Speedy Gonzales

Today Jeff got a speeding ticket. He has been stopped at least four previous times for speeding, but each time did not get a ticket, and said he would stop speeding if he ever did get one. He has now vowed to stop speeding, not because he thinks it is dangerous but because he does not want to pay for another ticket. I have always maintained that speeding is dangerous, and the facts back me up, but I will be happy to see him slow down regardless of the reason. If you happen to be riding in a car with him, feel free to remind him of his new resolution :)

So I survived my week alone at home, and my solo trip to Portland. It was indeed a bit more tiring having to attend to things like cleaning litter boxes, watering the garden, and being in charge of making all my own meals, while still trying to go to work full-time. However, I managed, and it gave me a bit of a confidence boost to know that I can be that independent. My trip to Portland was also extremely smooth, thanks in large part to little bits of help from several friends. I had a wonderful time visiting friends that I hadn't seen in years – I saw some people that I hadn't seen for 10 years, including the groom – and catching up with others I had seen more recently but still don't get to see as often as I would like. I realized after I got home that I had neglected to take even a single picture, so I will have to instead take special care to commit these episodes to memory.

Next Saturday Jeff and I leave for a 10 day trip to Eugene for my sister's wedding. Besides wedding-related events, my plans mostly center around making sure I get a good dose of Prince Puckler's ice cream and some good Thai food. I think I probably will not be disappointed.

With all the busyness of summer trips and the like, certain aspects of my rehab have not been as prominent in my day to day. In some ways I am constantly working on my rehab, and in other ways certain things have plateaued. One thing I recently realized is that I have started to settle into habits with certain things, like how I get in and out of a chair. While what I'm doing is functional, it isn't exactly normal, and it is making me think of something one of my physical therapists said more than six months ago: once something gets easy enough (not easy, just easy enough), it's time to move on to the next level. It has been nice that certain things are getting easier, but if I truly want to improve, I'll have to make those things harder again.

It doesn't work to do hard things all the time, but to build in some more challenging activities where I can handle them is a good idea– like trying to be a little bit faster sometimes with how I get in and out of a chair. I keep being reminded of the developmental psychology concept of the "zone of proximal development." This refers to the fact that there are certain things at certain ages/stages that kids are more ready to learn than others; that if you try to teach a one- or two-year-old to read it will simply do no good (and depending on your approach, may actually do harm), but if you provide opportunities for learning to read to a four- or five-year-old, the child will readily learn. Even a few months ago if I had tried to alter my patterns for activities like sitting down and standing up, it probably would have been not only counterproductive but also dangerous. But I think that I've entered a new "zone," and now while Jeff is practicing slowing down, it's time for me to practice speeding up!

Five things

Things have been busy! A few of the most notable things that have happened recently, are happening now, or are about to happen:

1. My mom came to visit. It was fun to show her where we live now – the house, the city, and the province. We did lots of things including making pancakes with farmers market haskaps, touring a local orchard, swimming in a local lake (I waded in about halfway up my calves), and going for a bike ride.

2. I got a new bike. A woman was looking for a good home for a recumbent bike, and gave it to me. I had been using my bike with the stabilizer wheels attached, but it was really challenging and a little bit more like therapy than leisure. At first I felt guilty about taking the recumbent bike, since I already had a bike to ride, but then Jeff reminded me that not everything has to be therapy, and riding the recumbent bike is really fun. I can go much faster and can go for longer without getting tired because it is not challenging my balance. Also, the stabilizer wheels may not have been attached 100% correctly – my mom tried riding my bike with the stabilizer wheels, and deemed it unrideable. Jeff had previously noted that it was extremely difficult to ride with the stabilizer wheels. We believe the problem may be that the wheels were not perfectly parallel to the back wheel, making it veer to the right all the time. We have removed the stabilizer wheels, and will try reattaching them again, and I may find that my balance wasn't so bad as I thought it was, and that it wasn't me it was the bike. For now, I'm having a great time on the recumbent.

3. I went swimming at the pool. I was pretty scared to get in the water, but it turned out that being in the water was actually really easy. I can keep myself afloat, and can do all kinds of things in the water that I can't do on land, like jump up and down. Unfortunately we went when the pool was exclusively filled with lap swimmers (even though it was an open swim time) so I felt a little silly trying to see whether I could jump on 1 foot (I can).

4. Today Jeff left to go visit friends and family in Ontario, and I am home alone for several days for the first time in over a year. So far so good! But this means that I have to do for myself all the things that Jeff usually does for me, so I am likely to be a bit tired and doing things the minimalist way for the next week.

5. On Friday I will get on a plane to head to a friend's wedding all by myself – my first time traveling alone in quite some time. I have help planned for getting to the airport, will be helped by airline staff when I make my connection, and will be picked up by a friend when I arrive at my destination. Everything is all planned out, but I can't help feeling like I will need a bit of good luck to make this trip go smoothly.

Also, since I will be away next weekend there will probably not be another blog post for two weeks. So if you don't hear anything from me, it is not because I had some horrible accident while being home alone, or because things went horribly awry on my solo trip. I'm just busy having a fun and busy summer!

Camping and Canada Day

Today is Canada Day, which means that I am not at work, and will instead be barbecuing this evening. It is also one of the biggest camping weekends of the summer. A couple of weeks ago Jeff and I decided that we would like to go camping, and made plans to go last weekend, but decided to stay home after there were thunderstorms predicted all weekend. We tried to get a campsite for this weekend instead, but there were literally none available through the province's campsite reservation system, so we went midweek last week instead. Flexibility like that is one of the perks of academia, especially in the summer when campus is fairly dead.

We headed to Lake Diefenbaker which is about a two-hour drive northwest of Regina, though it took us a bit longer because we took a wrong turn (or rather, failed to take a left turn).

Views of the Qu'Appelle Valley, which we would have missed if we had stayed on the correct road

We eventually made it to our campsite,which was nestled in natural stands of aspen and birch trees. 

We had to buy a new tent, because the one we already had is a tiny two-person backpacking tent, which is too hard for me to get in and out of. This one seemed massive by comparison, but getting in and out of it wound up being harder than I thought it would be, and so was a source of some serious exercise throughout our trip.

The Franklin's Ground Squirrel was our constant companion at our campsite, with as many as three at a time chasing each other around camp at meal times

Despite already being tired, I decided to attempt a new feat on this trip, so after our first night in the tent, we went for a short hike. It was a 1.5 mile loop, fairly flat (though there were some small hills, and the terrain was definitely rougher than the floors and paved sidewalks I'm used to), and would be considered a very "easy" hike. I have been taking walks with Jeff where I use him as my support – no crutches or canes – and we decided to try the trail using this strategy. Although I was literally falling over by the end, I was able to finish. We took a couple of rest breaks, and all in all it took about an hour and a half – an average speed of about one mile per hour, so quite slow even by slow hiking standards, but definite progress from where I was even a month ago.

Early on along the trail

 We are learning about the different ecosystems within Saskatchewan. The particular area where we were is actually formed of sand dunes, and cacti grow there. I had no idea – I thought it was all just grassland here, but apparently there are many very diverse areas within the province.

Jeff with a prickly pear cactus

Running down a sand dune

Later that afternoon we went to the lake, where Jeff swam and I sat in a camp chair on the sandy beach.

The water was not very deep – about 40 feet out, and still barely waist deep – but the sky is enormous here

Sunset over the lake on our last night

 Overall, camping and hiking were difficult, and I was limited in what I could do, but this was definitely a successful experiment!