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This is the start of an experiment.

Last night, N took me to task for wasting my retirement time puttering around the house, reading blogs, doing things for Colleen, and not doing any of the things I retired in order to have time for: recording, writing, and programming in particular, with a side of woodworking. She pointed out that if I'm going to spend my time doing stuff that we could hire a housekeeper or caregiver to do, the family would be better off if I went back to work and we hired people to do those things. (Or increased their hours, since in fact we already have a housekeeper and caregiver.)

So.

I realized that Colleen doesn't really need all that much help these days. Normally I've been teaching on the days when Colleen has a caregiver around, and spending more time with her on the days when she doesn't. But in fact, when I've switched (for whatever reason), Colleen does perfectly well with a little help around lunchtime and in the late afternoon. So if I switched, I'd have two large blocks of time completely to myself: 8:30 to 11:30 (my teaching time, but potentially expanded to 8:00 to noon) and 1:00 to 4:00. That's six or seven hours, at least two days a week and potentially three on weeks when I'm not needed Friday.

N. suggested that I start each block with 15 minutes of guitar practice, to get my fingers back in shape without hurting, then pick something from the project list (I'll get back to that) and keep going with it as long as I'm sufficiently engaged. Then switch to something else. Lather, rinse, repeat (like the programmer who died in the shower:). I could do guitar practice at 8:00 on teaching days, and I should probably schedule time for walking as well, say 4:00-4:30 or so.

So I did that this morning, starting out with guitar at 8am and continuing on to writing. It is now 9:09. I missed breakfast; I can squeeze in some cottage cheese between now and the next sub-project. Which should include working on the project list.

River: Life, the Universe, and Colleen

Somehow I seem to have forgotten to post this on the day, but:

As of Wednesday, Colleen and I have been married for 42 years.

We celebrated last night by going out to Toby's (nice neighborhood bar in Coupeville) with Naomi.