The best thing about retirement, IMO,  is that each day is different.

I have no fixed schedule, although I do have a few things I do every week, like working out at the gym (2x a week), walking (nearly every day), seeing my father for lunch and my Kiva volunteer work. But my days are so much more flexible now than they were when I worked full time. I love that!

I think the thing I hated the most when I worked was the rigidness of the 9 to 5 regimen, the idea that you were "locked" onto the workplace premises (this is before COVID) and could only "escape" for a half-hour or hour-long lunch break. I don't know why, but I always chafed against that.  It's not that I didn't like my work...I did...but after a few hours of writing, I would become restless and feel like I needed to change my surroundings. And with my usually long commutes, I often spent time trying to figure out how I was going to do all the things I needed to do at home. Perhaps it would have been different had I been married....

Although there is no shortage of things to do around here, I find I have more time to do these things right instead of just trying to squeeeze them in as time allows. For instance, I just spent about 30 minutes researching home heating oil price trends this summer and through year's end in order to determine whether I should fill up my tank now, or wait. (I knew that Saudi Arabia voted to limit production, efffective July 1, and I was worried prices might rise later in the summer, so I decided to spring for a fill-up now.) Heating oil can be very pricy.

I do like a certain degree of structure in my weekly routine, but dislike having everything pinned down for every single hour. Pretty much how I feel about vacations....to me, the ideal vacation is loosely scheduled, like these 2 nights we're staying here, but affords ample opportunity to just let things happen and if you absolutely fall in love with some area, you could spend an extra night, no big deal.