I was obsessing with retirement through much of February because (1) approaching birthday (2) colleague on Big Project retiring (3) my uncertainty about what happens with Big Project when i retire. Not that it won't happen without me, but more assumptions that i will be there.

I took Friday through Tuesday off, partly as a birthday, partly to practice for retirement.  I don't know when i will retire. I've decided i don't need to really think about decisions until the end of this year and that's if i want to give very graceful notice. Things i am considering though are how well i am ding at work and how well i can manage myself without the big stick of work expectations hanging over me.

This long plus weekend was less than ideal in some ways. In ways it went well, i got outside on the two nice days and made significant progress in the north end of the garden plot. I cleaned most of that end up last year, held back stilt grass. It's now very mulched between the rows and some greens planted. I also set some time aside for birthday celebrations - Friday night with family, Sunday brunch with a friend.

But, broadly a good bit of the time was reading or sitting and poking at my digital stuff. My todo list is in worse shape now. My gardening data is a little better off: after making something complex, i turned around and simplified it so there is a prayer i can keep up. I didn't make progress on any of the miscellaneous to dos cluttering (like installing the new rain gauge). I shopped for new things to do, like some raised beds with my Dad's birthday gift to me that will then have some feijoas (pineapple guava, an evergreen to screen the heat pump compressor and all the power boxes on the wall) and a yuzu in it. Christine has bought a smart telescope for us, which will be very fun because it has an equatorial tracking mode that looks very easy and will make using it in our back yard easy. Watching people do astrophotography on Tokyo rooftops was amazing; our skies are reasonably dark: Bortle 4, "rural suburban transition" which one of the Dutch astrophotographers described as what he would travel to get.

In really good news, Bruno asked to come out of his room a few times in the evening and all of us sat in the living room together in the evening. Marlowe was indignant, but there were long peaceful stretches.  Bruno and Carrie are getting more used to each other: Carrie is still excited to see Bruno, but settles. Bruno relaxes around a relaxed Carrie.  Did have a bad pee event on the couch on my proper birthday, and i think the foam might still be drying out. Piffle.

Back to retirement thoughts: i have lots of vacation banked. I need to practice setting intentions and following through without work acting as the structure and the excuse for not doing things. Plants offer a touch of motivation as they at least have certain unstoppable issues, and the scion wood i bought to graft on the crepe myrtle and the fig is waiting for me in the fridge.