Pensioner - The First Month

I'm officially a pensioner now--the first pension check has made it to my account. So it's really and truly happening just as planned with no mistakes. Woot!

So, has life been as great as I hoped? Why, yes it has!

Any surprises? Yes to that as well!

Relaxing

The biggest surprise is how much time I spend sleeping. As an employee, I learned that I need to get seven to eight hours of sleep per night to function well. I can get by on less for short periods.

As a person who doesn't set an alarm, I've been sleeping eight to ten (or eleven?) hours per night. That is kind of disappointing and not how I planned to spend that many hours of free time.

Suddenly sleeping more is a sign of depression, but I don't feel depressed. It might be a sign of winter. I do not like the cold, and the bed is warm. I'm hoping I'll need less sleep in summer. We'll see. I do like having the freedom to sleep as long as I want.

After I wake up, I spend a surprising additional amount of time continuing to not get up. I blame this on the cuddle monster.

In addition, we're watching more TV: a couple of shows a day most days. Currently, we're on a "Rockford Files" kick. Not useful, but nice. Plus also cuddly.

Planned extra activities

I have a huge list of things I've been putting off until I retire, though I did try to keep in mind that if I really want to do something, I shouldn't put it off. How many of those things am I actually doing? Not many. Some of them just aren't that fun, like re-organizing various things (financial and domestic). I have been doing some of those things, but they don't really feel like much afterwards.

I've decided I'm just going to be okay with not yet having accomplished much. This may just be a recovery period, a grace period. No telling yet.

I did try a few new recipes already, though, so that's something. And I've been working out to my favorite exercise DVD pretty regularly and tried out another one. And remembered to donate blood again. My hematocrit level was great, too, not borderline like usual.

Continuing old activities

I have also been a little worried about keeping up with things that I was able to do while working. As noted earlier, I need to schedule my jogging days if they're actually going to happen.

I am also having trouble keeping up with my walking (for my brother-in-law's challenge). It's crazy that I have more trouble exercising outside in winter than I did in summer when I live here where the lows are virtually never below 20 degrees, the roads and walkways are virtually always clear, and the lows in summer sometimes don't drop below 80 degrees. But I guess it's not really all that surprising to me. I know I don't like the cold. There's a reason I live someplace warm.

My Spanish learning, however, has been going just fine. I've had no trouble keeping up even though I can always put off studying until later in the day, etc. It probably helps that I have classes.

Reading is fun, but I was worried that I wouldn't get as much reading done if I didn't have a long, boring bus commute in which to do it. But that's turned out to be no problem. Yea!

Also, maintaining my previous low level of socializing has been no problem at all and still easy to look forward to. Yea for craft nights!