One month ago yesterday we were spending our first full day in our new retirement home. It was also the one year anniversary for starting this blog, which I now have more time to work on.
The first month of retirement was a bit rough early on. We had everything planned out, but just didn’t anticipate the weather getting in the way. Monday, January 3, we were all self-packed in our apartment waiting for the movers to arrive at 1 PM to load up our few belongings. It was snowing, and we got a phone call from the movers who were driving up to DC from Richmond. They might be a little late as traffic was slow on I-95. 48 hours later we were still waiting for them because of what turned into a massive traffic mess on I-95 due to the snow (and some mismanaged state transportation efforts). Our movers ended up spending two nights in their van before showing up late Wednesday.
So we got loaded up and started for Tennessee. Ended up going through another snow and a hard freeze on the way down. When we got down there, we learned that our road and semi-steep driveway had a couple inches of snow plus a layer of ice under it (see below picture….deer tracks crossing the driveway).
The next day was better and the ice was gone, so we finally moved in three days late. But hey, we’re retired, so no worries.
We had two more snows the second week, so that’s slowed down the settling in and getting things like internet, car registration, groceries, etc. taken care of. But we have all the time in the world. I love having the daily/weekly schedule all to ourselves! Golf is still a few weeks away, but we’re getting to the gym a few times per week, getting out to the restaurants, stores, and meeting people. We “cut the cord” on cable and are still trying to figure out having a TV service that suits our needs/wants. Right now we don’t have a way to watch this weekend’s Super Bowl at home. We tried the YouTube TV free trial, but there’s just so many long commercial breaks. We’re open to ideas……
Then there’s the financial transition for retirement. All that planning leading up to retirement was useful for preparation, but now it’s real- we’ll figure out the monthly cash flow situation and then make adjustments as I’m sure many of you did. Those of you who dealt with the USG when retiring know it’s a slow process to get the monthly payments going (our moving at the same time as retiring didn’t make it any easier).
So now that I’m in retirement, I’m anxious to get into a rhythm for the blog- stop writing so much about our experiences and instead get into some worthwhile conversations on retired life with those of you who’ve been there for a while. I’ll also update some posts from last year as some of you have shared very useful resources. Finally, I got to visit some of you recently and am anxious to highlight those experiences. Look forward to hearing from you!
Congrats Beth and Mike on your retirement and transition into your new home!! Sounds like Mother Nature made it a little bit difficult.
Our resettlement continues with our household goods scheduled for delivery next week. This truly has been the most difficult of all our moves.
At least we’ll be closer to you guys!!!
Mike,
If you have a verizon wireless phone/account, download the Yahoo Sports app. t has some of the NFL games, and the superbowl is listed on it (just checked). It may or may not not work on a tablet and not sure if you can cast it to your TV, but it is an option.
Don
Hey DB, thanks for the suggestion. We actually (accidentally) kept YouTube TV for an extra month and the game was on live for us to watch. But I do have Verizon, and will download the Yahoo sports app to see what else is available. Hope you and Dotty are doing well- wanted to mention my visit to you and the Rochon’s on the next post this week. Also, talked with Chaps a couple days ago- he and Laura are flying out of Hawaii later today to their new home in TX. Also heard from Paul Monaghan this weekend, in the Houston area, still working for a while.