On the rebound

Oh my friends, it has been quite some time, hasn’t it? Despite the fact that I have had limited ability to function the last couple months, I am in surprisingly good spirits. Don’t get me wrong, I had my moments of grief and restlessness in all this, but ultimately, I came out with a message that made sense in the long run. I am feeling much less pain now. It rarely gets above a three, and I have started doing things like cooking, and cleaning, slowly and deliberately, again. It seems that everything I do is slow and deliberate these days. I am ok with slow and deliberate, as it is so much better than nothing! I really did get pretty stir crazy there at the end of the bedrest part. I have been given permission to do some limited chores, as long as they are short, light work, and I take longer breaks than I spent doing them. I am allowed to do some Tai-Chi, as long as my neck doesn’t have to roll around, and that is a start. I am slowly on the mend, and wow, physical therapy is getting hard. I have spent so many years training my body incorrectly and using my muscles to guard my nerves, that I literally have to manually turn my hand for three of the stretches, cause my brain just wont do it. I hope I can work hard enough this week to surprise her with the ability to do it next week. She does traction, and any one of these days, my disk is gonna pop right back in…and I am looking forward to that day!

I have spent a lot of time the last several days, researching some of the financials for the business plan. I have never been able to wrap my brain around this before. I can see all the details so clearly, but never, ever been  able to grasp how I might find the numbers for it. For some reason that is not clear to me, after spending a couple months in bed, I am finally able to grasp it. I feel that I have officially book studied chickens to death, and that the only thing left is to have the hands on experience now. I have never had chickens of my own, but have spent quite a bit of time around them at friends houses. I am comfortable with chickens, and ready to try them out. I was shocked, however, when working on my business plan, and talking to my husband about how many chickens he pictures us having. It was about three times as many as I pictures, and since he is gone on the road most days, I think I will go for a happy medium, at least to start with.

I have moved on to the financials of bees. I am now working on the vocabulary associated with beekeeping. I am learning the nuts and bolts of supers and nucs and hives, and it is incredibly interesting. Lots to learn, and I was excited to discover an internship that is held locally, at the college, in my research today.

I am full of ambition and motivation, despite the fact that my body says slow down, so I have to work hard to take it easy. I find that to be the most challenging task of all. It’s spring garden season, and I can’t get my early garden stuff started. I had to tell myself that maybe God knows something I don’t and maybe I will be too busy packing or moving this fall? One can hope…

I have figured out that I get the house much cleaner, much more efficiently, if I spend a great deal of time doing small, five minute projects. It seems like everywhere I turn, people I know are having babies, buying houses, starting new things. I am ready for a new start too, and can’t wait to see what the good Lord has in store for me. I am happy to be on the rebound, and I got the message to slow down, breathe and be thankful for life, and let my body heal! Patience is a tough one for me, but I may even have that one harnessed in this week.

It is good to be able to check in here, and get a few words out. Hope you all find yourself in good health, with many blessings! Until next time…