rambling

It's Been Two Weeks...

Denise Mastenbrook

11 Nov 2026 • 3 min read

...since Brent retired. (I thought about giving you a whole Barenaked Ladies rhyme scheme here but decided against it. You're welcome.)

His last day at work we celebrated by walking up to the neighborhood pub for dinner and toasting our next adventure.

A marionberry bourbon drink and a marionberry mule

Yes, you are seeing that correctly. I had an actual cocktail, not a mocktail, for the first time in years. I thought that his retirement deserved the real thing. (Also a good experiment to see if my body is ready to process alcohol without turning on the blast furnace. It is not.)

The next night we had dinner with a friend who walked the retirement path a few years ago during either the last, or the second to last round of Intel buyouts. It's always good to hang out with him (and his wife when she can make it) and it was a nice moment for Brent to see the other side.

Then off to Disney. Bonus photos from the actual Disney photographers incoming.

They do fun projections on the theater every night. You can't tell from a still photo but all of this moves and changes and bats fly out of the top.

The Headless Horseman Statue at night. The photographer told us to make our sinister faces, I think I'm a lot more sinister than Brent, but that's also accurate

It's Halloween TA DA! (This is the only photo we also did with Katie back in 2021)

Not dark yet, but here we are. This was the first time Katie was Katie in public so I will always have fond memories of this trip. She was so very happy.

Like I said before, I like the Villains' Night at Disney World a little better for photos because they added fun things like the ghosts from the Haunted Mansion, cute little touches like that. But it's still nice that they take your photos for free. Or at least as a gift with purchase.

Then we came home and took a week off basically. Just recovered from the physical stress on our bodies hauling around Disney apparently does now. And then once we were over that a few extra days because lounging is fun.

This week Brent was over it. Ready to start doing stuff. I could have spent another week, or two, or three, becoming one with the couch cushions but the slug life isn't for everyone.

We haven't yet settled into a routine, and I don't expect we will until after the holidays. We've also had a few appointments and home repair stuff to deal with so that's extra. Though very easy to manage since there is nothing else to work around.

The one thing we've both already started to notice, even after only two weeks, is that it's not easy to remember what day of the week it is. I imagine that is going to get even more muddled. It's like living in that no man's land between Christmas and New Year's all the time. Monday and the weekend are basically the same thing. Which is kind of nice, but also slightly weird.

But we're two weeks in and so far it's been fantastic. Brent is making dinner tonight and I'm all about supporting him in his new hobby!

The slug life might not be for everyone but it's the way I roll. Or sit. One of those.