One friend I exchange letters with, via e-mail, said, “You really don’t understand retirement”, or something close to that. As I said in Monday’s post, I stay busy. So I guess my friend is right.

This week, every morning, I’ve been out in the yard around 6:30 a.m. to do my work before the heat of the day comes. I’m pulling weeds from a couple of places. Also, Mon-Tues-Wed I cut the deadwood from our crepe myrtle bush. The branches all died in last winter’s extreme cold, but new shoots are coming up. The dead branches took a lot of sawing, so I spread that hard work out over three days. But it’s done. Tomorrow, I have just a little more weed pulling left, then bush trimming (evergreen and boxwoods), which I should be able to do in an hour or so. Then I’ll haul the cuttings and the deadwood off to the brush piles I’ve made in the woods nearby. Then, next week, I can tackle the backyard.

All this has left me pretty tired. You would think that an hour of yardwork a day wouldn’t tucker me out, but it seems to. That’s a lot of bending and stooping. A rock yard should be easier to keep up than a grass yard, right? Maybe if you spray for weeds regularly to keep them from growing, but pulling them out by hand is real work. Hopefully it’s keeping me young.

Wait, if I can’t work an hour in the yard without wanting to rest the rest of the day, I am no longer young. I keep telling myself that there’s nothing wrong with me that losing another 40 pounds (on top of the 80 already lost) won’t cure, but maybe that’s not true. I haven’t felt much like walking lately, though maybe that’s the heat more than energy. Walking seems to give me energy. Maybe I am old.

The fatigue I’ve felt has slopped over to non-physical pursuits. My work on the history book for the church anniversary is close to done. I’ve started the process of looking into printing options. I should now be spending time on my next two writing projects. But, after a brief rest after yardwork, I haven’t felt like new writing. I do a little hole-plugging on the church book, bringing it from 98% done to 99.5% done, but my mind hasn’t wanted to wrap around my work.

I did manage one mental task this morning. I finally called an appliance repair man to come and see about our oven. The lower heating element went out a couple of months ago. The porkchop and rice casserole I made last night took three hours to cook, so I’d had enough. The man is to come out late today or sometime tomorrow.

So that’s something. Next, maybe I’ll get our barely functioning vacuum cleaner replaced. After that, maybe I’ll return to decluttering activities. Or maybe I’ll get two listings made today, if I can multi-task these house and home items.

Then, and only then, will I have mental energy to work on my writing.

Oh, yes, one more thing. I have decided that next year I will hire a “lawn” service to spray for weeds in the front yard. If that works well and there’s no weed pulling to do, maybe the year after next I’ll do the same for the back yard. That will be my nod to retirement and the accumulating years.