Retirement: Review, Reflection and Refinement

Today I am grateful that I can be flexible.  Wait...I can hear some of you laughing but let me explain... I know that I am a planner/organizer and I like to know (prefer to know, maybe even need to know) what is coming up, how it's going to happen, where, when and with whom.  I know exactly where I will be on May 18th for example (Zoo-de-Mack) or April 8th (watching the total solar eclipse with family), or September 22nd (running the Canada Army Run half marathon) or this Saturday (skiing at Stokely with a meet-at-WalMart time of 0915). BUT...I can pivot when needed.  For example, if the weather over the next two days doesn't make for great ski conditions at Stokely, we'll snowshoe somewhere (please send your snow thoughts my way - this winter has been the pits in terms of winter sports and there is no snow in the two week forecast 😟).  See??? Flexible! Which brings me to the reason for my topic today.  This post was supposed to be about snowshoeing.  See ...

I love to cook!  And thank goodness for that.  Now that I am on a "fixed income" (I'm not sure why we say that only in retirement or if receiving social benefits...my work income was "fixed" as well.  If anyone has an explanation, I'd love to hear it.), I have to manage my money more carefully and eating out and take-out are money-sucking choices that I don't want to make very often.  Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate a social occasion eating in a restaurant - spending time with family or friends and having the opportunity to try foods I wouldn't likely make at home - but I really don't like to eat out that often.  At home, I have control over what goes into the food and the portion that is put onto a plate.  And with the economy the way it is lately, even though the cost of groceries has skyrocketed, it's still less expensive to eat in.  I have never liked take-out very much.  If I pick up the food, I can't handle the yummy smells ...

It was only relatively recently that I discovered my love of tea.  Until then, if you had offered me a cup of tea, I absolutely would have refused and maybe not even been polite about it.  My only experience with tea growing up was the Tetley Orange Pekoe my mother drank (and continues to drink) and that definitely wasn't my "cup of tea." 😁  I have vividly odiferous memories of road trips when my mom would open her thermos in the front seat to have another cup and the smell would knock me off my sleeping bag (laid out side by side with the other three in the back of the station wagon to claim our personal space).  The tea doesn't offend me now but boy oh boy, back then I couldn't stand it.  I didn't know that other teas existed so I assumed tea was not for me. Fast forward a few decades and my discovery of a whole world of tea that exists beyond Tetley Orange Pekoe.  I can't recall how I was first introduced to tea alternatives - likely at someone's h...