April 9, 2013

Dear Lee,

Your birthday was April 3 and you would have been 69! Holy Moses! I have missed 2 of your birthdays now. You said you wanted to retire when you reached 70. Had you been alive we would be doing a lot of talking on how all of that would work for us.

So here I am partnered with a VSW  (very special woman) and we are building an addition onto this house for a private space for her. We dug the footings that I poured last fall out of the snow and I built the pony walls last week. Monday and Tuesday I laid out the joists.Today I nailed down the floor. I stood on top of 4 foot snowbanks and it made the job easier. Friday - walls I hope. The rafters arrived today Windows arrived yesterday. Waiting for the studs for the walls then its full steam ahead. This 63 year old can still put in a good days work although my 40 year old brain is a bit more ambitious. A good time for me to be extra kind to myself.

Because we have 5 seniors here and have had 5 since late summer last year, we are taking off 4 days a week and sharing 3 days of work. This suits us both right now as I work outside and Kathy works with the seniors.

It really is good when two widows get together. At any given moment one of us could have a 'moment' and the other automatically understands. Because we have both had a major loss we really have done a lot of talking and certain things just aren't important to us anymore- like petty complaints. Both of us are really aware of how we want to spend our time. We are making plans to pack in as much in as we can. First thing is finish the addition before riding season. That will not be a problem.