A New Work Year, back pain

Well, here we are! The New Work Year has begun! Years ago I stopped looking at the calendar change as anything other than a chronological event. Like a birthday each year that signified that I was one year older but indicated no other significant changes or special privileges or a change or a do-over of any kind, it was just a date. So, I do not set plans based on the calendar change any more than I do on the time change we endure twice yearly. A year seems like a fairly long time as a frame of reference. 365 ½ days divided into twelve months or fifty-two weeks, however you choose to count it, but this year like all those in the past will fly by and we will miss many daily and weekly blessings if we do not continue to count them, to acknowledge them, as they occur. It is one of the reasons I take time to write this blog. I am very quick to forget or to be distracted by something happening around me to always think of how good God continues to be to me and Mama.

But the work goes on – on the farm, at the office, in our real estate business, with Mama’s business, etc. Far more than enough to keep us busy. At the office, the work scheduled for me is taking off with classes beginning tomorrow. I will be getting things set up for Red to teach tomorrow while I will be teaching a class on Wednesday and doing a mock session Thursday with a prospective new instructor for one of the classes I do not teach. That pace will be about the average through the first quarter of the year. One to two classes per week for me to teach and one class to set up for another instructor to teach. So, as you can see, I am already scheduling my time through the end of March of this year. The second quarter plan will be set by the end of this month and I will see my schedule through the middle of the year by the end of January. And so it goes. At least it is planned that far in advance. We will see what obstacles and challenges the coming months throw at us, but we have a plan in place, and it helps me know what will be expected of me in the next few weeks.

Over the long weekend, I started a couple projects but was not able to complete any of them because they all require materials I am not able to get because Grandma and Grandpa have my truck while they wait on a vehicle Norman has bought for them. It is not a long list of materials that I need, but I cannot continue without them and I cannot get them to the farm without the truck. So, I did a lot of little things around the farm. I took down a portion of the fence around the old pig lot - the one she made a complete mess of – so that I could use the tractor to level out that area once it dries up sufficiently. I did a little work with the tractor to rearrange the dirt to fill some deep holes in the access area for the pig building, but it was far too wet to get it all done.

I rearranged a corner of the shop and cleaned things up as I went. I got set up to use a kit I bought years ago to convert a barrel into a shop stove. A 55-gallon barrel is one of the items I need to get to the farm which will require the truck. I pulled the back off a cedar wardrobe Mama and I bought years ago so that I can outfit it with shelving for her to use a craft storage unit. To get the cabinet into the shop I had to relocate the pallet of feed to the garage that normally sits in the entrance of the shop. Fortunately, there were only six bags of feed to relocate and those will be placed in feed containers around the farm by the end of the week. Getting more feed, which we will need to do soon, will also require the truck.

Unfortunately, by the time Friday evening rolled around, my back was hurting badly. I tried to do light duty things Saturday and rest my back, but as I had fed the pig Friday morning, I slipped in the slimy ground made horrible uneven by the constant rooting of the pig and felt my back pop as I strained to remain upright. (Two inches of rain over the weekend had left all the holes created by the pig full of water so nothing was drying out in the area we moved the pig from.) Anyway, that little slip started the pain which grew steadily worse until I could almost not move Sunday morning. Since Mama was hurting badly as well, we stayed home from church. We both hate to miss church. Fortunately, Victoria has a TENS unit which I was able to use. It relieved most of the muscle pain but could do little for the spinal pain. That continues this morning.

Mama is hurting badly enough that she is talking about having her right knee replacement done. So, you know she is in pretty severe pain. As far as I know there is nothing that I will be able to get done for my back, so I will continue to live with it.  

Sometimes it is not so bad.