Last night finished off the last of the mashers/gravy, and turkey off the carcass.  So this morning I am making turkey soup.  Dad loved to make soup, so of course I am especially thinking of him today!  He always did an incredibly artful job of carving the turkey... here we basically carve a few slices and then rip the rest apart! 

Somewhere I have a picture from years ago of Dad carving the turkey at Mink Hollow, with a small Alex sitting on the counter "supervising" - but despite going through the first dozen of Alex's albums I could not locate it. 

My back didn't make much progress over the weekend, so this morning I ended up having to cancel today's session at the gym.  I'm surprised at how disappointed I am - either I'm finally starting to look forward to exercising (doubtful) or (more likely!) I merely wish I didn't hurt and could go.

I know that I have been referencing pain a lot these past several months (my gluteal tendon, my thumb joint with no more cartilage, my foot's stress fracture, and now more from my long-time missing disk) and trust me, I'm tired of it also!   The truth is that I am never pain free, and do work hard at not complaining (of course that's much easier when pain levels are more manageable.)  

The good news is that between the chiropractor and the gym I had been seeing improvement. The bad news is I currently could use a little support and TLC but hear instead, "With you it's always something." AS IF somehow (?) I have chosen this...

Last night watched a Ron Howard documentary on the NatGeo channel called Breakthrough, about slowing down the aging process.  Basically, instead of targeting one disease which is a byproduct of aging, these researchers are working on slowing down the actual process of aging, thus impacting the onset of a multitude of diseases/conditions across the board!  It was fascinating!  So much so that I watched from 10 to 11, wide awake.

Then Tom had me help him with a paper on fire obsidian that he's writing for the British Gemological Association.  He took at least some of my suggestions, and today I will no doubt get to read the rest of the article (he was still writing madly when I went to bed) and put in another 2 cents worth! 

Now will start making phone calls, mostly to doc offices, to get ducks in a row.