The List – Part 2

About 5 years ago, I participated in a daily photo challenge, the word for the challenge being “inspiration“.  I posted a beautiful photo I took of a Florida sunrise while my husband Jim and I were on our honeymoon, telling anyone who viewed my post that the picture and my bucket list inspired me to keep working long hours every week to reach my retirement goals so Jim and I can watch more sunrises any day of the week, without having to cut the beautiful early morning short in order to get ready to put in another long day at work.

Then back in March the United States was put on hold, and so were our lives.  Not to mention our livelihood.  Self-quarantine, stay-at-home, lock-down, social-distancing, and “new normal” were the new catch phrases that were forced into our vocabulary.  Businesses were forced to close because America’s citizens were forced to adhere to the self-quarantine and stay-at-home orders.  And because of this, unemployment rose to staggering levels.  All due to a little itty-bitty bug named Covid-19, aka coronavirus.

I had resigned from my job at the end of February in order to work from home, to take care of the home and our pets while Jim pursued his new career in the trucking industry.  Well, that didn’t go over too well.  Some of the businesses that temporarily closed were the driver training classes that trucking companies require, as those companies only wanted experienced drivers.  And I had quit my job because the company I worked for weren’t real big on remote employees… makes me wonder how they are dealing with their office workforce now, but I digress.

Now things are easing up a bit – businesses that were considered “non-essential” are opening back up, and Jim is going back to driver training on Tuesday for a couple weeks.  If all goes well, he will be among the truck drivers making sure America will have what it needs to open up and keep going.  I’ve been using the self-quarantine time taking online courses to advance my accounting knowledge with the hope that more firms are hiring remote accountants.  But I’ll definitely need to get a haircut before I participate in any video interviews, that’s for sure!

The time spent during the quarantine gave us a glimpse of our retirement years, but only on the days we decide to stay home.  I have 5 years to go before I hit my retirement date, and I’ll be damned if any virus is going to keep us home.  I’ll mask and glove my whole body if I have to in order to get out and enjoy retirement life – hopefully in five years it won’t come to that. 

Jim and I will be checking off the items on our bucket list, and have a grand time doing so – which includes enjoying California sunsets… and Florida sunrises.