We continue to get threats of rain for long periods that amount to only scattered drops. Frustrating. I continue to enjoy the walk to our community garden to water the struggling tomato plants. It's not a good tomato year for our garden.

Minor excitement: I'm trying this morning to include a city-provided plastic recycle bin in my recycle stuff to be picked up because it's damaged beyond repair (as evidenced by the yards of duct tape that have kept it going). This is a challenge because the workers are reluctant to take a container. Three different neighbors have offered their solutions to trick the system into taking an old bin including cutting it into small pieces with a Sawzall. It took one friend three tries before he put it in a plastic bag and put it out as garbage - completely in opposition to the spirit of recycling.

Good Morning! I'm on the last day of my 10-day staycation (it's a holiday here) and going to laze about most of the day and go see a movie in the afternoon. I'm really reluctant to go back to work tomorrow and don't want to do the prep work for it. This is something new for me. I used to like vacation but was really glad to get back to work and see the dogs. Not this year.

I also did something different while on vacation. Instead of doing the household work first and then winding up not doing the recreational things I had planned I did the opposite. I didn't abandon the housework entirely but I made sure I did the recreational things first and then spent whatever time was left over that day pecking away at the never-ending housework.

I think I have now had a good taste of what retirement could be like and I really, really want to get there with enough faculties left to enjoy it for awhile. Again I will make sure to put the "want to do" things ahead of the "need to do".

Good week all! August already - sheesh!

Dagmar

Dagmar, as of last week I passed the mark of 118 months to go for maximizing my pension (what remains of it) at my current employer. I feel much the same way as you about retirement. One of my all-time favorite quotes is, "No one, in the history of mankind, has ever on their deathbed said "I wish I'd spent more time in the office"."

Bill, we got an inch of rain last night in the storms. Not all of it at once either, so hopefully it will green things back up. Sending it in your direction! Our garden is doing its things pretty well and we are now eating a bunch of good fresh stuff. Tomato production is low for us too, and the plants just don't look happy. Peppers - even worse. Green stuff is doing really well however. We've had some cabbage heads unlike any we've ever had for size and density. Much coleslaw at my house ...

I'm having a little trouble accessing my gratitude today. I'm about five weeks into my new job (which is just a recycling of an old job I had about 8 years ago), and I remember fully now why I left. The best things I can say about it are a) the days go by really fast and b) for the most part the people I work with/around are decent humans. Things could be a LOT worse.

Oh, yes, jobs. Mine isn't getting any better, three months after the reorg, and of course, no one but me cares about this state of affairs.

It may not even be visible to others, except you all here and close friends in whom I'm confided.

Even my mother seems not to have connected my impatience, exhaustion and being hard to reach on the phone with a bad situation at work. She traveled downstate last week to visit, and to drive me to my outpatient surgery procedure. (I'm not sure why, as I had to remain alert afterward to direct her through the traffic and around the highway on-ramps and off-ramps to get us home, as the GPS instructions always seemed to come a minute too late for the turns we needed to take.)

Anyway, she told me how proud she is of me and all I've accomplished, my apartment, my high-powered job.

I told her, yeah, that's all great, but I don't see it because I am very unhappy in my life just now: I'm physically impaired, all I do is work, I don't get time off, I rarely do anything I enjoy.

This shocked her. Like, just because I have my job, everything's great, it's all awesome. No memory at all of all those stressed-out conversations and my lack of availability and the disarray in my apartment when she visits because I have no time for the meticulous, all-day housecleaning activities that she focuses on during her retirement.

We are having major flooding here, as yet another system has been dumping since the early hours. Our place is fine, but some streets in Tampa and St. Pete just always flood.

Dagmar, I definitely agree about doing the fun things first when on a staycation.

No one has also ever said on their deathbed, "I wish I had done more housework."

I am someone who has recently "become" retired, in that my workload fell off a cliff early this year. The industry is changing, and none of my usual clients have any need for my services. I'm still picking up a few small projects now and then, but not enough to meet expenses. Scary stuff.

Financially things are OK, although I had hoped to put more into my IRAs...

The difficult part for me is dealing with vast expanses of free time. I'm so conditioned to having my schedule driven by work requirements that I don't know what to do with myself. I guess this isn't uncommon for people who retire or who find themselves unemployed. Mostly I am trying to relax about it instead of pushing myself into some activity, or judging myself when I just "hang out."

Hey! But plenty of time for the gym, eh?

Edited to add: saef, I just saw your post. Well, if no one knows what really goes on inside you, then it's hard for people like your mom to commiserate. If you are like I used to be (and I'm not saying that you are), you put on a really good front. Everything is fine, no problem, and you meet your work requirements at the expense of yourself. I hope you find a different approach--it doesn't have to be that way.

Years ago DH answered a call from a broker (something he usually says "take a message" to when asked). The broker seemed to have some good qualities in that a) he said DH's name correctly (James, not Jim) and b) he was local. DH decided to meet with him. That relationship continues to this day and it was that broker that convinced our then partners to start a 401k for our employees. When the market downturn happened, what, 8 years ago, I lost a considerable amount in my 401k but DH's was somewhat unscathed. Since then, I've rolled mine over to our company 401k as well as an annuity that I had and both DH and I are contributing the maximum allowed.

When we first met with this broker, he asked us a couple questions: when do you want to retire and how much do you think you'll need to do that. We answered 54 (so we could enjoy retirement) and $1 million dollars. We have two years to meet those goals, but at this time I don't think we'll actually retire at 54. Maybe I'll go to part time but I don't think DH could do that as he is the brains behind a lot of what we do. Financially we'd probably be okay as long as we were careful with our money. But we may not be able to do as much as we had planned (travel, mainly) because what we have amassed must last us a long, long time.

DD returns home on Wednesday but has opted to "allow" us to keep babysitting her animals until next Monday when she'll come for a day's stay and then take them home. It's not that much extra work but it'll be really nice to get back to normal.

Bill.... Good luck throwing away your recycle bin! I bet they won't take it! One day I came home and couldn't find my bin but there was another bin in front of my house. I was hesitant to take it in because I thought it was someone else's, but I think the company replaced it for us!

Dagmar... I know what you mean about going back to work. I love my job but my extended summer breaks make it hard for me to return I think. I go back two weeks from today. I hope Ellie's ready to stay home by herself much longer...

She goes in today to have her staples removed and her nails trimmed. I'm planning on treating both dogs to a dog park visit as a reward....

I need to get serious about packing too as I leave early Wednesday morning. Tomorrow I have my yearly physical and my weight is abysmal to me anyway.

JayEll, what is it you do? How is it that suddenly none of your clients need your services?

Michele, who will stay with Ellie while you are on vacation?

Allison, how nice to have a trustworthy, reliable broker. My DH has done some of that over the years (he is an MBA and does a fair amount of consulting) and I know it's not easy to stay ahead of the market.

Andrea, my major line of work has been as a developmental editor who specializes in college textbooks in the sciences. In the past I've worked on texts for biology and other life sciences, anatomy & physiology, nutrition, genetics, physics, astronomy, and many other subjects. Much of my work has involved helping authors with revising their books, or with writing new books, and evaluating features and comparing with competitors' books.

But textbook publishing is undergoing a huge transition right now into electronic delivery. As a result, existing editions are being turned into electronic editions without much development--or at least, not with the kind of development I do.

Believe me, I've been looking.

I'm already "retirement age," but I'm trying to hang on until I reach 68 to start receiving Social Security benefits.

I have to admit, after these many years, I'm ready to stop working.

Minor excitement Update: The recycle guys took the broken recycle bin. I am so happy. Gotta grab life's minor victories.

Dagmar - Neat way to be sure that there's some Dagmar time in each staycation day.

saef - Hope your work environment eases so you can recover your physical stuff in peace.

Andrea - I just finished Do No Harm by Henry Marsh. I spent my professional career happily working with out of bound egos but this buy beats anything I've seen. When forced to share his floor with bariatric patients he refers to them as pushing whales down the hall in wheelchairs. The stream of neurologists feeding him patients are barely tolerated as professionals. However, the surgery stuff is spellbinding. The critiques of the British National Health Service (NHS) thought provoking - but not for his lament that the surgeon is no longer its unchallenged god. He's the rare author I'd just as well not invite to dinner.

My SIL called yesterday stating that my Dad is in a downward spiral. We have plans to drive up a week from Thursday but it appears he might not make it that long. She is rotating herself, her two daughters and some other nursing students to spend the night with him to take the onus off of the guy who lives in his basement (who has been a godsend for the past couple of years). He keeps trying to get up and ends up falling as he is too weak to do it himself. SIL got him one of those lift chairs to assist him but even that is too much for him to do. He wants to get up as he's starting to get bed sores so I understand why he wants to get up, but he just cannot manage on his own. We'd like to put him in a facility (he's in hospice at home) but he refuses.

Glad your bin was picked up, Bill! We had a similar problem in our old house. The new house has rolling bins and all we need to do if one is damaged beyond repair is to call and they'll swap it out for a new one. That book sounds interesting.

Has the kitchen reno been completed, Dagmar? I did like the photos you put up on FB.

Allison re your dad. The reno has five small items left to be done. The kitchen is functional and I'm cooking in it every night. That was the main thing but the small stuff needs to be completed too.

Dagmar

My first day back at work is quiet so far. One walk done, 3 to go, and then two cat visits. It's recycling pick-up day in my work area so I will be delayed and rerouted and I'm not going to get about it. It happens every Tuesday and I'm going to try to roll with it from now on.

Dagmar

Alison, given your dad's fragile state, it is probably best for him to stay where he is than to be moved anywhere. You can pay for round-the-clock care, and hospice at home can also do some things for him.

My late uncle also wanted to get up out of bed on his own--didn't understand that he couldn't--and managed to fall even with a caretaker there. So he had to have rails on the bed and so on. He was in his 90s.

Bill and Allison: there is an amazing book you may both enjoy reading, called "Being Mortal" by Atul Gawande. He is a general surgeon at Harvard who writes nonfiction in his "spare" time. Unlike the author of the book Bill mentioned, this man is an amazing human being, and his ideas are huge. Prior books dealt with stuff like how doctors make mistakes (and how to prevent them), and what doctors could do to improve their relationships with patients. This book deals with "the American way of death and dying" and talks extensively about the overmedicalization of aging, the degrading removal of autonomy from seniors and alternatives to standard nursing homes. It is also about his father's terminal condition and how he dealt with it over the span of 3-4 years. I learned a lot, and I'm a geriatric neurologist.