Saturday, May 30, 2026

Today is the last Saturday of the month and I’m joining in with Jenn for her Share 4 Somethings link up…

Something I loved

As my first May not in school, I loved enjoying the weather and soaking up the sun. This is my favorite place to read! I am not using self-tanner right now. I went to Suntan City and cancelled my membership that I had had on freeze. I am not trying to “tan” but have a little natural color (while using sunscreen) from my little pockets of sunshine.

All the walks I can take with EO during the day. I still struggle with leaving him and going to walk alone. I haven’t figured that out, but we walk usually twice a day and my step count is way up since winter.

I loved getting to take the boat out in mid-May!

Something that sustained me

My little social activities – mah jong, or a happy hour or meal out with a friend. I am spending so much more time at home and these little times to be social give me something to look forward to and a little time out. I like to be home in time for dinner with Tom most nights and we eat and watch a show together.

Chatting with my friend Dan!

I don’t always have a cocktail. This one was just the yummy dip with my friend Jessica!

It was so fun to get to hear about Beth’s daughter’s time in Germany!

Lunch with Mason in a garden was such a treat!

This week I tried the trend of soft serve alcohol with another friend named Beth – this was a blueberry margarita. You have to use a spoon. The bartender gave us a sample of the soft serve espresso martini, too. I want to try one other place, but I’m calling this a trend that isn’t for me. I would rather drink a cocktail and have a non-alcoholic tasting ice cream treat.

I usually am the asker/inviter these days and it works well to just meet up with one person because when you start trying to mesh multiple schedules it can be like a math story problem.

Something I’m carrying forward

I am working on a post, but I am carrying forward the adaptation to my retired lifestyle, I suppose. We have now hit the one-year mark which seems impossible.

I walked EO on my school grounds a couple of weeks ago and this week I visited my school to say happy retirement to some old colleagues and to visit my department – the other world language teachers. It was nice to see some people, but I also left with the realization that life goes on, your job goes on, and you aren’t imperative to an organization when it comes right down to it.

I didn’t feel sad. I felt like that was a whole other lifetime ago. I didn’t miss the industrial feel and the hard floors and the muggy humid building and the talk about meetings and initiatives.

I think I struggle more with the great number of life changes that happened all at once in my life.

Something I’m making space for

My motto as a teacher was “people before paper” which meant to drop tasks when I had the opportunity to connect with a student or a colleague. I tend to thrive on checking off tasks and I am a pretty efficient person, so that needed to be a reminder that some tasks could wait.

The way that looks now is having time for family and friends in person, via text, or via a phone chat. I want to keep space in my calendar for spontaneity. I want to be easy and flexible to schedule things with.

It also looks like being present when kids stop by and being present when Tom wants to talk.

What about you? What would you share?

Amy