Liberta!

Liberty!  I have retired from my full-time job as a legal assistant.  December 2, 2015 was my last day.  It was very emotional to leave all my wonderful co-workers -- I felt  like a wrung-out washcloth when I finally got home on my last day.  It has been 12 days, but it still seems surreal.

I can't really relax and enjoy until the husband (also retired) and I get out health insurance ducks in a row.  As we are too young for Medicare, we are tangling with Obamacare.  I have absolutely no faith in the business operations of the insurance company that we chose, but we chose it because it has my specialist in the network.  I have all my fingers and toes crossed that it will be OK.  I never thought I would wish to be 65, but I do!  A few more years......

Today is Monday, a lousy rainy day.  Dan and I have been trying to get in the habit of taking a walk in the morning, and we were doing fairly well the first week.  Then over the weekend we had the 3-year old granddaughter, and she threw a monkey wrench into our leisurely walking.  We had lots of activities planned for her -- we went to cut down our Christmas tree, decorated it, went to a Christmas party complete with Santa and 27 other kids, and then went to see our other granddaughter dance in the Nutcracker Suite.  I wasn't too sure how 3-3/4 year old Lily, who is constantly on the go, would tolerate the ballet, but she loved it.  She was positively transfixed with the beautiful set, costumes and ballerinas.  She behaved beautifully and sat still for over an hour.  Success!

Last week I walked to the library, updated my card and took out 3 novels to read.  No more buying Kindle books on a whim, I have to watch every penny now.  It really made me feel retired to stroll to the library on a weekday morning!  I will repeat that operation every 3 weeks.

I also plan to swim at the park district pool near my house.  I just have to get my gumption up and find my bathing suit.  Baby steps..........

My Lions and Me

I love my cats!  Getting the feral colony from Tree House was the best thing I ever did.  I can enjoy my backyard and garden without worrying about seeing a rat scurry by.  As a matter of fact, I go days at a time without even thinking about rats!  A year ago that would have been impossible -- I was terrified to go anywhere near the garage or the alley.  On October 5 it will be one year that I have had my cats, and that's about as long as it's been since I have seen a live rat.  Quite a few small dead ones here and there, though.  That's fine!

This is Goblin, the black and white longhair.  Brando, the gray and white longhair, is the friendly one.  He likes to have his ears scratched, and he will come very close to me when I am putting the food down in the morning.  He also stands on the deck and meows for me when he is hungry.  He must have had some human contact shortly after he was born, because he is only half-feral.  The other two cats are comfortable with me, but they don't really come near me and if I stand up and walk toward them they skedaddle.

Today is Labor Day, and I am relaxing around the house.  It has been very hot and humid, I have only been going out in the garden in the mornings and after sundown.  I really hate this kind of weather, and I am looking forward to Fall's cooler temperatures.

The Party's Over

It's Monday, back to work today.  I did work Friday, January 2, but it still seemed like a holiday and they let us out at 3:00.  Today it's back to business as normal, and it's freezing out there.  3 below at O'Hare.  I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about my cat colony!  I'm sure they'll be fine, but I wish I knew for sure that the kennel heating pads are still working ok.  I hate to take the roofs off the feral villas to check, because I don't want to freak out any cats that might be snoozing in them.  I'll just have to hope for the best.

I had a wonderful, quiet weekend.  I have always been a homebody, but the older I get the more I love to hang out at home.  Yesterday I made taco soup and roasted a chicken.  I did laundry and putzed around.  Did a lot of relaxing in the lazyboy -- I should call it lazygirl.  Watched the long-awaited first episode of Season 5 of Downtown Abbey.  It started a little slow, but ended up being very good.  I love that series!

I hate the thought of slogging through the snow to the train, but I really want to get my walking in this week.  I may take the bus to the el on Wednesday morning, though.  It is supposed to be 12 below zero in the morning.  I am flirting with the idea of staying home if it's that cold!  I'm a wuss.

My food intake has been just "OK", nothing stellar.  I have realized that I can't be trusted around a block of cheese.  I have a couple of recipes that I will be making that call for shredded cheese, and I know that hand-shredding a block of cheese tastes so much better.  But I have already hacked off several hunks of the block of cheese to nibble on, it's probably about half gone.  Sigh.

Because I am cold and rather depressed about winter right now, I will post a picture that makes me feel a bit warmer.  Our granddaughter, Lily, and her kiddie pool.  Ahhhhhhh  I wish I could time travel right through January and into July.

A Good Day

January 1 was a nice, stay-at-home day for me.  I did some relaxing, reading the paper with my morning latte and playing Words With Friends with my friend Sharon.

If it's true that what you do on the first day of the year will set the tone for the entire year to follow, I'm in good shape.  I did my favorite things -- relaxing at home and cooking.  I made good use of our Christmas ham bone, and made split pea soup.  It's chilling on the back porch, I'll finish it up tonight and we will have it for dinner.  I dearly love split pea soup!  I also made Hoppin' John for dinner, it's supposed to be good luck to eat black eyed peas on New Year's Day.

I did a lot of peeking out the back porch windows at my cats.  I love to watch them, even if they are just eating and stretching.  They do a lot of stretching!

This is Brando, he is so adorable:

My food was very moderate, too.  And, per my resolution, I logged everything that I ate.  All in all, a very good start to the New Year!