Fun Week

One of the perks of having invasive surgery is they give you 2 weeks of leave to recover.  I certainly needed that first week, as general anesthesia really hits me hard and lingers for a while.  I was loopy and very sleepy for a few days, and the energy level that I normally have was non-existent.  By 6 days post-op I was back to feeling myself, more or less, and the trip to the doctor to hear everything came back benign really made a difference.  

But the nice thing was that I have been able to spend almost 2 weeks at home with Maria and Brooke, especially getting to get her out of bed in the morning when she is the happiest clam in the world.  On Thursday we went out to a place called Cox Farms, which is a big farm that they turn into a fall festival area, complete with lots of farm animals, big slides, free pumpkins and apple cider, a corn maze, hay rides, etc.  It was a great time, and we hit it during the week when it was not crowded at all, so it was like we had the whole thing to ourselves.  Here are some photos

Brooke in front of the award winning 1007 lb pumpkin!

Brooke enjoying the slide with (a not as frightened as the top) mom.

Having a blast with dad on the slide.

Brooke's new best friend, a very affectionate calf.

Hanging out with a huge momma pig and her many piglets.  

The other thing that made this week fun was the doc cleared me to start riding the bike again on day 7, but only super easy and only for one hour.  Nurse Maria was stringent on the rules, but an hour on the bike felt like one the greatest gifts at that time.  It is amazing how much we take little things for granted, and when you get to ride or run everyday, then can't, you remember just how much fun it is.  After a week of virtually no activity, my muscles had atrophied a little and an hour going easy was actually pretty tiring.  The next day I went for 90 min just a bit harder, then for a 30 min run the next day, and finally a 3 hour group ride yesterday that was an absolute blast.  We had 11 team members out for a 55 miler running a fast double-paceline on wide-open country roads with no cars and 2 huge climbs.  You couldn't wipe the grin off my face yesterday!

And it can't all be fun with no work if I am home for a week, so Maria was kind enough to build up a honey-do list that included painting all kinds of doors and walls, then re-doing our downstairs bathroom.  We were naive thinking it would be a simple as peeling off the old wallpaper and putting a fresh coat of paint on the walls.....wrong!  Turns out the wallpaper was put on really shoddy, so some sections came off smoothly, while others took off the top layer of the drywall.  Add to that some mold and mildew and the fact that the owners, who took ever shortcut you could imagine when painting, went to painstaking lengths to remove every fixture, sink, toilet, you name it, when putting the wallpaper on.  That one evening project will likely take some time to finish.

Well, it back to the basement for me....gotta put all those doors back up and sequester myself in the dungeonous  bathroom again.

Here are some more photos, just for fun:

Brooke in her new 'race car'
Brooke's new thing is to go snuggle into where the dogs are sitting.  Her next move is to lean back so she is laying on Einstein.

Always so serious when she is out exploring the fields...

Finishing a very muddy cyclocross race the weekend before surgery.

More posts again soon!

Rusty, Maria, Brooke, Lance, Einstein, Schrodinger & Cinnamon (+1)