Enjoying semi-retirement

I didn't mean to cut back a dahlia, but sometimes it happens.

We might get some rain tonight, so today was spent prepping for it. Leaves were raked, the wood area cleaned, and boy my back is feeling all that exercise!

I've lamented not doing more in the garden, but have earned my outdoor stripes over the last few days. Amaryllis have been cut down, blackberry vines among them whacked back. My better half dumped several bins of refuse, bless him! I swept the back patio and am looking forward to how much leftover dust is washed away by the precipitation, perhaps a quarter-inch worth. I can't complain about the impending wet weather, because it's nearly the middle of October and we haven't had much in the way of damp days. In fact, we've enjoyed loads of warm temps for our neck of the North Coast. Yet it's time for a change.

Huh, not much about retirement, semi or otherwise, so far in this post. I did feel quite relaxed while raking this morning, the sun shining, a breeze blowing dust this way and that. Last year I kind of forgot to rake the leaves of a black walnut tree that grows near our house, so I felt it necessary to do so this year, or at least get as many off the ground before they became soggy and harder to gather. Plus I had read several chapters of Book 4 in my latest series, so it was time to get my backside outside.

While 2024 has not been a year for me in the garden, it's also a non-writing year, which is not to say I haven't accomplished anything concerning novels. It's been a publishing sort of year; maybe in semi-retirement I'll concentrate on writing, then release a bunch of stories. Or this year is a one-off, who knows? Perhaps in 2025 I'll focus on getting seeds and plants in the ground while spinning wild yarns about.... Ha ha, won't give that away, other than to say I am ACHING to expand my characters' horizons beyond the four novels I have written about them (two available for download).

Maybe this post is also about 2024 barreling into the home stretch; how can it be the eleventh of October already? That just seems unreal! Yet it's absolutely spot-on, wow. I just received my Covid and flu vaccines, and need to get another Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis) as it's been ten years since my last. Ten years, seriously? Ten years ago I wasn't at all considering any kind of retirement-like lifestyle. Now I'm steeped in it, not fretting overtly about what doesn't get done. Like writing a new book, ahem. Or dealing with the garden, other than the bare minimum. And I haven't been especially into sewing either, other than the evening hand-stitching, like the photo below, a bit of what I did tonight. After I finish this post, I hope to make a dent in a Red Sky at Night EPP block, then maybe baste some diamonds for another Eden block. But I'm weary from all the raking and it's already seven thirty p.m. No idea what I'll manage before bedtime.

Meandering while securing the front of a quilt to the back.

Such is the life of a woman firmly in her late fifties. Age creeps up, then stealthily slips its sinewy arms around a body, twisting here, taunting there, reminding this author/quilter/occasional gardener that I'll never feel any better than I do right now, LOL. I sure hope it rains tonight. I have no desire to do more than revise and sew tomorrow!