All I can say is it is a good thing that I started preparing myself for this huge change in our life months before it came to be. Even so, it is extremely overwhelming. I would say it is as extreme or more than the first child. So many emotions, so many possibilities, so little time.
Somewhere we have totally lost part of August and most of September. The pace is at the speed of light.
It is almost like being a teenager again. What do I want to do? Where do I want to go? Who do I need to see? All after I sleep in for a while. No alarm clock anymore.
The first edict in our new found freedom is no appointments before 11 a.m. It has nothing to do with sleeping in. After all the years of having to rise early, there really isn’t much sleeping in going on. It is all about not having to rush around. It is about truly looking forward to that first cup of coffee and savoring it. In your bathrobe. It is about completing an entire crossword puzzle together while in your bathrobe drinking that coffee. It is about listening to the weather, orienting yourself with the date, the time because you are not sure if it is Sunday or Monday. And then you must take another cup of coffee and wander around the yard and survey the chickens and the garden even in the rain ( I am not sure where that one will go when it snows) and lolling in the hot tub.
Then, there is breakfast, and as husband says, “time to decide what project is worthy of his attention for the day”.
Finally, if absolutely necessary, we can could try to drag ourselves off the hill to wherever someone else thinks we should be. We have not totally trained everyone to respect this wish, but we a re working on being firm about nothing before 11 a.m. If we can get this right, maybe everything else will fall into place.
Seasoned 
Ahhhh the respte of retirement. How quickly you’ve adjusted to what I call “Allah time” and I’m Allah. I decide when it’s time. Often it’s not time for two or three days because the leisurely coffee drinking, blog reading, and contemplating while watching the water lilies in my pond are all this allah has time for.
You sound happy. I hope that grows as you let go of binding forces 🙂
I’d be happy if I didn’t consistently wake up prior to 5a. After years and years of dairy farming…I find I’m still “counting cows”. Hooray for the 11a time frame…I salute you and the Mr. !!!