Another busy day

 But today did go better.

I was a BIT sore after walking yesterday, but not terribly. So maybe I do need to start moving more. Not sure I'm up for the cross-country ski simulator just yet, it's pretty repetitive in its motion and I can imagine it would hurt the knee more than walking on a soft surface would.

But anyway. 

I went in today and evaluated the 53 (by my count) applications for the three scholarships my AAUW group is giving out. There were a number of good ones, and then a few....well, let's say that were a triumph of hope over reality. And a couple that were handed in incomplete, which sinks them - if I can't figure out your GPA from your supporting documents, I am NOT taking the time to look it up (even though I could). We ask for it - and some of the people on this committee are NOT professors here, so they can't look up things like transcripts if they're not included.

That took me from about 9 am until 5 pm with a short break for lunch, and then I quickly put together the images for the "identify this plant" part of the botany exam next week. 

So I think - depending on how my leg feels tomorrow - I've earned a trip to Michael's and maybe JoAnn's and maybe also a larger grocery than the ones locally.

The biggest thing, though? When I got home I thought, "well, my leg feels tight and stiff but it's hurting less, maybe it's time for me to try at least some of the PT exercises I had from last year"

They always advised me to do at least 10 minutes of low-to-moderate impact exercise (like: walking on a treadmill) to warm up first, so I decided to do more cleaning - I swept and vacuumed and ran a swiffer over the floor, and put a few things away.

And then I rolled out the exercise mat and thought "well, here goes nothing"

For one thing: I was afraid I'd hurt something again. The bigger fear, though, since my right leg still doesn't like supporting my weight when it's bent (I can go UP stairs like I used to, right-left-right-left, but I have to go DOWN stairs by stepping down with my right foot, and then bringing the left down to meet it; I can't comfortably support my weight on the right leg with the knee bent even with the cane on my left side - I can do like one or two stairs in a flight that way, but not all of them, and I can mostly do all of them going up) was that I might not be able to get back up.

My first contingency plan there was to use the sofa to pull myself up with my upper body strength - even if I could just heave myself onto the sofa, I could then use that to get myself vertical. Or, failing that - crawl or drag over to unlock the front door and then call someone to come over and help me up.

But I did manage! Twice! First to get up and put on the six o'clock news so I could see the weather while I stretched, and then again at the end. I won't say it was easy to do, not like in the before times, but I managed to do it. And I managed to do a light workout - not all the repetitions I did before the injury, and I skipped the strenuous "dead bug" bit (where you lie on your back with knees and arms bent and slowly wave them back and forth), but I did it

and then I got up

And my immediate reaction was something from SpongeBob:

Hopefully I won't be too sore to go tomorrow. If I'm not, or if I'm even BETTER, that means I need to do more moving around than I have been doing.

(Sitting really is the enemy, and sitting in a low chair is worst of all - if I had a taller chair where either my feet were flat on the floor or where they hung down a little, it would be better, but my desk chair at work and most chairs at home are not like that)