For the first several months after “my retirement”, I thought I had a pretty sweet deal going.  Jeremy headed off to work each morning, while I enjoyed my morning paper, coffee and The Today Show.  I tried to become June Cleaver…the best little Suzie Homemaker in town.  The laundry was done, the house was cleaned, dinner was waiting when Jeremy came home. Because my decision to stop teaching had reduced our household income by a sizeable chunk, I felt oddly compelled to add some type of value to our daily lives.  You gotta know that I had the 2010 Christmas Cards ready to mail before Thanksgiving!  During the first few months, the local charities benefitted from my need to organize and clean every closet and cupboard in the house….but I digress…

Things seemed to be humming along quite nicely when one afternoon in May of 2011, Jeremy called home from his office.  The words still ring in my head… “I just got laid off!”

Holy Sh*t!!!  I wasn’t even sure how to react to that.  My face got hot, I thought I was going to hurl.  I couldn’t breathe and my heart was, well, let’s just say it was the freak out of the century.  What in the heck were we going to do???  We had both been employed in one manner or another since we were 16 years old!  This sort of thing just doesn’t happen to people like us!  Panic…cry a little…freak out some more…repeat, then

Wait Just One Dang Minute!!!

I hope that in reading this, you’ll get hooked into finding out what happened next, because this is where the journey really began for us.  It’s the nexus for this blog.  I’m sure that there are lots of you out there who have gone through, or are just beginning an encore voyage – and I can’t wait to hear your discoveries!