2024 Life Logs, Day 39: Making a Little Progress on Walking
Date: Thursday, February 8, 2024
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 41, Low 29 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Yesterday and today, I extended my “around the block” walk from a quarter of a mile to a half mile. So, that is a success. I will do the half mile again in the morning and then on Saturday, I will extend that just another tenth of a mile. If that goes well, my plan is to add another tenth of a mile every other day and hope to be walking a mile by this time next week. This seems like baby steps, but in this case, I think baby steps are what the doctor has ordered. In fact, my plan might be a little too ambitious. But we shall see. Other than that, I spent the day filing away a few things that have piled up. I still have more to do on that front tomorrow. And also tomorrow, Anavo is coming at 8 am to start work on the bathroom towel rack I managed to pull out of the wall. That means Shadow and I have to be up bright and early, so I’m calling it a night earlier than usual.

2024 Life Logs, Day 38: Delightful, Heathy Lunch and Conversation
Date: Wednesday, February 7, 2024
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High Temp 38, Low 28 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

For over a year now, two couples that I know through my Exploring Public Policy group and myself have been trying to find a time that we could get together for lunch to talk about our mutual interest in trying to move to a mostly plant-based diet. Today, we finally got together. The couple who hosted the luncheon at their “green” home a few blocks from Falmouth Heights Beach provided the entrée, a minestrone soup and freshly baked bread. I brought one my mainstay lunch salads, a mix of arugula and locally grown greenhouse baby crispy green leaf lettuce topped with a cauliflower rice and hemp heart mixture. The other couple brought dessert, a to die-for chocolate Pots de Crème made with no heavy crème. Cashews provide the cream for this decadent dessert. The food was wonderful, but the point of our get together was not really the food, it was the conversation. All of us have different social groups, but none of us has found other friends in our groups that are really interested in moving toward a mostly plant-based diet. I keep saying “mostly plant based” because we all still eat fish. We talked the entire afternoon away, four hours in total, and we could have continued. We talked about everything from electric cars, to electric clothes dryers, to our mainstay foods, to the sources we use for making decisions on what we are going to eat. We will get together again in April to continue the conversation. It felt so good to be with people who are actively trying to change their lifestyles, adjusting what they eat, to be better for their own health and the health of the planet. I look forward to continuing the conversation.

2024 Life Logs, Day 37: A Most Unmemorable Day
Date: Tuesday, February 6, 2024
Weather: Overcast with Light Snow; High Temp 34, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

This was one of those days when there was very little memorable enough to note. I did three laundry loads, mostly bedding, I went shopping and on the way home I stopped by Heather and Jed’s to pick up Shadow’s food that I store in their freezer, and I made a few phone calls on behalf of my sister. While I was at Heather and Jed’s, I got to visit with Ollie and Sam for a few minutes, but not Jonah as he was not at home. Still, that was the highlight of my day. I have not seen much of the boys recently, so it was great to see their smiling faces. And I enjoyed watching the light snow falling off and on all day. It was too warm to stick until late day, and even then there was only enough snow to barely cover the ground. Still, it was beautiful as it was falling.

2024 Life Logs, Day 36: Plants and Friends
Date: Monday, February 5, 2024
Weather: Sunny, N Wind in Afternoon; High Temp 37, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Today’s activities involved two things dear to my heart—plants and friends. After taking Shadow to the vet to get his Lyme vaccine, I came home and worked on transferring some plants from the containers they came in from the nursery to nicer pots. I managed to make a huge mess in the dining room, but hopefully the three plants involved survived the ordeal. Then Karen Baranowski came over to visit. She and Peter have been gone since early January on a trip to Florida, so we caught up on happenings. Then Karen invited me to come over to their house for dinner and I accepted. She made turkey breast fajitas, and they were delicious. Thank you, Karen.

The sun did shine all day today. Even though the temperature was not much different from yesterday, there was no wind this morning, so it felt considerably warmer. But tonight, I’m feeling that chill again. It must be time to crawl under the covers and go to sleep.

2024 Life Logs, Day 35: Just Too Cold
Date: Sunday, February 4, 2024
Weather: Partly Sunny with a N Wind; High Temp 38, Low 28 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

For the past two days, no matter what I do, I am just too cold. I have increased the thermostat from 68 to 70, the sun was shining for much of the day, and I put on more clothes. But for whatever reason, my nose is constantly cold, as is my whole body. I think tomorrow I am just going to stay in the bedroom with the door shut. That should do it.

I finally had a visit from a physical therapist today, a young woman named Tracy. The order was put through a few days after my surgery, but like all medical appointments here on the Cape, it took a while. All I wanted was for someone to come give me a few pointers on how I should be moving, and the PT who came spent over an hour with me. She had me go though my daily routines, inside and outside, getting into and out of bed, playing fetch with Shadow with the Chuck It, just about everything. She recommended a different way of putting on the brace for my left knee and showed me a better way of getting into and out of cars, and she answered my biggest question, “Is leaning the same as bending?” The answer is yes, unless done from the hips, not from the waist. I had been told no BLT, no bending, no lifting (over 10 pounds), and no twisting. And Tracy adds an S and R to that—no stretching to reach things. Despite the limitations, she gave me a pretty good ‘grade’. She recommended that I keep icing at least once every couple of hours per day for three more weeks and just keep on rollin’.

2024 Life Logs, Day 34: New Refrigerator
Date: Saturday, February 3, 2024
Weather: Overcast, With One Peep of Sunshine; High Temp 35, Low 27 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

The excitement today was getting a new refrigerator. When it was decided that I was going to have back surgery, Lynda Onthank, the friend who owns this house that I rent, offered to buy a new refrigerator. The old refrigerator had a freezer up top. This meant that every time I had to get something out of the refrigerator below, I had to bend down. I rearranged things so that there was nothing I needed often on the bottom shelves, but still it was difficult. The new refrigerator is shiny stainless steel on the front with gray sides. It is a side-by-side with the freezer at the bottom. I do not have to bend to get anything out of the refrigerator and can use my grabbers to get things out of the freezer. It is going to make life so much easier. Thank you, thank you, Lynda.

But getting ready for the new refrigerator delivery meant I needed help getting everything out of the old. Heather came over late morning with coolers and took everything out of the freezer and refrigerator and either put things in the coolers or on the counter. We knew the delivery would be sometime between noon and 2 pm, so nothing was going to spoil sitting on the counter for a bit. As soon as all the food was out and the refrigerator moved so she could clean behind it, she left to do things at her house, with a promise to return when she got my text that the new refrig was in place. It was almost 2 pm by the time it was in place and ready for food, so Heather came back and helped me arrange things. The refrigerator doesn’t look much bigger than the old one, maybe a bit taller, but there is so much more room inside.

When Heather left, it was definitely time for me to lay down for a bit. The excitement today might have been the refrigerator, but the joyous news was that the pain I experienced last evening went away and has not returned. I have continued to wear an ice pack at least 20 minutes every hour or two, and that seems to have solved the issue. But I have promised myself to lie flat on my back for at least an hour each afternoon for at least another couple of weeks, in addition to wearing the ice packs. I did not attempt to take a walk today. I walked Shadow in the yard and will go back to the quarter mile walk around the block tomorrow.

Just as I was getting up from my afternoon rest time (that sounds more acceptable than nap time to me), Heather called. She was going to the Homespun Garden sale at the Congregational Church and wanted to know if I wanted to tag along. Homespun Garden was one of three stores on Main Street that were affected by the fire on Main Street on January 2. Heather wanted to support the local business by attending the sale. I went yesterday morning when the sale began, but it was so crowded with people that I just turned around the left. Covid has left me with a healthy fear of being in a room packed with people. But there were just a few people there this afternoon as most of the inventory had been sold. But Heather and I both found a few things to purchase. After one other stop, we intended to head home. But when we saw the red sails on the sunset, we decided to drive down to Falmouth Heights Beach to get a better look. Beautiful sunset on another overcast day with just a peep of sunshine late afternoon. When we returned to my house, we took the opportunity to just sit and talk about life. The two of us don’t get an opportunity to just visit very often. We didn’t solve any of the world’s problems, but we did order sushi pick up and had a great dinner.

2024 Life Logs, Day 33: Slow Down
Date: Friday, February 2, 2024
Weather: Overcast; High Temp 43, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

My body gave me a huge screaming message today, “Slow down.” I know I did too much yesterday, but when I got up this morning everything was fine. However, by 11 am I was so sleepy I had to take a nap. That seemed strange. Then I put on that knee brace and took Shadow for a longer walk than usual. The return trip home was tough. My legs just didn’t want to keep going. When I got home, I laid flat on my back and took another nap. It was when I got up from that nap that I felt THE pain. THAT pain, the nerve pain in my left hip. It was time to fix dinner and it was painful to stand, but I put an ice pack on my back and continued. The ice pack helped. All I can figure is that I have been trying to do too much which has caused swelling in my back. The swelling pushes on those nerves and causes the pain. I find a little bit of hope in the fact that the ice packs tonight have helped. I also stopped taking Tylenol a couple of days ago, so I have started taking that again. But the main thing I am going to do is to dial back the activity and hope I have not done irreparable damage.

2024 Life Logs, Day 32: A Taste of Normal
Date: Thursday, February 1, 2024
Weather: Overcast; High Temp 40, Low 35 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

So, it has been a little more than two weeks since my surgery and I have been focusing on healing. But today I got a taste of my normal activity level. I had an Encore meeting here at my house at 9:30 am, had phone calls from Falmouth Hospital Rehab to set up an assessment and follow-up PT sessions in March and April, fixed and ate lunch, and suddenly it was time to head to Hyannis for an appointment with my knee surgeon’s assistant. I was to get a cortisone shot in my right knee and then meet with the specialist who fits and trains people on proper fitting of braces, a knee brace in my case. I have had the brace for a year, maybe two, but have not really used it because it hurts and always slid down my leg. After 15 minutes with brace specialist, I was good to go. I now know what I was doing wrong and hopefully wearing it on walks with Shadow will allow me to slowly build back up to walking a mile, then two..

My appointment was in Hyannis and since I have barely been out of the house for two weeks, I had a list of places I needed to go. On the list was Job Lot for flower pots, Home Depot for a board to put in my bathroom to mount the towel rack I pulled off the wall just after the surgery, and Whole Foods for fresh veggies and tea. I didn’t get home until 4:30, with barely enough time to take Shadow out to play before dark. Then I had a quick dinner and went to a 7 pm Newcomers DEI Committee meeting as I am the Encore representative. It lasted almost two hours, so I just got home.

Whew! How quickly one can forget just how crazy life can be. I have been living in my little bubble and just letting the world pass by. I don’t intend for all days forward to be as intense as today, but when I look at my calendar, I see lots of things for next week. But now it is time to sit down and relax.

2024 Life Logs, Day 31: Reading the Day Away
Date: Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Weather: Overcast; High Temp 34, Low 30 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

I have been reading The Covenant of Water, which is a wonderful book, but very long and serious. A few days ago, I switched to reading my February book club selection and after reading the day away today, I finished it. The name of the book is Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, but it is more about the lives of a diverse group of young people who interact with Vera. She is a hoot.

We were back to zero sunshine today and the temp hovered to close to 32 degrees F for my liking. Tomorrow and Friday are a bit warmer, but rain comes with the relative warmth. Then we have another week of freezy temps. I’m still looking for that beauty, but it is escaping me!

2024 Life Logs, Day 30: The Dead of Winter
Date: Tuesday, January 30, 2024
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Cold; High Temp 33, Low 24 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA

Okay. When I took Shadow for his morning walk, I tried hard to find something beautiful to brighten my day. All I found were dead plants everywhere except for my garden where the Swiss chard is still trying to survive. It did look beautiful, but generally my search left me thinking that the term “the dead of winter” describes best what I saw today. When I searched that term, I learned that historical average temperatures typically reach their lowest point of the year between January 10 and February 10. So, I am going to hibernate until Valentine’s Day and hope that by then the temperature rises just a little. Today just felt too cold for me.

I took Shadow to his grooming appointment, did a couple of laundry loads, read a little, and watched another two episodes of Growing Floret. That was it for my day.