For about a little more than a year now, Linda and I have had a Friday night ritual. We started with two small bottles full of white beans - 1 for each week we had remaining until retirement. Every Friday, we'd have a drink and take one bean out of the bottles and place it in the black vase. This was a few months ago:
We got into the habit of saying goodbye Friday mornings with "See you at bean night". Might sound silly, but the steady dwindling of the beans somehow helped during challenging times at work (where Linda had a rougher road than I). So last Friday I officially reached my first day of retirement and took out the last bean (Linda had taken her last one out in November)
Sunday evening we concluded the process by making (and eating) soup made from the beans. If I do say so myself, it was delicious. Hopefully a good omen for the coming years of retirement.
