Happy New Year and all that kind of stuff

Now the holidays have been and gone. Today was a company holiday for me. Since New Year's Day was a Sunday, we had Monday off. That's nice. Going back to work on January 2 feels rather abrupt. Christmas cheer, sentiment, carols, candles, family, and New Year's Eve noisemakers and champagne, followed by deranged sleeping on New Year's Day, and then BANG! It's a work day! Get up and get moving! So it was nice to have this 1-day cushion.

Not that I stayed up for the New Year this time around. I thought I might, but around 9:00 p.m. I felt sleepy so went to bed. When my mom was older, she would say she could celebrate the New Year at 9:00 p.m. Pacific time because at that moment it was midnight in the time zone where she was born, on the East Coast. I was born in Seattle, so that doesn't work for me.

My fearless defender from things that go boom in the night.

As it happens, I did wake up around midnight because people in the area were sending up fireworks, and my dog Benedict felt obligated to bark at them. But I didn't really wake up fully and was soon asleep again.

I'm glad that two weeks from today we'll have another holiday (Martin Luther King Day). That will ease us in a tad more easily than an endless-seeming stretch to Presidents Day in February. I seem to recall, from my time studying at Regent College, that Canadians get a Monday holiday pretty much every month. That sounds just jim-dandy to me. We need breaks. I've seen a meme about how medieval serfs got rest days for enough religious holy days so that they had more days off than the average American employee. 

This spring, I will turn 62. That is the youngest age at which one can start receiving Social Security retirement. I don't think I'll retire on the dot, but I will always be conscious that I could retire any time I want to. Actually, I want to, but when will it be propitious? I have some major purchases I want to make before I reduce my income so drastically: a love seat for my living room, two new doors for the room I have dedicated to being a library (with windows in the doors, so the southern exposure can benefit the adjoining areas), a screen door so I can get fresh air when it's pleasant outside, a new dishwasher because the one I have is kaput, a new thing over the stove (what's it called?) because the ventilation fan in mine is broken. Possibly an update to the pump system down here that sends my waste water up to street level. 

Geez, maybe I'll be working till I'm 95. But I'll always know I could retire if I want to. I heard a speaker once who said you should have a Plan B for your income so that you don't feel trapped in your Plan A employment.