Boy A Winging His Way to Rome

Boy A and the rest of the group left mid morning on the first leg of this European adventure. This will be the first time he has been away from us for more then a day or two. It will also be the first time he is so far away and may be the first time he is away from us and having a heck of a lot more fun then we are.

He's growing up. I'm glad. But I can't help but think about that newborn we brought home from the hospital, the toddler who ran around shrieking with glee when we played T-Rex, the first grader eagerly waiting for the bus on the first day of school, the little boy whose life centered around his mommy. The little boy who needed me so very much.

He is growing up and not needing me. It's right. It's time, but I miss the little guy a lot.

Please bring my little man back to me safe and sound.

Plus he took my camera with him and I am left to get through the beauty of spring without a camera.

Travel--Boy A Europe tomorrow. I'm busy buying last minute stuff, packing and organizing. This is the first time in his life that he will be away from us for so long. I don't think I can stand it. I'll miss him. And I wish I was the one who was going.

Menu Foods--I called Menu Foods the other day to report Rocky's death. They were pains in the butts. They just wanted to give me another number to call. They wanted to know what kind of wet food we bought and thought was responsible for his death. The problem is I didn't know. We usually buy Iams, but have bought other brands.

Luckily the staff at Iams were very nice and took all the information and asked me to have the vet send the information about Rocky''s death to them.

It will be interesting to see what happens. It will be most interesting to see what happened to Menu foods, how the poison got in the food.

I still love retirement

Cole Sleeping at My Feet

Cole is a combination joy and pain in the butt. Puppies are a little easier then human babies only because they sleep longer and you can crate them and leave them home while you go out. They are harder because they don't diapers and they are very mobile.

He is adorable because he is a puppy. He is a pain in the butt, because he doesn't want to be out of my sight, is constantly underfoot and has very sharp teeth that he likes to use on my appendages. The hardest is I need to get up in the middle of the night to take him out. By the way, I'm sure I look really cute in the back yard at 3 in the morning in my PJs and a baggy sweatshirt.

Now that he is in the house I do have spells when I wonder whether or not I am out of my mind. I have added a new living being to my list of responsibilities. I was really enjoying retirement and making headway on getting the house in order and I've set my self back by adding a baby to the mix. Mostly I am glad. I think.

Maybe Menu Foods

Menu Foods admits they are responsible for causing kidney failure and death in animals who have eaten their foods. Rocky ate a kind of Iams that has been recalled. It is bad enough that he died, but the fact that he died from something so senseless is appalling.

Please Meet Cole de Luna

Cole was born January 18, 2007. He is a yellow Labradore and a very sweet, cute, pain in the butt. He spends most of his time sleeping-either on one of my sons laps or at my feet.



The last time I had a puppy I was 16 years ago. I had forgotten how much like human babies they are.



Cole hates to be out of sight of one of his family members. I wish he could wear diapers. I'm slowly working on crate training. But every time I put him in the crate he screams. I am getting used to it and the good thing is I won't be able to hear him when I am out of the house.



Camden is not pleased with us. He does not understand why we brought that intruder into the house. He sees no need for that noisy little thing. And, according to him, it is just wrong that people in the neighborhood come running to meet Cole. Poor Camden-cakes. He will get used to it.


As to retirement - I am getting into the swing of a schedule. I clean, take a walk, read and work on hobbies. I still need to learn to cook.

Pray For Me

Did chores, went grocery shopping, had fun. So far retirement is a good thing.

We will have a special guest coming tomorrow. I'm being secretive bcause it is more fun that way. I'll post info and pictures tomorrow.

Boy A is having a March Madness/Fantasy Baseball Draft sleepover tomorrow. It's aptly named because I will be the one going mad since there will be 7 teenage boys here from 3 in the afternoon till much too late the next day. Pray for me.

Starting To Wake Up

The good news is I only slept until 10:00 this morning and did not take an afternoon nap. I even had the time to do 3 million loads of laundry, knit and go out to dinner with the volleyball girls.

What I want to know is why am I doing more laundry now that I'm staying home then I did while I was at work. I swear that dirty laundry knows I'm home and multiplies exponentially.

I'm even finding that I do not miss work at all, but I do miss the people I worked with. And you all had better miss me.

Looks like retirement might involve more then just sleeping.

So Far Retirement Is

catching up on my sleep. I wake up when the boys go off to school and have a cup of coffee while I read the paper. I go back to sleep until about 11:30. I do some laundry, knit and read. After a few hours I take a nap.

I sure hope this is my only week of spending most of my time sleeping.

This is me sitting in the sun, snoozing.

First Real Day of Retirement?

Florida vacation is over.

Work (at least for pay) is done.

This felt like my first day of retirement and I spent it cleaning. And Knitting.

Finished up with "What's His Name", I've graduated. He helped me through a hard year.

Best Buy could not repair my computer and replaced it with a nice little Gateway. I love it. It's smaller then the last one and lighter and faster. Now I have to figure how to down load pictures cause I need pictures here.

I took a lot of pictures of birds in Florida. The beach I spent time on, housed a bird sanctuary. Sanctuary folks fed the birds on the beach twice a day. Lots of gulls and pelicans were hanging around the entrance to the sanctuary waiting to be feed. I walked down to see the birds and take pictures. The gulls must have thought I was going to feed them. They gathered around me while I was taking pictures and started to follow me home, squawking all the way. I started to walk faster and so did they. For a while I had visions of the movie "The Birds", I almost knew I would be pecked to death. But eventually they stopped following me.

Home Again

I spent the week visiting the folks in Florida. It started out as a duty visit, but I ended up being a pleasure trip. It has been the first time in I don't know how many years I have spent any time alone with them. It gave me a chance to get to know who they are again. I learned I really like the people they are, that I am who I am because of who they are.

Two things really hit home. The first was that the news was making a big deal of the firing of a local politician because he wanted a sex change operation. Both my folks thought the only factor that should be considered , for the firing, was whether or not he had done a good job. That is dang progressive.

The second thing that impressed me was that the odometer on their car was broken. They had taken it in to fixed because they qualified for a low insurance rate (for the Florida car) because it had low yearly mileage. They realized a broken odometer would report lower mileage but knew it was unfair. They were having it fixed to make sure they paid the correct amount.

I am impressed. they are people i not only love and value, but I also respect them.


I had a great time, the weather was gorgeous. I spent two days at the beach, a day at a local park. I walked at least a mile a day and spent a lot of time outdoors.

It was wonderful.

Even so, coming home is always the best. I missed the guys and the pets and my own life.

When People are Wonderful Leaving is Hard

I am not quite ready to accept that I won't be back. I'll visit, but that is not really going back. It's not doing the work, being part of the extended work family.

I had a series of wonderful good byes, an open house, a party and millions of warm hugs and good wishes. It's good to leave that way, the people I work with mean a lot to me, and I'm glad I mean something to them. It's hard to leave that way, because ... because they mean a lot to me, they are a big part of my life and I will miss them.

Yesterday I started to realize that my retirement was real. I started to realize how much I would miss everyone. After a while all I could do was go to bed. I was in bed and asleep by nine.

Today I'm ready to move on to the next step.

Gains and Losses

I am not so interested in the retirement countdown any more. It's too close to my last day and all I can think of is how much I am going to miss everyone. I work with incredibly wonderful people and leaving them will be a huge loss.

The other loss is we miss Rocky. This morning the three other cats were in the bathroom watching me brush my teeth. I kept wishing it had been all four of them. I miss having Rocky sleep beside me on the bed. I miss picking up his chunky body and feeling him wiggle to get free. I miss hearing that loud purr. I miss the fact that with out the Rock-a-Mundo, the herd of elephants doesn't sound loud enough.

The gains are knowing I will be a stay-at-home mom to teens, that I can knit and quilt to my heart's content, that I can explore lots of different interests and that I can find out who I want to be next.

Lost Weekend

Rocky- aka Rockamundo Kitty Cat died Saturday. Part of us did too.

I noticed Saturday morning that he was having trouble walking and was very lethargic. We took him to the vet who ran tests and let us know that there was no hope he would get better. The boys, hubby and I took turns holding him, telling him we loved him and saying good bye. After a few minutes the boys went to wait in the car. They needed someone to hold on too so hubby went to the car too. While the vet put him took care of him, I held him close whispered of our love and our saddness. It was over in minutes.

Rocky is buried in the back yard next to Jessie. His service was conducted by loving boys and loving parents. He is being missed.

The boys found Rocky and his sister Star in the woods 5 years ago. The raced through briars to catch both cats. Since we already had two cats, hubby and I were going to take them both to the Animal Shelter. We never got them into the cat carrier, thanks to the pleading and trickery of two small boys the cats would become loved members of the family.

Rocky had a loud purr and a quiet disposition. He was timid and it took him a while to trust us. But once he did he proved to be a lover. He loved to be petted and sleep near us.

He is missed.

I'll post a picture of him when I can get my laptop working.

Five More Days to Work

I have 5 more days to go to work. In five days I will retire. Five days. Five. Days. Five.

5

A Perfect Day

Yesterday was a perfect day.

First---I realized I have made the transition– at least in my mind- to really being ready to move on, to take the next life step—retirement. All major life changes are a multi step process and the most important --- mindset--- seems to be the hardest. While I have been looking forward to retirement for close to a year, part of me has been clinging to what I will miss. I’ll miss the job; at its best it is interesting, challenging and demanding and it is often at its best. I’ll miss the people; the people I work with are wonderful. They are smart, funny, committed and hard working. They are my work family. I’ll miss knowing I make a difference. I work for a large Federal Agency. The services we provide make a difference in people’s lives and I help provide those services. I realized today that I am looking forward to what I can do in the future much more then I am thinking about missing this life. I’m really ready to move on.

Second-the boys just got their Christmas presents-new laptops. These laptops can be voice activated. The boys can dictate papers or tell the computers what functions to bring up. Boy B was reading a prepared script to “train” his computer to recognize his voice. I sat and listened to him and felt absolutely overwhelmed with joy. I was content; I was living the life I wanted to live. I am lucky to have a husband who loves me and caters to me and to have two boys who bring me joy.

Third—I have good friends, people I enjoy spending time with.

Yesterday was a perfect day. I day I felt connected to all the people around me, I day I felt content with life and what it holds for me. It was a perfect day.

Sister and Brother

These two love to snuggle. They tolerate the other two cats but are not very friendly with them. Sandy (the ginger cat) terrorizes the dog. Camden steers a wide berth around Sandy at all times. It's actually funny, Camden is manytimes Sandy's size-but Sandy is the boss.

Blue Lady

I made it official. I signed all the papers. I will retire effective March 3, 2007, just a little over 2 weeks from today. I’m excited. I’m looking forward to being able to do what I want to do. I’m even willing to be the one who has to run the errands. I’m ready for the changes. What I didn’t expect is to feel a little blue about it all.

When I think about it, feeling a little blue makes sense. This place has been my home away from home for nearly 32 years. And I’m leaving. Maybe retiring is its like breaking up with someone you still love but just can’t live with any longer. You know you can’t stay any longer, but it still hurts to leave.

I will miss being a part of this life.