Gearing Up For Retirement

I've worked in consulting for over 10 years now, and with retirement looming within 5 or 6 years, I've decided to start taking time off from work when I'm between projects.

Test Retirement
Having just finished working on a project, I'll be taking off the next three months. Fortunately, I have a lot of accrued vacation that I can use, and also fortunately, my company will allow me to take this time, unless some critically important project comes up for which they need me.

I'm hoping this will give me a sense about what it will be like when I won't have to work anymore.

It will be different in a couple of ways. First, what I call retirement, really means not having to work any more financially. Despite lack of financial need to work, I will probably do some work nonetheless. Not consulting...perhaps a small web business, or working at a local yarn store, or working part-time for Liza at her fabric business (if she'd have me). During these three months, I won't be working.

Also, when I retire, there will no longer be a need for me to keep in touch with my bosses and my work network (except possibly socially). During this time off, I will still have to keep in touch with some folks, in case I'm needed. I have also said that I will continue to do a couple administrative items while I'm off, such as performance reviews and time/expense account approvals.

But other than that, I will be relaxing, knitting, blogging, reading and Thaddeus and I have a vacation scheduled in Martha's Vineyard in August.

Current Knitting
For those who didn't believe me, I really have been working on an Aran pullover. Here's the proof.



You'll note I haven't made a boatload of progress this week (or maybe you won't, since you've never seen a picture of it before). The final weeks of a work project often keep me quite busy, even in in the evenings, so being disabled by having to use a coffee stirrer for a cable needle, and having a lot of last minute cleanup to do, I didn't have a whole lot of knitting time.

But I was also able to finish another one of these.



I have a feeling these will be big sellers, so I will be making another one at one point before any craft show comes up.

Readers' Comments/Questions
Donna writes, "Although my favorite "cable" needle is a short dpn, when I need a substitute, I use a crochet hook"

I also use a five inch DPN for my cable needle. I have a bazillion of them in many different sizes, but I just didn't have one with me...nor did I have a crochet hook.

Kathy writes, "Honey baby sweetiepie, get over yourself and just knit the cables.
You don't need a cable needle. It's nothing more than repositioning the stitches that get twisted." (I left out the "grow up" part at the end)

I can cable without a needle, I just go quite a bit faster with one. Kathy certainly knows that I understand the composition of a cable transfer. If you've ever made cables on a knitting machine, it makes it even more obvious (I think). So, even with a coffee stirrer as a poor substitute, I was still able to cable faster than not using anything...especially on the 4 over 3 cables.