Retirement is a Reality!

It almost seems surreal--I went to St. Joseph Hospital for my last day of work as a nurse! I don't know what I expected to feel but I have had mixed feelings. I've really gotten to know the nurses I work with and have developed friendships with them. It's going to seem kind of sad not to be seeing them on a regular basis. However, after having worked a total of 44 years in nursing, I am so excited to finally not have a work schedule! It means I won't have to worry about working holidays, or how I'm going to get to work in the snow; it will give me the flexibility to spend time with family and friends and go on little trips without worrying about if I have enough vacation days.

I can't believe that I didn't remember to take my camara to work today! I was going to take some pictures of co-workers; also they had a really nice lunch for me and a gift. Once again, I missed a blogger's photo op. I promised to keep in touch, and who knows, I may really miss it and go back to work on a very limited prn (as needed) basis.

After work today, my wonderful hubby took me out to eat at one of our very favorite restaurants--'The 9-Mile Restaurant". I had fish(Cod) and he had barbeque ribs. They have a really good spinach salad and we also had baked potato. It was yummy.

So, as you can see, I've already started to celebrate. I think this is only the beginning, as we are having a Gisel Cousin retirement lunch tomorrow in Ft. Wayne. There will be 7 of us, including two teachers who also retired this fall.

So many people have asked me what I'm going to do. For starters, I'm getting involved in a teen mentor program through our church; I have organizational and re-decorating projects here at home; and I want to do some scrapbooking and maybe even some creative writing. (However, since I've started blogging, I've decided I'm not a very creative writer. Some of the blogs are written really well and some are so entertaining. ) I guess I'll have to work on developing that skill. I do write some poetry and I'll probably continue to do that.

For now, I'm just excited about the prospect of having flexibility with my schedule and not having to get up at 5:00 am to go to my 7-3:30 job. Some have said that I will get bored, but I can't imagine that happening. One of these days, I'll probably wonder how I ever had time to go to work!