Retirement

In my opinion, retirement is the best thing ever invented. It would have really been nice in our twenties! We have been retired for 12 years and I can't remember when we were so busy. I had envisioned long lazy days, having plenty of time for cooking really good meals, etc. That hasn't happened. One thing I don't understand is how we can end up with a desk full of paper work. I thought when I retired I wouldn't have a lot of paper work and decisions to make. How wrong I was. I get my desk cleaned off, everything filed and feel very proud of my accomplishment. The next thing I know it is full of paper again. I don't dare put it away before I finish it, because I would not only forget where I put it, but that I had it in the first place.
Of course having surgery for breast cancer didn't help. With over 55 insurance claims and bills from every person who met me during those 3 months it has been a struggle to keep it all straight.. If I hadn't known how to make a spreadsheet, I would have made many double payments. As an example, recently I received a bill from my oncology clinic saying I owed them a little over $700.00. I spent 4 hours one morning going back over everything I had paid, putting it on a spreadsheet and I ended up owing them $15.38. I mailed the spreadsheet along with my check to the accounting department. Within a few days I got a call from them telling me how much they appreciated the information. They just couldn't get it figured out. She told me that after looking over everything, I still owed them $23.00 and she would send me their explanation. I said "forget the explanation, I will send you $23.00 and we'll call it even." She sent me a letter saying "paid in full" and we were both satisfied, although I wasn't too happy about spending all that time doing their work for them. Maybe it just takes retired people longer to get things done.
More about retirement later.