I wish people would stop asking me if I’m enjoying my retirement. It’s only been 37 days and I haven’t had time to figure that out because we’ve been traveling every weekend since I officially retired on June 5. To make matters worse, I’ve never known how to relax – just ask Warren. He says I have terminal spilkes (pronounced SHPILL-kiss, it’s Yiddish for ants-in-the-pants).
Here’s a brief calendar of our wanderings:

June 11-14: Granddaughter Carly turned two on June 8th and we took the rig to Sacramento to help her celebrate. We returned on Monday and had 3 days to work on our townhome, which we have been busy getting ready to lease.

June 18-21: We flew to San Diego to celebrate niece Madisson and nephew Parker’s high school graduations. We’re extremely proud of Maddie, who will be attending Marymount College and Parker, who earned an appointment to the Air Force Academy. As I write this he is nearing the half way point of boot camp in Colorado Springs. We got to see family, including little Annie (4 months at the time) and her big sister, Emma “the little entertainer” who absolutely LOVES her pink tutu. We assisted with party preparations including me decorating two cakes and Warren gardening with brother-in-law Jeff. We got home on Monday morning and continued work on the townhome for the next 2½ days.

Emma Jane LOVES her pink tutu!

June 24-27: We flew to Dallas, TX for our Commercial Foreclosures Boot Camp (not quite like Parker’s). We knew Texas is BIG and now we know it’s also HOT. We learned a lot, met some nice people and now were ready to go back to work… on business and, of course, our townhome! We had a whole 3 days to clean, paint and pack before the next trip.

July 1-8: Wow!… A whole week in Van Nuys at Birmingham RV! With help from Snaggletooth, the one-tooth campsite manager, Warren managed to back our 36-foot-long rig into a tiny middle slot with not an inch to spare. Imagine sliding a Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast into a manila envelope, plate and all, without getting any syrup on the paper. At least we had shade and it never got past 90 degrees and that’s amazing for July in the Valley. We were here for another celebration. Grandson Dylan turned one on July 5th and Grandma Wendy and Warren were there to make sure the party was complete with cake and shade. Dylan wasn’t so sure about the cake. He didn’t know if he should dissect it or take a lick. He settled on the former.

Dylan the Cake Dissector

We got to see family and generally had a swell time. The trip back home was almost uneventful. With one soda too many under his belt, Warren pulled off at “Casa de Fruita” for some relief. We almost cleared the gate as we pulled into the lot. That’s a whole other story and I’ll let Warren tell that one. We made it home, albeit a bit later than we had planned. And me, well I started unpacking and doing laundry almost before the truck door slammed.

Our FIRST weekend home, we decided to tackle 2 big jobs that have been staring us down for weeks. We painted the kitchen ceiling after a small repair turned into a much larger repair, and finally tackled Max’s room. With Max off to Boy Scout Summer Camp for 10 days, it was the only opportunity. You can get an idea of the magnitude of the task by imagining all of the monkeys in the movie Jumanji having a food fight and tobacco-chewing contest for about 6 months in a space 10’X10’ with new carpeting. And no toilets. Ew. We plugged away for about 16 hours between us, and it looks completely different! The trick now will be to KEEP it that way after he returns. We have 6 days to think it over. I wonder if he has any outstanding arrest warrants?

I’m going to rest now, and reflect on whether or not I AM enjoying my retirement. In 2 days I leave for Sacramento again. I may have forgotten to mention my NEW Granddaughter, Shayla, arriving on July 7th. Formula for success: Grandma Wendy, cookies, cakes, repeat.