One year of retirement down! Hopefully many to go.

When we say we're retired people ask if we miss work or we're traveling a lot. No and no. Actually, I kind of wonder how people have time to work with all the things there  are to do! To be fair, my job, in later years, consisted of collating and reporting data and immediate responses to questions so I'm used to finding productive (or not) things to do.  Spouse's was more project oriented so he's used to sorting his time out. Like many people our age who are retired we have side gigs - they just aren't required for financial support like they may be for younger people.

One thing's for sure - we have more time  to look after our health. All those studies about more sleep, less processed foods,  being active, etc? We have time for that. We had started having more home cooked meals from fresh or minimally processed foods a few years ago and that hasn't changed. Sleep sure has though. Bennie doesn't get up in the night or wake up early so we can get a longer night's rest - at least in the non-summer months. Has it made a difference? I don't know but I was surprised at how much late I get up. I've always exercised but that was an evening activity and I've now shifted it to mornings. It's a  different group of people than I used to see although there is some overlap. Until my accident I used to walk to work. Now that I don't work, I walk to any events that don't involve crossing the highway. For me that's coffee, vet clinic and some exercise classes which is pretty nice.
Then there's Bennie. When we were working, we would excuse bad dog behaviour. Bennie is a little more terrier and possessive so training and behaviour modifying it is. That's daily training and can take up quite a bit of time when it takes 5 minutes to go out a door then 10 minutes for him to settle enough in a new location to respond to me for 5 minutes of training. But we want to take him places with us so it's important he's like Milo was at 16 way before he gets to 16. Since he's still got puppy brain, it's more training for us to become consistent in what's acceptable behaviour.

Of course, this was year one - the year you catch up on all the home stuff you don't have time for while working.  We spent a lot of money on home updates, including flooring, solar panels and backyard changes. As those projects wind down we'll find out how we spend that free time. There are some places I'd like to explore near once Bennie is socialized better which will hopefully be next summer and maybe restart a hobby. I'm already reading more, it's just a matter of cost and clutter. I don't want to re-accumulate stuff after having the garage sale.