The pear trees in the front yard are blooming, I've got flowers popping up in the flowerbeds and I've got a yard full of wild onions.

That means it's time to plow.

I finished my fence building project yesterday, but that pretty much killed my day. Some friends were in town last night and since sweetie was at a continuing education seminar all weekend, I got to go play for a little while.

My playing consisted of going to the bookstore and then driving up to Chattanooga to meet my friends at the home of another friend.

There has been a realization growing within my little brain for quite some time that got seriously reinforced last night.

I'm getting old.

I first realized this a couple of years ago. I was out somewhere and saw a very scantily clad young lady. Not so long ago, I would have been drooling over this girl, but the first thing that popped into my head was "if she was my daughter, she wouldn't be going out in public dressed like that." Scary, scary thing.

Last night, my buddies were playing blackjack and drinking beer with loud music blaring in the background. After about thirty minutes of it, I couldn't stand it anymore. The music was getting on my nerves, they were drinking Michelob (never cared for Michelob) and I wasn't really in the mood for cards. The biggest thing on my mind was "I've got to go home and go to bed, I need to start early if I'm going to finish all the work I need to do." Plus, since sweetie was gone, I worried about the dogs crapping all over the house.

We gossiped for a bit, and I took off the first chance I got. I don't get to see these guys too often, so in a way I felt bad about taking off, but after seeing everything I was able to accomplish today, I felt a lot better.

I think it was today that I realized I'm turning into a crabby old man, which is bad since I'm still on the sunny side of middle age...

A couple of years ago, I'd have fired up a stogie the size of a forearm, drank copious amounts of beer, talked them into playing poker instead of blackjack and stayed there half the night,