Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Rollicking Retirement

As we closed the door on our last set of guests, l began getting ready for my television interview with Marcia in Chattanooga. She’s starting the new year with a program on starting over, and feels that I may have some insights into this topic worth sharing with her fans. How can anyone say no to a woman who used to be “Miss Marcia” on Romper Room School? She taught millions of kids how important it is to be a “do bee” and to reach for the stars. I certainly took those lessons to heart, and am thrilled that “Miss Marcia” wants to talk to me.

By the time our guests leave, I’m always rung out, physically and emotionally; but my spirit is super-charged. These are the times I have to be careful; after going ninety to nothing for weeks at a time I’m prone to planning too many new projects while in my supernova state. The best way to avoid that is to lie down for a while until the urge to orchestrate passes.

I already have so many plans for the new year that I’m raring to begin. In addition to the television interview, there’s the book I’m writing with Mamie, and the retreats I’m planning with Gayle and Julia. There are cooking and craft classes to be gotten together with Holly and Josie. Aunt Mabel wants to write a Cajun cookbook with me. Jack has another set of stories to get published, and I’ll need to set aside time for my books in the works. Thank goodness, Camille is talking about becoming the business end of my various ventures; I’m hoping that Suzanne comes through as my typist.

Between our Holidays in the Holler and Ms. Marcia, I went to Atlanta to take Rachel and the girls on a Christmas gifts exchange shopping trip. On the way back from Chattanooga, I got a call from a woman wanting me to write and publish a book about her heroic police captain son killed in the line of duty. I couldn’t wait to get back to the quite of Richard and our Tennessee Mountain Home to begin sorting all this out. We still have to de-Christmas our house, but that can wait. After all, tomorrow is another day.

I’d love a couple of days without a plan. It seems like forever ago that I meandered through a day, letting things just happen, come what may. I’m hungering for a long, lazy day of being snuggled up in my big bed with a book, or one of those cold rainy weeks when I do nothing but sit tapping away on the keyboard in front of the roaring fire. But, maybe I’ll have to wait until I’m dead to have that much down time.