Sunday, August 30, 2015

Retirement-Day 183

But who's counting?

I kid! Retirement is busy. There are lots of days I wonder how hubs ever found the time to go to work every Monday through Friday, not to mention all the Saturdays and Sundays he traveled to some upside down time zone in order to be ready for a Monday morning meeting on the other side of the globe.

There are also days I think, hmmm...he needs to go to work today. He's realizing those are the days I need him to go play golf, wash the cars, or do something somewhere besides where I am.

Does that sound awful? I don't mean it to sound awful, because on the whole retirement is grand. Of course it will be grander once the house is underway, but in the interim we're livin' the high life in our cozy apartment.

There is so little to manage in terms of daily living. I can clean the entire place in an hour, and we have very little here in the way of belongings, which makes me occasionally stop and ask myself why it is exactly we're building a house? 

Oh yeah...


The water.
We need to see the water.

Hubs and I realized after moving in here that the layout of this apartment is almost identical to the very first apartment we lived in as newlyweds.

Except we have actual furniture here, not plants pretending to be furniture, wooden crates picked up on the side of the road, or a T.V. with an antennae that needs adjusting. We don't have jobs to go to everyday either, which is both a pro and a con.

Not so much a con really, just something that requires a little figuring out and of course we're only in this setting temporarily, so no sense diving too deeply into much more than the house build for now. Hubs has plans to do something, and I have plans to do something, but first we supervise-ha!

Other items I've noted in our temporary digs-

I have an electric stove here and am so not a fan. I grew up with an electric stove, but our house in the UK had a gas cooktop and my house in NJ also had a gas cooktop, and once you've cooked on gas you only want to cook on gas. My lake house will have gas.

I'd kind of forgotten about that whole hauling thing apartment living requires. Maybe blocked is a better word, because I did move my girls no less than fourteen times from dorm room to storage unit to apartment to storage unit and back again not so long ago. We're now living on the second floor, and I've successfully re-mastered the skill of carrying seventeen sacks from the car in one trip in order to avoid going back a second time.

Our mail is in a central location here, a box with a key that I check every day like I did when I was in college. No care packages from my mom though, just bills, junk mail, and people confirming our change of address.

There's a lovely pool on site, and a really nice gym too, so hubs and I are taking advantage of both. Most of the time we have them to ourselves, because hey! retirement!

We sent all of our belongings (except for our clothes) to storage and we're living with rentals. A short list of things I wish I'd thrown in the car and brought with me would include a corkscrew, my hand mixer, a pastry brush, spatula, wooden spoon, my iron, and my microplane. Each day I think of just one more thing I should have thought to add to the car, but then I remember there was only exactly enough space left for me in the vehicle when we headed south. Also, the movers packed up my kitchen before I completely thought it through.

Where are my bathing suits?

We've spent a fair amount of time here trying to locate documents and various and sundry items we know we packed or locked in one of our umpteen lock boxes, and this place is not that big, so you'd think getting your hands on what you need would be simple, but no. Still a lot of emptying boxes and then emptying them again later because you are sure that's where you put xyz, but for some reason xyz isn't where you remember putting it.

Attempting to register with a family doctor has been a wee bit trying. More than one physician's office has instructed me to download new patient forms from their website, complete them, and send them back for review. The Dr. will review my 'application' and I'll hear back in 3-4 weeks as to whether or not I'm in. What??? Hello 2015!

We are hopefully nearing the end of the paperwork hoops we have to jump through to break ground on the house, and will sign our actual contract with pricing and all the dotted lines on Tuesday. In this period of trying to transfer everything including our very own selves from one state to another, I'm glad hubs is retired and available to handle some of the icky phone calls and general nonsense like car tags, title transfers, and contracts that need reviewing and tweaking. Normally he's working and that's all my domain.

In this season of retirement though, I'm happy to share.

11 comments:

  1. Oh, my! your life is never dull for sure! Can't wait for you all to get started on your new house and praying it doesn't take 14 months to complete. :o)) We've done the whole moving of kids just as you described. Hubby said years ago he should have bought stock in U-Haul. But, we've retired from that now. Happy new week!

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  2. I would be happy to share too. It's been so long since we moved across the states, I can't even imagine doing it again (26 years, actually!). Temporary inconvenience for permanent improvement. This too will soon be over and you will be sitting on the new deck with your feet up, looking out at that beautiful view.

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  3. Yes, you need gas for sure! Glad you are in an apartment now, no matter how small. Paperwork, yuck, registering for a doctor, double yuck! But a house with a view of the water.......priceless!

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  4. Paperwork-:( just remember ti won't be long till your are sipping your coffee and looking out over the water!

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  5. I look forward to hubby retiring so that we can do things together. I also dread him retiring because he doesn't play golf. He might have to learn! Your transition sounds both exciting and exhausting but it's great to get all the updates.

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  6. Good morning...it was good to catch up a bit and see how retirement is treating you....sounds VERY good to me, lol. Before you know it you will be in that new home and making memories. Hubby and I made a few wrong turns along the way and retirement for us won't be happening for a few more years....I long for the day we are bumping into each and sharing some of those "icky" things you speak of, lol. i am surprised that is how a new doc is handled these days. We have had the same doc for 25 years, and he is a personal friend as well so that would really be a weird experience for us. Enjoy and cherish these days and I look forward to hearing about what i can look forward to [or maybe sometimes dread, lol] someday! Have a good week!

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  7. Are you actually counting the days or did you have to go back and calculate that? Ha. I also look forward to the retirement years and dread them too. I mean, our whole courtship has been a lot of apartness. ;) Should be interesting for sure. I do soo appreciate your take on it!

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  8. Sometimes I look back and realize that the time we spent in the apt. between homes was a freedom I've never known! The water is a perfect reason for building a home only I'm ready for that little cabin on the lake. Our house now has an electric oven which I've never had before but it also has a gas stove top which is my favorite. Oh my, I think if a doctor had to review me he wouldn't take me on....LOL

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  9. You're so good at putting a positive spin on things. :) Good luck with your contract - I hope everything goes as smoothly as can be.

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  10. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who needs to have "my own space" sometimes :) I'm thankful Ed likes to spend lots of time outside.

    I'm with you on the gas stove! After 35 years of cooking with gas, I'm stuck with electric...and I don't like it. We switched because we didn't want the hassle of having to deal with a propane tank.

    Kathy (Reflections by Kathy)

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  11. I understand completely about needing space....Honey Bear does have a part time job so that helps get him out of the house some...and he has all these projects going but I find keeping the house clean is harder....but, me, I go on my merry way to this and that meeting or workshop or lunch with friends so my own lifestyle hasn't changed all that much...as I told him I wasn't giving it up....I am pleasantly surprised that we have as much money as we do to live on...that was something that concerned me as after several career changes we were back with a mortgage but we elected to pay that off and so we have as much to spend as ever we did...but then we're semi-frugal people and always have been.....I did think he'd be available to go on church trips and outings more but he always has some project or other going on in his 'spare' time.
    Your present circumstances sounds exciting.
    Mama Bear

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