribbon during the month of April which is Child Abuse Prevention Month. I have talks to give at community organizations and one for the Town Council Meeting. We will have 1000 blue ribbons that need to have pins attached, and then scotch taped to a business card before we put twenty each in containers that need to be delivered to various businesses and organizations in town, all of whom I’ve already called to get permission. I’ve also emailed all the churches with flyers and bulletins and we’ll need to flood the Verde Valley with 1000 flyers. I sure hope everyone on the committee shows up the day we do the ribbons. I try not to think about that.
Time for dinner. It’s usually something simple and ever since my husband volunteered to do the dishes we eat a lot Lean Cuisine and Marie Callendar dishes. That is, except for Sunday, when I volunteer to do the dishes as my husband has to gather up trash and lug the trash bin up to the road. He would rather have a homemade dinner on that night preferably one with lots of dirty dishes. Sometimes he wins that round.
Time for bed. A quick shower and I’m in bed. It’s 8pm. I turn to the stack of books next to the bed. I’m an avid reader and usually finish 6 books every month. I read about 14 at the same time. For those who wonder how I can do that I have an eight track brain and keep all the books separate whether it’s The History of Time by Stephen Hawking, Christianity, The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch, Confessions and City of God by St. Augustine, God’s Funeral by A. N. Wilson, the Age of Faith by Will Durant or The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott (all of which I’m reading at the moment) The television is on so I keep one eye turned to the news. Since it’s an election year I have a keen interest in what is going on. I also have a son in Afghanistan so I turn the volume up any time it’s mentioned.
At 9:30 I turn the television off and fall asleep within minutes, grateful that I don’t have to live an orderly, disciplined and accomplished life any more.
