A Tale of Two Parties

No Retirement can truly begin until there has been a retirement party or two.  The Place from Which One is Retiring should at least have some sort of ceremony with a Token of Esteem or two.  At the very least there should be an Official Certificate awarded.  A Personal Celebration of the Best Kind should also occur. It should feature a large collection of one’s friends, a goodly amount of scrumptious food and no discussion whatsoever of one’s previous employer. 

Well I’m here to announce that such events have in fact occurred.  The CWCC based party had to be rescheduled twice due to inclement weather but it did in fact finally occur.  The Warden gave me this Lucite dust catcher which now graces my fantasy bookcase.  There was a fair amount of decent food, not too many trite speeches and almost everyone I actually wanted to say goodbye to was present.

I also got my parole papers complete with the signatures of 4 Department of Corrections big kahunas in Richmond of the mahogany desk sort.  I hung it on the wall above my computer desk.  It keeps the wall from being lonely.

The Saturday before the CWCC gathering the Real Retirement Party was held.  Carly & Dean hosted the affair at their place.  The table was most richly laden, every chair & sofa was full and laughter was everywhere.  My Jubilacion has Begun!  And no, we did not talk about my Late Unlamented Employer!  We laughed, we sang some, we caught up on the latest joys of our lives.  We celebrated life & friendship & did Little Happy Dances because our lives, our families and our friends are truly worth celebrating.  The weather even co-operated, something it hasn’t been all that good at this winter. 

Viva La Jubilacion!  And thank you one and all who came to the real start of my retirement.  With extra special thanks to Dean, Carly and Da Urchin who worked so hard to make it all happen.  Let The Retirement Begin!

Catching Up

I have been catching up on my 2013 blog entries.  So now the photos are posted, the texts are posted and I’m up to date on Life in General.  Here’s a list of just what is where:

• Fort Frederick Juried Trade Fair    Apr 30
• May Showers Bring May Floods    May 10
• Dog Days                                    Aug 28
• OVPMS Strikes Again                    Sep  3
• Front Royal Fun                            Sep  9
• Yorktown Victory Center               Oct 10
• OVPR Fall Rendezvous                 Oct 28
• Witch Way is Which (more OVPR)  Oct 31
• Banner Project                              Dec 15
• Weird Winter  (2014)                     Jan 18

Well its been 10 days since I retired.  I’ve spent some time at Da Urchin’s Place working on her bathroom and just hanging out.  We watched the Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremony and enjoyed it thoroughly.  I also spend an afternoon with my friends Mike & Sue.  Obviously I’ve spent time bringing my blog up to date.  The laundry & dishes are done.  And a Retirement Party Open House has been planned at a friend’s place.  Not exactly a gang busters start to retirement.

I quickly discovered that after 9 years working nights as a corrections officer I needed a wind down transition.  I needed to sleep until I just woke up with no alarm clock involved.  Only once I was fully rested could I begin a shift back onto a daylight life style.  Now I’m up by 10am and staying up until 12pm.  The goal is to move my get up and go to bed times back in half hour increments until I’m getting up by 7 in the morning.  I’m basically resetting my body clock.

I’m also still unwinding from the tension inherent in my previous career.  So I’m making sure to pet & play with my cats, a guaranteed stress eliminator.  I’m also working at eating real food that I actually prepare at normative meal times.  My tummy thinks it needs to eat dinner at 9:30pm, the time it ate when I was at work.  I’m convincing it otherwise.  I’m also convincing it that 2 cups of coffee a day is enough.  The caffeine withdrawal headaches have stopped so progress is being made.  Herbal Tea and I are becoming friends again.

As I move forward through retirement the house sorting will move forward too as well as music,  hobby crafting, and similar activities.  Plus friend visiting.  To Everything There is a Season.  This season is going to be a Glorious One.

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DIY at Da Urchin’s Place

OK, so back in the spring of 2012 Da Urchin got herself a house, a house mortgage and all that comes with such a purchase.  And of course any house that’s new to you needs personalizing, particularly if it has been empty for 3 years before you get it.  So there have been a variety of 2013 DIY projects at Da Urchin’s Place in which I have had my humble part.

Dogwood

Da Urchin bought a Dogwood from a local vender and we planted it between the boulder and the dead-tree-to-totally-get-removed in her side front yard. 

Rose of Sharon

I also brought  4 small bushes from my yard and planted them.  One went in front of the 2 boulders in the side front yard.  It is doing well enough that it bloomed about 6 weeks after it was transplanted. 

Another Rose of Sharon

The other 3 bushes were planted on the slope in the back yard.

 

The Smallest Rose of Sharon

This one produced one bloom several weeks after it was transplanted.  The flowers up the hill grew from a perennial wild seed mix Da Urchin bought and planted.   Rose of Sharon are very hardy.  I’ve got 6 to 8 more of these to transplant at her place next spring.

A friend of Da Urchin’s put in a brick fire pit and grill in her yard and gave her old iron fire pit set to Da Urchin.

Fire Pit After Cleaning and Preliminary Painting

Now I knew it had a few holes but it proved to be worst than I first though once I sanded it up and put the first coat of Hi-Heat Rust-o-leum on it.  Oh well, I always wanted a pop rivet gun.

Patched Fire Pit Interior

All’s well that ends well.  The hole is to let any water that gets into the pit drain away.  I did put another coat of paint on both sides of the pit.  I haven’t painted the benches yet. 

Fire Pit with Spark Cover

I also cleaned and painted the spark cover for the pit.  There is a heavy plastic fitted weather cover for it too.  So the rusting shouldn’t reoccur any time soon.

First Fire in the Fixed Pit

Da Urchin decided she wanted tile floor in her bathrooms several months ago.  She also wanted nicer vanities in both baths and different mirrors.  She started on the guest bathroom. 

The New Tile Floor

Once everything was removed from the guest bath Da Urchin and a friend laid down the new sub-floor and tile.  Then Da Urchin put down the grouting and we re-installed the toilet.  This of course took a trip to Lowe’s for longer bolts to secure the toilet.  All home improvement projects take at least 3 trips to Lowe’s, and at least one of those trips will be unplanned.

Bathroom Walls with New Drywall

One side of the existing vanity and the mirror had been glued onto the wall.  Very very thoroughly glued to the wall.  So sections of drywall had to be cut out and new sections put in.  Here they are installed and ready to be painted.  Once the painting is done there is wainscoting, a new wall fixture, and then the new vanity to install. 

Not all the DIY at her place are large projects.  We installed a curtain rod, curtains and curtain holdbacks in the smallest bedroom.

Backdoor & Trim Painted

Da Urchin painted her doors a lighter green and I gave the trim a fresh coat of white paint. 

Of course there is more DIY to come.

12:01 AM February 1, 2014 - RETIREMENT

ITS OFFICIAL!  

As of 12:01AM today I am a Retired Lady.  My last day of work for the Commonwealth of Virginia ended at 6:20AM of Wednesday January 29th and I turned in all my issued equipment on Friday the 31st.  For the first time in 57.5 years I don’t have to get up and go do something for someone else on their set schedule.  Not since I started kindergarten has my time been this much my own to spend as I see fit. 

So I started my retirement by spending Wednesday and Thursday at my daughter’s place.  We ran some errands, bought a celebratory rib eye steak at Wegman’s and had a nice late afternoon meal of Tofu Pho at a Pho restaurant near the Wegman’s.  Then we headed back to her place and I took a nap.  (My body is going to take some retraining to get it off its night shift schedule.)  We finished off the night by watching the latest installment of Sherlock on PBS-BBC.  Very funny, I highly recommend the series.  The next day we puttered around a bit, watched a bunch of the extra stuff on the Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey Extended Blu-Ray disk and had the rib eye for dinner. 

Friday I went to CWCC to turn in my issued gear and sign one more form.  I took the most scenic way home and truly realized I would never be required to drive to CWCC again.  That’s when it all started to seem real.  Its over.  All the idiocy of DOC and CWCC is out of my life.  No more T-groups masquerading as Learning Teams, no more last minute training classes, no more mandatory OT days, no more flip- flop instructions from management.  I can even talk about what its like to be a Corrections Officer in an open dormitory style prison without being afraid of getting fired.  (Yes DOC has demoted and even fired folks for making what it interpreted as inappropriate comments about The Work either in a public forum or via social media sites.)

I have my life back.  I think I’ll work at enjoying every minute of it.  A retirement party is planned and long time friend from Michigan is coming here to visit.  And there’s a long list of projects involving my yard, my house and my hobbies that’s calling me.  Projects I intend to enjoy.  This is fun.  Right here and right now fun with more on the way.  Oh how sweet it is.  Happy Dance here I come!

FYI – I have a new telephone number.  Send me an email or write me if I haven’t sent it to you & you want it.

Weird Winter

Virginia is having one weird winter.  Now to have a winter in Virginia is weird in and of itself.   If winter is defined as that season of the year when the ground is frozen then Virginia doesn’t even bother to have a winter when everyone else is slip sliding around and getting big purple & green brushes from falling onto the very hard frozen ground.  Most years Virginia has frozen ground on a couple of stray days and a few more nights.  Some years it dispenses with frozen ground (ie winter) all together.  But not this winter, oh my goodness no, not this winter.

This winter Virginia is experiencing frozen ground for 7 to 8 days at a time.  Hard frozen ground, ground with hard compacted snow on top of the hard frozen ground with ice on top of that.  Da Urchin’s house has had 3  ice storms, one of them was quite serious.  Her local auto parts stores are selling tire chains right out of the shipping crate.  I haven’t had that kind of winter but the rivers near here have had a thick ice layer on them from shore to shore.

As for the weird part, in between these weeks of winter with temps in the low teens during the day and single digits at night we’ve had 2 to 4 days of weather in the high 50s and 60s.  That’s right, glorious spring weather bracketed by Artic Clipper blasts of frigidity.  Go figure.  I for one just want it to end and for real spring to arrive. 

Rapidan Mill

Meanwhile the thaws have produced the first floods of the year.  In a typical year this sort of thing waits until March to get rolling.

Rapidan Mill Spillway

Mind you this isn’t a severe flood, just a normal spring high water event.

Looking Downstream at Rapidan VA

Well at least this high water came way too soon to wash out anyone’s spring planting and it wasn’t high enough to wash building and such like away either.  Let’s thank the weather spirits for whatever favors they grant.

Banner Project Finished

2013 has been a very frustrating year.  What with extra training at work and thus no vacation time I was hard pressed to get even the most basic of routine tasks done.  But I did get one project done I’ve wanted to do for quite some time, so it wasn’t a total loss. 

This is a merit sash of sorts.  The top half is shooting or buckskinning organizations I’ve joined at one time or another.  Then there are events were I was part of the teaching or demonstrating staff.  Near the bottom are patches from the ATC from my early backpacking days, a BSA badge from a Ukrainian Orthodox summer camp where I sang in the choir for the closing liturgy, and a Girl Scout patch from my 1st ever historic presentation (I was a scout in Juliet Lowe’s 1st troop on the occasion of the centennial of her birth).  At the bottom there’s a State Seal of Michigan patch (my home state) and a patch from my Girl Scout Camp.  My 1st experiences with living outdoors came during those 4 years at Camp Shawadasee and they were very very good ones.

Witch Way is Which – OVPR Formal Tea

Ever since Hector was a pup there has been a Ladies Social at the OVPR ‘Vous on Saturday at noon.  It’s a Hoot.  The ladies all put on their best attire and sashay over to the Tavern where Hootie Owl serves up his finest concoctions while Dulcimer Dave, the Preacher and sometimes various other instrumentalists provide the music. 

Historic Information Marker

But this is not the only Hen Party at the OVPR.   One group of women in particular has hosted an Afternoon Tea around noon on Friday for several years now.  It hasn’t been held every Vous.  Sometimes the weather hasn’t been accommodating  and sometimes the Four Hosts haven’t all been there to well host things.  But it generally happens and it certainly happened at the Fall 2013 OVPR. 

The All Important Directional Sign

First a bit about the Host Sisters.  They have long graced the Ladies Social at the Fall OVPRs.  All Four of Them - Cousins to the Weird Sisters of MacBeth’s Scotland in All Their Glory. 

Witch Host is Which?

So of course they host a Witch’s Tea.  In all its glory.

Ah The Party Notice

The Tea Table

And the table is most richly laden.  For what’s a tea without tea snacks?

The Final Touches

And the Weird Sisters work very hard to see that everything is in its proper order.  Hum, eye of newt, wing of bat, now where’s the web of spider?

Web of Spider Located

Ah, there it is.  The Tea is Ready.  And so are the eats.

Bill of Fare

Like all Good Establishments the Bill of Fare is Prominently Posted.

The Sponsor

Of course an event of this magnitude needs a incorporate sponsor.

Fly-By Window

And offers the Complete Take-Away Service via a Fly By Window.

Fortune Teller with a Client

New this year – Bobalicious the Fortune Teller dropped by and helped one and all see what the future held for them.  Yours Truly has a Separation from Service by Reason of Retirement in my future and Good Luck will Grace my Lodge if I Rendezvous Frequently.  I can go with that.

Tea Attendees

The tea was well attended by the OVPR Women.  Note in particular the Witch in Training just to the left of the flag pole.  And yes, witches are very patriotic.

More Tea Attendees

All the usual suspects were there.  With more besides.

Best Dressed Award

And yes, like the Ladies Social on Saturday, finery is the Order of the Day.

Thank You to the Weird Sisterhood for Hosting this Tea!