Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Year long Sabbatical Nears Finish

Well, I took the year off from making jewelry. That wasn't the plan but since i last made several pairs of earring in June I have not created a thing.
What did i do with my time?
The end of January, I started a weight loss plan and did fabulously (more on this later)
I picked blackberries daily for quite a few weeks. Managed to freeze 3 gallons of organic blackberries.
I did take my Mom on a wonderful cross country trip for 31 days, 6700 plus miles of driving to see family, her highschool classmates and friends. We just had so much fun!!!!!!!! Thankful that my sweet husband and son were at home caring for our animals, watering the yard and plants. Without their support, I could not have done this.
Prior to our big trip departure the end of June, i took Mom on several mini-trips to Cayucos and Solvang just to test her traveling ability. Very thankful we avoided being hit by a pickup truck as we were pulling out of the Chumash casino!!!!!!!!! That was priceless....
I walked so many miles while visiting our boat in San Diego during the first half of the year, that i got a stress fracture of my right heel... This was the low point of my year's Sabbatical... My fabulous Ortho foot DR okayed my driving trip for which I am thankful.... But the foot didn't heal, I just did too much driving and walking.... So I returned home and still did too much...
Which let to a brain numbing cabin fever inducing 6 wks spent on the living room couch. I only left my house about 6 times....
I allowed several stressful situations to de-rail my weight loss plan and actually regained way to many lbs I had lost prior to the trip....
But, so very happy to report that the foot seems healed!!!!!!! What a long 5 months!!!!! So now I am hopeful that riding my recumbent bike will act as a better de-stressor vs eating massive amounts of KLONDIKE bars....I became addicted to them this summer...

As a counter attack to the cabin fever infection, I signed up for some jewelry classes with Connie Fox  and Jay Whaley. Both are located in San Diegp.  I postponed the Whaley Studio 9 wk course til January due to the foot still not being healed in time.
I had a "refresher" course on beginning fabrication and soldering with Connie recently. Meet some great fellow students... I return to San Diego this weekend for 2 classes with her next week and to add extra fun, there is a Molly the Barn Owl meet-up of MODS for dinner Saturday night...