Fall 2008

Hello again,

The weather was pretty good for fall I think and there were some really nice days that I spent outside on my lounge chair/bed and either read or laid outside to take in the rest of the warmth before the cold weather started to arrive. But since fall is typically the time when I normally do alot of helping out with preparing stuff for winter (i.e-cleaning up the vegetable garden), I felt really bad some days because I couldn't help this year once again. Emotionally I really had some bad days. I wish I could say that I am one of those people who can just relax and enjoy the free time I have when I am unable to do anything else but I am not. I constantly felt bad that my parents were doing so much and I wasn't helping out despite the fact that I could do very little to help. I felt so guilty about being unable to help that I often tried to help anyways despite not being in the best shape to do much. I remember one weekend that the Tomatoes in the greenhouse finally froze and that my mom was so busy that she could not get to it so I went outside and decided to pull Tomato plants. This is not an easy task when your muscles are weak from not being used for a long period of time and you have a sore back! Also these Tomato plants grew to about 4 or 5 ft so they were not small plants. I discovered that the plants were not coming out of the pots very easily so I decided to just take the little clippers and snip the plants just above the dirt and then toss the dead plants. The roots would still be in the pots in the spring but I figured I would be in better shape then to deal with them at that point. lol Well to make a long story short, I did too much and for the next couple weeks had terrible pain in my shoulder and part of my back and had pain when I moved. But I took care of the tomato plants and accomplished something so I trying not to complain. lol Then on Thanksgiving my sister and husband usually come over and we all take care of the massive amount of leaves that have fallen on our acreage. But this year I could not help so I figured I could at least take the camera and take pictures of it all and stayed outside when I could. We have alot of leaves that fall because we have planted over 300 trees here and it is absolutely beautiful but makes for a big clean up in the fall. I may not have gotten to help but I did get to spend some time outside with everyone. I almost forgot that I was given the go ahead to start with physio which was another milestone that meant I was improving. The only downside is that physio and the excercises are not easy but I knew that if I didn't do the excercises I was only hurting my chances of improving further. One way I helped myself to keep going when I would get tired and sore was to look at a couple pictures of me on the last mountain hike I did and remind myself that I was working towards doing that again. In a way I set a goal for myself and it helped me big time when I have wanted to quit or skip my exercises. I will go hiking again and things will improve.