This week will be my busiest week before Christmas. We are in the full swing of Christmas stuff, but things should quiet down after next Tuesday. After that, I’d like to see if we can squeeze in a night visit to the city. On to some good things:
- Our Christmas Tree is up. Usually, I put it up on the first of December, but this year, we were away. I finally got it up last Saturday, and S and G helped put the decorations on. There was a bit of grumbling, but it hardly took any time for the three of us to do it. When I was tightening the screws in the bottom, one broke off, leaving half in the thread, so the tree is now a little lopsided. I hope we can keep using it. This tree has lasted us over twenty years, and I do not want to get a new one.
- We finished another puzzle. This wasn’t easy. I was working on the trees on the right, which was more challenging than it looked. I got this from an Op Shop and I decided this was the puzzle’s last hurrah. There were several pieces where the picture had peeled off the cardboard backing and, as you can see, one missing piece.
- On Saturday night, we went out with the girls for my birthday. We went to Tulum, a Turkish restaurant not far from us. The food was excellent.
- We had our small group over for a BBQ on Tuesday night as an end-of-year/Christmas celebration. Great times, as usual, and I sent everyone home with a few stalks from our rhubarb plant.
- We also had a friend over for dinner. He’s going through a tough time, so it was good to be able to host him for dinner.
- We went to Movida in the city for our work Christmas party. We’ve been once before. It has amazing Spanish food, but we all commented on how expensive the wine was, especially when compared to how much wine cost us recently in Spain. It was very good wine though, and I thoroughly enjoyed my one glass.
- The city was looking very festive.
- I have a targeted strength plan now. I went to a physiotherapist, who measured my strength in various muscles. To do this, you are pushing against stationary objects, and the force produced is measured. My calves and quads are under what I need to go longer distances, and my left side is weaker. My hip abductors and adductors were strong enough, but the right was significantly weaker than the left, so I need to work on that. A lot of what I was doing in the gym was good, so I need to add a couple of extra exercises and maybe add one more session initially to build strength before I increase my mileage significantly. I think it was a helpful exercise so I can be more targeted in my gym work—I don’t love weights enough to spend more time on them than I need to. While I was there, he also assessed my running on a treadmill, but he felt there were no apparent problems, so that was good.
Have you ever had a strength assessment like this done? Do you have a flurry of end-of-year activities that tapers off towards Christmas, or are you go, go, go right up to Christmas Day?
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