It’s been about six months since I started physical therapy in June. I have finally accepted that it might take me the whole year, or even longer, to get to where I want to be.

The pain during exercise is still worse than before surgery. But the pain while plain walking is less than before surgery. I still wear only my MBT shoes when I am active.

One sign of improvement is that I can wear my Dansko clogs and my snow boots for short periods of time. My feet ache afterward, but prior to surgery I couldn’t wear those shoes for even a minute without acute pain.

I’m still diligent about my physical therapy. I keep track of my exercises everyday. I do yoga or tap on MWF and hit PT hard afterward. TTh I do PT only, and weekends I do just 1 or 2 sessions. I used to go hard every day, but my therapist agreed it wasn’t sustainable. Before I ran out of sessions with her in August, I worked out this alternating pattern. Never a day off, but some days have more rest. (Actually, Thanksgiving day was the first day I skipped PT entirely! But I was on my feet cooking all day, so it wasn’t super restful 😅 )

Adding yoga was a no-brainer. It's gentle on the joints. The stretching helps balance all the strengthening exercises I do in PT. I decided to add tap classes online because I missed dancing. I tried doing remote Zumba classes over the summer and it was an empty echo of the classes I used to attend. I think if the gyms were still safe and open I would have jumped back into my old classes and limped along. But all alone with a screen in my kitchen, with aching feet and no smiles to share, it was disheartening.

This fall I embraced a new physical therapy attitude - Do It Now. To reach my activity goals I need to practice them now. First, I incorporated the pique step, which I haven't been able to do for 4 years. I still can't. But I'm getting closer. I can pique to retire, instead of only coupe. Sometimes I can do a few without a barre assist, but either the pain or the bad balance (from not being up high on my joint) takes me down.

Then I started looking for free tap classes on youtube. I fulfilled a dream to learn tap in 2014, and if I had time and money I would attend more classes. Tap is super hard on my joints. It's literally pounding my joints into the floor. It's balancing all my weight on the ball of my foot. It's about control of feet articulation. It's everything I DON'T want to do with my feet. But I realized there's no finish line to recovery where I will suddenly be able to tap easily, so I might as well start now.

At first it was so painful to wear the shoes with short heels and do basic flaps and shuffles. My first attempt was only 6 minutes of an online class. Now I can go a full hour! I'm pretty terrible, and it still hurts like the dickens. But I'm proud of my progress and I look forward to tap class days. (I LOATHE yoga. I only do it because it makes me feel good later.)

I’ve been taking photos to track my progress. At first I took them every week, but after the first few weeks post-op progress slowed down and it was bumming me out. Now I take them at the start of each month. It's easier for me to see slight changes.

I think I finally turned the corner and have more flexibility than I did pre-op. Let me point out that prior to surgery I had been working my feet really hard for 6 months. This photo shoot was the MOST flexible I had been for a couple years. If I had taken photos at other times, my heels would barely be a half inch off the floor. So these pre-photos are the best I'd achieved with my own efforts.

Before surgery my right foot was more restricted. The unevenness drove me crazy! You can see the difference in this parallel releve:

After surgery my right foot recovery has been steady. But my left foot has been problematic. It has a sliding joint that clicks, it's much more painful to put weight on the joint, and the flexibility seems more prone to "good days and bad days."

I’m really grinding in every photo and holding onto the counter. So the height and strength shown isn’t sustainable. But I’m getting there!

Purple tights are from the day before surgery, May 10. Red sweats are from my first day of physical therapy, June 1. Green tights are from this morning, Dec 2.

Hopefully in another 6 months I'll have a higher releve and a decent pique, maybe even a pique turn? Shoot, while I'm dreaming big, let's pretend the vaccines roll out widely and the dance classes are safe to attend again!

Like other cautious people, we celebrated Thanksgiving as a household. I was very sad not to see my family on one of my favorite holidays. But we did a good job upholding traditions and feasted well.

I cooked a couple dishes every day in the week up to Thanksgiving, so we could enjoy a full meal without me absolutely slaving it in the kitchen all day.

I got some nice table linens and a candle display to make the meal feel special. The kids made adorable turkeys to decorate too.

Season's greetings to all!

We were all shocked this morning to find the world changed to a winter wonderland!

I got to try out my new snow tires that I got as an early Christmas present. They were great!

When the sun came out the boys mucked up with yard with an epic snowball battle. Eventually they allied forces and built a fort to secure the territory.

We made the sad decision to stay home for Thanksgiving this year. The risks of catching or giving the virus unknowingly is just too dang high.

I made a list of possible dishes to serve and asked the household to vote for their favorites. It’s just the four of us, so why not cater to our tastes?

Apparently vegetables are not the popular clique in our household.

Friday the kids got to wear their costumes to school. No parade or elaborate parties this year, but they got to wear the costume all day, instead of changing out of it after the class party. I enjoyed seeing all the costumes at drop-off and pick-up. I heard many thanks from students for the crafts I provided to their classes, and several mentioned that they loved when the cats interrupted my video tutorial :-)

By some miracle I was saved from making Pokemon costumes this year. It's been Pokemon Pokemon Pokemon non-stop out of their mouths all fall. Yet for some reason they asked for Hogwarts costumes, with robes from each of their houses (Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff). I happily agreed and gave quiet thanks that I wasn't being asked to make a Slurpuff or Sirfetch'd or some other obscure thing.

This morning we carved pumpkins. The two largest are from the store, and the the three smaller pumpkins were grown in our garden! We had two little green baby pumpkins appear October 1st. They didn't get big enough to carve by Halloween, but we put them on display all the same.

They kids were delighted to learn they had a remote lesson from Hogwarts scheduled in the afternoon! Who is Professor S? Is it Snape? But Snape doesn't like to teach! Who is going to be playing Snape? Will there be other students? They were in wonder all morning, and then absolutely delighted to see their uncle Andy sniveling criticisms at them via Zoom.

Andy did an amazing job setting up the lesson. First they chatted about their school and dress. Then he had them "clarify the handwriting in their assignments," filling in the adjectives and verbs as with Mad Libs, and then read back their hilarious Halloween essays.

The lesson was interrupted by the new Herbology professor who needed help with her over-sized pinecones, and then by Professor Dumbledore who warned of us a loose troll and said there was a problem with the Halloween feast.

Professor Snape then turned to potions, asking the kids to make Lemon Quaffles (inspired by this clip from QI). He had funny terms for all the ingredients - ground troll dust powder and minotaur's tears and such.

Their professor claimed that if they mixed it correctly it would form a self-baking lemon cake. Instead . . . .

Lastly Snape gave them what he thought was a traditional muggle treat "candy corn", but instead was "canned corn." The boys drank dragon's blood (red colored chocolate milk) in their cauldron cups and toasted their professors a Hoggy Hogwarts Happy Halloween.

Professor Snape gave them a homework assignment to create and original spell. Here's what they came up with:

After a relatively quiet afternoon, when Ben and I stole away for a few minutes to pick up dinner and drinks, it was time for trick or treating!

Sam had a cold today (runny nose and cough - our pediatrician recommended against covid testing in favor of a visit on Monday to clear him for school). We cancelled meeting up with friends to trick-or-treat. Ben took the boys out with masks and tongs (to pick up candy and ring door bells) and safely guided them to obvious buckets and away from interaction with any people. We busted out the old stroller to help Sam stay out as long as his brother. After and hour they came home with full buckets and frozen fingers. It was an incredible and memorable Halloween!

The ash tree usually decides to dump all its leaves within a couple days. We had a brief day of good, sunny weather afterward, before a winter storm was forecast. We all pitched in to clear some of the leaves so the kids could enjoy a giant leaf pile.