I graduated from PT yesterday!  The sessions have helped my back immensely (I knew that even before Noelle had me do a bunch of things for her to test against my beginning scores) and thus I'm quite motivated to continue doing the exercises at home.

And if my back starts giving me problems again I can always start back up; my insurance allows for another 19 sessions of PT during this calendar year.

Tom and Carlo did make it home from Kingman yesterday by dark after all, and were grateful for the hearty stew (the container that never made it to quilt camp) that I had thawed and waiting on the stove for them.  They had actually driven up there to check out some fire obsidian (not fire opal - my mistake - and which makes more sense.)  But because the sun wasn't out they had a hard time checking it for what they wanted and didn't stay that long.  They did run into weather up there and so decided (wisely!) not to take the more scenic way home via the Flagstaff-to-Oak-Creek route! 

  Today I have one of my make-up sessions with Jim (I missed a couple of Mondays in January because of quilt camp and then my trip to California.)  While exercise has never been anything I 'like' to do (and because of my lucky genetics I never had to) I've definitely seen positive results with respect to my energy levels and stamina.  

Forgot to mention this after it happened a few nights ago. We have had a lot of coyotes in the neighborhood in recent months, sometimes cruising through our Back 40. You may remember that last year I got to chicken-sit for a badly injured survivor when a coyote attacked a friend's flock of chickens right before they (my friends, not the chickens) were leaving on a 10-day vacation. The coyote killed most of the flock even though Lisa was running at it and screaming so loudly she lost her voice. Usually we see just a single Mama (or Papa) cruising, often with an unlucky chicken in its mouth. But just the other night at 10:30 (right after the news ended) we heard what sounded like a whole pack of juveniles making a lot of noise right outside the house. We're thinking possibly Mom/Dad had taken the little ones out for their first hunting foray? It was wild!

Last night we watched the beginning of the OLYs. (Weird that the events started the day before the opening ceremonies, don't you think?) 

 Alex was off snowboarding in Flagstaff yesterday (they'd just gotten 14" of new snow on the slopes, and more yesterday while he was there) doing wild and crazy stuff on the slopes. It's (probably!) a very good thing I don't really know exactly what, although he really scared me a little while back when he casually mentioned that 'maybe' they should start wearing helmets. If HE's thinking helmets, they must really be pushing the envelope...SIGH! And then I got the following text last night around the time I was drifting off to sleep, after I had texted him about the Oly snowboarders I was watching on TV (he doesn't have Cable - one less thing to pay for at the apartment- so he'll have to wait to see our recorded Oly events): I almost broke my neck today! Of course (!) there were no details after that - and I'm surprised I was actually able to fall asleep on that note! Like Dad always used to say, your kids will give you gray hair!!! Amazing that my adrenaline junkie Alex hasn't turned MY hair white!

Enjoy YOUR Friday!