{"id":17065,"date":"2016-09-16T18:54:18","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T18:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=17065"},"modified":"2016-09-16T18:54:18","modified_gmt":"2016-09-16T18:54:18","slug":"ready-for-vacation-to-end-yes-and-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=17065","title":{"rendered":"Ready for vacation to end? Yes … and no"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"retirement.pic_\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.<\/em><\/p>\n

FRANKFURT, Germany<\/strong> — Friends have asked me on occasion about how I respond to taking time off from work.<\/p>\n

My answer usually has been: “I’m good for about a week, maybe 10 days. Then I’m ready to go home, to get back to the grind.”<\/p>\n

Guess what. I’m no longer working full time. Neither is my wife. We’re in semi-retirement mode. Our 11-day journey to Germany and The Netherlands is about to end. And for the first time in as long as I can remember I can say that I’m not nearly as ready to return home as I was when I worked for a living.<\/p>\n

What’s up with that? What gives?<\/p>\n

It’s easy, man. We no longer have job requirements awaiting us. Sure, I still work a couple of part-time jobs. I’m grateful for them both. I’m having fun writing for an Amarillo television station’s website and greeting customers at an auto dealership.<\/p>\n

But I have to tell you that our time away from all of that has been glorious in the extreme.<\/p>\n

We got reacquainted with good friends. We met their spouses and their children. They showed us the sights and introduced us to cultures in western Europe with which we were unfamiliar.<\/p>\n

At this moment, getting ready to catch an 11-hour flight home, I am not entirely ready for this adventure to end.<\/p>\n

I believe our semi-retired status is pulling harder on us than any desire to return the “grind” that awaits us in the Panhandle of Texas.<\/p>\n

OK, this much also is true. We miss Toby the Puppy; we’re looking forward to seeing our sons, their families and, oh yes, our granddaughter Emma.<\/p>\n

But there’s a part of this marvelous journey in Europe I don’t want to end. There’s more to see. More to enjoy. More to taste and smell.<\/p>\n

We’ll get back here eventually. My hope is that it’s sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n\n

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This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement. FRANKFURT, Germany — Friends have asked me on occasion about how I respond to taking time off from work. My answer usually has been: “I’m good for about a week, maybe 10 days. Then I’m ready to go home, to … Continue reading Ready for vacation to end? Yes … and no<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6578,3920,6016],"class_list":["post-17065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","tag-europe","tag-retirement","tag-toby-the-puppy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17065"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17067,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17065\/revisions\/17067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}