I haven't been writing about my journey through retirement on a regular basis because, well, I forgot. I guess that happens when you get old. But I'm now looking at turning 71 at the end of this year, and January of next year marks my fifth complete year of retirement. I decided to sit and write a few words at this particular moment because of what's happened so far this year, as well as a lot that happened last year.
I've already written elsewhere about my full left knee replacement as well as my COVID infection.
So far the left knee is doing great. I'm walking again with my normal gait, I don't have intermittent "weakness" pangs that hit my left leg, and the overall feeling is one of no feeling at all. I can do a lot more work, both in length of time as well as more work in a given amount of time. I'm back to doing a lot of gardening again, trying to catch up with pulling weeds, trimming growth, and putting down all the mulch I purchased six months ago that's been sitting in a pile of bags. The front yard doesn't look like quite the jungle it was several weeks ago. And I'm now moving through the backyard as well. I had to cut back one of my sea grape plants because it's now grown into a small tree. I took some of those branches and put then in rooting pots with rooting compound. That was weeks ago, and so far they haven't completely died on me. I did the same with eight or so trimmings from my many hibiscus plants, and all of those are rooted now, several of them blooming. They will go out into the front later this year. I have yews in the front, and I pulled out my ladder and trimmed them back into a square (ish) shape, keeping seven of the best trimmings for rooting as well. They're now in a rooting pot and look to be surviving as well. We'll give them another month to see how well they do.
The common thread to all these little plant stories is rooting from already growing plants. I want to grow more of them around the house, and I'm now propagating cuttings to help the gardening budget. I also like the thrill of actually giving more life to the cuttings.
Surprisingly, I've lost a bit more weight. I'm down to 245 lbs. Consider that my weight was 285 in December 2019, right before I retired. I've lost 40 lbs since retiring, or about 10 pounds/year. And it appears to be staying off. I could stand to loose another fifteen or so. It's been decades since the last time I saw a weight of 245 lbs, and it was back in the late 1980s when I saw 230 lbs. I attribute the weight loss to a much more healthy diet that includes complex vegetables (legumes, brown rice, quinoa, carrots, beets, spinach, etc), as little sugar as possible, and no red meat. I've also cut out all heavily processed foods (such as chips and other snacks) and I've even stopped drinking diet soda. All I drink now is my own brewed coffee, teas, and water. Speaking of snacks I've broken the habit of late night snacking before bed. My wife is on me to eat our supper as early as possible, and then I don't eat another bite before bedtime. If I feel the need to snack I just drink some more ice water.
I could carry on about my decreasing use of technology, but all I'll say for now is that I've completely gone back to my Citizen Eco-Drive WR 100 watch. The single greatest reason for this switch is that I don't have to charge the Citizen watch every evening. All I have to do is wear it out in the sun, outdoors, and it will pick up enough sunlight to stay charged for 30 days. Every day I'm outside for even five minutes, the Citizen watch tops out over and over. I don't care if it doesn't sync with my smartphone or communicate with it. All I need is an accurate device to keep track of time. I've had an Apple Watch since its initial release ten years ago (original, Series 1, Series 3, Series 7). After ten years, I find it's a complete waste of money. I'll never purchase another.
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