Hello 2026! The big news of this year is that I am planning on retiring. If I don’t go through with it, I will be very disappointed in myself. Right now, my plan is to have my last day working be July 1, 2026. I’m tempted to go sooner than that, but hopefully, this date will make for a smooth transition, which is my goal.

As for resolutions, I had already decided that 2026 would be the Year of the Knee. Then, I looked back at my 2025 resolutions and that was basically the same thing. So it didn’t go so well last year. However, this year, I’m going to try tracking it better. One thing is to make a daily note on my calendar whether or not I did the stretching exercises. This does not take long. I just need to use a strap to pull my knee closer to my butt. If I do this once a day for about two minutes on each knee, I’ll be happy. Hopefully, I’ll do it more than once per day, which will help. I’ll also try to sit cross-legged on the floor more when I’m watching tv, which should help. And to try to track any progress, I’m going to take a picture of how far I can bend my knees. Below are the pictures that I just took. It’s obvious (and I’ve known this for a while) that my right knee bends more than my left knee. I can’t even get my left knee to a 90 degree angle without pain. I also see that I should get a yardstick and put that behind my leg to see if I notice any small changes. My guess is that I’m not going to notice much for a few months, but we’ll see.

January 2026 left knee The left knee is pretty bad.

January 2026 right knee The right knee also needs work.