Retirement

Cliff and I love the freedom that retirement gives us.  Today, for instance, we decided on the spur of the moment to go to Jamesport to visit an Amish store and eat at a Mennonite restaurant.  Dear Lord, can meat loaf and fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy get any better?   

We looked at Amish-made quilts for $499, and I told Cliff they were worth every penny of that.  

We saw lots of horses, with buggies and without.  

I bought some cheap candy.  Also some cheap popcorn that actually POPS when you want it to pop, and some cheap pinto beans.  Oh yes, and a pint of sorghum, because Cliff has to have it once in awhile when I make biscuits or corn bread.  
All the time we were on the road I read aloud from my latest John Sandford book, and time flew.  We cruised through several used tractor lots and visited my cousin Gerald in Cameron.  
It was a good day.

Where's Cliff?

Lately I never know where to look for Cliff, once he goes outside.  The loggers left a lot of treetops laying around, enough to make plenty of wood for the stove in the shop for at least ten years.  So Cliff has been cutting those walnut treetops into wood, and also getting rid of the limbs and branches left behind when he's done.  As I've said before, he keeps this little acreage as neat as a public park, especially since he's retired.  
So the other day I stepped outside and looked around for my husband and his ever-present John Deere tractor.  I heard the chain saw and located him, and decided to take my camera down for a few pictures.  

 Well, the sound of the chain saw stopped.  But I saw the tractor in the distance, down there by the quonset hut.  

 Yeah, he's just standing there, to the left of the quonset hut.  Technically that isn't a quonset hut; it's half of an old grain bin Emmett Kolster gave us years ago.  But it makes a good storage space for Cliff's valuable junk lumber, metal, barn tin, and old tires that he might someday find a use for.

 Hmmm.  This is not an unfamiliar scenario:  When I see my husband looking intently at a tree, or group of trees, I know a tree will soon be falling.  When I got to his side, I asked what he was pondering.  He said he was thinking about taking all three of those trees down, but if he did, the one leaning toward the quonset hut would land on it.  Then he pointed out another tree he was hesitating about cutting down because it's dead, and dead trees are liable to snap and fall in a different direction that you expect.  In other words, they're dangerous.  However, he figured if he did it a certain way....
That's when I butted in.  "Cliff," I said, "you are really enjoying your retirement, aren't you?"
He agreed.  Honestly, I've never seen the man as happy as he has been these past six months.  
"Since you're having such a good time, surely you wouldn't think about doing something stupid that could kill you and end it all, would you?"  
He agreed, and walked away from those trees.  I try to remind him every day, "Don't do something stupid that could get you killed!"  
Hey, don't we all know somebody who retired just in time to die?  It happens all the time.  In fact, I just heard about another one today.    

 So after our deep philosophical discussion, we headed up the hill so I could take pictures of a farm implement to put on Craigslist.      

It's a spring-tooth harrow.  Cliff measured it so he could include the width of the thing in the ad.  So far nobody has called about it, but Craigslist is a funny thing:  You can have something advertised on there for six months and never get a call or an email.  Then you put the same ad on a few weeks later, and two or three people show up wanting it.  It's all about the right person seeing the ad at the right time.  
I'll leave all my readers with this word of advice:  Don't do something stupid today that could get you killed.  (Unless, of course, we're talking about riding a motorcycle.  Some things are worth a little risk.)

Things you learn when you reach retirement age

You learn to love McDonald's when you're retired.  Oh, you may have spurned it all your life, but not now.  You can get a senior coffee for fifty cents when you're on the road.  You can make a meal from their dollar menu:  two cheeseburgers, two apple pies, two waters:  $3 for two people.
You learn to whine, and even cry.  After my daddy died, I couldn't understand why my mom was always telling people on the street, and on the phone, "I'm just a poor old widow lady."  
Seriously, it was embarrassing.  
Fast forward to our retirement.  I'm not a widow, but I have learned to whine, and even turn on the tears when I can't seem to get any action from the Social Security people or the Medicare folks.  My phrase is this:  "We're living on a fixed income; what are we going to do if you don't help us?  We can't get by like this."    
When my granddaughter, Amber, was very young, her mom would dial me up and put my sweet little granddaughter on the phone.  "Hi, Amber," I'd say.   
"Hi Grandma," she'd answer in a perky, happy little high-pitched voice.  
"How are you, Amber?"  
Instantly she'd start crying and begin to tell me about all the injustices her mother had heaped upon her.  I never met anybody who could turn on the tears like Amber.  
And now I'm doing it.  
It's true!  I went to Walmart pharmacy to pick up the only prescription drug I take, for my blood pressure.  I was informed that Medicare Complete wanted our other provider to take care of it.  
We have no other provider, but I knew what was going on because I went through all this with Cliff a couple of weeks ago.  Through no fault of our own, we had been thrown in pharmaceutical jail.  
When it happened with Cliff, it was pretty urgent that we get that prescription that day.  He had taken his last one, and it was something the doctors seem to think he urgently needs.  It's no use to whine at the people working at Walmart, because it's none of their doing.  So I sat on a bench at Walmart for an hour, talking on the phone to Medicare, until I had it straightened out.  
For some reason, the insurance that Cliff had at his job was still listed as a provider, even though they cancelled him when he retired on July 6.  
Once we got him straightened out that day, I gave it no more thought.  That is, until I went for my prescription yesterday, and the same thing happened to me.   I was going to have to go through the same rigamarole for myself.  
My blood pressure meds are pretty cheap, even without insurance.  So I opted to pay $22 out of pocket and go to the comfort of my own home to deal with Medicare.  The lady at the pharmacy told me to keep my receipt; when we got it straightened out, she would run it through again and reimburse me.  
I called Medicare once, talked to some guy, and got cut off after thirty minutes.  I called again, and the lady who spoke with me said they would call me in twenty-four hours.  
They didn't.  
So this afternoon I called them again, and got a man who obviously could not have cared less.  His only advice was for me to call the pharmacy and see if "the flag" had been removed. 
I did, and it had not been.  
I went outside to the shop where Cliff is spiffing up the Oliver 1855 and told him, "I'm going to call one more time, and this time I'm going to cry."  
I did, and it worked.  
Once you're living on Social Security, all you need to do is mention the fixed income situation and start crying.  It works with Dish Network, Direct TV, and CenturyLink.  Best of all, it seems to work with Medicare.  
The flag has been removed and I'm out of pharmaceutical jail.  
I wonder if there are any job openings on soap operas.  I can cry at the drop of a hat, and I'll even drop the hat.

Retirement update

Cliff is settling into retirement nicely.  Oh, he still keeps pretty busy all day, even in this heat.  He spent the last two days tearing my old tack room out of the barn, since there are no horses in my future; this frees up some space for hay or for parking tractors.  It wasn't that big a room, but there's now an open corner that wasn't there.  
His current project is disassembling the dog pen he and the twins build for Mandy in 2004.

That's Mandy; she's three dogs ago in my past.  I got her as a puppy, and she happily spent her nights in the pen.  Unfortunately, she had barely made it past a year old when she was struck by a car on the highway and killed.  After her death we got Sadie, and I don't recall using the pen for her much, except for when Cliff had his heart surgery.  I used it a very few times for Iris when I first got her, until I found out she'd do fine in the house in our absence.  I was going to try using the pen for chickens, but the chicks I bought only made it a couple of nights before rats killed them.  

   The twins next door helped Cliff construct the pen; I was at work when all this went on.  
Anyhow, taking out that pen will likely be Cliff's project today.  (Added later:  I walked outside after I made this entry and saw he's about done with the project already.)  This morning he has a date with granddaughter Monica; he's giving her occasional driving lessons. 
There has been one change in Cliff's routine:  He's sleeping eight or nine hours at night.  For years he got by on six or seven hours of sleep because he would wake up knowing his time was limited to do things he needed to do before he went to work at 2:30 P.M.  Try as he might, he couldn't go back to sleep once he was awake.  So he is now sleeping longer, and I'm glad for that; it always worried me that he got by on so little sleep.    
He gets up, takes his time on the laptop checking out Craigslist and other favorite websites (my blog, for instance), goes for a walk around 8 or 8:30 (I'm walking with him every other day now), and then starts working on his projects.  He's mowed most of the pasture until I think he's sick of mowing, but there are still some places to do.  He doesn't always wear his watch now; the only thing he has to be on time for is dinner!
Because he's had heart issues, he isn't supposed to be out in this intense heat we're having, but he isn't about to sit in the house and twiddle his thumbs just to stay cool.  He does move slowly on these hot days, drinks gallons of water, and takes frequent breaks, sitting in his shop listening to Willy's Place on his XM/Sirius radio.  
Cliff has always had back pain, but it seemed to hurt more when he first retired.  He switched recliners for awhile, but that didn't seem to help.  Now he's decided to sit on the couch, and (knock wood), his back has not been bothering him nearly as much.  Perhaps recliners are not the best thing for one's back. Remember when Kennedy was president and his doctor told him to get a big wooden rocking chair to ease his back pain?  Maybe that's what Cliff needs.  
If the weather ever breaks, we'll take a road trip or two on the motorcycle.  But with these temperatures we're having, it would be like riding in a blast furnace.  No thanks.  

Cliff's last day at work

This afternoon when Cliff clocks in at work, it will be his last day:  He took one of his vacation days for tomorrow, and one for next Tuesday.  This allows him to collect holiday pay for July 4.  
His co-workers had a little barbecue and party in his honor last night.  

How about that cake?  

We only decided a few months ago that he should retire, and now the big day is here.  I have said it before and I'll say it again:  If anybody deserves to retire, it's Cliff.  He was fourteen when he got his first job throwing newspapers out of a station wagon.  When I met him in 1965, he was working at a metal plating shop in Kansas City.  In 1968 he started working part-time for the Country Butcher Shop, and that soon became his full-time job.  He loved being a butcher, although that occupation is the chief cause of the arthritis that now plagues him.  
Work at the butcher shop began dwindling; fewer people were raising their own meat, and Cliff saw the writing on the wall.  I think he went from there to R.B. Rice for three years, until they closed it down.  Then he drove all the way to Marshall, Missouri, to work at a hog butchering facility.  It's the only job he's ever had that he absolutely hated, and he quit just one week shy of a year there.  Then he worked at concrete construction for a couple of guys who were the sons of the owner of the butcher shop where he used to work.  The concrete construction job was hard work, and dangerous, but Cliff loved being outside where he could enjoy the seasons.  
Eventually the brothers disbanded their company, but one of them stayed in the business and Cliff worked for him for awhile, until the time came when there wasn't enough to keep him working steadily.    
I don't remember the exact order in which all these jobs came into Cliff's life, but I do recall each and every one.  He found some sort of pleasure in every job he's ever had except for the one at Marshall.
At some point, jobs dried up everywhere and Cliff drew unemployment.  During this time, I was milking cows and raising baby calves with their milk.  Cliff started helping a local dairy farmer who paid him for his work with Holstein and Brown Swiss bull calves, which I raised.  When the calves were six months old or so, we'd take them to the sale barn.  This really helped out as a supplement to Cliff's unemployment checks.  Cliff, meantime, who had always wanted to be a farmer, got to do some real farming for once in his life.  
A neighbor next door worked at Continental Disc in Liberty; He tried to get Cliff a job there, but the place required a high school diploma:  Cliff had quit school in his junior year.

So in 1993, he went to GED school in the evenings; one Saturday afternoon while he was in the middle of making a pen for my brood sow (yes, I had hogs), his diploma arrived in the mail.  
Our neighbor who worked at Continental Disc had a friend, Velma, who was instrumental in getting Cliff hired.  We owe her a lifelong debt of gratitude for helping someone she didn't even know at the time.  So Cliff was working at his dream job, getting frequent raises, enjoying the first health insurance coverage we'd had in years, and actually getting paid vacations.  We were living high on the hog.
Cliff has always called that place his "retirement villa" because the work is not physically demanding; he figured he could hold down a job there until he died.  
And then this year I convinced him that he needs to experience retirement.  
So here we go, on a new adventure.  Wish us luck!

State of the household entry

Before the home therapist stopped coming, he asked me, "Do you plan to have your other knee done?"  
"Not unless it gets worse than it is right now," I answered.  
"Well, if you ever do, don't expect it to go this smoothly."  
It seems I've done everything ahead of schedule, starting with my getting out of the hospital after only two nights.  
At this point twenty-three days after surgery, I don't have much pain.  I haven't taken a hydrocodone for two days, and don't plan to take another until a couple hours before I go to therapy on Friday.  Then I'll take two, because those therapists are brutal.  
Now that I'm much more active, muscles all over my body are starting to wake up and squawk; they all thought I retired them three weeks ago.  For that muscle pain, I take ordinary, over-the-counter, generic Tylenol.    
Up until yesterday I couldn't become enthusiastic about fixing meals.  I searched for any and every excuse to either eat out or have sandwiches, and I wasn't all that excited about eating, either.  Oh, I cooked, but it was a half-hearted effort.  Poor Cliff didn't complain.  I developed a craving for peanut-butter-on-whole-wheat-bread sandwiches over the past couple of weeks, and that was a frequent supper for me.  
Yesterday afternoon something stirred in me that headed me back to a more normal state of mind.  I went out and pounded four steel fence-posts in the ground for some tomato cages; I walked back on the point to see if the river bottom was flooded (it isn't... crops are growing there).  I made some Jello for Cliff (I'm not a fan of Jello), and put some pinto beans to soak overnight.  Today we had corn bread and beans for dinner.  
Yes, folks, I do believe I'm back... it's really me!  I still tire easily; there's still swelling in my knee.  But my walking speed has picked up until it's almost normal.  I even slept pretty well last night.  


Cliff, meanwhile, is anxiously awaiting retirement.  After this week, he has four weeks left to work.  We've had temperatures in the mid-nineties, and his place of employment isn't air-conditioned.  Not only that, there are ovens going that super-heat the building even more.  When Cliff had open-heart surgery, the doctors told him he wasn't to expose himself to temperatures over eighty-five degrees, but he really had no choice if he was going to work.  It will be so great for him not to have to go into that fierce heat again during the summer.  
I've been checking and double-checking our budget; we finally got the official word that Cliff will receive his first Social Security check in July, and I will get an increase in mine at that time.  Several people have told Cliff that the hardest part of living on Social Security is getting used to one payday a month.  Since I'm already using the envelope system for groceries, clothing, pet expenses and prescriptions, I don't see that anything will change that much.  When the envelope is empty, I don't buy any more until the next month.  Of course, the doctor-and-prescription envelope might have to have some help in emergencies, but we have a fund for that.  
Before my surgery, I debated whether I should ride the motorcycle again; my doctor, of course, is against it.  I've almost decided now that I probably will ride again.  When old folks buy a motorcycle, they're taking a risk every time they get on the thing, so what's one more risk?  A busted knee replacement would probably be the least of my worries.  That's where I stand on the situation today; who knows how I'll feel tomorrow.  

Back to normal

For over a year, Cliff has been working ten-hour days, four days a week.  He would leave for work at 2:30 P.M. and get back home at 3 A.M.  I woke him up each morning at 10 (his request).  He moves slowly in the morning, so by the time he was ready for us to go for our walk, it was usually after 11.  We'd get back before noon and it was time for me to tend to dinner, which was at 1 P.M.  Often I'd prepare something before Cliff got up in the morning and just reheat it.  
As you can see, he didn't have much time for anything else on the four days he worked.  The three-day weekends were nice, though.  
We were only in bed together for an hour or two each night, since I'm always wide awake by 5.  I'd be too hungry to wait till Cliff got up, so we ate breakfast at different times.  
Every three months, the employees where he works have the chance to switch to eight-hour days, five days a week.  He and Tony, the guy he rides with, decided to do it this time.  
I like this so much better!  
We can eat breakfast together; we take our walk, and I still have plenty of time to prepare a meal.  Cliff says eight hours absolutely flies past, after working ten hours for so long.  
Of course, at this stage it's all temporary, since he plans to retire in June anyhow.  He says that ever since he decided to retire, it's really hard to go to work.  He's anxious for June.  
For that matter, so am I.  
Now, on to the weather.  A few days ago the forecast for Christmas Eve was highs in the fifties and sunshine.  "We'll go on a quick motorcycle ride," I told Cliff.  
I should have known better than to trust a long-range forecast.  Now they're talking about sleet and snow and wintry mixes and I don't know what-all.
  
Ever since Cliff's doctor yelled at us about his weight, he's been doing better.  He lost eight pounds, briefly put it back on over Thanksgiving, then lost it again.  Starting New Year's, we're both going to get serious.  I mean, really serious.  I won't be putting that little ticker thing on the sidebar telling what I've lost, because that doesn't seem to help the cause at all, and it makes me feel even worse if I fail, knowing everybody is watching.  
We've done it before, although I'll admit the older we get, the harder it is to lose weight.  But I certainly don't want to face the wrath of that doctor again!  
I won't be harping on the weight thing on this blog; nothing is more boring than hearing about calories and carbs and so forth.  Wish us luck!

Living out of envelopes

In the first month or so of using the envelope system of budgeting, I enjoyed seeing the cash mount up, and decided to put a limit of $300 in any one envelope because, after all, who wants to be carrying all that money around.  
Then reality hit.  I now realize none of them will ever have $300 in them, not even close.  
The pet envelope was filling up nicely until Iris ran out of dog food, heart worm preventative, and flea-and-tick stuff all at the same time.  Maybe it really does cost $20 a week to keep a dog.  OK, my cow expenses come from that envelope too, but Bonnie doesn't require much.  We don't have to board her when we leave; I only give her sweet feed when I milk her, which is maybe twice a week.  Grass is free, and so far, so is the hay.  She just gives and gives, and asks little in return.  
The "Doctors and meds" envelope gets more money than any other one, $35 a week.  Yes, we have insurance, but there are those pesky co-pays.  Lipitor is expensive, and there's no generic.  It's the same with Niaspan.  There's little chance of extra money accumulating in that envelope for long.  
Next week, by the way, Cliff will go for a nuclear stress test.  Not because he's having a problem, but because it will soon be five years since his heart surgery and the cardiologist wants to make sure everything is working as it should.  That's a $35 copay.     
This envelope thing gets a little tricky when I'm shopping at Walmart.  Last Friday I needed dog food (pets), some socks (clothes and haircuts) and of course, groceries.  As it happened, there was correct change in all the envelopes for me to take cash out of two envelopes and put it in my grocery envelope, sparing me the embarrassment of asking the cashier to ring all these things separately.  
There's a different kind of problem with my grocery allotment, which is $70 per week.  
It's more, so far, than I ever spend.  Two weeks out of three, I spend less than $40.  
So if I get $100 or so ahead, I buy stuff I really don't need, or we eat out.  We should never eat out, because everything is so over-salted at restaurants that it isn't healthy for anyone, especially someone who's had a heart problem.  Besides, when I'm living out of envelopes, I can't help thinking about how many groceries that $25 we spent at Olive Garden would have bought.
What I need to do is allow less cash for groceries, say $50 weekly.
I imagine I will do that, once Cliff retires.   
With his retirement looming, we're both more aware of the price of fuel.  We don't jump in the car and go buy something the minute we run out of it.  If we need anything from a farm store we'll wait until shopping day and drive twenty-five miles to Richmond because there's an Orscheln's and a Walmart there; we make one trip serve two purposes.  If we only need a few groceries, we sometimes shop in Lexington, eight miles away.  If I have several non-grocery items, we go fifteen miles to the nearest Walmart, even though it's a small one and doesn't always have the biggest selection.  
The only time we make unnecessary trips is when we're joy-riding on the motorcycle.  It's what we do for fun, and we'll continue that as long as possible.   
All this penny-pinching isn't necessary right now; we could live high on the hog while we have the chance.  But I'm actually enjoying it, and this way it won't be so much of a shock to me when I actually have to do it.  
Prepare as I might, I'm sure we'll be in for some surprises, especially if the government starts messing with Social Security and Medicare.  
We'll take it one day at a time, just like we always have.

Cliff's four-day work week

I don't even remember when Cliff started working the four-day work week.  It seems like at least a year, but who knows.  
We've learned to deal with it because, you know, he always gets a three-day weekend.
That sounds good, doesn't it?
Except that for four days a week, he gets up at mid-morning, eats breakfast, goes for a walk, eats dinner, and goes to work.  Oh, and on Friday, he's so tired he's a zombie.  
He and Tony, the guy he rides to work with, are given the choice of going back to a five-day week every three months.  They've decided that when the time comes to make that choice, they're going to go back to a five-day, eight-hours-a-day, work week, at least for three months; because they do have the option of going back to four-day weeks if they want to.
I've learned to deal with either schedule.  What's time to a hog?
A hog, you ask?  What are you talking about?  
This comes from an old Jerry Clower story:  A salesman approached a hog farmer and said, "Mister, if you buy my hog feed, your hogs will go to market two months sooner."  
The farmer answered, "Oh well, what's time to a hog?"  
So we'll see how Cliff and Tony do, going back to a regular schedule.  One thing about it, no matter what his schedule, Cliff only has to make it until next June.  Then he retires.

These perfect days

We're having absolutely perfect autumn weather around here.  Well, perhaps not quite perfect:  The pasture Cliff seeded last month could use a drink.  At least those little seeds got up and growing before this dry spell hit.  
Temperature highs are around 80 and morning lows hover around 50.  This means that when I go to bed, the windows are open, with a gentle, welcome breeze coming in.  Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning I wake up freezing, and close the windows.  
When I get out of bed, I put on a sweatshirt and sweat pants, and that keeps me quite comfy in the house.  If I go out to the garden, though, I need an added jacket.  By nine o'clock, I've ditched the jacket and I'm switching the sweatshirt for a T-shirt; when Cliff and I head out for our daily walk at 11 A.M., I'm wearing shorts, and that's usually what I wear the rest of the day.  
I change clothes a lot, this time of year.    
It amazes me that I can still go to the garden every day and come back with peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, beets, okra, or eggplant.  It's October!  I've never had garden produce this time of year.  


I've been thinking lately about Cliff's retirement and the ways it will affect me positively.  
It will be nice to get our walk taken earlier in the day: In the hot summertime, we'll be able to get out there and get it done while the temperatures are cool.  In winter, we can wait until mid-afternoon, and walk when it's warmest.   
It will be nice for the two of us to go to bed around the same time at night.   
I'll enjoy Cliff getting up at a decent time in the morning, so I won't have to worry about waking him up when I'm clattering around in the kitchen.  I'll be able to vacuum earlier in the day, because he won't be in there trying to sleep.
We'll be able to hop on the motorcycle when the weather's right, without having to get back home in time for Cliff to go to work.  He will feel better about going for a ride on the spur of the moment because he'll have more time for his chores and hobby activities, so he won't be fretting about what he should be doing at home.  
I've had several women warn me that he'll be underfoot all the time.  I doubt it.  Cliff spends whole days in his shop, puttering about.  He spends hours every month mowing yards and pasture, patching fences, trimming trees and cutting down the "old snags" as he calls dead or ugly trees, in the pasture.  In order to keep a place up to his standards, there's a lot of time and energy required.  
He was off work for three months after the heart bypass surgery, and as soon as he was able to do anything at all, he was not underfoot.  
We'll have a lot less money.  I doubt we'll be taking long road trips.  But I've lived this long without seeing Wyoming and Montana.  There's a lot of beauty to enjoy in Missouri and the surrounding states.  We'll probably be taking advantage of that free bed-and-breakfast in St. Louis frequently.    
There is that one little problem of my wanting a little time to myself in the morning before I talk to anybody, but we'll work around that.  We managed when he was convalescing, four years ago. 
Yes.  I'm ready for Cliff's retirement.

Looking forward

One thing I look forward to when Cliff retires is his rising earlier in the morning.  
On the shift he's working now, he sleeps until 10 A.M.  That only gives him seven hours of sleep, but he wants to be awakened at 10, and I comply.  
When we were first married, Cliff could sleep till noon with no problem.  I was the early bird.  Things have changed, and if Cliff is off work for any length of time, he adjusts and adapts to my early-bird schedule, give or take an hour or so.  I like a one-hour difference in our getting-up time, because I prefer to drink my three cups of coffee alone before I deal with meeting somebody else's needs.  
Once I have my quiet time, though, I'm ready for Cliff to get up.  I'm a morning person, and I'm tired of not being able to vacuum until after Cliff is gone to work.  Fact is, I don't vacuum much these days, because with him sleeping I don't want to make a bunch of racket.  Here's what happens:  Cliff gets up at 10; he drinks coffee and watches parts of the morning news recorded on the DVR until 11.  We go for our walk, getting back to the house sometime between 11:30 and noon.  Then it's time to prepare dinner, which we normally eat at 1.  If there's something we both like on DVR (The Closer, Memphis Beat, Lie To Me, Pawn Stars) we'll watch that with our meal, and then it's time for Cliff to take a shower and get ready for work.  While he's doing that, I pack his lunch box.  
He leaves at 2:30, and by then, this morning person is totally out of the mood to do much of anything.  


On another note:  There's this man in town who occasionally comes around demanding I do something on the computer for him.  He isn't a friend, just an acquaintance from whom I once bought a horse (not Blue, the horse before him).  Weeks and month can go by without my seeing him, then here he comes; when he comes calling, I know he wants something.  Yesterday he showed up at my door as we were watching Memphis Beat and eating dinner.  I opened the door and greeted him, and here's what he had to say:  "I need you to put an ad on Craigslist; I have a horse I want to sell.  And then I have a bumper to sell, and I want you to put that on Ebay."  
Not "would you please," or "Do you mind" or "could you".  
And no, he doesn't offer me anything in return for these services.  He used to ask me to print stuff for him often, but I finally told him printer ink cartridges are too expensive for me to be doing that.  Oh, and by the way, he has Internet and a computer at home; he just doesn't know how to make use of them.  
My first reply to the orders he barked out was "I don't do Ebay."  
Because you can imagine how complicated it could get with people asking questions and bidding on the item; good grief, the man would be here every day, and I can barely tolerate him for five minutes!  
"Oh, you don't?"  He sounded disappointed.  "Well, OK; but you can put an ad on Craigslist for me?"  
Yes, I told him.  Just don't come at this time of day, because this is when we eat.  
So he's supposed to be here at nine o'clock this morning.  
Last year when I had an abundance of butternut squash and tomatoes in the garden, I made the mistake of telling him on one of his visits to help himself to the produce, and he gladly obliged.  A week or so later I happened to look out my window, and there he was in my garden again.  Uninvited.  Picking sweet peppers that I never had any intention of giving away.  
I'm not shy; I yelled out at him, "Hey, stay out of the sweet peppers."
 So yeah, I can hardly wait until 9 o'clock.  Cliff, of course, will be in bed, and that's a good thing.  He dislikes the guy.  I'm thinking about firing up the laptop and doing this Craigslist thing out in the yard, just to keep the man out of my house.  
Are you wondering why I agreed to even help him?  
Well, it's so simple to put an ad on Craigslist that a six-year-old could do it.  I can't bring myself to refuse to do something that takes so little effort on my part.  Maybe I'll even try to teach him how to do it himself.
Wish me luck.  
By the way, I haven't said anything here that I wouldn't say to his face.
P.S.  It's 9:30 and he hasn't shown up yet.  
P.P.S.  I'll bet he found somebody who would do Ebay AND Craigslist.  Good!  
P.P.P.S.  He showed up.  At ten.  Exactly when I get Cliff up, get him his coffee, fix his cereal, etc. Oh, and what I said about "so little effort"?  Somebody just shoot me.  I must have been out of my mind.  I had to scan pictures, listen to war stories about breaking wild horses, have the guy insinuate "Say It Isn't So", Cliff's favorite movie that's laying on my desk, was a porn flick... I finally told him to leave and come back between 2:30 and 6 and I'd have the pictures ready to put on the ad.  This time I am not optimistic.  I somehow lost two of the four pictures I scanned for him, and I am NOT going to scan them again.  

Ah, retirement

Our son's two oldest children, both in their twenties, check in on us often.  Arick only gets one day off work (Monday), but he usually manages to spend at least a couple of hours with us; I try to fix something for dinner I know he will like on Mondays.  
Amber spends a Saturday night with us about once a month; she's a rather picky eater, but I always know I can make her happy by fixing pancakes for her breakfast on Sunday morning.  She was here this past weekend and watched part of "Woodstock" with me; I have it recorded on the DVR and was watching it in installments when Cliff wasn't in the house (he has no interest in Woodstock).  
Watching that documentary movie led to discussions of drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll; we had quite a conversation, let me tell you.  
And then I told her about our plans for Cliff to hopefully retire next year.  She expressed shock, just as her brother did when I told him.  
"I think we can manage to keep the place for five to ten years after he retires, if nothing catastrophic happens," I told her.  
"What do you mean?"
Inflation, I explained, will tighten our budget gradually (or not so gradually); we won't be able to stay here forever.  
"What will you do with this place?" she asked, still taken aback.  
"We'll sell the place, have an auction and sell a most of the machinery, and rent a little place in a smallish town somewhere, maybe Richmond.  Of course, our health might require us to do something before that anyhow; at our ages, there are so many things that can surprise you:  strokes, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's... your grandpa has already had heart surgery."   
I guess Amber thought we'd just be here forever, out behind the barn.  
Ideally, what I'd hope for if we're forced out of our home by inflation would be a place in town with room for Cliff to store his John Deere; he could clear snow off driveways in winter and plow gardens for people in spring, not so much for the money, but because he loves to do things with a tractor.  
Because I just can't see Cliff without a tractor.   
But you know what they say about the best-laid plans.

Thinking about retirement

Cliff and I went and talked to our insurance man today.  We raised the deductible on both the old house and this trailer house to $1,000.  With a little apprehension, we took off some things that we had been insuring.  
Why?  
I have told Cliff for some time that we would need to do this when he retires; we won't be able to afford the cost of that much insurance.  Today he said, "Let's just do it now."  
When we got home, for the first time ever, I wrote down a list of expenses we'll always have, even after retirement.  
I made another list of things we can reduce or cut out entirely:  Dish TV, for example; that's $40 a month.  I told my husband I'm not giving up Internet unless I'm starving; after all, it's my main form of entertainment.
We don't have a big retirement fund; we will have to try and live on our social security.  Scary, isn't it?  Cliff's 401K isn't a huge amount, and we'll put that in savings as our nest egg.  
It appears that we could manage to stay here on our place with proper budgeting, at least for a few years.  Unless Social Security goes the way of the dinosaur; in that case, we'll be on the streets with signs that say, "Will work for food."  
As I was doing all this figuring, something made me think of Dave Ramsey and his envelope system.   It's actually a plan to help you get out of debt, and except for our property, our debts are paid.  But it could help us stay on track.
I believe the idea is that you allot so much each pay period to groceries, clothing, medicine, and so forth; each of these has its own envelope.  When the envelope is empty, you do without.  Of course, this would not apply to medicines; you'l have to try and budget the proper amount for that, or a little extra.  Cliff pointed out the high cost of owning a pet, and I labeled an envelope for Iris' care and feeding.    
I decided to go ahead and use the envelope system right now for the things I can; this won't include utilities, house payments, insurance and so forth, because I pay those with checks.  But using the envelopes for what I can will help me fine-tune our budget so I'll have a realistic idea of how much we really need when we retire.  It might help me spend less, too.  
You can spend $19 plus shipping on some sort of fancy envelope holder and special envelopes from Dave Ramsey's website, but I'm using plain old business-sized envelopes.  What's the point of budgeting if you're going to pay $20 for envelopes?  
Wish me luck.  I'll keep you informed.

Cliff's little dream

Lots of people wonder why Cliff is still holding down a job at the age of 65.  His co-workers often ask him, "When are you going to retire?"  
Cliff tells them he plans to work as long as he can walk through the doors of the place.  
It isn't that he's afraid of retirement; he would have a blast working on his projects unlimited by the constraints of time.  
We just don't have a huge retirement fund.  Cliff spent a lot of his working life toiling at small businesses that had no retirement programs, no 401K... nothing.  Oh, I'm pretty sure we could get by, at least for a few years.  But there would be a lot of "cutting back".  I've let him know I'm willing to try it, but he says, "No; I like to spend money too well to retire."  
Let's face it, motorcycles and tractors are rather expensive hobbies.  Add to that the fact that his job isn't physically hard at all, and it isn't rough on his body; so he figures he could do it as long as his brain is working.
In the back of his mind, though, he tries to figure out a way to have his cake and eat it too.  
He's often explored this option:  A guy we know once made a deal with an elderly lady for her farm.  She was a widow, a retired school teacher who never had children.  She was willing to sell her place to Tom so long as she could live in the farm house until she was ready to move to town.
So she had her house, but she didn't have to worry about taxes or upkeep or mowing the pastures.  She was living there scott-free.  
Cliff thinks this would be an excellent solution.  Let the buyer live in the old house, fix it up if they liked, while we spent our remaining years back here in the trailer house.  Then I remind him he simply has to have his shop, so the buyer wouldn't have use of that; and for the time being, we will have a cow or two to pasture; so we need the barn to store hay.  And we're in our mid-sixties.  There's a pretty good chance at least one of us will live another twenty or thirty years.  I'm thinking any buyer of the place would be getting antsy, waiting for someone to croak, while all they really had access to would be the old house and the old garage.  
We've also discussed selling off the original six acres we bought, which includes the house, barns, and.... Cliff's beloved shop.  Nope, won't work.  Not to mention the fact that the well supplying our water is on that piece of land.  
So we just take it one day at a time, enjoying each moment, knowing that something might happen on any given day that could make the whole predicament irrelevant anyhow.   

Meanwhile, Bonnie continues to camp out at my cabin, making plans for her next baby

and Iris leaves it to the humans in the household to ponder such predicaments as retirement.  She isn't worried; she was born retired.

From the Internet (Cliff's cousin sent this to me)

And They Ask Why I Like Retirement!

Question: How many days in a week?

Answer: 6 Saturdays, 1 Sunday


Question: When is a retiree's bedtime?

Answer: Three hours after he falls asleep on the couch.


Question: How many retirees to change a light bulb?

Answer: Only one, but it might take all day.


Question: What's the biggest gripe of retirees?

Answer: There is not enough time to get everything done.


Question: Why don't retirees mind being called Seniors?

Answer: The term comes with a 10% percent discount.


Question: Among retirees what is considered formal attire?

Answer: Tied shoes.


Question: Why do retirees count pennies?

Answer: They are the only ones who have the time.


Question: What is the common term for someone who enjoys

Work and refuses to retire?

Answer: NUTS!


Question: Why are retirees so slow to clean out the basement,

Attic or garage?

Answer: They know that as soon as they do, one of their adult

Kids will want to store stuff there.


Question: What do retirees call a long lunch?

Answer: Normal .


Question: What is the best way to describe retirement?

Answer: The never ending Coffee Break.


Question: What's the biggest advantage of going back to

School as a retiree?

Answer: If you cut classes, no one calls your parents.


Question: Why does a retiree often say he doesn't miss work,

But misses the people he used to work with?

Answer: He is too polite to tell the whole truth.


QUESTION: What do you do all week?

Answer: Mon to Fri. Nothing, Sat & Sun I rest.