Retired, What will I do to fill My Time?

The other day I met the wife of one of my retired military friends.  He has a job and drives to Fort Riley every day for a week and then flies to New jersey for a week.  She said he is afraid that he won't have enough to keep him busy.  I will go to his funeral when he dies because he didn't know what life was all about.  I would have understood if she had said that he was worried that he needed a little more money to do the things he wanted to do when he does retire.  Knowing what he made, That is a silly worry.   

One day, many years ago, one of my nephews told my mother that he was bored.  She told him, "No, you are boring if you can't find things to do."   That has kind of been my motto since I retired.  In fact, there are days that just staying home and reading a book is needed to get over all the business I have done.  Today is one of those days that while it is sunny, it is way too cold to get a lot done outside. 

I guess the thing I appreciate about being retired is being the lord and master (OK, Co-Master) of what I do.  There are things I want to do but they will wait until it is warmer later on.  Being married, I do understand having co-plans because we both worked hard to get here and what she wants to do is generally as fun as anything I want to do. 

One nice thing about my wife is that we both have activities that we can do without making the other person get involved.  I think we have discovered that while we can share things, the source of our happiness is internal.  I love to sing and Barb doesn't.  Barb loves to grow plants and I don't.  As an extrovert, going to weekly Barbershop Chorus meetings charges my batteries.  Barb is more of an introvert and charges her batteries by reading good books.   We each have a TV so we can watch what we want.  I hate to watch young people say stupid things about buying a house ad barb could care less about fixing up old cars.  I think the only time both TV's are on the same channel is when KU is playing basketball.  In fact I check on her when the KU games start because she sometimes loses track of time when she is reading a good book.

I love to read a good book but there are times when I have spent too much time on the computer and my eyes just tell me to sit back and enjoy the TV.  A lot of those times I find that a short nap really helps me with eye strain.   Even a few minutes just does the trick.

Oh well, I hope you all reach a point in your life that you can find the things you want to do in your retirement and can afford to do them.

MUD, ORF (Old Retired Fart)