Regular followers know that I’m big on goals, and January is like the kick-off to my season. Not so much this year. The trip to the DR, being sick, stuff at work, juggling stress, all of it was just too much to add much else to it. Now that April is here, I’m trying to focus my attention back to my projects already in progress. I was almost tempted to call this post the “Island of Unfinished Projects”, but none of them were permanently relegated; I’ve just paused some of them for a bit. Time to blow the dust off.

Writing is at the top of the list

I have way more planned titles than I have time at present to do, and that could either be a source of stress or a source of motivation. Some aspects are demoralizing, as I won’t get to many titles until I retire. There are not enough extra hours in the day to devote to just writing, as I have other aspects of my life that I want to continue pursuing, too.

Yet an interesting thing happened after last week. Last weekend, I planned out the update to my HR Guide called Be the Duck and even started working on the rewrite of chapter 1. I was not expecting to get very far on it, as I have three different versions from previous updates that I’m trying to consolidate into a new version. In the end? I killed much of the past content and refocused the chapter on answering two questions for people: how did I get into government (aka how I learned what I know), and what have I done since getting into government? The chapter flowed nicely as I went, and although it wasn’t “quick”, I managed to finish it over two sessions, and now it’s “resting” until I go back to it in 2 weeks to see if there’s anything I want to change.

So I’m ready this coming week to tackle writing Chapter 2. For the book overall, I’ve got a new structure that breaks things down nicely and I’ve even started researching some of the other chapters where it will be primarily new content.

Some tweaks to the website

I need to tweak both PolyWogg.ca and ThePolyBlog.ca for a bit of content, but neither are huge projects. Simple updates for now. In the past, it was easy to get sucked into major rewrites, but that’s not my goal. I have a small manageable set of tweaks to do, and then I can focus on slowly populating additional elements.

For PolyWogg.ca, it is setting up the chapter list for the Astronomy guide. I have it working for Be the Duck, but I want to start working on the Astro piece. And I need a good structure to do that, so it goes “up” easily.

For ThePolyBlog.ca, I want to update layouts for humour and quotes, and adjust my structure for FlashForwardFriday and a new one called TadpoleTuesdays. I think for FFF, I need to move it from PolyWogg to ThePolyBlog. It doesn’t fit right over there, so a simple move will be fine.

Back rehab and other health stuff

Something super odd happened with my back. Last Winter, I killed it. F***ed it up something awful. Humongous pain, medical tests, everything. And I was left with four things to help with the symptoms:

1. Chiro (I started with an osteopath but the chiro was doing a better job of release)
2. Topical pain meds (BioFreeze and MedSticks)
3. Robaxet-style pain meds
4. A back brace that I bought off Amazon

On and off, on and off, my back bothered me all the way to December. In October, I had posted about my plans for back rehab (RetirePrep: My back rehabilitation begins). I came up with a complete regimen to get started on. Then life intervened and I did sweet f*** all.

1. Group 1
   • General Exercise 1 — Knee raises to chest (either alternating or together)
   • Lower Back 1 — Hip rocker A (side to side)
2. Group 2
   • General Exercise 2 — Knee rocking (laying flat on back, knees bent to 90 degrees, rocking side to side)
   • Lower Back 2 — Hip rocker B (forward and back)
3. Group 3
   • General Exercise 3A — Modified cat / cow exercise (smaller range of up / down motion to avoid pain)
   • General Exercise 3B — Modified child’s pose (“less deep” engagement, pose)
   • Lower Back 3 — Mackenzie side wall (elbow at 90 degrees, healthy side only toward wall)
   • Piriformis 1 — Ankle pull (Knee to chest, close hand on knee other on ankle, pull towards opposite shoulder, 3 reps, 10s hold)

I did some more chiro through to December, but I was still having twinging. Then we did the trip to the Dominican. Part of the benefit of such a trip was that I was entirely out of my regular routine that can mess up my back at home — I wasn’t sitting in my work chair all day, I was actually moving around more; I wasn’t sitting on a couch watching TV for too long at night, my position varied more at the resort; and I was not in my regular bed which while supportive is also repetitive. Whatever “piece” helped, or all of it did, by about the 3rd day, I had stopped wearing my belt, intentionally so. I wasn’t doing anything that should aggravate my back, so I was seeing how I could function without it. It turned out that the answer was just fine. In fact, by the time I came home, I was barely wearing it all anymore. And my back has been relatively fine ever since. Yes, I still have twinges and a lot of tightness in my hips and thighs, but not anywhere near the level of discomfort. It isn’t “fixed” by a long shot. Yet I do need more mobility if I’m going to do the things I hope to do in retirement, so I need to restart that soon.

On top of that, I’m doing a buyback for my pension that requires a medical exam to be completed, so I have that scheduled for May. Plus I need to schedule a hearing test and a dental visit for fun and giggles (not!). Oh, and I switched to some new multivitamins. Which seem to be giving me energy I didn’t have before. I didn’t change much else then, so I’m crediting it. Huh.

Retirement is a dish best served cold

I am seriously confused about retirement. My current plans have me retiring in August 2027. It’s a good date, has symbolic meaning, and plants me squarely in the middle between 30 and 35 years for work. Great.

And, if you read prior posts, you’d know that I wanted to do a deep dive into my planning of what I want to do in retirement and if I had the foundations in place before I get there. Health, finances, documents, etc. I even did a very deep dive into travel plans for the first year of retirement. I planned out a trip in a camper / trailer to go all the way from Ottawa to the Territories, over to Alaska, down through BC into the US all the way to San Diego with a slight consideration not mentioned of Baja, then over to New Orleans, and back up to Western Ontario, onward to Ottawa. An almost 4-month trip. Followed by a separate trip through Quebec to Labrador, through the Maritimes into Maine, and back home. Plus a third trip all the way down to Florida, and then back up, for all the states in between the East Coast and the Mississippi River. It’s a spectacular plan.

Except I don’t think I’m ever going to do it. The last year with my back and some other issues has pretty much convinced me that I can’t do that kind of trip on my own, and the only ones I would consider doing it with are Andrea or Jacob. It would be just too close quarters for anyone else, really. I’m old, I’m crotchety. Unless they were in a separate vehicle, maybe.

Equally, I’m a little uncertain about some aspects of our finances. I feel okay about issues related to our mortgage, but other things may encroach on our planning when I hoped to face an emptier nest. Plus, we do not have as much saved for J’s education as I thought we did. It’s easily fixed, but still. An extra wrinkle.

Which makes me wonder in both directions. If I’m not going to take that vast trip, and Andrea won’t retire for another 5-8 years after me, what’s the hurry to retire?

Alternatively, once I finish my buyback options, I could retire in August of THIS year. I was reading an article in the Globe and Mail today where a woman was talking about treating her first year of retirement as a “gap year”, which sounded interesting, but the part that resonated with me was that she had retired two years earlier than planned. She had gone to a meeting, came out feeling frustrated, and said, “There’s got to be more to life than this crud”. And six weeks later, she was done.

Once I can submit my papers, will I be willing to keep putting up with stupid stuff? Not stupid stuff unique to my job or anything, just the stupid stuff you see in any job, really. We’ll see.

But I’ve put a pause on doing any additional large-scale retirement planning. I had another 8 or 9 topics I wanted to write about for my retirement plans, but none of them have to be done before I am actually close to retirement. It can all wait. I really got obsessed about the trip, and a side benefit was a personal commitment to go to a writing conference at least, which I’m doing this year. But when the reality hit that I likely won’t be able to do that huge trip, it was a giant letdown. I was literally disappointed almost 3 years before I’m even set to retire. Not great.

I might, however, look into the kayak option this coming year if my back is strong enough by June.

Learning: Psych and beyond

I blogged previously about doing a psych course through The Great Courses, and the last two months put a kibosh on progress. But it’s time to dust off the app, engage with the lessons, and start watching again. I have other classes planned too.

I also have plans to work on my learning with GIMP and using AI. I’ve done some preliminary stuff, but I want to dive deeper.

But right now? My most significant investment of time is small but interesting…I switched from French to Spanish on Duolingo. I’ve done all I will ever do on French for work, and it was no longer enjoyable; I was just grinding. In Spanish? Everything is new; I learn something small every day. I was tickled to simply learn the word manzanas for apples the first time out. But the interesting part is that it is practical learning, with no theoretical base. I didn’t learn to conjugate “to be” or “to have” with all the different pronouns. It’s just teaching me sentences in simple situations. Is my suitcase here? Si, mi maleta esta aqui. Is my spelling proper? Not sure, don’t care yet. It’s fun again.

Trying new restaurants and recipes

I wanted to try at least one new restaurant per month, but well, that hasn’t happened of late. We’re eating out just as often as before, but J rarely has the energy for anything new. So we default to the same list each time.

But for some “alternate” rehab that he’s doing, he’s going to do some baking. I don’t know if the first outing went as he expected, as he was doing it all himself, which is not always fun the “first time” you start something new like that, but he made the brownies. Maybe he’s willing to do them together next time.

I had a ton of cooking and restaurant options on my 60×60 plan, and they tend to have fallen off my planning grid. I need to kickstart them again, if only in curating recipes.

Renew my time investment in astronomy

I haven’t had a scope out for regular viewing in a while. I’ve done binoculars a few times, plus some naked eye observing, but I want to get going again with astronomy.

That includes both the potential for better viewing from the backyard, writing my guide, and just attending RASC events in person. I have some ideas for a project, but at a minimum, I need to get the scope out of the garage and view.

Fix my setup at home

My basement is still a disaster, and I need to clean it up. Move boxes, remove a table, put some stuff under a desk, just so I can get around better. And get to the exercise equipment, desk for doing projects, etc. Upstairs, we need to clear a bunch of crap off our “gaming” table so we can do stuff on it, which is usually puzzles or Lego. We have two projects ready to go for Lego, we just need the space cleared so we can do them.

And find a space for my new 3D printer so I can get that going while I work on repairing the first one. Without driving myself into frustration-ville. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

That’s my new list. And so what? It’s April, not January. I’ve updated my list 17 days ahead of what I call PolySpring, the date by which all the snow on my lawn is (almost) guaranteed to be gone (April 22nd). Maybe the first signs of Spring and progress will show up at the same time.