Saturday, January 24, 2009

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!

Do any of you realize how busy the lives of us retired folks are? Let me give you a schedule of the week down here at the camp. First of all, every morning starts with Ernie and quite a few others, meeting around the fire in the gazebo and solving all the world's problems. Then these fellows join the bigger crowd up at the rec center for coffee and cookies. Exercise class comes next, but Ernie hustles home to shower during that time. Exercise class meets on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and a huge number of the retirees attend the mostly stretching class.

Tuesday night is the highlight of the week, with a big potluck dinner offered. The place is packed and the food tables are loaded. There are usually a large number of salads, lots of casserole type dishes, quite a few meats in crockpots, different types of chicken, ground beef, brats and hot dogs, etc, and a whole table at the end filled with cookies, cakes, pies, rolls, ice cream, cream puffs, and all types and flavors of high fructose corn syrups!

Wednesday afternoon is usually craft time. Either the women meet and all work on one craft, or like me, they bring their current project and work on it. The needles, fingers, and tongues are flying! Wednesday night is cheap hamburger at the VFW, and last week when we went on our cheap date, the place was filled with the campers from here. I counted ten table full!

Thursday night is Bingo, but lately I've only seen card players, not Bingo. Oh, Monday is called poker night, but it's usually just tables of about six, playing all kinds of card game. In fact, the tables are full every night with card players.

Friday night is hot dog night at the gazebo. Bring your own dogs and buns, and the rest is provided. The rest usually being french fries or tater tots, catsup, mustard, and chili.

Every day the rec center is filled with people on their computers. Some working, some playing games, and some trying to figure out how to turn the darn thing on! There is usually someone around to help that last group!

We've also had special events like last Sunday's Penguin Appreciation Day. We have a lot of fun and meet a lot of people. Some of these folks become lasting friends, like Glenn and Carole who we met two years ago and have kept in touch with ever since. We visited them in their home town, and are now spending this month and part of next with them down here. And we convinced old friends who lived across the street from us 30 years ago to come down too! So we're having a good time and keeping busy.

Then add to this schedule at least 4 trips to the quilt shop or fabric stores, grocery shopping, church, sight seeing, etc, and you can see that we have very little time to spare! Busy, busy, busy!

5 comments:

Lena . . . said...

Ole and I have both said we're so busy now we don't know how we ever had time to work!!!

Russell said...

Sounds like you are having a wonderful time! Good for you!!

Yes, solving the world's problems every morning! Heh! We have a group of men who do that every morning here in Iowa! (And in every other community from coast to coast!!)

My favorite part was hearing about the Tuesday night potluck dinners. I cannot remember the last time I was at a potluck dinner - and that is too bad because I like them so, so much!! I mean, I really like them.

I should check out the various churches and see when they have their dinners - I am sure they do. The last one I was at, I think, was a 4-H dinner several years ago... but those REAL potluck dinners I used to go to years ago were great!

Take care.

Joni said...

Phew...you exhaust me! And I might add I think someone ripped you off...check again...your nap time slots are missing ( I bet it's that last computer group).

Tonjia said...

what a lot of fun! not this is what I imagine retirement to be...

Memaw's memories said...

It's great you can travel and enjoy yourselves so much.

How did you ever find time to work before you retired?