Hey

Nothing substantial to report here, just rolling along. Saw the surgeon on Tuesday and that went very well. He said I'm healing on schedule or ahead of, took off the remaining bandages, and said I can eat anything that doesn't make me sick and do anything that isn't painful. So, no crunches yet, but I can start other exercises. My incisions are actually only sensitive to the touch (like when jeans, which I am back to wearing, rub against them), and otherwise I have no pain at all. And of course, the weight that I lost, a big 7 pounds, is starting to come back as I eat more.

I'm considering mall walking. It's not a bad thing in terms of giving my days some structure, and it's good exercise. I have to decide which of the two close malls to use, the smaller one with the skylights (Paramus Park) or the bigger one with more walking distance and a choice of two levels (Garden State Plaza.) I wonder if they both have a Dunkin Donuts, or a Starbucks? And where the bathrooms are? And which one doesn't play its muzak too loud so I can hear what I'm listening to on my earphones. Something to investigate. It may also be time to look into the kettlebell. I have one -- two, in fact -- but I'm not sure if I have a good DVD to go with them. They're supposedly the hot exercise item of the moment, good for everyone and a good workout. Yeah, yeah, we'll see.

I did order my recliner last week, but it's back ordered, so I won't have it for another few weeks. I also got a terrific sleeping bag from Amazon, cotton and very roomy, and oh so cozy to sleep in. And even brown, which is the color of the recliner and essentially of the whole room. And I picked up a floor/reading lamp at Target yesterday that I can stand behind the chair so I'll have a nice, focused reading light while I'm lying in the lap of luxury there.

I've started reading some SF time-traveling novels by Connie Willis, which I'm so far enjoying. So far, I've read about late 21st century historians going back to witness the London Blitz and medieval England during the Plague. An interesting concept, a pleasant writer. Oh, I also just finished A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest Gaines, a book that's on every high school reading list but I never got to before, and it was excellent.

And that's my story for today. Oh, I had a birthday on Wednesday, which went by very quietly due to the snow that day and not having a car at hand (not that I would have driven frivolously in the snow anyway.) The Hubs persistently gave me a lovely plant, which I immediately relinquished to his care. He says he's going to keep buying me plants until we find one that lives.