The Cat's Out of the Bag

Several days ago Jim turned in his letter of resignation and he will be retiring from the County Office of Education on June 30th. Jim....retired....what an oxymoron!! Retirement and rest are mutually exclusive in his book. He will just be redirecting his efforts. He will 'rewire' his work but never retire from work. It has been a big decision but we both feel it is right for us at this time.


Never in my life have a known anyone who works harder or more efficiently than Jim. It is his gift....well, one of them anyway. He is tireless in this department. He has seriously loved going to work almost everyday of his career. He will miss it very much! But he is a great philanthropist and wants to help everyone do everything so he'll never be idle. But we are going to take a little break, plan some things and adjust the first little while. We are very excited to see what the Lord has in store for us. There is definitely a missionary experience in our future. We have lots of possibilities...just waiting for His direction on what takes priority and when to do some of the things we have in mind. We are open to serving as many times as health and $ permit.

As for me, I feel as naive as a new bride about it all. I am so excited that this is happening and I feel so hopeful that it will be all and more than we imagine at this point. It is a lot like facing life after kids...what.... there is such a thing as life after work? We have done it on someone else's schedule all of our lives. This is going to be exciting to have the flexibility to create our own time table for the things we enjoy doing. I can barely take it in really. Who knows, we may even sit down on some of our patio furniture for the first time ever. We will accomplish more and be busier than ever. But we will have a lot more fun in the process and hopefully get more sleep than usual. Yay...no more 4:00 am blaring alarm clock! No more bike riding in the dark!

A couple of women have rolled their eyes about what it is like to have hubby in the house all the time. Well, I know it won't be like that as he'll be on the go doing something all the time. He is just wired like that. He has never been underfoot and I don't anticipate that now. I just envision us being able to spend so much more quality time together~something I do look forward to very much. I dream of just locking the doors and turning on the automatic sprinklers and heading out for as long as we want to go... with no time constraints.

Am I being naive?? Why can't it be ...and they lived happily ever after? With this new beginning we have so many more tools to know how to make that happen. I am hopeful....and excited. So it's June 30th for him and May 1st for me. I'll still be designing and consulting but not staging. The inventory has to go...Craig's List here I come with a boat load of fun stuff.

And those are my thoughts this early Spring morning. I was up at 4:00 AM today as Jim has gone out to his work...for a few minutes even though he is on "vacation." See what I mean...no worries about a couch potato! Happy trails to us! Yay!