The eve of New Year's Eve

I think this is a perfect day for looking back. Usually we go to an eve, eve party where we always share about our events of the year. Since it was cancelled this year, I'll share our major happenings of 2011 here.


Major Happenings of 2011:

1.  My husband, Bob, and I traveled to Amador County and Sutter Creek, CA with Manhattan Beach friends to taste some native zinfandel wines in January. On our first night there Bob fell and broke the three metatarsal bones in his right foot. Bob had foot surgery to repair and pin his broken bones together in February and had to be off his foot for eight weeks. He got around on a knee scooter (Rolleraid) or crutches. I was his driver.

Bob on his knee scooter (Rolleraid)

2.  On May 8 (Mother’s Day) my memoir Leaving the Hall Light On was released by Lucky Press.  My successful book launch reading and signing at our local independent bookstore, Pages, was held on May 12. A couple of weeks later we celebrated my birthday in Lake Oswego, Oregon with my sister’s family and their sister-in-law from Denver.

Madeline reading at Pages book launch

3.  In July we went to Reno, NV to celebrate the marriage of dear friends.

4.  Our great-niece Alyssa traveled from Denver on her own to visit with us for a week in August just before we traveled to Frankfurt and Berlin Germany, Stockholm Sweden, and Oslo Norway. Our first stop was to attend the Bar Mitzvah of the son of friends we met on our Northern European cruise last year.

5.  Our son, Ben spent four weeks at CBS studios in Burbank in November acting in a major movie called “7500” that will be released next August. He also passed the National Association of Sports Medicine test. Besides being an actor, he is now a certified personal trainer and a tennis coach.

6.  Ben’s wife, Marissa, appeared in a commercial for Transamerica Insurance. She also learned to be a Reiki practitioner and is now regularly seeing clients in her home studio.

7.  Bob worked sporadically at a small engineering company. He is now there until the end of the year.

8.  I still write and have poems published, and I am a regular contributor to three websites: Huffington Post, Naturally Savvy, and PsychAlive, besides writing for my blogs at Choices and Red Room. I also promote my book at book fairs, signings, and speaking engagements as part of my non-stop book marketing activities. And I am currently over 50,000 words into a novel.

Broken foot update

Today is five months and one day since Bob fell down a dark stairway in a Sutter Creek, California bed and breakfast and broke his foot. Those of you who follow my blog know the story – surgery two weeks later to pin the three broken metatarsal bones together because of all the ligament damage, months of his riding around on a scooter-like vehicle called a RollerAid, walking for weeks after that wearing the Boot, and months of physical therapy. Plus until he could get rid of the boot I was his chauffeur. Believe me, none of it was a pleasant experience.

So here’s an update. He is walking very well wearing New Balance extra wide shoes though his foot is still red and swollen. He does foot exercises and soaks his foot in ice water twice a day, he works out at the gym twice a week with a personal trainer and once on his own, and he has begun to walk for about thirty minutes each day.

I wish I could say that his exercise program is pain free, but that is not so yet. He’s thinking about going back to physical therapy to see if that would help ease the pain. However, he walks free from the back pain that was caused by his having to move around on the scooter and later the boot, putting his body totally out of balance.  So he is making progress. And he goes at a pretty good clip – he complained yesterday that I wasn’t moving fast enough for him.

Well, I improved my gait, and I take great pleasure in being able to walk with him again. But, because I don’t find those 30-minute walks enough exercise for me, we walk after I return from the gym.

However, since he picks the routes – different from the ways I usually go on my big long walks – I get to discover new things around my little beach city. I took a couple of photos of one of our new statues in the patio area between the Manhattan Beach police department, city hall, and library. The patio has four sculptures, but this one is my favorite. I don’t know the title, so I’ve named it Fire Lady. Anybody out there want to give her another name?

Fire Lady - front and back