I see it has been 18 days since my last post. How did the time pass so quickly? I ponder that question on a regular basis. I was warned that time passes more quickly as we age, and it is certainly true.
If you read my most recent posts, you know I went to Sandpoint for a couple days of relaxation. Then I proceeded on to Montana to visit my sister. Her husband was beginning to feel better, so I went ahead with my plan to spend at least a couple of days there. We enjoyed the usual jigsaw puzzle, knitting, and plenty of tea. I wasn't in the mood to take pictures, so I didn't, even though I drove through some beautiful scenery with lingering fall colors.
When I got home, my customary whirlwind existence promptly resumed: a meeting, appointments, babysitting grandchildren, and dealing with apples, apples, and more apples! My sister had sent a couple boxes home with my daughter in mid-October, so she and I made applesauce at that time. But I wanted more. So when we went to Green Bluff at the end of October, I bought another box at one of the orchards. My favorite apple orchard was closed for the season, so I settled for one box from an orchard where I'd never purchased apples before.
Then I got sick, and a week went by before I was able to make the applesauce. My daughter stored my box of Jonathan apples in her insulated garage, right next to her box of Honeycrisps. Her apples stored just fine, but mine became soft and rotten. It took an email and three phone calls to the orchard before I was told I could come get a box of Honeycrisps to replace the rotten Jonathan apples.
So the Friday after I got back from my trip, I detoured to Green Bluff to pick up the replacement apples on my way to babysit in Spokane. The lady actually gave me TWO boxes of big, beautiful Honeycrisp apples! I was very pleased to discover she had chosen to so generously replace the faulty apples for which I had paid a ridiculous price.
The 19th, 20th, and 21st were apple-filled days. I made apple sauce, apple butter, apple crisp, and froze filling for two pies and another crisp. My daughter came to help on the 21st, and it was lovely to have a second pair of hands. I was in a hurry to get those apples preserved one way or another, as there were too many to put into my fridge and I had no cool place to store them except in my car. Fortunately, the temperature only got down to 25 degrees during those few nights, and the apples kept just fine.
The day before Thanksgiving, my son-in-law went shopping with me for new doors and baseboards. (The new flooring we got in October lead to more projects, of course.) So now I need to get busy and paint baseboards and doors. This is the time of year when I'd prefer to do jigsaw puzzles, knit, read books, and catch up on household tasks that were abandoned all summer. But I got myself tangled up in a remodeling project, so that's what I need to focus on in the near future.
When I was in college I made up a weekly schedule for myself, with class times, meal times, and study times filling it up. I allowed myself only a few blocks of leisure time. The years of teaching school included long, full days with only the weekends in which to relax. The years of child raising and home schooling were slightly less scheduled, but there was still a routine that needed to be maintained. For most of the past 13 years I have been relishing a life with few daily routines and no weekly schedule (or sometimes a very light one), just taking each day as it comes and enjoying as much leisure time as I can, except for the necessary tasks of a homemaker. (We never get to really retire.)
Now I am beginning to think my life needs more structure. I may need to set aside specific times for writing, for exercising, for cleaning, and for spiritual refreshment. I have resisted the idea of scheduling my life again, but I think it may need to be done.
I'm curious to know how other mostly-retired folks handle their days. Do you have structure? Do you go with the flow? Do you feel as if you get done what needs to be done? Please comment below; I'm hoping to get some useful ideas and suggestions.