I rolled 40 years on the life-odometer last Saturday. Amy and I celebrated with my 91 year old grandma, my mom (who turned 62 the same day), and my uncle (who turned 60 the same day). And no kids! It was fun and relaxing and the weather was excellent (we were in the Sacramento area). My uncle restores vintage Schwinn bikes, and Amy and I rode a couple of his beauties around downtown Vacaville. Those old single speed cruisers really help you sloooow down. It was really nice to just roll lazily around town, checking out the sights with no agenda whatsoever.

That night we went to Buca di Beppo, in Sacramento. My aunt and uncle had reserved the Pope room. It was a big round room and the walls were covered in Pope paraphernalia/mementos. In the center of the table was a large clear plexiglass box containing a bust of the Pope. It was awesome! And right around the corner, near the restrooms, was a huge Frank Sinatra shrine. (pictures of these places coming soon) What a cool restaurant. Looks like there are a couple in the Seattle area, so we might be back someday…

Amy masterminded some ridiculous underwear prank for my birthday. I started receiving gifts of underwear from friends last week (one pair of underwear even came with a complementary bottle of porter, which was a very nice touch). Today I rolled into my office, only to find that it had been desecrated with underwear in my absence. Amy strikes again, with the able assistance of Janis, the office manager!

All-in-all, it was a memorable birthday weekend, and a great way to start off the 40’s. 🙂 As an interesting side note, Amy and I will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary on Thursday. 10 years has flown by faster than I could imagine. Of course I have always loved Amy more than I can express in words, but even more remarkable is that she appears to continue to love me. 🙂

All this thinking of momentous life-events made this blog post about the life countdown catch my eye. It’s a good read, but what struck me the most was Stewart Brand’s concept of the 5-year project cycle. He says that 5 years is a reasonable length of time for any worthwhile project. Like Stewart, it makes me wonder how many “5-years” I have left. More importantly, what’ll I do with them? If I’m anything like my grandma Hazel, I’ve got at least 10 “5-years” remaining. It feels like I’ve squandered the 8 “5-years” that I’ve burned through so far, which makes me a little anxious to do something conscious and intentional with the remainder. Raising Truman and Asher well can’t really be viewed as a project, but it’s certainly something I strive toward, and I’ll count it among my life’s achievements. I’ll have to keep considering what else is “my work to do.”