Friday's Feast #33

Appetizer
Describe your laundry routine. Do you have a certain day when you do it all, or do you just wash whatever you need for the next day?

Laundry usually gets done on the weekends because there just isn't enough "after work" time to do more than one or two loads. An overflowing laundry basket is USUALLY the biggest hint that laundry needs doing.

Soup
In your opinion, what age will you be when you’ll consider yourself to truly be old?

I was talking to a colleague about the changing parameters of "old" over our lifetimes. When I was a pre-teen, "old" was sixty-five. I could tell that a person was about sixty-five because s/he had white hair, hearing aids, and either a cane or a walker.

As I have gotten older, the qualifications for being "old" have broadened a lot and the age range has moved toward the eighties and nineties rather than "retirement age" ...

I sometimes FEEL really old, mostly because I work with high-schoolers who consider twenty-five to be old and marvel that I'll turn forty this year ...

If I had to put an age bracket around "old," I suppose that I'll be "old" at eighty. Ask me again in forty years and I may have a totally different answer for you!


Salad
What is one of your goals? Is it short-term, long-term, or both?
My long-term goal is to be fully retired before I turn sixty. I want to have enough money in my mutual fund, the STRS (state teacher retirement system), and my annuity (457 and 403b) to be able to support myself, my aunt (if she needs me), and my brother and his wife (if they need me). I don't have kids and I've never married, so my money is my own entirely.

I want to create a scholarship fund at my school for deserving students whose families make just-a-little-too-much to qualify for Cal-Grants (that was ME).

I'd like to continue to support causes that mean something to me both financially and through volunteerism.

And I'd like to see all of the United States (either by visiting them ... OR from space!).

Main Course
Name something unbelievable you’ve seen or read lately.
When I was a student-teacher, I had a senior girl named Ruby who gave birth to her first child just before Christmas in 1990. Her son starts his senior year of high school this year. To me ... That's UNBELIEVABLE!

Dessert
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how happy are you today?
I'm less "happy" than I am "satisfied" ... My progress report grades are turned in and MOST of my kids are doing well. I have a full tank of gasoline and some money in my pocket. The gear for my trip has been arriving as planned. There are four weeks left in the quarter. I met with the pet sitter yesterday and she seems terrific.

Life's pretty good right now ...