Soooooo Cozy

I know, I know, we said we were going to travel after I retired! But it's cold out there, and with this warmth inside, and eight inches of snow out there-why go anywhere else?


There's the cozy fire, with my terrific husband doing the work of keeping it stoked and the warmth rolling off of it. A big pot of soup bubbling on top, and the teapot steaming, ready to make a cup of hot tea. Maybe we'll travel somewhere tomorrow. For now, yawn, I feel a nap coming on.

Check out this goofy character sitting right off the edge of the patio! It's our cast iron chiminea that we use in the summertime. We keep a blue ball in the top of it to keep rain out of the ashes. The snow blew onto it and makes a cap for the top and the drift around the middle makes it look like a shmoo, with a fat belly. Life is Good!

THAT"S More like it!

Winter time is supposed to be snowey! Fresh, clean, white crispy snow. Snow that makes everything look clean and new, and envigorates kids to run and play outside.
Sends us old folks out to wander around in the cold and take pictures and marvel at the beauty of ice crystals in treetops.

Now I'm not really complaining that we don't get several feet of the white stuff anymore, I just miss this silent beautiful world that we used to enjoy. It's actually better now, when it comes down in a few inches at a time.

Pretty, isn't it?

I'm Retired!

Well, it's finally happened! After working all these years, and planning, hoping and saving toward it, I retired the first of the year. Wheeeeeee! As this picture shows, is the strongest emotion I feel, plus a whole heaping bunch of sheer joy.

Now that we're back home from our annual vacation to the beach, I'm rattling around the house, unpacking, laundering and putting away stuff, taking down the Christmas decorations, and testing my feelings to see how I feel about this new status.

It's a strange, unconnected feeling. Not bad in any way, I love it, but I have the feeling, for the first time in my whole entire life, that if I just simply stopped, it'd be ok. I mean, walls wouldn't crash down around us, and clocks wouldn't stop spinning, and it would just be ok! What a luxurious feeling. Kind of a delicious, easy, soft feeling. I like it!

I hope I don't get lazy, or too comfortable, and do nothing, but if I sleep an hour later in the morning, the world won't end, it'll just be . . . . . .ok!

We plan to travel a lot, but for right now, it's kind of nice to just be here, and I'm spending lots of time tidying my office and neatening the world around us, putting things into order that I haven't been able to do-ever. No time before.

What I'm hoping is that once I get things put to rights and organized, all my tools put where I can find them. I'll have this surge of creativity to take advantage of this lovely time I've been given. In the meantime, a nap feels really, delicious.

Life is very good!