Last Day of 50

Today was my last day of being 50 - where did that last year go? Seems like just a few months ago that we were celebrating.

I wanted the exact opposite this year and so am spending my birthday up in our cabin in Sweden. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous, warm and sunny during the day, quite chilly night times, with a splendid array of stars lighting up the nights.

So many friends are talking about retirement, getting old, what not, and the thought of turning 51 does sound rather horrifying. But what did I do on this last day of 50? Let's see, I got rolls and the newspaper for breakfast, which we had outside; did dishes and started trimming the bits of the lawn I mowed yesterday; I planted potatoes and peas and cucumbers; weeded two flower beds and planted a few bulbs WiseMan found sorting though some stuff.

I did a load of wash, cleaned the gutters and scraped some of the moss off of two of the roof sections. I read a chapter on cryptography (I want to teach a new course next semester) and a Swedish consumer magazine and picked the combination lock on a suitcase that had closed itself and no one knew the numbers. I suppose the lock came with this combination, as it makes no sense to me, but I was proud of having picked it, even if I had to take off my glasses to get a good look at what I was doing with a paper clip to figure it out.

I suppose that all counts as still active, although I noticed that the knees hurt rather more than they used to while weeding, so I must get me one of those cushions for kneeling on in the garden.

And I didn't grade a single paper. They can wait until Monday.