So far my favorite thing about this retirement thing is having time to cook decent meals for my family. Nothing too fancy yet (though I do have some fun cookbooks I want to dig into) but solid all-day soups and stews are my favorite. It’s great that the house smells like good food instead of Doorfash and exhausted frustration.

Speaking of negative vibes, on Samhain (that’s Halloween to you mundanes), I dated the house from top to bottom. Cat required a little more than incense to get rid of the negativity, so she and our friend Amanda ran about three house banging pots and pans and shouting at the negative spirits to Get Out. We all felt better afterwords.

It wasn’t until 10/31 that I felt like I’d several all my ties to my old career. For the intervening time, I had the dread that I was only on vacation and would need to go back. Something about changing from October to November cleared that up, and I feel more free than I have in years.

Planning. Planning is a thing I haven’t done for real in years. Planning meals, schedules, days out, fun stuff…none of that happened. Reason is that between working in tech and being a single dad for many years, no plan ever survived contact with reality. So why plan? Why open yourself up to disappointment?

That’s slowly changing. I’ll admit, I’m still working through a lot of stuff (and will be for a while), but if I want to take my laptop and go work on the household budget…or even just Go Out for a few hours and just be in the world, that feels much more possible now.

Otherwise, I’m reworking the inventory of my coffee business, slowly working through the backlog of home projects I’ve been meaning to get to for years, and READING. It turns out when work isn’t pinging you 24/7, you can concentrate for long periods at a stretch. Who knew?