2025 Life Logs, Day 46: Making My Neck Happy
Date: Saturday, February 15, 2025
Weather: Overcast and Windy, Snow Late; High Temp 29, Low 25 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
It has been snowing for the past couple of hours. Shadow and I just went outside and found about a inch of lovely white snow on the ground.
It is 26 degrees out right now, but during the night the temperature is going to go up, not down. By the middle of the night, it will go up above freezing and by 10 am the forecast says it will be 40 degrees with rain all day tomorrow. I definitely prefer the snow, but unfortunately, I don’t control the weather.
Since October, I have had what I will call a stiff neck, just on the left side. I’m sure I have written about this, but I don’t think I mentioned that I finally started physical therapy for it this last week. I have learned a lot in that week about what makes my neck ‘happy’ and after this morning’s session, I came home and spent the rest of the day rearranging things that aggravate my neck. My television was too high, so I had remove the half-high bookshelf it was sitting on and put it on the same low IKEA low shelving unit it was on when I lived in the cottage. Here, I was using that low shelving unit in the kitchen. But now it is in the living room and the half-high bookshelf is in the kitchen. Last weekend, I moved the location of my computer to a higher table, but it is still not right. I have ordered an adjustable shelf for my laptop and will have to buy a wireless keyboard at Staples tomorrow. And then there is my cell phone. It is the real problem. I tend to read all of my news on my phone, work my daily mini-crossword, and on and on, all while holding the phone in my lap. That means I am looking down and that is a no-no. It needs to be at eye level like my computer screen and my television. Did you know your head weighs about 15 pounds. And your neck is happiest when your back is straight and your head is facing forward, not up or down. The PT told me this morning that they are now getting a deluge of teenagers in physical therapy with the same neck problems that I have been having. And it is all because they spend so much time looking down at their phones. And now I am going to go to bed and read, sitting up straight and holding that book up at eye level.
