Bears Love People, originally uploaded by criana.

Our annual trip to Maine, I’m actually going to walk away with a t-shirt from the Cool As A Moose store in Bar Harbor this year. This is a new one to me, and I can’t stop laughing.

me and mel, originally uploaded by criana.

Not exactly getting a lot done when she does this. She laid at the end of the bed for a good hour then got up and proceeded to make herself comfortable there. She’s a special one.

Down an arm I stopped working on the project I was doing. Good times.

Just wanted to note for the record, who knows I may go back and read these some day. Physical therapy is going really well. This is the routine:

• 15 minutes electrical stimulation with heat pack
• 10 minutes of ultrasound
• 15 reps x 3 of 5 variations of abdominal work (crunches)
• 15 reps x 3 leg presses at 100 lbs
• 15 reps x 3 ham string curls at 30 lbs (my weak area)
• 15 reps x 3 squats with 1 lb medicine ball between knees (helps with knee problem)

I wake up in the morning feeling really good, no more stiffness. I can sit for longer periods without wanting to get up and move around. Except at church where the rock hard wooden benches with no back support irritate it.

All in all things are going much better than they were 6 weeks ago. I see the orthopedist on March 7th for my follow and we’ll see where things go from there.

The physical therapy center offers a Wellness program, which I’m going to sign up for. It essentially allows you to come in and use the gym, still talk to them for small things and get care. Bally’s will be getting a letter from my orthopedist that I will no longer be going there. The best benefit is the physical therapy place is literally 3/4 of a mile from our home, and the people are really nice and very professional.

Scout and his walking guides, originally uploaded by criana.

We went out again, but this time to Bulls Bridge in South Kent. Kelly’s Uncle Steve joined us and Scout our trusty guide.

It was harder this time with some snow being packed down but also just heavier and denser. More work. Today we also did some hills up and down. Made it out to the Ten Mile bridge, got up on it and enjoyed the view.

Using the trekking poles while snow shoeing certainly helps with stability but they also give an extra part of the work out.

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

Life Is Good: Diana, originally uploaded by criana.

Kelly and I met to go snow shoeing today. Kelly has been before, this would be my first time. We drove up to White Memorial Park in Litchfield, Connecticut. I have to say, wow this is so much fun! We had a great time. We passed a few cross country skiers. We were out for an hour exploring the trails. It was still lightly snowing but the tree cover kept us dry. On our way back to the car we saw two other people snow shoeing. So much fun! We’re going again tomorrow.

Ski Tracks, originally uploaded by criana.

A Room with a View, originally uploaded by criana.

Wednesday was a busy day as usual, came home from physical therapy to a quick crisis at work, which was resolved within about 30-40 minutes. Craig was home sick, he had gotten some nasty stomach virus previously that morning. I was running around at 8:30 at night making dinner for him, cleaning up the kitchen, finishing up the project for work, when the phone rang.

The phone call was from my mother’s fiancee to tell me they were at the hospital and my mother was being readmitted for emergency surgery. A quick background, she had surgery on Tuesday in the AM, and they discharged her Wednesday at 4pm. It was now 9:00pm and they were back there, she had been blacking out and her blood pressure had dropped to 60/30. Scary stuff.

I got myself together, called my good friend Kelly and met her down at the hospital. She kindly enough brought me Starbucks to help stay awake. Dan, my mother’s fiancee was there, filled in a bit more on the time line. We sat and waited until 12:30am for the doctor to come out. He said she had had a lot of internal bleeding, but no specific bleeder, gave us some possible reasons and said she was being moved to recovery now.

More waiting, but I had brought my iPhone and knitting, so I had something to do. I caught up on episodes of Diggnation. It’s always good to have some laughs while in a time of stress. We were told she’d there for about 90 minutes, then moved up to her room. We waited, and waited. 3:00am comes and I went and checked with the front desk again, we were now the last people there. 3:30am, they finally got someone in recovery to answer the phone and said we could go see her. It was good to see her, she was smiling and pretty groggy as well as shaken up.

I got home around 4:10am, it was a quiet ride home on the roads. I called into work and hit the pillow. Thursday, I went down and spent about 2 hours with her, she was sitting up and chatty as usual. She was giving instructions to the nurses on which medications she wanted and how much dosage, along with what does work and what doesn’t for her. She’s a nurses worst nightmare, she’s worked at the hospital for 30+ years and been hanging around medicine for longer.

It’s been a crazy 36 hours! But very glad to still have my Mom with me.

Just posting an update to my herniated back situation.

At this point I’m feeling relatively good. Last week I had my first two physical therapy sessions and between being out of shape, and then having not exercised in 2 months, they were intense.

Right now, I’m doing some simple core work, and when I’m there, they do electrical stimulation on my back along with ultrasound.

We’re reigning in our eating out, and working as a team to eat healthier, so the progress can only be good.

Today we went for a walk in Steep Rock, it was my first outdoors hike since mid December.

As I laid on the floor tonight doing the exercises, I kept saying to myself, “you have to do this, you need to get rid of all this extra crap surrounding your body”. I’m trying hard to have hope that somehow my skin will go back, and I can look like a healthy person again. But somedays I get really fearful that I’ll do all the work and be saggy.

Over the summer, we embarked on transferring a bunch of old VHS tapes to DVD. Talk about a trip down memory lane. This shot is from me driving around during the summer of 1994, learning to drive in Craig’s parent’s 1986 Mercedes 190D. We had so much fun, but as I watched an hour of so of driving around town I was like, ok what the heck was I was thinking, that anyone would want to watch this.

I still need to go through and pair down the footage. Recently my hometown has expanded the main road to 4 lanes, and there is more shopping malls than ever before. Now this footage we took is pretty unique.

Another project…