Happy Anniversary to Me!

Today is a very special anniversary to me, it is the 3rd anniversary of my spinal fusion surgery!

Many people have asked me why this is something I celebrate and I just say that it is the anniversary of the day my life began again. For anyone who was around me then and anyone whose ever had bad disks you will know how much pain I was in.

Don't get me wrong, the surgery sucked as did the months of physical therapy but each day it got a little better until I was back to doing almost all of my normal activities. I will never be able to play contact sports again (no more Basketball or Hockey for me) and I miss them but being able to get out of bed, sit in a chair, go hiking, go to the gym or the store or anywhere is well worth the trade off to me!

I have a really cool X-ray of all the hardware in my back but I can't figure out how to scan it so you'll just have to use your imagination :)

Here's a link that describes the surgery I had in basic terms : Spine Fusion

Back from Vacation

I spent the last week visiting my friend Tiffany who currently lives in Peru, IL which is about 90 miles west of Chicago. We met in college while both doing an internship at NASA in Cleveland and later became roomates during my senior year and her 1st year of grad school.

This is not the most flattering photo of either of us but we both forgot to have Drew (Tiff's husband) take a photo so I ended up taking this at the airport.

Tiff is a stay at home mom with 2 kids. Kirin is 5 and Cooper is 2. They are great kids but boy do they have alot of energy! I'm sure I had that much spunk at some point but I don't remember it. The first few days I was there the weather was sunny with highs around 80 so we took advantage of it and ran the kids ragged with outdoor activities. It started raining on Wednesday so we redecorated Cooper's room in between Tiff playing referee to the kids. The last day I was in town we left the kids with Dad and drove to Chicago for shopping on the Miracle Mile. Once we got into downtown the snow flurries started! It was cold and I didn't buy anything but its always fun to shop with a good friend.

I'm not dead...just really busy

Work has finally slowed down a little bit! Monday I went to the gym for the first time in 3 weeks and yesterday I left work while it was still light out. With all the new free time I've had, I was finally able to finish the first of 4 placemats that I'm knitting for a friend's wedding at the end of May. I'll post photos later but trust me when I say it looks better than I thought it would.