A Musician's Musings

Yeah, I'll stick it out another week, maybe two, but I may just say fuck it to PT and put together my own program. At least then I wouldn't have to dip into my workday to arrange it.

The regular physical therapist was my person today (get one day with her and one day with the aide) and she kept scolding I was rushing through things. Except that I wasn't. I wasn't doing them deliberately super slow or deliberately quickly. I was just doing what she gave me at a steady pace. The problem is that, again, she's doing three or four people all at the same time and so when I'm given an assignment like rolling the ball up the wall 10x and then doing 10 pushups against the ball and repeating these two times, it's not going to take me very long. Think about it, count to ten including those needed "Missisissippis" and is it really going to take all that time to carefully roll a rubber ball up the wall above your head and back down? Even less for the pushups. So if I'm taking my time, that's only six or seven minutes total while she's going around to the other people and assigning them things. So I'd do them another cycle or two and still get tsk tsked. She also didn't have the time to assign me non-lying down exercise though she agrees that I should be doing standing things. I'll have to make up my own homework, I suppose.

I don't object to the concept of PT. I object to this place's methods which really feel like they're milking insurance companies. Sure, I could go shopping around for another and start all over but the thing is, I know what I'm supposed to do. I just have to have the discipline to actually DO it.

Discouraging. I didn't have really high hopes but I thought it would be better than this. 

I felt cranky during a lot of it but I think most of that was still fear that my back is going to go all wonky. However at the moment I am feeling more "worked the muscles" achy rather than "oh shit the back's going to go at any moment" achy so it's a start. I bought a little notebook so that while things are still fresh in my mind, I can document what I did there and try to document my "homework" Today I did this

5 forward bends - I have no problem touching my toes with my fingers, fortunately
5 back bends - those made the lower back pissy right away so we corrected that with
10 more forward bends
10 minutes on the recumbent bike with 3.5 resistance. My back didn't like this so when done, I got up and bent a few more times
30 straight-arm pulls with the rubber band
30 bent-arm pulls with a tougher rubber band
10 sit-stands with a small medicine ball
10 stand-touches with a small medicine ball (tough!)
10 stand-hover with a small medicine ball (really tough!)
3 sets of 10 bridges on the bed with a ball held between my knees. 

Lying down exercises suck. I mentioned that. My back doesn't like lying down though it's less bad with my knees bent. Since I was wincing midway through the bridges because the mid-back started aching again, he had me do 10 minutes with a big heating pad on my back which helped some.

Rather than doing the homework which is mostly all stuff lying on my back or stomach, this weekend I'd like to get to Planet Fitness so I can do more of what I did today instead. On Monday morning I have the woman that assigned the exercises so I'm going to ask if I can have more standing things (and maybe some sitting) rather than lying exercises.  

I don't see myself doing this for a long time even though insurance pays for it. I'm hoping to stick it out long enough to build enough of a habit to it more on my own regularly. It's kind of annoying that the PT people are doing three or so of us at the same time because I don't feel like they pay enough attention to form. I also seriously need to work on eating better (read: less) so that extra weight isn't affecting my back so much either. 

1) Do you want to get married?

2) Where would you like to get married?

3) If you were getting married in a week, who would be in your wedding party?

4) What would your wedding colours be?

5) Does marriage mean to you 'til death do us part?'
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1) If the situation ever presented itself, it would be nice. I don't see it ever happening though.

2) Town hall. Expensive weddings are for the birds. But a small catered party after somewhere like a tea room or a covered garden would be kind of awesome

3) In a week? Sheesh. Well I'd have to get the parents here from Ohio, or vice versa. That's 100% certain. Then my bestie Emily and my buddies Michelle and Lena for sure. Would be nice if the siblings came but I can understand if a week wouldn't work.

4) Multicolors! With sparkles! A peacock-colored kind of dress or something for fun

5) That's kind of the point but if things went South, no sense torturing each other if it doesn't work out. That's dumb. I could see being the type that couldn't live with someone but would still be friends later (as long as the person didn't cheat or abuse in any way - deal breaker)

If you have photos hosted on photobucket and you haven't yet gotten the email scolding you for using them on third party sites, go immediately there and back up your pictures. See article for details. It had been getting worse and worse for months with the absolute WORST glut of pop up, pop under and pop over ads to even see your pics or do anything. I had a sneaky feeling they were going to try something else so the other day I did the frustrating process of downloading them all (at least the ones I give a crap about) and backing them up on a flash drive and uploading them to google photos. Then this morning I got THE email.



I had already deleted my photos from their site before this so I had the great pleasure of going to their site and formally deleting my account. In the "reason" field - I cited their hamhanded extortion tactics and also pointed out that I have spent hundreds of dollars in their print shop having artwork, cards and gifts made and that I will never use their services again. I hope they go under.

In other news, PT went well enough. No real answers on the evaluation but hopefully they can make me stronger. The woman noted how flexible I was which sure, sounds good, but flexibility without strength is what keeps knocking my back out. So FIX me. I was also wishy washy about wanting to incorporate use of the pool. I don't object to being in the pool, it's all the annoyance of wrangling myself into the suit and then struggling out of it and smelling like chlorine. We'll see. Have another appointment this coming Friday afternoon and I have homework which I need to start doing this afternoon

Well today ended up being more of an adventure than originally planned. I needed to go out to Petco and pick up some litter since the bathroom box really needed emptied, scrubbed and refilled. The bathroom itself was also overdue for a good cleaning (and I wanted to use the new steam mop I got refurbished) so I thought an easy trip out this morning to get that and a couple of plants for the fire escape and I'd be in and done before noon.

NOPE. Welllll, shit. After driving to two different Petco stores and then calling Petsmart from the parking lot of the second, it seems World's Best Cat Litter has decided to discontinue the Advanced Formula I use. Either that or they've done something else more shifty (which I'm suspecting) which is to take the formula I buy - which you can only seem to get at pet stores or online - and repackage it, pretend it's even more super duper fabulous...and jack up the price.

Well fuck them. I won't be drawn in by marketing bullshit, I went to Target and bought a bag of the regular WBCL that I first used a few years ago with the kitties (since that's what the rescue uses) and have mixed it half with the little bit of the advanced I still had left at home. I also ordered a couple of bags of the Advanced that Chewy.com is still selling and will start the - sometimes annoying - process of easing the kitties back over to the old kind. I may have to sprinkle a little more deodorizer after scooping but as long as the kitties are fine with things and it performs ok with scooping, they're not getting extra money out of me. That and it'll be nice to eventually be back to the brand that I can also buy at places like Target and grocery stores.

Anyway, I did get the bathroom all cleaned, the trash taken out and carefully lugged up the bag of soil to plant my mini bits of pretty on the porch. Hopefully everything blossoms nicely.


I'm sitting with an ice pack on the back to make sure things don't flare up but other than that flurry of activity, I'll be taking it easy the rest of the day. Tomorrow starts what will likely be a long, tiring week.