This retirement gig is harder than I thought.

I've been retired for almost a month now. I waited years for this and now it's here. And it's not quite what I expected, I have to say. There are some things I didn't think about.

For instance. It's Labor Day weekend coming up, right? Well, I don't get the day off. All the rest of you get a day off. But me and Sarge don't ever get a day off anymore. Kind of a ripoff if you ask me.

And I thought I'd be sleeping in every day. For all those years when the alarm clock went off I cussed it and said "someday I won't have to listen to that terrible sound. I can sleep all I want". So what do I do? I get up at 5:00 or sometimes even earlier. Nothing to do. I just don't feel like sleeping now that I can. That's pretty confusing.

And I'm eating breakfast. I'm not just grabbing a couple hard boiled eggs and gobbling them down. I'm fixing breakfast. That just takes a lot of work. Cooking eggs, sausage. Making coffee in my French Press everyday instead of having my coffee maker set with the timer to have it ready to grab and go. It's exhausting sometimes, but it's what us retired folks do I guess.

And this business of not planning things. I always had to plan things to work around my schedule. Now I just do things when I want. No hurry. No rushing to get things done because there's only so much time. That's just hard to get used to. I'm pretty impatient by nature and that's a hard thing to overcome. No more need for being impatient because I have all the time in the world. It's hard to adjust to.

And going places during the day when everybody else is working. That's just weird. Where the hell is everybody? Oh right. They're at work.

And the damn TV. I'm hooked on Netflix now. I hardly ever watched it before. Now I am binge watching all these dumb Netflix series. I never had two or three hours to waste watching TV. Now I don't even feel guilty. And that's just not right.

We're going to California for my Grandson's fourth birthday next week. We're staying almost two weeks. We've never stayed more than 4 or 5 days. I don't know what to think about that. Don't have to get back to work. Don't have to worry about what will be waiting for me when I get back to work. Sure, that sounds great, but it's not as easy to adjust to as you might think.

And then there's the reality that my working friends hate me now. Sure they all say "congratulations" and all that. But in their little hearts they hate me. I know.

So this whole thing isn't as easy as it sounds. You can feel sorry for me, it's OK. I'm struggling through it. It's hard, but I think I'll survive it.

I am opening a booth at the Owls Nest in September. I think I'll call it Pops Tool Crib. It going to be tools tools tools. And other man stuff. There's a market for it. My wife discovered I own three of every tool known to man and decided I could pare down some. I don't see the problem with that. Doesn't everybody own at least two miter saws? And three paint and finishing sprayers?

So stop by the old Owls Nest on Topeka Blvd and buy my stuff so I can go buy more. I've got lots of time now to shop for more tools. So help a brother out, OK?

See you later. Going to garage sales now. Another thing you can't do when you work. And that might have been for the best.