Seeds of Age by Liz Flaherty

I changed the bottle in my water cooler the other day and reflected a little grumpily that it won't be long before I'll have to start using three-gallon bottles instead of five-gallon ones because the weight and awkwardness are getting hard to handle.

I've been wearing the same necklace ever since the beginning of sheltering in place because neither Duane nor I can consistently manage to fasten or unfasten jewelry clasps.

When we watch Grace and Frankie, I nod my head the whole time--not just because it's funny but because even at its most unbelievable, it's shockingly accurate.

This morning I needed something from the shed. No, not that shed--the other one, which meant I had to look in both of them. I found the item I was looking for, used it, and went into the house to ask Duane to go out and latch the doors on the sheds because even though I got them open, I couldn't get them closed.

Walking is the only form of exercise I like, and I like to walk two miles; however, I'm tired enough after a mile and a half that I usually just do that. I might add that the mile and a half takes me as long as the two used to take. Or I might not. I might just say that I choose to take more than 20 minutes to walk a mile. What's the hurry, after all?

Our 49th anniversary was yesterday. We talked the night before about the things long-marrieds often talk about. (Actually, I did most of the talking--he nodded sometimes.) Would you do it again? Has it been worth it? What would you change? What if we'd done this instead? The truth is, any change at all--including the times of pain, sadness, and anger that create pock marks on any enduring relationship--would alter the path of our lives together. It might be straighter, but it might not be, too. It would make the climate of the marriage different and put us in a place we might like less instead of more. It's not a chance I'd be willing to take. He wouldn't, either.

All of these things are seeds planted by time. By age. Some of them were surprising--who knew I wouldn't be able to put my own necklace on? Some were expected--walking slower--but not expected already. Later, maybe, but not now.

But I've noticed...

That the water in the three-gallon bottles tastes and costs the same as the water in the five-gallon bottles.

That whatever necklace I have on has memories and love attached to it--doesn't matter what one I wear or for how long I wear it.

That the women who play Grace and Frankie make no pretense at not being the age they are, nor do the characters they play, and when I'm laughing I don't give any thought at all to how old they are.

People, even ones you aren't married to, will help you with things like door latches. Partly because they feel sorry for you because you're old, partly out of respect for said oldness, and partly because people are generally nice.

That when you walk slow, you see more wildlife and plant life. You smell the flowers. You hear the birds--although I have to admit I still don't usually know one from another.

That scar tissue, some of the fabric that holds 49-year marriages and other long friendships together, is strong stuff. Made to last if that's what both halves want to happen.

The seeds of age are hard-won and we earn them whether we want to or not. How and where we plant them and what we do with whatever grows from them...well, that's up to us.

Have a great week. Stay safe. Be nice to somebody.

If you're happy and you know it... by Liz Flaherty #WindowOvertheSink

Last night, Kari took me to get my nails done and then we went out to dinner. It was a great way to end a nice day. I also ended it without writing a post, so decided I'd go with happy things. Like this.

And this...

And, oh, yes, this...

And this...

Especially this...

Things that are good for the soul, like...

And...

Photo by Sarah Luginbill

And just pretty...

What about you? What makes you happy today?

I give to you and you give to me... by Liz Flaherty #WindowOvertheSink

Okay, it's a writing post, from another blog in another time, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

One of my least favorite parts of myself is that my tin ear is so completely...er...tin. I am surprised that earrings don’t adhere to my skin with rust when I wear them. Although I like music and the emotion I get from it, I don’t actually hear the notes or feel the emotion of the performer. My husband was changing strings on his Alvarez guitar a few weeks ago and was aghast at hearing a dead spot—there were two or three notes that weren’t there. I hope I was properly sympathetic, but in truth, the notes that weren’t there sounded to me exactly like the ones that were.

     

          This past weekend was the annual Cole Porter Festival where I live. Saturday night, we went to the cabaret of mostly Porter songs at the Depot where the local theatre performs. As always, I was completely awed by the talent all around me, but on one song, I noticed that Duane’s applause was even more enthusiastic than usual. He was spellbound.

          Well, I could understand that—they all amazed me, but then he turned to me and said, “Did you see it? When the emotion got her and took over the song? Did you hear it? Wasn’t it great?”

          It got me to thinking about emotion in writing, for the writer and for the reader. I love writing emotion, because I feel it as I write it. These are the scenes that write themselves, that have me laughing or crying aloud here by myself in the office. These are the ones that are my favorites. Always.

          As a reader, the parts of books I go back and reread are the ones that make me feel. Pamela Morsi wrote a scene in Letting Go that I read 12 years ago and it hasn’t “let go” of me yet. Emotional scenes are the basis for my personal stack of comfort reads. My heart has been rewriting Beth March’s death in Little Women for over 50 years, but I read and love the way it is. Over and over and over.

          As a reader, I probably have a tin ear to the sounds of other writers’ emotions when they write. I think their words were from their hearts, but maybe not—maybe they’re just that good at making the sounds my emotions want to hear.

          And that’s so cool! The song last night, the one that Duane saw and felt explode with emotion, was just another beautiful song to me. But the one a little before that, when Duane and three others performed Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, had tears pushing at the back of my eyes and my nails cutting half-moons of joy into my palms. To him, “Hallelujah” is merely a good song; to me, it is an anthem.

          As a writer, I want to write those scenes that stay with me forever and ever. If you’ve read One More Summer, you know what I’m talking about. However, not everyone will feel that—their ears will be deaf to my angst, sorrow, and joy.

          On the other side of that much-flipped coin, I have had lovely emails from people about scenes that affected them deeply, made them laugh hard or sniffle or read a passage aloud to someone else. I am so pleased when that happens and more proud than I have a right to be. Because often those scenes are not the ones that exploded from me in an emotional spate; rather, they are the ones I chewed my thumb and stared into space while I dug for, word by slow word.

          Duane restrung the Alvarez again the other day. “Listen!” he urged, and strummed a few times. “Hear it? The notes are back. The dead spot is gone.”

          Hear it? No, I couldn’t. But I felt his happiness—he loves the Alvarez. When he plays songs like “Hallelujah,” even though he’s not emotionally invested in them, he still feels how powerfully listeners are touched. It makes him try harder, I think, to chew his mental thumb and stare into space until, note by slow note, he’s able to give listeners a gift he doesn’t have. When he is emotionally involved, there’s no chewing or staring necessary, but we with our tin ears don’t know one from the other—we just enjoy the music and the sensations it gives us.

          I’ve read back over this post and I have to admit it’s kind of confusing. I think what I’m trying to do is remind us that when it comes to emotions, sometimes we are the givers and sometimes we are the receivers. Either way, the gift is absolute.

"Drink the wild air." by Liz Flaherty

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink 

the wild air.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Regardless of the fact that there was snow on the cars when I came out to the office this morning--I'm writing this on Monday--it is spring. I’m wearing capris (and a sweatshirt) and the grass is bright green and growing so fast I think I can see it happening.

I can’t really say spring is my favorite season. Its historically hysterical weather keeps that from being the case. I spend as much time fighting my way out of the moods the gloom puts me in as I do celebrating the sunshine and birdsong and things growing.

But there are things. So many things.

Like this one.

Connor Wilson and beautiful Alia Mathias

And this one. I took it a couple of weeks ago when I talked myself into believing the green really was starting to peek out. Can you see it or is it just me?

And down the road...

Spring on the Nickel Plate Trail

Or these guys, who played in a band together in high school. See the one in the blue shirt? I met him in spring, married him two springs later. This is our 48th one. Or 49th--I always have trouble figuring that up.

Dennis See, Duane Flaherty, Brad Ferguson, Lanny Bell

And this.

Me in 1968. I know--it's awful.

And, oh, yes, these.

"Trio" by Elena G

And most of all, this one.

I've written about baseball ever since my kids played it. It's not my favorite sport, but there's definitely something about youth leagues. Something about those baggy pants and big helmets and the looks on those faces. 

It's always been said that pictures are worth 1000 words--those are my 1000 for today. Have a great week--and a great spring, regardless of hysterical weather!

The poppies still grow

From last year, and pieces and parts from years before. I'm not sure when I wrote this, but I've added and subtracted several times over the years since. It would be easy to make this a political post, but this is neither the time nor--right now, today--the place. I've changed my mind on many things over the years, and my own patriotism has taken a hard hit, but the things here--they're the same. Thank you again, veterans.

A few years back, the fifth graders at my grandson’s school performed their annual Veterans Day salute. They sang and shook hands with veterans in the audience. There was a long slide show of pictures of mothers and fathers and grandfathers and other relatives who had served in the armed forces. I thought my eyes would never get dry. After watching the program, I tried to put into words how I feel, how proud and grateful I am that so many have served so long and so well.

Except I didn’t have any new words, though my eyes are leaking again as I write this introduction to a tribute I still feel.

John Thomas and Amos Ash were residents of Miami County, Indiana. They fought with the 20th Regiment of Indiana. They died at Gettysburg in 1863.

Uncle Mart was ten years older than Aunt Ethel. They were married forever, but they never had any children. That always seemed odd to me, but it really wasn’t. They adored each other and never needed anyone else; they were a complete family unit unto themselves. He was bald and funny and liked to fish. He served in the first World War. The Big One, some people said.

I don’t remember what his name was, but he and his parents were visiting my family when something happened and they had to return to their South Bend home at once because he had to catch the next train back to his duty station. The day was December 7, 1941, long before I was born, but I still remember the empty look on Mom’s face when she told the story.

Thadd was a baker in the navy during that war, the second of the World Wars. The one

more people called The Big One. A couple of years after he came home, Thadd and Mary got married and they had five kids.

His name was Wayne. I was at his going-away party before he left for Vietnam. He was young and smart and eager to serve his country. There was a girl at the party who looked at him with soft eyes. We laughed a lot, had a good time, and wished him luck when we left. We were used to it, I suppose, to saying goodbye and hoping for the chance to say hello when they came back home, so we didn’t give it that much thought.

Wayne, though, and Mike Waymire and John Miller, to name but a few, came home in flag-draped coffins. We watched the news, read the papers, wept. We remembered smooth-faced, laughing boys and mourned with the wives and girlfriends and mothers who would never feel the same again, with fathers silent and stoic in their grief. We acknowledged empty places and heard remembered laughter and voices echo through them.

I married the second of Thadd and Mary’s kids after he came home from Vietnam. Like the Korean Conflict, no one ever called it The Big War, but to the ones who served there, and the ones who waited at home, they were big enough. Long enough. Sad enough.

When Desert Storm happened our son Chris was stateside, wearing the army uniform his father had.

We watched and waited and feared and prayed. It was the same with Iraq. With Afghanistan. With all the other wars and conflicts and skirmishes where Americans have served.

My grandson Skyler is 18, a senior in high school. He spent the summer in basic training. He's our handsome, sweet boy and even though he wears a uniform well, it makes my heart clutch seeing him in it. He has walked and talked and breathed military since he was eight years old so I shouldn't have been surprised when he was ready to enlist, but I wasn't ready for it. He wants to serve and I want to make him cookies--I suppose it is the same with all young military men and their grandmothers.

In October of 2010, the city of Logansport, Indiana welcomed Sgt. Kenneth K. McAnich home. The hearse drove slow and solemn through streets lined with flags and people, the Patriot Guard riding protective escort against those who might not be respectful. It’s symbolic, this ceremonial farewell we offer our fallen warriors. I’m sure it does little to fill the echoing empty places created by their deaths. But it’s all we can do.

My husband remembers how people looked at him in airports when he came home from Vietnam. How they sneered and then looked away. I saw the same thing in Indianapolis, when among the celebratory crowds coming home at Christmastime walked a lone soldier, carrying his duffel bag and staring straight ahead. Over forty years later, those who served in Vietnam know it wasn’t them people hated; it was the war. But they still remember.

We all hate war. All of us. Thank goodness we’ve learned how to welcome home those who fight in them. We’ve learned to applaud them in airports and on planes, to buy their lunch once in a while if they’re behind us at the cashier’s station, to say thank you and mean it. 

That’s why November 11 is Veterans Day. It is not a day of celebration, although rejoicing in freedom is probably never wrong. It is instead a day of remembrance and honor to the men and women who have for nearly 240 years and who continue to serve in the preservation of that freedom. Thank you to all of you. God bless you. God bless America.

For better...for worse...for always...

I'm not sure when I wrote this, but our 30th wedding anniversary was in 2001, so somewhere along in there. It's been around the publishing block a few times, its last incarnation being in The Saturday Evening Post. As of today, we've been married 47 years. When I read through this before using it again, I asked myself if anything had changed since then--other than my hair color and his golf score and how many grandkids we have.

Not much. I still think of Peggy Lee's song sometimes and I'm sure Duane does, too. We still have days we wonder what in the world we're doing here. We're still not in love every day. But even then, when sadness is like a veil or anger a disruptive rattle in the cadence of the day, we know (and say) that we love each other. And we do.

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” – Mignon McLaughlin

What’s it like, you ask, being married to the same person for over 30 years? How do you do it?

Well, it’s like this.

You know every word of his body language, can identify every freckle that dances across his shoulders when he walks into the sun, can buy him a year’s wardrobe in 15 minutes flat counting the time you spend writing the check and asking the store clerk how her kids are doing. You know better than to cook tuna casserole even if you like it, that a sure way to get him to talk to you is to start reading a book, that if you’re not feeling well, he’s most certainly feeling worse.

You’ve learned by now that there’s no possible way you can be in love every day.

Sometimes, let’s come right out and say it, he’s just a jerk. Sometimes, since we’re not holding back, you’re a pain in the neck. On those days, you look at each other with glazed eyes and wonder which lawyer to call. Then you go to bed, mumble “I love you” with doubtful sincerity, and lie in the dark and mentally parcel out the furniture, the dishes, and the retirement accounts until sleep overtakes you.

There are days, indeed, when Peggy Lee’s voice echoes in your mind, Is that all there is? In the time when you had a flat stomach and naturally glowing skin and hair that was …well, a different color than it is now, this isn’t what you counted on, was it? Once you got the kids raised, you were going to travel, wear expensive clothes, dance the night away. You were going to have fun.

Okay, you say, if it’s that bad, why do you stay married?

Well, because, that’s why.

Because he can tell by the set of your chin if you’ve had a bad day, because he’ll bring home takeout food just when you’re positive you can’t cook one more meal in this lifetime, because he tells you he thinks you’re really cute and means it even if you’re not wearing any makeup and you haven’t sucked your stomach in.

He still takes the street side on sidewalks because that’s the way he was taught, tells your daughter she’s almost as pretty as you are, and never reminds you you’re getting more like your mother every day. He knows the words to the same songs you do and he doesn’t mind that you can’t carry a tune in a bushel basket. He doesn’t laugh when you can’t finish singing Puff, the Magic Dragon because you are in tears you can’t explain. He just tucks his arm around you and hands you a tissue and kisses the top of your head where the roots are starting to show a bit.

Well, fine, you say, but isn’t it boring?

Oh, I suppose, once in a while.

But a long marriage is like the sun. It’s there every day and night, sometimes hidden by dense and sulky cloud covers, sometimes blazing red and vital and exciting. During cold spaces in your life—and life offers a lot of those—marriage wraps itself around you and keeps you warm.

The other side of that is that long marriages are uncomfortable now and then, like when you and your spouse disagree on matters of fundamental importance, such as values, religion, politics, money, and thermostat settings. And you do disagree about these things even though you think you never will. This is when you look at him and think, Why am I still married to this person who is so wrong about everything?

Maybe because, when you get right down to it, the marriage isn’t boring, but a definition of fun you never imagined. And then there’s the irrefutable fact that when the world is out to get you, it has to go through him first. Or, trite as it sounds, perhaps it’s glued by those promises you made when he was just safely home from Vietnam and you were a size five, the ones about loving and cherishing and sickness and health...you know the ones I mean.

Or maybe because, like the sun, marriage is different most every day. Those differences are what have landscape painters and photographers lying in wait for sunrise and sunset. Some days they go inside in disappointment because the cloud cover hangs low and dismal over the show, but on other mornings and evenings they sit spellbound and work as fast as they can, holding onto the light for every precious second.

And there you go. There’s the answer to the questions, What’s it like, being married to the same person for over 30 years? How do you do it?

You just hold onto the light.

Such are the dreams... @Liz Flaherty

This was written for Mother's Day of 1991. It wasn't my last Mother's Day column, but it was my first. It's kind of nice to know I still like it, although I'm not sure I remember the original dreams--the reality was so much better. What do you think?

"She looks in the mirror and stares at the wrinkles that weren't there yesterday..." - Chris Gantry

When she was young, before she had formula stains on her clothes or stretch marks or crows feet, your mother had dreams. In those dreams, she was a singer or dancer or writer or CEO. She wore designer clothes and her hair was always perfect and she had the kind of checkbook balance that dreams are made of. Her plans for vacation never included McDonald's or Motel 6.

For many mothers, there was a man in those dreams. He was always strong and handsome and intelligent and sensitive. He never forgot important dates, never left dirty clothes on the bathroom floor, never for one moment considered anything in life to be as important as the woman whose dreams he was inhibiting.

Sometimes there were children in the dreams, children who behaved well and wore miniature designer clothes that stayed clean. Children who ate their vegetables without complaint and did their homework without fail and who never watched tasteless television or hid dirty magazines under their beds. Even after your mother gave birth to these children (painlessly--we're dreaming here) she maintained her figure and her perfect hair and flawless skin that defied crows feet to appear.

Her home was a portrait of good taste and comfort. In her dreams its plumbing was never iffy, its windows never leaky, its floors never sloped and scarred with the passage of time. The furniture shone with the patina of quality and good wax. The beds were made each morning and the pillows arranged in the artful disarray the magazines make look easy. The house was even paid for.

It is said that dreams die hard.

Not for most of us. For most of us, they change rather than die. We wear what is comfortable and what we can afford, we have bad hair days and not-so-bad hair days, and time leaves its obvious footprints on our skin. Instead of glamorous careers, most of us have jobs we may or may not like but which help keep the checkbook balance in the black. Not the very black, maybe, but close enough to keep the wolves from the door.

The men in our lives are different from what we dreamed, as fallible and faulty as we ourselves are. Although on any given day, they will probably have some of the characteristics of the men of our dreams, chances are good they'll never have all of them at once.

Which brings us to the children of our dreams. Speaking for myself only, I must say that mine were not. If one of them happened to be behaving well, the other two probably weren't. They dressed okay, but were seldom clean at any point in time previous to their 12th birthdays, when they suddenly started taking two showers a day and setting up housekeeping in front of the bathroom mirror. They did homework spasmodically and subsisted on diets that even now the memory of makes my stomach clench. They watched, read, and listened to every single thing I ever didn't want them to.

They turned the house of my dreams into what seemed at times like a three-ring circus. There was no single day in which every bed in the house was made or every dish clean at the same time. The house has leaky windows and iffy plumbing and a few floors that would feel right at home on a ski lift. The patina on the furniture is marred by marks from compasses and baseball cleats and the rubber soles of size 12 basketball shoes.

There is nothing I would change. Nothing.

When I was young, I had dreams. Somewhere in the passage of time, those dreams underwent changes, but they all--every one of them--came true. I hope yours did, too.

Happy Mother's Day to us all, and thanks, Mom. Both of you.

My mom, Evelyn Shafer

Duane's mom, my other mom, Mary Farrell

...let's keep dancing... @Liz Flaherty

This is from 2005, I think--Duane and I were both still working. I thought my writing days were winding down (that was about 10 books ago) and I was on the reinvention wheel once again. I'm not sure I've ever gotten off. Anyone else been on that ride?

"If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing..." 

from "Is That All There Is?" by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, sung by Peggy Lee.

There are times — long, achy days of a bad knee and raging sinuses and throbbing finger joints — when I resent that I’m 50some and tumbling inexorably down the wrong side of the middle age slope. Is this all there is? I whine, channeling Peggy Lee. Have I worked all these years so I could afford to go more places and see and do more things just to learn I’m too old, too sore, and too damn tired?

I have time, now that I no longer preside over carpools, hold down bleachers, or operate a short-order kitchen and 24-hour laundry, to read all I want to. I have stacks of books and magazines beside my chair, along with a strong reading lamp, a spot for my coffee cup, and a blanket to cover my cold feet. However, if I sit in one spot for more than 15 minutes, I fall asleep. Most of my reading these days is done in the car, where I feed CDs of my to-be-read list into the player and “read” all the way to work and back. I love audio books, and listening to them makes my commute downright enjoyable, but there’s something lacking without the reading lamp, the cup, and the blanket.

Now that tuition, six-boxes-of-cereal weeks, and expensive shoes and jeans are in my past, I could, if I was interested, buy much nicer clothing for myself. But gravity and years of eating too much and exercising too little have made buying clothes a nightmare instead of a pleasure.

At this stage of the game, we could spend our vacations in exotic places, where my husband could play golf as often as he wanted and I could lie in the sun reading and sipping drinks that come with straws, spoons, and umbrellas. Except my skin is already dry and taking on a leathery consistency and reading in the sunlight gives me a headache. Right before I fall asleep, that is.

There is time to write nowadays, especially in the lengthening evenings of spring. But I’m no longer sure I have anything to say. I used to think — only to myself, thank goodness — that I’d never have writer’s block because I was way too full of hot air to ever run out of words. But the hot air has flattened and stilled and, in full panic mode now, I’m afraid I’ll never get it back.

And then there are other times.

I spent a week in Vermont with my son’s family. While my year-old grandson’s parents worked, I got to spend my days with him. We crawled around on the floor, played with noisy toys, and squealed with laughter at nothing and everything. I read to him and he listened and watched my face with his father’s bright blue eyes before falling asleep in my arms.  I’d push back the recliner and pull the quilt his mother had made over us both and we’d nap together in warm and sweet contentment.

Another of my grandsons comes here on Thursday evenings while his brothers have Cub Scout meetings. He’s newly housebroken and toddler-verbal and has his grandfather and me firmly wrapped around his sticky little finger. The half bath in our house is now his, since it’s small and so is he, and the full bath is mine, which leaves grandpa without one. This is okay, though. Grandpa can use Nana’s. If he asks first.

Each day for the last week I have walked my couple of miles and my knee has not protested. My hands, though stiff and a little swollen, have not ached. The roar of my sinuses has quieted to a dull murmur. The finches are putting on their bright yellow summer coats as they jabber at the feeders. Everywhere I look, lilies and crocuses and spiky green shoots are lightening the landscape. They’re brighter now than they were in my 20s, when I was too busy to look at them properly.

This morning, as I drove to work, the quarter moon hung huge and orange in the eastern sky. God’s thumbnail. Beautiful. I opened the car window and breathed deep of the soft pre-dawn air.

I’m grateful one more time that I no longer smoke. It’s been three and a half years, though I hardly ever count anymore, and there is an almost spiritual joy in having beaten it.

It’s not so bad after all, this wrong side of the slope, where the colors are brighter and sharper and scents are sweeter and laughter is like music and grandchildren — anyone’s; they don’t have to be yours — are your reward for the difficult climb up the other side. Sometimes it’s almost … yes, it really is … better than it used to be. Yeah, Peggy, that’s all there is, and sometimes … most times … it’s enough.  

On being retired...

Continuing my revisiting of things written long ago, this one was from March of 2011. In the six years since then, I can say honestly that I still have trouble saying No, cooking lost its charm early on, I still have calendar issues, routine can become a rut if you're not careful, and that 15 minutes is plenty for housework. Part-time jobs are fun and I have one and no matter how much stuff you get rid of, more grows in its place. I can also say without qualification that I love being retired, but that the learning curve mentioned below continues to steepen.

I like learning, which is a good thing, because there’s a definite learning curve to being retired.

First thing you need to figure out, said my friend Cindy, is to say No. If the request is for something you don’t want to do, just don’t do it. This would be a whole lot easier, I’ve discovered, if I didn’t want to do everything at least once. So far, I haven’t had to say No because I haven’t wanted to. (Except for when another friend, Debby, suggested skydiving. I have a vein of cowardice that runs full width and very deep.)

Second thing on the short list of learning is to make a list. If you live in the country, as I do, and don’t intend to move inside city limits, as I don’t, you need to make a list of Things To Do before you go to town. Filling the car with gas takes too much of a retirement check to even think of driving 26 miles round trip for only one thing. Usually, when I get home, I will give my husband all the details of where I’ve been and what I’ve done. The other day, I just said, “I stopped at eight places!” and started to tell him what they were. Duane said that was good, but he didn’t particularly care to hear about all eight of them. I don’t know what his problem was.

Third, in addition to making a list, make sure you keep a calendar. (While you’re at it, remember where the calendar is.) I keep one in my purse and one on the laundry room wall. What is unfortunate is that sometimes the information on both calendars doesn’t jive and I end up needing to be two places at once. I managed this just fine when the kids were growing up (refer to an old column—I’ve told you about this way too often), but I’m not so good at it anymore.

Fourth, establish a routine. I only say this because I’m almost certain it’s a good idea. But I haven’t done it yet as I’ve discovered that not having a routine is really fun.

Fifth, be careful what you commit to. I told Duane that when I was retired, I would devote 15 minutes a day to housework. This is not a joke; it is an illustration of just how much I don’t like “domestic engineering.” At the risk of sounding like I’m bragging, I will say I have stuck to that. Some days, like the ones when I clean out a junk drawer, I’ve nearly doubled the 15 minutes. Other days, I kind of stretch out how long it takes to make the bed because I really don’t want to do anything else that has to do with…you know…housework. When I get the aforementioned routine established, I’m going to cut back to 10 minutes.

Sixth, when you wake up and it’s snowing, it’s perfectly all right to roll over and go back to sleep. Or get up and drink coffee and not feel guilty. Either one works. You can also do this when it’s not snowing.

Seventh, cooking is fun when you’re retired. So is looking up recipes and deciding maybe you’ll try them later. Or not.

Eighth, it’s amazing how much stuff you can consign to Goodwill or Salvation army in 15 minutes. And if you get the bag into the car to deliver before someone else gets home, he’ll never miss it. You can put it at the end of your list of errands you ran while you were saving gas, and he will have stopped listening before you get to, “I gave away the jeans you haven’t worn since 1977,” anyway.

Ninth, if your mind wanders and you can’t remember what you were going to say next, it’s okay to just…uh…

Till next time.