Friday, November 8, 2013

I'm Retired--And Not Working Is Exhausting!

I'm Retired--And Not Working Is Exhausting!
November 8, 2013
 
This is what I thought I would look like after being retired for a whole week!
Photo Credit:  www.alzsmiles.com
 
This is what I actually look like now, after being retired for a whole week!
Photo Credit:  Unknown, Google Images
 
     Yes, it's been 7 whole days of no work, no alarm clock, no driving to work, no stress, and no problems.  This blog is titled, "Idle At Last," but I haven't been idle yet!
 
     Here is the list of my retirement activities, some fun, some not:
  1.      Finished loading my car on my last day of work last Thursday.
  2.      Unpacked my car after getting home on my last day of work, then put everything away.
  3.      Spent my first day of retirement, last Friday, going through all of my unwanted possessions, cleaning them, pricing them, making signs, putting out the signs, and preparing for a neighborhood yard sale.
  4.      Saturday, 7am, put all of the stuff in my carport for the 8am yard sale.  Enjoyed 4 hours of meeting people and selling some stuff.  Fun!
  5.      Put all of the yard sale stuff that didn't sell back in the house.
  6.      Drove around and took down all the signs, then returned the sign holders to the owner.
  7.      Hauled home 4 heavy antique dining chairs, unloading them, and cleaning/polishing them.
  8.      Put all of the yard sale stuff back in various rooms, but there are still boxes of stuff to put away in the den.
  9.      Spent lots of time online searching for the perfect pedestal table to go with the 4 antique chairs.  Found one at Pier 1 site.
  10.      Drove to Pier 1 Imports to purchase/order the new table.
  11.      Organized my kitchen drawers and shelves Saturday evening since I had no room for all the stuff that needed to be put away.
  12.      Sunday enjoyed (yay!) a lovely day at Disney World's EPCOT with all of my family to celebrate my retirement.  Lunch at the Rose and Crown Pub and lovely gifts!  Wonderful!
  13.      Monday, went to work at my son's office, 9:30am, to be a kind of Personal Assistant, which included 4 hours of intense thinking.
  14.      Continued to organize my kitchen, which involved 3 hours of cleaning and problem-solving (and decluttering).  Watch the video at the end of my post on how to organize your kitchen drawers easily.
  15.      Tuesday went to work as a Personal Assistant for 4 more hours.
  16.      Waited for the Air Conditioner technician to give my AC it's tune up on Tuesday.
  17.      Wednesday, 7am, went for a root canal.
  18.      Wednesday, 9:30, went for a crown fitting at my other dentist.  (And on my birthday, too!)
  19.      Worked 2 more hours as a Personal Assistant, mind numbing and amazing at the same time.
  20.      Thursday, took trip to the Dollar Tree store to get organizing supplies for my neighbor's kitchen makeover.
  21.       5 hours organizing/clearing/cleaning my neighbor's kitchen, and hauling out heavy bags of trash.  (I love the organizing part, though.)  Watch the video at the end of my post on how to organize your kitchen drawers easily.
  22.      Friday, went grocery shopping for myself and my neighbor, clearing out her refrigerator, and stocking it with her new food supply, including more garbage hauling...Bless her as she waits to come home from the hospital.
     So there you have the real deal on what a retiree does during the first week of not going to work.  Who knew, after all of my research on fun retirement activities, that I would be working harder than when I had a full-time job?