I spent money in January, partly because income tax means I take my annual “required minimum distribution” from my retirement account, in a lump sum. My savings account suddenly expands, and I can contemplate a few indulgences.

Therefore, in the last three weeks or so, I got a new furnace installed, ordered a recliner, and bought three more fountain pens, several unnecessary bottles of ink, and a beautiful hundred-year-old mechanical pencil.

The furnace was the indulgence.

I know a furnace makes more sense, by conventional wisdom. But I could have gone on a while without buying a furnace. The recliner and the writing supplies, on the other hand, were necessities.

You can’t really plan how you age (my acquaintance’s stroke yesterday made that clear) but you can avoid making it worse. And that is what the money is for.

The recliner is necessary, for instance, because at my age, comfort is no longer optional. Everything hurts a little already. I can’t nap in my current armchair because I wake up in pain.

But the furnace? I wasn’t planning to replace that just yet. And indeed, it could have gone on longer, continuing to burn unevenly, to warm up my basement more than the rest of my house, and to function adequately otherwise. But in light of my priorities? Now my house is a lot more comfortable, but more importantly I have a lovely guarantee, a guarantee that says I should continue to have a functioning heater until I’m in my 90s. That feels marvelous.

I just hadn’t planned on it.

The fountain pens, ink, and antique pencil are necessities, though. I’m with William Morris: “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” And boy, those pens are beautiful, and they are also useful. Now I can sit in my warm house and write my thoughts about getting older, and make my little plans, with an absolutely stunning striped pen, in a lovely blue ink.

It’s marvelous to have a project. My project is to have a reasonable life, until I can’t any more.