Counting Down and Counting Up

I’ve been counting down the days until retirement; or rather an app on my smart phone has been doing it.  I’m at minus 23 days right now.  I’m not sure there is an app for counting UP and I sure don’t want to countdown from 28 years from now when my financial advisor estimates “that my retirement will end.”  However, it seems like I should have some means of measuring time.  My retired friends seem to quickly forget what day it is, which sounds great, except that I am a counter.  I don’t really think I would like losing a sense of time.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want it to pass too fast or too slow, but I would like to know that I’ve savored it a bit.  I don’t’ want to over schedule myself, but I do want to have some kind of structure.

Many of you will think I am crazy, but I thought about developing a schedule for myself.  You know, get up at 7:00, go to the gym at 9:00, relax at 11:00, lunch at 12, etc…   But then even I realized this was nuts.  So how will I pass the time and what kinds of goals can I set for myself?

Friend and I have already agreed that we will take one bike trip a year to an overseas location until we are too old to do so.  This year it will be northern Italy one week after I retire.  Next year our other biker friend, Motorbike,  says we should do Denmark.  So that is a plan, right?  A colleague retired last month.  She is training for a century ride.  I’m just not convinced I have the drive to train by myself, and my biking friends don’t want to do it.  So, I guess I’ll drop that idea.  When you are retired I believe you can do things like that---make up your own mind about your MISSION, VISION, OBJECTIVES AND GOAL STATEMENTS.  Right?  In fact, I want to strike those words out of my vocabulary.  Didn’t like them when I was working and by god I sure won’t use them when I AM retired.

I’m thinking that 2012 won’t be a problem.  Retiring August 31, biking northern Italy from September 7-19^th, volunteering at The Mission Continues on September 22, then home for a BIG multifamily Italian-American reunion.  October will be cleaning the house, getting rid of stuff in the garage – hubby’s not mine, then November and December are all of the holidays.  I’m thinking that 2013 will be the big challenge.

I still don't have the 100 things I want to do before my retirement ends, but I'm working on it.  Stand by.  I'm sure I'll have it done soon.