February 9 - Digital Roots

If you want to find the digital root of a number, you just need to add up all of the digits, and then take the sum and add up the digits of that, and continue in this way until you get a single digit.  For example for the number 2019 the digital root is found by first summing 2+0+1+9=12  and then by summing 1+2=3.  So the digital root of 2019 is 3.  Whenever two numbers differ by a multiple of 9, then have the same digital root.

Since I am 50 years old, my "digital root" right now is 5.  Since Rachel is 23, her digital root is also 5.   This is not surprising since I was 27 (a multiple of 9) when she was born.  Of course, in June, when I turn 51 my new digital root will be 6, but hers will still be 5 until September.

For Albert and Emily - they always have the same digital root because she was born on his 27th birthday.  So today, exactly 25 years later, they both celebrate again as he turns 52 and she turns 25.  This flip of numbers also happened when she was 14 and he was 41; it won't happen again for another 11 years until she is 36 and he is 63.....


I stayed up later than Albert and left his small gift and a card on the table (and one bottle of a Mexican beer which he likes but is hard to find here in the fridge) to find when he got up.  Beyond that, it was a pretty normal day...except for the large singing group below our window (unrelated to his birthday, of course, but festive nonetheless).

Went to the store this morning and got the things to make Beef Goulash and Gnocchi.  Then we came home, ate lunch, and I put together the goulash to "stew" for a few hours.

Then, we went to pick up Albert's Amazon package (woohoo new shoes)!

I kept an eye on the goulash and read while Albert went out running and tried his new shoes.  After dinner, we celebrated with the brownies from yesterday - no new desserts until we get rid of the abundance of sugar already in our kitchen.  Birthday cake will have to wait!

This evening, when we took out the trash, we took a couple of things (including Albert's old shoes) out with us and sat them next to the dumpsters while we separated the recyclables.  Everything had been claimed before we even finished separating.  We don't really know of a formal equivalent to goodwill, but this informal system seems to work just fine.