Recalibrating, Planning New Route.

So, yeah, That Olde House is sold, closed, gone, bye-bye, and I have more money than I had, but do I have enough to just retire and not work anymore and feel safe and secure for the next 20 years? Given the insanity our country is in right now?? Definitely not. So not feeling safe and secure. So, I'm recalibrating. 

I'm very grateful to have sold the house for the price I got. I know how to analyze a market and what I got was definitely fair. No complaints at all. But as the annoying phrase goes, "It is what it is." It was a nice chunk of money, but didn't fill the retirement bucket to the no worries point.

I have my Disney job searches set, am prepared to jump on any part-time opportunity. I'm not kidding about parking cars, it's a running joke at my current job, but I could do it. A few years ago I had to do a state MOT (maintenance of traffic) course for a role I had. I didn't have to actually stand out there in the sun, but I had to be trained in it to deal with the permitting side of the role.

Anyway, I know traffic management, at least on the basic level. This means I could at least get their lane closure cones spaced properly at Epcot, because every time I hit the parking bottleneck where they filter the regular parking rabble from the ADA spots I wanna leap out of my car and ask who's in charge of MOT because you could mark that lane back THERE and then everybody wouldn't have just 100 yards to zipper in to the regular parking. I may have given this some thought. 😂 It's not what I really want to do of course, my dream remains chatting about any animal in Animal Kingdom, but hell, half those people have been there since the park opened and the other half are getting their hands on zoo experience for their PhDs. I'll recalibrate as needed.

It's weird to be 67 and still have no idea what retirement will look like, but as I said I know I'm luckier than a lot of people. I have a good job, I'm appreciated by my boss, though honestly I really do want to be doing something else, but I can do this a while longer if need be. 

My birthday was on Saturday, and my daughter and the guy who needs a blog alias took me, The Kid and The Prince to one of our favorite restaurants: Chef Art Smith's Homecomin'.  I've been there a few times over the years, but my daughter pointed out that it had been 2 years since our last visit and she scored a hard to get reservation, so I needed no persuasion. 

Chef Art Smith is a Florida boy and still lives in Florida, though in an entirely different part of the state. For those who may not be familiar with him, he was chef to a couple of Florida governors in Tallahassee, has restaurants, and was Oprah's personal chef for years. His thing is Florida farm to table food, and Homecomin' serves a lot of his family recipes, including a chocolate pecan pie that I swear I've had ONE bite of in the last 5 visits, because we are always so stuffed from the main courses we share desserts and I'm usually all about the shine cake. 

He does visit the restaurant fairly regularly, though on an irregular schedule.  We've never seen him, though we have heard of sightings: "Chef Art was here yesterday!" etc. My daughter said she was just about to tell the guy who lacks a blog alias that he does visit the restaurant but we've never seen him, when...yes...Chef Art walked up to our table. 

I did not fangirl and make a fool of myself. I was fogged by a moonshine margarita and it took a beat or two for me to process that yes, it actually was him. He did pose for a picture with The Prince, who I think was the reason he stopped at our table. He made friendly conversation and posed for a quick pic, and moved on, but yes, for a Florida foodie this was a foodie Elvis sighting. 

And so I slog onward, into another storm season, with no firm plans for the future, because that's our world now. It'll be okay, eventually, I think, maybe.