We are starting to get into the groove of retirement, and starting to figure out what we do and don't like about it so far. So we wanted to share our thoughts one month into retirement. The time has flown by.
Overall, we love retirement!
We love the flexibility that retirement offers. We can travel so much more inexpensively when we can be flexible. We go when the flights/cars/hotels are cheap not when we have specific vacation plans during a specific period of time. We are amazed at the difference in costs!
We miss our friends and family when we are gone, and are always excited to see them. We realize that when we are in town, we need to take time for all of them. There is always a lot to catch up on...family and friends come first! We had a chance to spend quality time with four of our different couple friends when we got home. It was fantastic to see them!
We're figuring out that it's hard to get in our workouts when we are on the road. This is something that we are going to have to get better at. It doesn't necessarily mean going to the gym everyday, but getting in a combination of weights, cardio, balance, flexibility, etc. in some way is a must.
Eating healthy continues to be a struggle when we are anywhere other than home. We really need to figure out how to get more fresh fruits and veggies no matter where we are. This might go hand in hand with staying in places longer. When we are constantly on the move, we don't spend the time to look for good produce. When we are in one place for awhile, we find our favorite produce and meat markets, which takes some of the challenge out of it. We usually take a piece of fresh fruit with us when we leave the hotel for the day, so that makes a good snack. Healthy preparation is the other key. At home we have the grill and smoker and can control the ingredients that go into our food. On the road, we are the at mercy of the restaurants. Now that we are settled back in for awhile, we will be concentrating on this aspect of retirement.
Taking time to enjoy a cup or two or three....of coffee in the morning has become very important to us. We prefer to do this outside, enjoying the sights and sounds of nature, but the weather doesn't always allow for that. We have a really nice covered deck at home that allows us to extend our good weather days a little bit, but we realize that winter is definitely on the way, so sweat pants and sweat shirts are becoming the norm if we want to sit outside first thing in the morning.
We talk to our kids a lot, no matter where we are, which is really important to us and hopefully to them. Steve says that talking with the kids brings him an element of calmness about life and the world. We know they are both extremely busy so we really appreciate them taking the time for us.
When we got home this time, our son-in-law was in town, so we got to spend some time with him and our daughter. They were very busy seeing everyone while he was home, but we did get one wonderful dinner with them.
We also headed up to spend a day with our youngest daughter. She put her busy life on hold for an afternoon so we could pick her up and take her to Steve's parent's cabin for a day. We had her all to ourselves! What a treat!
We've discovered that we enjoy places more if we have time to stay and get to know them. We like to have time to talk with locals and hear about what's happening in their lives and community. We are enjoying this much more than the attractions and sights. Jumping around from place to place get's tiring, and we feel like we miss a lot.
Andra still works part-time so we are working on making that run more smoothly. The partners in the firm she works for have been wonderful in trying to find good solutions that work for everyone. Just like everything else, this will take some time to work through.
Steve doesn't seems to really miss the "work" at this point, but he does miss the people and the friendships that came with working. He hopes those relationships will continue.
As we've heard others say before us, we are amazed at how little spare time we have. There are quite a few things that we want to incorporate into our lives that we still haven't found time for. Like many other things in our retirement we are continuing to work on this.
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