My Tireless Retirement - Week 208

 

Last Friday was an absolutely lovely day.  With sunshine and warm temperatures I enjoyed a relaxed morning because I didn’t need to go into work, if you can call it that, until 4:30 in the afternoon.  When I did show up for work, it was to take a group of seniors out to dinner and then to the theater for a live performance of Austenprov.  It was rough, let me tell you.  Not!  To add some drama to the drama however, our bus doors had a switch malfunction which I had to sort out on the fly.  I managed to outfox the faulty switch and get the doors to close.  My group of seniors was rather impressed with my killer improvisation skills and they let me know.  It made me feel pretty darn good, I must say.

 

I carefully created a short list of needed items for yard work and gardening this year and instead of wasting fuel and going to Wal-Mart (which I hate) I did an online order with FREE shipping.  In less than twenty four hours my items arrived and I was able to get right to work.

 

I have pulled A LOT of weeds!

Saturday and Sunday were just as lovely as Friday and I enjoyed the weekend by puttering about the house tackling small tasks, doing a mini meal prep for the week ahead and taking loads of time to enjoy my fur and feather babies.  I was able to get my fruit trees sprayed before the leaf miners and tiny moths take hold and lay eggs.  I dug up another big pile of weeds for the chickens too.  I spent a fair amount of time outdoors, which I love.

 

Chicken salad 😂😂

Monday and Tuesday I worked for a few hours in the afternoon.  Sadly, it seems the toxic one is struggling to keep her $h!t together.  My “heart to heart” talk with her the previous week seemed to do absolutely no good and to be quite honest, I wasn’t expecting it to.  At the end of the day I know there is little I can do and it is completely up to her to make the changes necessary.  I am just going to sit back and wait to see what happens.  Thankfully, this month I am scheduled to work very little with the toxic one and next month she has several vacation days scheduled.  Whoo hoo!

 

In order to maintain my sanity and still get to work at my dream job I have been strategically plotting out some much deserved time off and got those days scheduled off.  Along with that my supervisor has been scheduling me to do more senior activities with less time with “you know who”.  I think I’ve come up with a good healthy plan for me to personally deal with this situation.  Boundaries have been established and I am holding the line.  The cost of holding the line, however, is putting up with her increased frustration.  I do believe, in the long run, it will be worth it.

 

One of the things I’ve been enjoying when I stop and take a break or come home from work is the television show The Equalizer starring Queen Latifah.  I watched the original series back in the day and wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy this newer one, but it turns out I really do.  I love when I can discover a new to me series I can sit down, relax and enjoy.  It feels like a big reward.

 

Because I am focused on cutting back this year I got resourceful with a little repair project.  My beloved Pampered Chef egg slicer I’ve had for nearly thirty years broke.  The little plastic nubbin that is part of the hinge broke off so it made it hard to operate with just one hinge.  My initial thought was to hop on eBay and see if I could find a replacement, but then I got the idea to go through my can of miscellaneous screws and see if I could find a short stubby screw.  I drilled a small hole and after screwing in the stubby screw it created a new “nubbin” and now my egg slicer works perfectly once again.  Money saved, nothing added to the landfill, I used up a screw that had been lying around in the garage, but more importantly I’m back in business!

 

With the change in weather I am still able to keep the main heating off in the house.  I didn’t even need the fireplace, but one morning to take the chill off.  I also layered up when it was chilly in the morning, but for the most part the house has been quite comfortable.  I’ve been able to open the doors and windows and let the fresh air in on several occasions.

 

Grilled tuna sandwich (low carb sourdough bread) 😋

It was a really good week.  I was able to get some good sleep, keep up on my housekeeping and laundry, eat good healthy food and accomplish quite a few tasks around the house.  I was conservative and resourceful bringing in far more money than what ended up leaving.  I call that a win!  Have any of you done some conserving of your resources lately?  Have you done any repairs or fixes to avoid having to replace something?  I’d love to hear about what you are doing around the house these days.