The Big Shift

It was thinking about what I envisioned as the “the big shift”, going to work everyday as always and then abruptly hitting that first day of retirement, that made the name of this blog – Wake Up Retired – seem appropriate.  And maybe it will still feel that way when I get there in 52 days.  But having been caught up in a whirlwind of preparation activity over the last 4 weeks it feels more like a phased transition.

I’m pretty sure we are doing this retirement thing all wrong.  Logic and reason would say that you get to the first day of retirement, maybe go on a celebratory trip, chill out a bit, and then put your house up for sale.  The house sells, you devote all of your time to packing and moving and then you move.  But not wanting a house payment for any longer than necessary, we put the house up for sale 4 months before retirement and then had it sell in 2 ½ weeks.  So here we are working along and then spending every free moment packing and moving and coordinating.  First there was the U-Haul cargo van weekend

That was exhausting.  Chuck driving the van, me driving the Murano with the dogs.  It’s a 5 ½ hour trip from Nashville, TN to our house in Black Mountain, NC, assuming no traffic issues.  We arrived and started unloading the van.  Then the next day it was re-loading the van with stuff that had been furnishing the mountain house that we weren’t going to need or want anymore.  Drive back to Nashville and unload again.  We’re getting too old for this stuff!

Then there was the professional moving company weekend.

That one was mainly Chuck’s heroic effort.  I had year-end financial close to deal with at work so there was no way I was helping.  Plus, the moving company was taking not just all sorts of furniture and boxes to the mountains, but also Chuck’s Can-Am Spyder.  Most of one day was for the movers to load the truck and most of another to unload it at two different locations (the house and the storage unit where the Can-Am is going live).  Them Chuck had one day to do some sorting and rough placing and one to drive back.  And when I wasn’t at work over that weekend, I was busy packing more boxes.

So this weekend will be another U-Haul van adventure and the weekend after that the move to temporary quarters.  Shifting, shifting, shifting – right now I’m waiting for the downshift.