It’s been a busy retirement morning, but probably nothing compared to those returning to work after a 3-day holiday weekend. My Iwatch alarm went off at 6 a.m., and after some strength and stretching exercises, I dutifully walked our two schnauzers, who definitely had their legs crossed in anticipation. Still in a precautionary mode from last week’s ER visit, I did my 5k run on the treadmill with still no aftereffects from the alarming dizzy spell. It’s been 5 days since my morning run staggered to a halt and after this afternoon’s doctor appointment, I plan to return to the streets, even despite the usual forecast of rain.

My next project this morning was to watch Outlander in anticipation of next week’s season finale, but paused in the middle to make a couple of important phone calls. The first was to the vet to schedule an appointment for Tally. My wife noticed a lump on her underbelly yesterday and wants to have it checked. The only opening they had is in three days, sadly the day of her ninth birthday. Hopefully, we’ll celebrate that along with a positive check-up. I then placed a phone call to sell some of my IRA investment.

My financial adviser is also a friend so we chatted a bit about joining her at their home in Steamboat Springs. We went last year so I could ski, but this year’s date is too close to our trip to Thailand. She also gave me a quick overview of the market that appears to be fairly positive this year, but with a much gloomier forecast for the future. The market has rebounded the last couple weeks from a year-end downward spin, but I need to pay off some mounting credit card bills. Sell! I follow a similar pattern of charging to collect Marriott Rewards Points and then selling some of my retirement savings to avoid interest charges. Most of my credit card bills are travel related, including monthly payments and maintenance fees on our Marriott Vacation Club time share. I get a 6x bonus on points for these charges that helps with overnight stays when we travel. As my wife often jokes, “he loves his Marriott Points more than me.” While that isn’t true, I do enjoy free nights with her away from home in luxurious surroundings.

Three of our upcoming trips to Phoenix, Seattle, and Thailand are Marriott Rewards related. The whole purpose of our retirement accounts are to pay for travel. All those years of working and saving are beginning to pay-off, although the money is going faster than I would like. After all, they say to save for a rainy day, but in Portland that’s nearly every day this time of year. The sun finally comes out in April and the lush benefits of months of rain are revealed for the next six months. It makes the rain tolerable, if you look at it from this perspective. Otherwise, the miserable gray seems to last forever, as was the case when we first moved here from sunny Austin, Texas.

Just before I began to write today’s post, I started the preparations for tonight’s Brined Pork Chop dinner. I try to cook one night a week to ease my wife’s work week. Fortunately, she loves to cook because I’m not very good at it. In fact, it’s now the most stressful thing I do all week. This particular recipe has served me well. I simply marinate the meat in a sugary, salt solution with peppercorns and juniper berries for 12 hours before pan roasting the chops. There’s not much to screw up. I’ll probably heat up a can of creamed corn to go with it and enjoy a glass or two of wine before it’s served.

On my way to the doctor this afternoon, I’ll run a couple of errands. He’ll review the results of my battery of tests from the Emergency Room and hopefully agree that the dizzy spell was not heart or circulation related. We’ll then speculate on what caused the incident. It did, however, occur following a stressful night of preparing meatloaf, so maybe he’ll give me a prescription to stop cooking.

Making travel plans, is my next most anxiety related retirement activity. I’ll need to make flight plans for Phoenix to match those my wife’s corporate travel agent will put together for her budget meetings. I also keep double checking flight and hotel bookings for Thailand, hoping I don’t mess up that trip. Finally, I need to book train passage to Seattle for our weekend, but I will go in earlier than her work schedule will allow. I’m meeting some friends for afternoon college baseball – something she won’t miss doing. She’ll join us for dinner instead. My IRA withdrawal will go to all of these activities. Retirement is not about saving, it’s about selling what you’ve saved.