Happy New Year--Really!

For the first time in my life, I'm truly celebrating this New Year of 2020. I've written before about how there's nothing new about January to me except changing the date. It's still dark and cold. And dark. (Can anyone say Seasonal Affective Disorder?) Except this year. As of December 31, my husband is retired and we are celebrating. His work life always included quite a bit of traveling. But for the past 15 years, he's been away a lot more than he's been home. I started our married life as a military spouse, which is someone who has to deal with whatever comes up, regardless of where their mate is at the moment. That was good training for the way our lives ended up, but I'm not sorry to say good-bye to that type of independence. I'm looking forward to having and being a partner full-time. I also have no worries that he's going to plant himself on the couch and channel-surf endlessly, or turn into Oscar the Grouch. You know what I mean--you've all seen the miserable, obviously bored husband out shopping with his wife, grumping about the prices, the selection, the color, the size, the type of store, the speed and intelligence of the checkout person, and when are we going to have lunch? My husband has several major hobbies that he's happy to finally have the time to dive into. We have "group projects," things around the house that we never had time to get to, and are more easily done with both parties present. Some will make the old place more comfortable, some will let us sort through the "collectibles" that we haven't used in years. We're not forgetting the fun activities. We'll be able to spend time with our grandsons without always counting the vacation days used. Travel has always been at the top of our To Do List. We've always enjoyed exploring, everything from a small local find to a foreign country. Now when we're driving somewhere, we'll be able to take back roads and wander, stopping at interesting places we've had to dash by because there wasn't time. I know every minute won't always be rainbows and flowers. It never has been. We're two firstborns, which means that we both know what needs to be done and how to do it. Naturally, our whats and hows rarely coincide. But we've both matured and learned to work around each other's quirks. And a very big plus is that he's taking over many of the routine household chores that I'm sick of. It's great! Now if I could just convince him to load the dishwasher my way ...