Getting there!

Getting there! My plans for retirement are going pretty well, I cannot believe all the wonderful messages that I have received over the last few weeks, many of them have had me in tears. It is very emotional to give up my little friends after a lifetime of keeping them and my human friends too but the time is right so I will keep plodding on until everything has gone. I won’t be changing my phone number and I hope to keep my email address, therefore, those who want to, can stay in touch. I had planned for a big sale on September 1st but orders are still going strong so an all-out clearance sale doesn’t sound such a great idea. I have decided instead to reduce items individually but I do keep changing my mind J It is really difficult to retire over a period of time, I couldn’t make the decision and then stop, like most people are able to. I can’t set a date in the future because I simply don’t know when sales will dry up.

The idea of an open day sadly became unworkable, I just don’t have the space and I certainly couldn’t be making up tubs of cockroaches and sorting out the millipede boxes with visitors in the bug room. I had hoped that my revised idea of people coming along tomorrow to view the now empty tanks and my tarantula collection would work but sadly I have had no interest at all. I still have some lovely spiders, they are certainly not the dregs remaining. If you can’t get along to see them (many customers are too far away), please do ask for photos. There is 30% discount off all my tarantulas right now. At the end of the day, I don’t want to throw all the surplus glass tanks away. What a waste that would be. Don’t worry, I won’t be throwing away the tarantulas J

September is such a busy birthday month for our family (I know it is all due to Christmas). I’m busy with parties and family most weekends but I will put my thinking cap on and try to organise something soon. The animals keep breeding so there are always new items appearing on the website. I have had a really productive week, staying at home and getting jobs crossed off my very long list (I do like a list).

I have been weighing up the pros and cons of my retirement and although I haven’t written a list, I have certainly spent a lot of time thinking about it, often in the early hours of the morning J But I’m going to do a little list now!

Pros:

1) I will have time, time to do what I want to do (bliss, currently I spend my whole life doing one thing and planning the next thing that I need to do).

2) My house won’t be taken over by ‘stuff’, things that I need for my work (a zillion plastic boxes, packing equipment, leaves, logs, a giant stationery cupboard and that’s just the things that I’m looking at here in my office)

3) I can enjoy my grandsons, tend the garden, tidy the house, cook proper meals and all the other important things that I currently fit in around the animals.

4) I can go away for a week, a fortnight or even longer without having to spend days getting all the animals cleaned, fed and watered before I go and then repeating the arduous task the moment I return.

5) I won’t be constantly worrying about posting off my precious creatures, I know things very rarely go wrong but I’m a control freak and not having any control once the parcels are with Royal Mail can be torturous.

Cons:

Not a lot really, admitting that I’m getting older and can no longer work at this pace. I can still play with the bugs in my wildlife garden, I can still ring up my customers/friends for a chat. I still intend to visit the main bug shows (SEAS, BTS, AES and perhaps a few more), you can’t get rid of me that easily J. I won’t have much money but I will have time and I think that is my main aim. I’m fed up with time rushing by, I want to live at a slower pace and enjoy what really matters to me in life – family and friends. I will enter lots of competitions without feeling guilty, I will go on long walks without looking at my watch.

What will I do with my bug room? I will thoroughly clean it, hubby will decorate it and then I am holding out for a chill out zone. By chill out, I mean a place where I can please myself (practice yoga, watch reality tv, listen to my weird music etc.). I’m up against my grandsons turning it into a play room, my daughter turning it into a work room, everyone threating to turn it into a junk room (I am a hoarder and the loft is full). Who knows but it won’t be full of live animals that need daily care from me!

I hope to see some of you at the AES exhibition next month. I’m still thinking of a time/place to meet up, it really is a shame that it’s on my grandson’s birthday. I might wear the costume that I’ve got for his fancy dress party. It’s very apt, he loves transformers so I have (my version of) a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly J