Week 23 - Back to Swimming

It was a good week with productivity, lots of exercise and a fun weekend.

My new AC was installed on Monday, which was a big relief. I wouldn't have to worry about running out of freon and would be nice and cool all summer. Andrea and I decided to cancel knitting since it would just be the 2 of us so I got on my recumbant bike, newly delivered by Andrea and Mike, and biked for 25 minutes before settling down for the evening. Nice start to the week.

I biked again on Tuesday while I watched the news. This could become a new routine. I was on campus on Wednesday and it was the first water aerobics of the summer. It was a pool I'd never been to and twin sisters of a certain age who were a total hoot as teachers. It was pretty cool in the pool between the cold water and the sun going behind clouds but I loved it anyway. 

Thursday was another campus day. After a long overdue lunch with Tammie at Honest Abe's (fabulous burgers and tots) and a tour of her new building on at lunch, it was back to Irvingdale pool for another round of water aerobics after work. Same teacher as last year and I got to chat with Mark while we worked out. Exercising 4 days in a row! Can I keep it up?

I started Friday at the Lutheran church's garage sale before work, which I try to go to whenever they have it and always find fun stuff. I worked the morning but since I'm still at max with vacation, I took the afternoon off and started with lunch at the Mexican restaurant with Helen. They had a fresh pineapple marguerita on the specials board, which I ordered. The waiter, who spoke broken English, asked me if I wanted fresh but couldn't tell me what the alternative was so I went for it. Well, this is what he delivered, which was leaking and a bit of a mess. It was also a smaller serving than if I'd had it in a glass. We had a fun time chatting over lunch but when I got the check and saw that the drink was $17, I almost fell over. Crazy! Lesson learned.

I had only been home 5 minutes when Andrea called. We were doing a Fremont run and were getting pedicures. The last one I had was summer 2019 in Rhode Island and I was looking forward to it. Andrea had scoped out a new place and they did a great job. My toes are totally cute. We did all our regular stops too, ending at Aldi.

I love starting my weekend with all my errands done on Friday. I had a nice weekend ahead, starting with chatting with Dee and Carolyn then I made a big to do list and got started. I planted the last of the flowers I'd started from seed in my old wheelbarrow, which I plan to move to the front over the stump of the dwarf Alberta spruce I had cut down last fall. I got a good start on my chores and went to bed hoping for some rain, which had been forecast to start in the afternoon but we'd gotten none before bedtime.

Happily, I woke up to rain and we'd gotten almost an inch overnight. That loosened up the soil and I spent Sunday afternoon weeding the front beds (mostly pulling sunflowers) and then took everything to the burn pile.

Such a good week. I hope this is the beginning of a fun summer and that I can keep up with the exercise and productivity. Time will tell.

Week 22 - A Bad Reaction

After a lovely, relaxing Memorial Day, it was back to reality and back to "normal". Until Thursday that is.

Lori emailed on Monday morning to ask if I was doing anything and since I was in recuperation mode from getting all my gardening done, I was free as a bird. After stopping at Bomgaar's (the farm store) for a few things and Starbuck's for yummy drinks, we knitted the afternoon away on her patio. Happy times.

Tuesday was my first day working without my neck brace and it was wonderful to be able to use 2 screens again but that also took some getting used to. I was thrilled to get a long overdue haircut that afternoon and then I did some cooking for the week and started A Small Light about the woman who hid Anne Frank and her family. It was a nice first day back to work.

Wednesday was my first day back on campus in almost 2 months. It was a day full of food and fun. There were donuts for someone's birthday, cookies from Lacey, lunch with Dodie and ice cream sundaes that afternoon. Talk about sugar overload! But I enjoyed it all. After lunch, I went to the student health center for my overdue shingles booster shot and I hit one Goodwill and a market on the way home. It was a good day.

I woke up Thursday feeling like absolute crap. I had a horrible headache and body aches to boot. I went back to bed for 2 hours and then got up, feeling some better, to tackle monthly reports. Since I had a new virtual machine, everything was harder than usual and I had brain fog and fatigue on top of that. There were storms all afternoon and after I lost my vpn connection for the 3rd time, I quit work at 4:30. I didn't feel better until bedtime but at least I won't get shingles, right? Get this - it was the 1st of the month and I didn't work on new socks. That's how crappy I felt.

Work on Friday was a flash in the pan. I went out at lunch to feed Andrea's cat and pick up a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut (a rare treat). I finally made some progress on my June socks and finished A Small Light that evening. And despite knowing how it would end, I was sobbing. If you have Hulu, definitely watch it. If I ever get another cat, she'll be called Miep after the main character.

It was a low key weekend of trying to stay cool without my AC, which was going to be replaced on Monday or Tuesday. With a freon leak, I kept it off as long as possible, only turning it on mid-afternoon when it got too hot in my closed up house. Other than the bare minimum of chores, I streamed and knitted most of the weekend. I watched Stonehouse and The Departed, which I'd never seen. Fabulous movie. After my slow start, my first June sock flew off the needles and was done on Sunday. I made it to match the sweet William, which was my grandmother's favorite flower, that I grew from seed last year and is blooming in one of my veg beds.

So other than the reaction to the shingles booster, the week was a good re-entry to normal life. The rain was a bonus (we're 4" behind for the month of May) and by the end of the week, the stiffness in my neck was completely gone. I needed the recharge weekend to face the next week, which would be 5 working days with 2 of them on campus and water aerobics was starting. I can do it!

Week 21 - A Fresh Start

What a fabulous week! How can it not be when the end of my neck brace was coming on Thursday? But other nice stuff happened too.

With the Vienna trip cancelled, I was free to look at other travel options. Since Christmas in Rhode Island is no longer happening, Anne and I booked a Christmas markets knitting trip in Latvia and Lithuania with our favorite Arena Travel. We'll be flying out on Thanksgiving to Helsinki and will meet up with the tour after a 3 hour ferry ride across the Baltic Sea. Why not since it's so close? Anne will get to cross another country off her list. Also, a friend from our Faroes trip last year booked too so we'll get to see her again. We'll also be extending a few days in London at the end of the trip. I'm super excited.

But my brace - let's talk about that. Tuesday night was the 6 week anniversary of my fall and the start of the brace. I couldn't see the doctor until Thursday so I did a test run of driving on Wednesday with a Wahoo lunch run - picking up my grab and go lunch at Mocha C's, driving through the bank with long overdue Friends' deposits and hitting The Warehouse. My neck was stiff, of course, but driving felt wonderful. Add the Survivor finale and it was a great day. But nothing compared to Thursday.

I worked for 2 hours Thursday morning before leaving for the ortho doc and then being off until Tuesday. I drove myself to the appointment, put my brace on in the parking garage and went inside. They took x-rays and when they compared them to 6 weeks ago, there was zero change. I gave the doctor a WTF look and he basically admitted without saying as much that it had all been for nothing. Oh well. I got to work from home for 6 weeks and had great friends who drove me hither and yon so I lived. Better safe than sorry when you're talking about your spine. I still recognize how lucky I was.

With my brace in the rear view, I was off like a shot running errands all over Lincoln at my own pace. I did some thrifing, hit Trader Joe's, picked up books at the Library Commission, bought more plants and got a Starbuck's. I had thought it would take all afternoon but I was home by 3:00 because I didn't have to do every single errand now that I could drive myself anywhere. Book club was at 6:30 then Helen and I went to BK. We talked so long that they were sweeping the floor around us. We didn't realize the open sign was off. Oops! What a wonderful end to a fabulous day. Freedom!

Since at least one of my cats weighs more than a gallon of milk, which was my weight limit while wearing the brace, I had to wait for my cats' annual vet appointment until Friday. I had all 3 scheduled for 10:00 but, as usual, I couldn't get them them. I took Pixel and Tot (the easy ones to catch) in the morning and made a tentative appointment for 3:00 to take Gansey if I could catch her. I went home and got busy gardening.

I had planted one bed in April but had 3 more to prep and plant. I started with my tomato bed and then did my summer squash bed, interplanting flowers among the veggies. I was able to catch Gansey so took her in for shots and flea stuff, looking like a bum in gardening clothes. And then, in the same grubby clothes, I went to the library to drop a check off, only to find out the magician was performing right then so I went to the Civic Center and looked like a bum in front of 100 kids. I could hear my mother in my head saying, "You're covered." I then registered my cats at the city hall drive through and called it a day, happy with my progress and with no ill effects from my stiff neck.

I woke up sore on Saturday. Not surprising and with it being a long weekend, I stayed inside most of the day getting caught up on some of the chores I'd neglected recently. I also started knitting charity hats again, which seems to come in fits and starts. While knitting, I spent a bunch of time on the phone and did go out at the end of the day to cut weed trees but mostly took it easy.

Sunday was back to power gardening mode. I had one more raised bed to plant - beans and cukes - so got busy finagling a bean tower out of the frame of an old greenhouse. Andrea and Mike had brought me hog panels to make a tower but they were too big (and heavy!) and I had no way to cut them. After getting that bed done, I raked beside the garage where I'd had the trees removed and created 3 hills for pumpkins and 2 kinds of winter squash. We'll see if they do anything in that poor soil. If so, they'll get plenty of sun and have room to vine. When all that was done, I went in and took a shower and binged The Diplomat on Netflix, which was very good.

Speaking of good, good week, right? It felt so good to be back to normal and be able to get stuff done. The weather cooperated too with cooler temps and zero humidity, which made it a joy to work outside. Truth be told, I'm much better at doing the heavy work at the start of the gardening year than the maintenance during the season. Maybe this will be the year I keep up with the weeding. I live in hope.

Week 20 - Cancellation and Containers

The week started off so chilly that I put the oven on first thing Monday and baked a pound of bacon. That warmed up the house and set me up for BLT's all week for lunch. Nice.

The first major thing this week was I cancelled going to Vienna with Connie. I had been dragging my feet getting a plane ticket and when I gave some brain time to why that was, I realized I didn't really want to go. Timing wise, it was 1 week after my RI beach trip, which would mean flying home on a Sunday, working all week and flying out for 2 weeks in Europe on Saturday. Um.....no. It was also getting more expensive with each passing day and when push came to shove, that's not a trip I want to blow the bank on so I called Connie Monday night. She was great. Disappointed but didn't give me grief. My sense of relief was immediate so clearly I'd made the right choice.

On the work front, I did my last 2 training sessions until late August, had my annual evaluation (hate that, despite it always being fine), got a new virtual machine set up and pulled a demo/training session out of my ass. Someone had asked me to demo one of my databases but then neglected to invite me to the training session he'd scheduled with his entire business center! He messaged me to say they were all waiting for me on zoom, realized he'd not invited me and so sent the zoom link. With zero preparation, I managed to not look like an idiot. Big relief! Was there any thank you or apology from the person who screwed up? Nope. Lame.

I started planting my containers Tuesday after work. Anyone who's been in my yard knows that I love my containers and have them all over the deck and driveway plus have hanging baskets too. Now with the neck brace on and a lifting limitation, it was slow going but I got 5 of 6 planted that night, did a couple more here and there and then took Friday afternoon off (it was too gorgeous to work) and planted the rest. I even prepped the pots for the peppers and eggplants Lorri had saved for me so when she dropped them Sunday after church, I had them in the pots before she got home (and she lives just across town). With all those done, the only thing left was the veg beds and I was saving that for post-brace.

It was a relaxing weekend. I had spinning in Fremont (Andrea drove) on Saturday with an abbreviated run of just Goodwill and Aldi afterwards. I'd been watching the last season of Picard all week so enjoyed that while eating snack supper. Sunday was chores, chatting on the phone and I did sift the last foot of compost after getting all my containers done so had a wheelbarrow full for my veg beds, which would be coming soon. 

In less than a week, I'd be neck brace free and then look out! I'm ready to do all the driving and lifting I've been restricted from and I had taken time off ahead of Memorial Day weekend to get it all done. Can't wait!