The prep-for-selling cleaners come on Tuesday, followed by photographers. That means a whole lot of decluttering has to get done over the next three days, along with cooking and serving a big birthday dinner.

Himself's last day in uniform was on Thursday, and now there's a huge box of green clothing in the middle of the sitting room floor awaiting the big decision: Sally Ann or St. Vincent? The study is cluttered with boxes of glassware and ornaments bound for the church bazaar; all of it has to be out of the house by Tuesday morning.

Yesterday was the official Retirement Bye-Bye, with speeches and flowers and "certificates suitable for framing" that will never hang in our living space if I have anything to say about it. It seems that everyone wants to pat the back of a retiring soldier: not only the Chief of the Defence Staff but also the Mayor of Ottawa, the Premier of Ontario and even the Prime Minister himself! Instead of the dreaded plaque, we were presented with a flag that flew over National Defence Headquarters on the 8th of March last, painstakingly folded and packed into a glass-fronted box. How sweet, I guess.

We have tentatively scheduled our house-hunting trip to Stratford in the first week of April, between two of the three military trials Himself is under contract to do. I think we have done all the on-line research we can, and it's time to start crawling around Perth County's basements and closets.

I hardly slept last night, which is quite unlike me, and lay awake for hours with house prices tumbling through my head. I am also distracted by a sore wrist and fingers that go numb now and then, a mix of carpel tunnel syndrome and a touch of bursitis or tendinitis -- or even both! There's no law that says you can have both. Anything to prevent me from just getting on with the long list of chores in an orderly way.