Well, the die is casted and I am giving up the house and will move to Imperial Plaza, a retirement community.  But first I must attend to the house and yard and make the necessary plans to make the move.  I have decided the grass can stay the way it is and the leaves, in the front yard, will be taken up one last time.  The back can remain covered because the dogs love the leaves, running and rolling all through it.

During this time, my wife and I took the tour through the retirement community.  I was flabbergasted.  Not only is the place beautiful but self-sufficient like nothing I have ever seen before.  I originally thought that it was one building but it is four plus a nursing facility that is separate.  The four buildings are connected so that no one has to be outside for any reason unless they want to be outside.  There is an assisted living section and the rest is for those that don’t need assistance.

The main building not only has all of the administrative offices and a secretary but other amenities as well.  To name a few, I’m sure I will miss one or two; there is a bank, library, snack bar, restaurant, gym, doctor’s office, dentist office, pharmacy and small store.  Everything is well lit and it’s very spacious.

The staff was wonderful, in fact, one of the staff members wanted to take one of my dogs and that was a blessing in itself.  The activity people, there are only two, went out of their way to make us welcome and extended, to the both of us, the opportunity to participate in the same activities the residents do.  Of course I wanted to have a free tryout of these things.  My wife and I went on a trip to the casino in West Virginia and I also went to dinner with the men group called ROMEO (retired old men eating out).

There was a dinner dance that my wife and I were invited to and I really couldn’t believe the cost for dinner, dancing and socializing, for the both of us, was only twenty bucks.  When we left to go home, we were full and did more than enough dancing.  The woman that go around and get people to dance also have a session called mix and mingle.  That is free but only last an hour and is in the afternoon, twice a month..

After all of this, I was sold and I still have not seen an apartment.  We had set a date for looking at the apartments.  The reason I say (plural) apartments is that there are different price ranges and different sizes.  I am looking forward to seeing them.  In the mean time I will look at the brochures.

I believe I am finally going to enjoy retirement.  Join me on the next installment and see what my retirement is like….

I am starting this blog telling my actual experience with retirement, how it started, why and what’s happening in this self-imposed retirement.  I really didn’t want to retire but, like falling dominoes, one thing led to another.  Read about my saga, I have not decided whether it will be once or twice a week, and the things that are happening.  Enjoy, pass it on and prepare for yours.  It’s coming sooner than you think.

One day, a year ago, while at my part time job, I decided I didn’t want to work anymore and, when I told my wife that night, for the first time that I can remember, my wife was speechless.  When she finally regained her composure she simply asked “why?”  I simply said that I was tired working and wanted to do what I wanted to do, when I want to do it and how I want to do it.  I didn’t want to have a clock or any schedule for any reason with the exception of seeing the doctor or getting up early to go fishing.

Let me tell you how this all started and, later, how it’s going.  I’ve been working since I was a teenager (not counting chores around the house and around the neighborhood) and I am now sixty seven.  There has only been one day, which I can recall, in all of these years that I was not gainfully employed.   It was time to hang up my spurs.  I still had the work around the house and around the yard, not counting taking care of my two dogs and a small garden.

My favorite pass time is saltwater fishing and my shortwave radio listening.  Taking care of the house, the dogs, the yard, honey-do lists, appointments and getting a little sleep meant something had to be scratched from the schedule and put on the back burner.  Sleep suffered, fishing went into the dumps and shortwave was virtually not heard in my “Man Cave”.  There was more than enough yard work and the honey-do list never got any shorter.

Retirement was not going the way I thought it would and I was even more tired.  I had to push on.  I had to persevere.  I could not give up and let things go.  A house will slowly die and things, inside, will quickly break beyond a do-it-yourself fix.  I am a do-it-yourself man and hate to call a pricy laborer.  This is my house and why should I pay someone to do something I can do myself, if I had the time.

Then, God must have heard my silent cry; my wife had me go with her to a retirement community that a friend had shown her.   She thought I wouldn’t like it and I would have negative things to say about the place.  Little did she know how wrong she was.  I fell in love with it and wanted to move in right away but my wife reminded me about the house and dogs.  I quickly had a plan but that was going to take a little time and I had to work fast.  My wife, again, was speechless because she thought I wanted the house and yard.  She was wrong because I was ready to go except I didn’t want to give up my dogs, aka my two sons.  I had to put them up for adoption although it was going to break my heart and I would miss them dearly.