Ah, what a day.

OK, so there were those moments where Ellie wanted to sit on the potty, get off the potty, wipe her own bottom, sit back on the potty, get off the potty, wipe her own bottom…..and the puppy wanted to chew the towels, sniff said bottom, chew more towels, sniff again… and the old dog was aghast at such behavior and stood in the doorway to the bathroom saying “woof!” every four seconds…..

Still. It was a lovely, lovely day.

It was pouring out. It was foggy. It was raw.

I wasn’t commuting 37.5 miles to work, as I did for 22 years. I wasn’t dealing with indoor recess. I wasn’t trying to regulate the heat in my classroom by putting wet paper towels on the register to tell it that it was cool, and that we needed it a lot warmer.

Nope.

Today I was in my house. Wearing flannel pj pants ALL day. I had some Christmas lights on, and the pellet stove roaring.

Ellie and puppy Lennie played together. We all danced to our favorite music (except for old dog Tucker, who lay on the floor monitoring our every move.)

Today I was retired.

Ellie took a long nap on my bed, and I sat beside her, reading and answering emails and writing about politics to make a little money.

We had turkey soup for lunch. It was nice and hot.

I didn’t have to scarf down a Luna bar on my way to a meeting.

Come to think of it, I haven’t even been to a meeting in a year and a half.

And that, my friends, is the beauty of retirement. I had the time and the patience to watch my granddaughter climb on and off the potty 500 times. I had time to scroll through two days of tweets from Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

I made myself tea at 2 pm and I let the water come to a full boil.

Retirement is fabulous.

I hope you all get to try it one of these days!

Listen to Christmas Carols on a rainy day.