Today I foolishly weighed myself. Since retirement 4 months ago, I have gained 5 pounds. Not a lot, but it was bound to happen.
When I worked at The-Place-That-Will-Not-Be-Named, I was on my feet for at least 6 hours of my day. Some of those days were intense, especially in the last 5 months. 6 miles of walking in some days. But in retirement, there is no way I can match that intensity in one day, let alone five out of every 7. Not only do I not want to spend my retirement walking around and going up and down stairs, I just can’t.
Some of my lack of exercise is offset by the reduction of fast food fat and carbs. I have been doing at least 45 minutes on the exercise bike twice a day when I can, once a day when I have been working hard in the yard.
Other parts of my body are falling apart as well. My feet and ankles swell more than they used to, or maybe I am just noticing it more. And my right arm and hand are sore almost all the time. At first I thought the latter issue was because I have been lifting a lot of heavy things, but lately I have become convinced that it is actually from all the time I spend on my computer, especially lately as I have been working on my recipe site, www.fergusonrecipes.com. Carpel tunnel or tennis elbow or something like that. Who knows.
Now that I have time to listen, I am amazed at how many birds there are around here. It is also amazing how fucking noisy those birds are. They have a whole lot of stuff to say and I guess no one is listening because they keep repeating it over and over!
Still filling my gas tank almost exactly once a month, about half as often as I did when I worked. Of course, this also means I haven’t driven any long distances, as in going on a trip. This will change next month with the family vacation and then again in October when I go to Anaheim for my 737 flight simulator adventure and Disneyland, follow by a visit to my sister in San Diego.
My main project in the back yard, replacing a dying redwood tree with a lawn and planting area is complete.
I have other future plans for the house. I need to replace my flooring, but I have been going back and forth about what and where. I think my Flooring Liquidators guys has disowned me. I need to clean the windows; I was going to pay someone but my windows are all easy to get to, so I can do this myself. I have made an agreement with someone to remove a palm tree in my back yard, one which is totally useless and which I should have gotten rid of 7 years ago; it’s gonna cost me probably 10 times what it would have then.
And then there’s the dirt and rocks.
The dirt, which is really mostly redwood mulch, is from the tree, of course. The pile of rocks that surround the base of the palm tree is from a fountain that was in the opposite corner of the back yard when I first moved in. It was falling apart so I removed it almost as soon as I moved in. The rocks in the foreground were mostly at the base of the redwood tree, but some of them were just around the yard as landscaping. There are probably a dozen more buried in the hedge along my back fence, and another dozen or so in my front yard. So I think I am going to build a fountain in one corner of my back lawn. Not only will this give me a use for the rocks, and the 12 tubes of construction adhesive which I inexplicably own, but it will also block off the sight of some rather ugly stuff in that corner. We shall see. Some of those rocks have to be moved with a hand truck!
Anyway, that’s all I have to report at the end of my 4th month of retirement. I am stunned it has only been that long; it seems like forever. We just passed the summer solstice so it is all downhill from here. July 4th, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, BLACK THURSDAY AND FRIDAY, and then Christmas, all of them will feel like firsts for me!
See ya!