In With the New

2013 has been an awesome year (see previous post), but the last few weeks have been sufficiently out of the realm of my usual routine to make me eager for a fresh year and a return to normalcy. Five days before Christmas, I had surgery, and precisely a week later, on the 27th, so did Bill. Both were non-emergency outpatient procedures, but enough to keep each of us on painkillers and in bed for the better part of a week. Bill took amazing care of me, along with the help of my excellent friends, and by the time Bill's turn rolled around, I could get around enough to take care of him. We had a nice low-key Christmas with my parents visiting, and sunshine for three days, with lots of good food and many games of Bananagrams. At this point we've still got a few days of laid-up-ness to go, and we're both good and ready to get back to normal. We both lead active lives, and tend to guage the goodness of a day by our level of productivity during it, and when you're healing and can't move around too much, all of that kind of goes out the window. So we've been playing cribbage, reading a lot, knitting (me), learning to knit (Bill), watching The Woodwright's Shop on PBS, and finding out that we can spend two weeks in almost constant contact with each other without conflict (yay!).

I won't be fully back to normal for another month or so (most aggravating of all, no biking for me until almost February), but returning to work routines and being able to take care of ourselves will be awfully refreshing (I took two full weeks off work, so I've still got another week free. I miss going to work, but also I don't). I've never had surgery before, and it's been ages since I've had any illness that kept me inactive for more than a few days, so it's been a huge adjustment. It was kind of nice to have an excuse to lay around watching movies for the first few days, but that gets old pretty fast. I'm up to taking a 15-minute walk every day, and am already restless get back to hiking and biking and other activities to combat the cloying gray that is a Portland winter.

I'm happy to greet the new year, and to look forward to traveling to new places, working on new projects, pursuing my public health career and of course becoming an aunt in just a few short months (mid or late March!). I've been dreaming of camping trips with Bill to sunny dry places, trips to the coast for sun, wind and salt air, backyard barbecues on warm summer nights, getting back on my bike for miles and miles, and working with new recipes from my Christmas present cookbooks. With any luck, and a little bit of effort, the new year will contain all of these things and more.

So it's out with the old, in with the new. 

I wish you and yours a bright, happy, healthy and adventuresome 2014!