On Saturday, as you now, I raked and raked and raked leaves. Then, after church yesterday, I came back home and raked leaves in the dark for another half hour. My lower back and shoulder was not happy with me. By the evening, they were both loudly protesting my mistreatment of them.

I could barely walk this morning. Acutally it was more the twisting out of bed that killed me. Once I started moving, it got better, but I couldn’t bend over or twist. Let’s not talk about the agony of getting up out of a chair.

I went to work to find that we, blessedly and blissfully, had a light service (I should know, I spent all of my time discharging them yesterday!) with no scheduled admissions, so I went home at noon, took some anti-inflammatory meds, and slept. I’m still in pain, mostly if I sit on the couch (hmm…), but it’s a little better. It’s so lovely to have an afternoon off, especially one where the sun was shiny (albeit briefly) and it’s 60 degrees outside. I just wish that I could have been able to put it to good use: done dishes or laundry or gone for a walk.

I hadn’t finished with all of my leaves (the joy of having 4 trees on my property!), but my friend, who really is one of the nicest people I know (even if she does fall prey to fad diets), came over this afternoon and finished raking them all to the street. There’s still some lingering leaves on the tree and some around my raspberry bush that if I feel especially motivated (and pain free!) later this week that I might try to collect, but oh, what a relief to not have to worry about this!