I guess I am not going as slowly as I expected.

Well, I thought I would take it very easy, do nothing for a while, maybe actually dig out my house, but so far things have not gone as I expected.

I have read several books. Was fascinated by The Night Watch by Sarah Waters. I wanted to read it all over when I finished it to catch the clues I had missed the first time through. But I had to read The Innocent Man for my “terrestial” book club before July 2nd. My celestial book club meets on July 10th and I am to lead the dicussion of The Nigh Watch so I will get busy here soon.

In the meantime, a good friend of mine who runs a marvelous little gift and kitchen supply shop downtown fell and broke three bones in her foot last Thursday. Her husband, who just retired this year from being department chair of the English department I taught in, took over running the store. The only problem is that he is doing periteneal dialysis and has to do an exchange at noon each day. Being a good friend, I volunteered to watch the shop over the hour and half he has to be gone each day. It has been fun and I am always proud when I make a sale, but I need to  get some work done in my house. I don’t think I will really feel retired until I get the house cleaned out and life simplified.

Oh, and I keep ordering more books all the time! God help me, I will need to live to a hundred and five to finish all of them. In the meantime I am hoping to get on a weekly schedule of blogging here and entertaining the two people who read it with the trivia of my daily life.

I did some planning for the future though. We are going to Lincoln, NE over the 4th to go to my brother’s open house. His son, daughter-in-law, and baby grandson have come home from Norway and we will all meet Gunnar for the first time. Chad, my nephew, has been stationed in Norway. He is in the Navy, bombed Baghdad, taught at Fallon in the Top Gun School, and now if part of the NATO mission in Norway, though that tour is over and he will probably finish out his career as an instructor at Falon.

Then being really optimistic, I registered for the NCTE Convention and made hotel reservations in San Antonio. I have not made plane tickets yet because I am hoping my husband will go with me. I think it would be a very romantic place to take a third honeymoon since we just celebrated our 40th anniversary.

I also attended my 50th class reunion which was a blast. I don’t know where all those old people came from, though.

Well, that is all for now. Hope to have something more interesting to post next week. Have a good week or summer or whatever.

Stepping More Slowly Than Expected.

Here I am again, almost a week later. I thought that I would post more frequently, but I couldn’t consider myself officially retired until my room was cleaned out and everything packed up, keys and policy, handbooks, activities book, etc. turned in and signed by me and the principal. That all occurred finally last Friday at 2:00.

Saturday and Sunday were my collapse time. I just vegged, watched TV, read most of Sea Glass which is my book-club book for Wednesday, and did very little else. Oh, Saturday morning I did go down to the Pantry and had morning coffee and homemade rhubarb muffins with my colleague Mr. Anderson who is been my department head and is retiring with me, and also who was the baker of above mentioned muffins. The Pantry belongs to his wife. We were joined by the Fischers, also colleaguesof ours who retired several years ago, Mrs. Van Gerpen, a retiree from a near by town, and a young lady who graduated three years ago. This is our usual Saturday morning coffee group.

I took my first official retiree step Monday morning when I finally turned off my clock radio alarm. It will not be turned on again unless I have an appointment or have to catch an early flight somewhere – maybe Reno and maybe San Antonio next November.

Monday I also started working on cleaning out my house, packed up a couple of bags of books to give to a friend, and made some real head way in three rooms.

Today I got up and decided it would be a busy day. So I went back down to the Pantry and had coffee with Mrs. Anderson, the owner, then I went up to the high school and gave my bags of books to Jodie. Then on to the mall and Penny’s where I made an appointment to get my hair cut, bought some thin socks for summer, and three darling baby outfits for a former student, now colleague whose baby shower is going to be held as part of our book club tomorrow. I stopped for a healthy lunch at The Body Guard, and then on to the Senior Citizen’s Center. No not to join it, it is where our precinct votes.

I need to thank Jan Bone for the phone call. Unfortunately Jan did not leave her phone number so I could not call her back. Jan is a faithful Obama worker, but I could not help her out. I am registered as a Republican, so could only vote in the Republican primary, but I was able to vote for a former student for the state house, and Ron Paul.

Now I am home, reading email, playing a little solitaire on the computer, reading my email, and adding to this blog.

Things to do today: Finish Sea Glass, Finish cleaning kitchen so I have all counters clean (I will do refrigerator and stove tomorrow), and doodle around with some ideas I am developing for writing either some short stories or a full length novel. No more about that now, I don’t want to jimx it.

Thank you all on the list serv who wished me well in retirement, and all of my friends who commented on my blog. As soon as I figure out how, I will add links to some of your blogs.