Changing things up a bit . . .

"There is no use trying, said Alice; one can't believe impossible things. I dare say you haven't had much practice, said the Queen. When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Lewis Carroll

And with that wonderful quote, I want to share the following about some "possible things" as life continues to change. . .

Bob retired last spring and we have noticed a few changes in our world every since. He used to go to work each day from 7:30 until he would get home about 6:30. The days were long as he owned his own business, but he always said he liked his "boss". And, Bob was a bachelor until he was 55 when we married. I had traveled for years with my work and I would often not be home at all during the week. In the past couple years, I have been home and working on quilting in my studio or away with parent visits.

We recently started walking each morning before breakfast. We go into our local mall that opens early for walkers. We also found we were eating all of our meals together and I was fixing them. I know that may be normal for most couples, but for us, it was quite a new thing. So, we were together more and more.

One of the things Bob and I talked about this week was not needing to do our walking and meals together all of the time. We are both very independent and sometimes feel "we should" do the meals and exercise together. But we decided we want to have a bit more freedom in our "alone time" and then enjoy our time together more. This was never an issue until Bob retired. I think he feels he needs to be polite and wait to eat with me and go with me wherever I go. I wish I could be so polite.

Anyway, we decided to do our "mall walking" alone sometimes and sometimes together. When the weather gets better and we get rid of the snow, I want to walk outside. We also decided we would try some meals alone - or "on your own" and some together. We both want a bit more freedom than the direction this "retirement road" was leading. So, we came up with a plan we will try and then make adjustments. We have a couple days designated as "eat whenever and whatever - on your own" days. Then I will fix all breakfasts on the other days (gotta eat those steel cut oats you know) and we will be on our own for lunch. And we decided to have a couple nights where he cooks and I clean up and a couple nights where I cook and he cleans up and a night to eat out. Now this is not cast in stone as we can make changes as we need, but just talking about it seemed to free us up to say what had started to become a habit was not working as we wanted.

Also, Bob likes to work together in keeping the house clean, but doesn't like my plan where we both work hard together for an hour three times a week - we had been doing it that way since Christmas. He would like to do "house duties" where we have assigned duties each week and we can do them whenever we want as long as they are done sometime during the week. He loved living in a fraternity house when he was in college and that is how they did it there. I said, "that sounds great to me" - you just plan it and I will do it. And in exchange, I will make sure the shopping is done so be sure to write what you need on the grocery list for lunches and the suppers you are going to plan.

Maybe this won't really work - who knows - but the fun part is we are having fun changing things up a bit. It seems to keep the good part "brand new" and lets the irritations flow away.