You know You Are Getting Old When.....

There is no denying it we are getting old, and for some reason this past two weeks I have been feeling it. Some days we wake up and jump out of bed ready for the day, others we roll out of bed and limp, moan and crack our way to the couch where we will sit for an hour trying to convince our bodies into action. 

There is nothing wrong with getting old, in fact we have embraced it looking forward to growing old together. We have also noticed changes in our routine, bodies and other signs of aging over the years. I thought I would share a few of our observations. Most of these relate to our lives while others we have observed in friends of ours. 

So without further ado here is our list of signs you are getting old. 

You know you are getting old when...

You are coming home for a night out on the town and you have to stop and wait for the school bus to drop off kids in front of you.

The main topic of conversation at dinner with your friends relates to doctor appointments and aches and pains. 

Before you go out to dinner you and your spouse have a conversation on which meal you are going to split. 

When you have to go to the bathroom, you have to go NOW instead of waiting until the next commercial.

You wake up to use the bathroom at night for the first time and you could still catch the 9:00 news.

You start naming the deer, birds and other wildlife that visit your feeders.

You have conversations with said deer, birds and wildlife.

You spend more money each month feeding the wildlife than you do feeding yourself.

Several of our deer friends stopped by for breakfast

On another morning the turkeys joined them

You look forward to your next birthday because you qualify for the America the Beautiful Pass. 

Last but not least, Your kids start calling dibs on stuff in your house when you die.

I could go on and on but there is no doubt about it and no stopping it, we are getting old. So why not embrace it and make the best of it! 

We have not been out doing too much, just working on the house. The projects we have been working on have not had a significant visual impact but are steps to reaching our end goal and getting things done. 

Installed the tile backer in the dog wash area.

Just need to seal the seams and build the base then we are ready for tile!

Barb painted the can light covers so they blend in better with the bug wood.

The light covers used to be white

And we installed the corners, stair lights and 1x6 diagonal sections going up the stairs. 

The corner (on the left side) was cut out of a 2x2 I hollowed out and wrapped around the corner. The lights are above every other stair tread and the diagonal goes up the right side of the stairs. 

One day we spent several hours cleaning the garage. Over the past few months it has been our main work and storage area. We installed some wood storage shelves (on the far wall), swept, vacuumed and got everything cleaned up so we can get it dirty all over again. 

All clean ready to mess up again!

We also got the under-cabinet lights installed in the kitchen!

It has been 3 weeks since we lost Daisy and we still miss her everyday. Life is....just different without her here. I cannot watch my favorite hunting show without thinking about her. No matter what she was doing she would tear into the room and attack the TV when she heard the theme song for the show and sometimes I swear I see her out of the corner of my eye while walking around the house.

Barb saw this image on the internet the other day, we were both a wreck after seeing it. 

Dakota is getting better, she has seemed to have perked up and getting back to normal. We take her for more walks which she loves, she is always happy when we go for walks. One big change we have noticed in her is that she is a lot more aggressive when someone knocks on the door. She barks like crazy where in the past she never used to do that. 

Saturday morning Kevin and I went Mountain Lion hunting. We had received several inches of snow overnight which makes it ideal for hunting as you can cut a track and then follow it and hopefully get the mountain lion before it gets you. But we did not cut any tracks so we basically just spent the morning driving around. The hills are so beautiful after a fresh snow....

That afternoon Barb, Kevin and I went into Rapid City to the annual stock show and rodeo. Despite the pandemic they had record attendance. I guess people are really itching to get out! In one area we found show participants primping and prepping their cattle for a judging event. It is amazing the level of detail they go through to get their animals ready.

We checked out each of the booths before heading to the main reason for our attendance. The evening rodeo performance!

We just love watching the horses perform. It is amazing at how well some of these horses were trained! It is hard to say which is our favorite events. Barb's is definitely barrel racing while if I had to pick, I would say bull riding. It is amazing that those guys can stay on those beasts. 

It takes a well trained horse to run with a flag and sparkler!

Bareback 

Calf Roping

This saddle broc'er did not last too long 

Steer wrestling

Team roping

Barb's fav, barrel racing!

There is one guy who actually trained his horses and a zebra to climb on top of his horse trailer!

We did not get home until after midnight, that was a first in quite a while!

Sunday marked a milestone. The 12,775th day that Barb and I have been married. Yep, 35 years! I told her it feels like we met just yesterday and with a somber and defeated expression she replied "Really, it feels like 2 lifetimes ago to me" I took that to mean that she loved me so much she wanted to spend multiple lifetimes with me!

We celebrated the day by having Kevin and Cheryl as well as Doug and Lisa over for The Big Game. That reminds me, you know you are old when you have no idea who the half time performer was. We were hoping for a little more competitive game but you have to give it to Tampa's defense shutting down KC like that. And Tom brady? Well, he is Tom Brady. It was cool to see Gronk get 2 (almost 3) touchdowns. Not bad for a retired guy!

It had been a bit on the cool side the past few days with highs in the single digits and lows below 0 but nothing like our friends in North Dakota and Minnesota are getting! Guess it is a week for more indoor projects!