Retired? Not Us

The other day someone referred to Terry and me as enjoying our retirement here on Florida’s Central Coast. We both had to laugh at that because even though we are of an age to draw Social Security and get Medicare, we are far from retired.

When our insurance company refused to cover treatment for Terry’s cancer 21 years ago, our retirement and all of our savings pretty much disappeared overnight under a mountain of medical bills, and it took us many, many years to get back on our feet. So now we work toward building funds for the day we may slow down. But as long as our health and our mental faculties still work, I don’t think we’ll ever completely retire.

Part of that is because I love writing books I usually spend anywhere from five to ten hours a day, seven days a week at my desk writing and researching.  I spent several hours yesterday doing just that, first making some corrections to chapters for my new book that Terry and Judy had already proofread before sending them on to Roberta, my third proofreader. Then I wrote another chapter of about 2,500 words. But to me, that’s not work.

That wasn’t the only thing I did yesterday. I also cleaned out our Ford Explorer to get it ready to take to the dealer’s to trade in, hopefully sometime this week, when my new truck arrives (yes, I’m still hopeful). It was low on gas, and I didn’t really want to fill the tank just to trade it in, so I brought out one of the cans of gas we keep on hand for our Honda generators during hurricane season and pumped it into the tank.

A while back, my buddy Jim Lewis gave me a handy dandy Turbo Pump, and this battery-powered device is worth its weight in gold. It took less than three minutes to empty the five-gallon can into the tank with no muss and no fuss. If you’re looking for a Christmas gift for somebody, this is one I would strongly recommend.

Speaking of gifts, one of my kids gave me a shirt for my birthday that I never got around to wearing until yesterday. Now I think it may be my favorite shirt. After all, it matches my beard and hair pretty well, don’t you think?

Miss Terry got herself a new shirt the other day, too. Fans of the modern-day western television series Yellowstone will understand what it means. If you don’t, I guess you’ll just have to start watching it.

I also got Terry an early Christmas gift, a steamer that she wanted to use for her different weaving projects. Hey, maybe I didn’t go to Jared, but at least it’s not a toaster or a vacuum cleaner, right?

Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for an audiobook of Luminous: The Story of a Radium Girl by Samantha Wilcoxson. It’s a novel about Catherine Donohue, who worked at Radium Dial in Ottawa, Illinois, and the secret lurking in the greenish-grey paint the company used that magically made things glow in the dark. To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

Thought For The Day – Arguing with a woman is like reading an entire software license agreement. In the end, you just ignore everything and click “I agree.”