Month two of my retirement journey has ended, and I cannot believe how much was packed into the 30 days in November. During this month, I have traveled to Colorado, met my precious new granddaughter, looked at hundreds of houses for sale in Colorado using Zillow, spent several days looking at homes in different areas in Colorado, spent five days downsizing what we have in our house in Texas, cooked several new recipes, hosted Thanksgiving, did some DIY projects on the house, and hung out with family and friends.

Obviously, meeting my new granddaughter was the greatest highlight of the month. She is precious; I am sure every Oma thinks the same thing. Yes, I have carried on the family tradition of using the German name for grandmother. She runs the household like every newborn tends to do. Seeing how much she changed in the one week that I was there was truly a blessing. I had forgotten how quickly babies develop during the first few months. It was also amazing to see her with my parents. She is a lucky little girl who has two sets of great-grandparents in her life. I cannot wait to see how much she has changed when I see her again in January.

Speaking of seeing her in January. Somehow, our move date has moved from early March to the end of January. My parents have found a beautiful home in Colorado with mountain views from the front and back porches, so we are all very excited to enjoy the beautiful sunny Colorado days and see the Rocky Mountains. Yes, I know there is snow, especially in January and February, but I choose to ignore that. This means that Robert, Dustin, and I are working at warp speed to get the house ready to be placed on the market ASAP. After 30 years in the same house, there was just an accumulation of things we kept because we might use them again. We decided that this was our opportunity to eliminate all those items that we did not need or use. We spent five days going through every room in the house and our crazy garage, filling a small dumpster with all the junk. I cannot tell you how liberating it was to determine whether each item was essential enough to pay for moving it. Yet, after all that, I still find things that we need to get rid of instead of moving.

After throwing out or donating so many items, it was time to tackle some DIY home improvement tasks and hire professionals to do the big projects. As much as I hate DIY projects, we probably should have hired professionals to do them all, but I am too frugal or crazy to make that choice. Unfortunately, what is happening is that we complete one project, and then two more get added to the list. This drives me crazy because I love crossing items off the To-do list and seeing the number of items decrease. I am confident we will make it but stay tuned to see how many DIY projects we decide to hire a professional to complete or correct.

Another part of November that was much better than DIY projects was seeing family and friends. I have prioritized spending as much time with friends and family in Texas as possible before January. I know we will be back in Texas to visit, but I will miss calling them to have a meal together, pedicures, or hang out. So, I am dedicating much of December to seeing as many friends and family as possible before the moving truck heads to Colorado.

Before I close, I want to mention a few things that have surprised me about retirement.

• I still wake up around 5 AM, but I find it remarkably easy to go back to sleep most mornings. Many retirees told me it took them months or years to adjust to sleeping later. Not me; my new rise and shine time is 7:30 AM.
• Historically, I have read or listened to roughly 100 books a year, so I thought I would really increase the number of books that I read in retirement. That has not happened! Instead, I have only listened to two books in two months. I did not consider that when I worked, I listened to audiobooks every time I was in the car for more than 10 minutes. My commute time usually totaled an hour and 30 minutes. I am now rarely in the car for more than 10 minutes, so I will not meet my goal of reading 100+ books this year.
• Lastly, I was worried that I would want to shop because I would have so much more free time. Strangely, I have had no desire to shop, and most of what I have purchased is packing materials. My bank account greatly appreciates this surprise.

I hope you have a lovely holiday season celebrating with family and friends, with time-honored family traditions, and creating new traditions and memories.