A wannabe homesteader makes wine

I've always loved the feeling of being in touch with Mother Nature so maybe it's no surprise that I dream of a life tending towards small scale homesteading. I guess the UK name for a homestead would be a small holding but that always seems to focus more on animals in my mind, whereas I want the simple life all round.

I would love to live somewhere rural with a big farmhouse kitchen, the centre of all activity. There is something deeply attractive about being semi-self sufficient. Not only would I have a much deeper level of gratitude for where everything comes from, but I also like to stick it to the man and not have to pay taxes (VAT) on my efforts. ;)

The start of kitchen renovations years ago. Missy was so little!

For a long time, hubby and I were dreaming of all this in retirement but we've changed our minds a bit. In short, why wait until retirement? We can start some of these things now and get a start on our learning.

By learning new skills and researching them I'm finding a new sense of purpose in life that gives me immense satisfaction. It's also funny to see how things turn out during my, er, shall we call them experiments?

Our latest experiment is around making our own wine.

I think I'll start by making fruit wine.

Hubby usually bulk buys his wine when we go to France each year to keep the costs down but this year we've decided not to go due to Brexit complications and my health being a royal pain in the proverbial. So we have needed to rethink his cheap drinking habits. I do mean *his* drinking as I haven't drunk alcohol in nearly 7 years. No, not even on our wedding day! I found that alcohol was responsible for making my arthritis and fibromyalgia flare. So, in short, not worth it.

My father has made wines and beers on and off over the years but isn't currently making them. He has kindly lent us the equipment and even given us two left over kits that he had. He will, of course, benefit from the fruits of our labour providing they taste more like fruits and less like vinegar! Our start up costs, as a result, were extremely low. All we really needed was some fresh yeast, as it doesn't have a long shelf life, and a few brushes for cleaning the wine bottles that we are reusing and the demi-johns that we've been loaned.

We decided to start with the small kit to get a feel for the process. Also, early spring isn't really the best time for foraging for fruit! Hopefully, we can find some elderflowers in about a month though.

Fermentation scum. Smells good though!

The first step was cleaning and sterilising all the equipment we needed to use. You would think this should be easy but we ended up sterilising the wrong things and had to start over again! I blame the instructions for not being clear enough about what a fermentation container actually was. I assumed it was the demi-john but ours weren't large enough so I had to go back and sterilise the fermentation bucket. The total volume of liquid was about 1 litre more than a demi-john capacity and the thought of having to measure the volume of each sachet added and then split according to the proportions of 1.2 demi-johns was too much for my brain to be bothered with at the time. So I used the larger bucket instead. My pressure release system being a slightly loose lid!

I followed the instructions and set up the bucket of what we hope will become nectar. It's now sitting on my breakfast bar bubbling away for a week. Then I will check the specific gravity to determine if fermentation is complete and proceed with the clearing, filtering and bottling next week.

So far, all I can say for sure is that it smells divine! And has a nice thick scummy layer on top that I presume is normal. Who am I to say? I've never done this before!

Hopefully, next week I will have some good news and hubby (and my Dad) can enjoy a glass, or several, together.

Update: 1/5/19

After about a week the fermentation stopped. The bubbles stopped and I thought the wine was ready for the next stage. Out came the hydrometer to check the specific gravity (SG) in the hope that the wine was ready for clearing and then bottling.

That was the hope, but sadly the SG was way too high indicating that the sugar was still sugar rather than alcohol. I even tasted a bit on a spoon and it was really, really sweet. This wasn't supposed to happen!

Our kit however, is 5 years out of date so I guessed that something had caused the fermentation to get stuck. Hey, it was a free kit after all, so I rolled with it.

I wasn't able to check the acidity as I don't have pH papers. I did know that it was too sweet, from the taste test, so there wasn't enough alcohol to kill the yeast. The yeast was new and had been active. I did wonder if I had been a bit heavy handed with the Campden tablets and accidentally killed the yeast but further reading explained that it kills bacteria and *wild* yeasts. So that was unlikely at the doses used.

The only thing I could think of was to add more yeast nutrient and hope to kick start the yeast again. I added another teaspoon of the new yeast nutrient and gave everything a good stir.

After 24 hours, the fermentation restarted and the bucket was bubbling away again. I guess the age of the kit was an issue. Or the temperature in my kitchen wasn't right or consistent enough. I can't carry that heavy bucket upstairs to the airing cupboard though so it stayed in the kitchen where I can keep an eye on it.

I checked the bucket 2 days later and was nearly bowled over with the smell of alcohol when I opened the lid. Wow! I was feeling drunk from the fumes! Time to check the SG again.

Home brew

This time around the SG had dropped well below 1.000 that I was aiming for and was 0.900 indicating a very, very dry wine. At this point I added the stabiliser and started the clearing process. It didn't look very appetising at the time. I think I likened it to a watered down sewage sample! Yummy!

Amazingly, by the next day the finings had done their work and the wine had cleared and looked like... wine! Yay! I didn't really want to offer anyone a glass of raw sewage. Even I have my standards!

All the dead yeast and scummy bits had sedimented to the bottom of the bucket. I was ready for it this time and the siphon and tubing were all sterilised ready with the bottles and corks. On occasion I can be organised.

Hubby helped me to siphon the wine into a clean bucket from which he sampled my wares for the taste test. I don't like dry wine but as I don't drink it was down to Hubby to decide if it needed sweetening before bottling. He has happy with it. Very happy, in fact. I was also pleased as it meant I could skip the sweetening stage and move right onto bottling.

Our mini-production line for all of 6 bottles was set up. I filled the bottles and Hubby forced the corks in. Tip: soak the corks overnight before hand and they go in easier. ;-)

There was about a pint more wine than we had sterile bottles for left in a jug. Rather than waste it Hubby decided to drink it there and then. Well, over the next hour or so. He didn't neck it back like a drunk.

Before he fell asleep

This is when we discovered that it was very alcoholic for a wine. Hubby is a big guy at 6 foot 5 inches and was reduced to a giggling school girl rather quickly. He was asleep by 8pm!

I didn't have a starting SG reading so I couldn't accurately work out the alcohol level. I estimated the starting SG as an average for a starting point for wine. Then working out the difference between the supposed starting SG and the final SG, and using a fudge factor we got from our wine making book, we estimated the alcohol to be 24% v/v. That seemed rather high to us and if Hubby had to guess he would say it was somewhere between 16 and 18%. It was potent, but not that potent.

Either way, I had a very happy unconscious Hubby who now thinks I'm a great wife as I can make cheap plonk. I'll take that. :-)

We did give my father a bottle as thankfully it tastes like wine, not vinegar. It was touch and go whether I could get it to work but I feel that I succeeded on this occasion. I even have another batch set up but this time from tinned fruit and not using an out of date kit!

Who am I?

This might sound like a strange question. I mean, who doesn't know who they are? Well, it seems like I might not know. Who am I really, really, deep down? Or I've at least lost who I am for the moment.

Ten years ago this seemed to be easy to answer. I was a medical research scientist. That was how I identified. At least I did until I was medically retired. Then my world came tumbling down and I've had an identity crisis ever since.

I am a wife and mother!

We live in a society that only seems to value what you do for a job as an identity, not who we really are underneath.

This has bugged me for a long, long time. That way of thinking reduces a person down to nothing more than their capacity for earning money. Not surprising in our consumerist orientated society. But if you think about it, it's actually very belittling.

I was well respected as a scientist. It sounds like a cool career that adds value to society, especially when I said 'cancer researcher', as that's sexy! But what about those who do other things in life that are not 'sexy'?

Hubby is a litigator in motor insurance. It's a boring job to explain to anyone but it's also a job that helps people during a stressful time, that is after they've had an accident and need help navigating the settlement and any losses (car or injury). He deals with angry and upset clients every single day, who are often nasty to him despite that he is trying to help them. It's a very worthwhile job but not seen that way.

I am an explorer!

What about the essential bin men that keep our homes and streets clean? They certainly don't get the respect they deserve. They are up early every day to do a dirty job and keep our rubbish under control. I think they are local heroes. Our bins are emptied before I even get out of bed in the morning! They save us having to drive our rubbish to the tip ourselves and help us to recycle what we can. Our bin men have been great helping me to navigate the confusing array of recyclable and non-recyclable things. I don't think they get the respect deserved from this identity even though they are essential to a smooth running society.

We are so much more than our job titles yet the first thing I always get asked when I meet someone is 'What do you do (for a living)?'.

I never know what to say as it makes me feel useless and worthless when reduced to a job title. I also don't want to say that I'm a retired scientist as that's not really what I am now. It's looking towards the past and not the future. This doesn't help me to move on.

Part of my recent soul searching has me looking at who I actually am. How do I identify these days? It's not easy. After ten years I still want to cling to what I used to be and this has probably caused me so much more anguish than if I had let it go years ago.

I am a francophile!

I sat and wrote a list of things that I am now. It took a few days to think of all these. It wasn't easy to go against the grain and look deeper than how I earn money. It has helped me to see myself as a more whole person and for this I'm grateful.

Today, I am a mother, a wife and a friend. These describe my important relationships. I provide a stable home for my family with clean clothes and nutritious meals. I am also bringing up a wonderful daughter and teaching her to grow into an independent young woman.

I am an avid bookworm and an eternal student. I need to keep on learning every day or I feel stuck and directionless. I read a ridiculous number of books each year. Well over a hundred!!

I am a chronically sick and disabled person. Ok, it's not how I want to identify but it is a part of me. I stress though that it's only a PART of me. However, this part of me has made me a more aware and compassionate person. It has definitely taught me that you cannot judge a person on appearances.

I am a landlord and small investor. This is something relatively new but something that I'm am trying to be the best I possibly can at. I take being a landlord very seriously, as my family knows firsthand the pain of losing someone at the fault of a negligent landlord.

I'm also starting to identify as my ambitions. Hubby and I are Francophiles and dream of living part-time in France when he retires. We are slowly getting better at speaking French and we love to explore the culture when we go each year. Not to mention that I always feel better, healthwise, in France.

Missy is a chicken whisperer!

I also aspire to live a more simple life in the country where I can grow my own food and raise chickens for eggs and meat. I would love to be able to run a proper small holding but I have to realise that I have limits due to my health. I'm sure there's a small scale way I can achieve this though and still feel the same fulfilment.

So, I am a wannabe homesteader. Getting back in touch with the natural world and honing my basic skills, such as cooking, preserving, gardening, raising animals and so on. I crave the complete opposite of the rat race.

I am trying to be an intentionalist. This is where everything I do, buy and devote valuable energy to is considered intentionally. I no longer wish to waste precious resources (money, time and energy) on things that have no value to me or my family. This is a work in progress and probably always will be. Maybe this needs a post of its own.

I am definitely a work in progress. Maybe I should start with that one!

So next time I get asked, 'What do you do?', I will try to reply with, 'I love to <list my passions>' and follow by asking what they love to do.

Surely, getting to know someone by talking about what they love to do is far more interesting than their job title, unless maybe they are an astronaut or work for Greenpeace. But I guess those things would also be what they love so it still works.

Physio update

It's actually more of a non-physio update at the moment.

3 weeks ago I was forced to stop doing my physio sadly. The pain was unbearable and my range of movement was getting less and less. It was pretty obvious to me that the inflammation in my shoulder was getting far, far worse.

The inflammation has now spread down to my elbow, wrist and into my fingers, as well as up into my neck and down either side of my shoulder blades. I've been really miserable with it so not very inclined to write much.

In desperation I been trying to navigate our NHS. My rheumatologist has left the country after what I can only assume was a case of 'not being able to take any more' working in the NHS. I really don't blame him. He was wonderful for so many years but I've seen him become more and more downtrodden in recent years.

The substitute rheumy (while they try to recruit to our less than desirable health board) was awful. I saw him 6 months ago with this same problem and was told that he wanted to see me off medication to see 'just how bad it gets'!

I didn't come off medication as I already know how bad it gets. However, I've ended up in a really nasty flare despite being on medication. I'm also now overdue my 4 month check to see how bad it got.

I've been fighting to see a GP for numerous weeks too. I desperately need a steroid injection into my shoulder joint. A very unpleasant injection but also now very necessary to halt further progression. It's taken 3 weeks to be seen by a random GP, who isn't qualified to give these injections. The receptionists really make life more difficult than needed.

The GP was very nice but what she could offer was also limited. She did, however, book me back in for Thursday this week with the *right * Dr who can do the injection for me. She is also trying to refer me to another rheumatologist in our health board. Fingers crossed.

Why the receptionist couldn't book it for me 3 weeks ago I have no idea. It's a joke the way things are being run now.

I've even been looking to see if I can access treatment in a timely manner by going privately. Sadly, the private rheumy is the same one as the one I don't want to ever, and I mean ever, see again.

When I looked into the private GP service I found that sadly they are only allowed to refer me for private tests, treatments and private consultants. I simply can't afford that as the testing alone, without the cost of medication is simply far more than we can afford.

In a last ditch attempt, I looked into medical insurance again. However, none of them will cover anything pre-existing (outside of employee insurance) and everything I have or might have can all be refused by assuming it is another part of autoimmune disease.

Interestingly, private cover for the whole family (without any pre-existing) was less per month than hubby (and I used to pay) in National Insurance Contributions. It was the same when I paid for medical cover while living in California as well.

Right now, I'm stuck at home in tremendous pain and incapable of sleeping at night. I swear that there is no possible way to get comfortable without causing more pain when it's your shoulder (and all connected joints) that are flaring. No matter how I lie, sit or stand it bloody hurts!

I know I've got more to go through yet but I am hoping that the steroids will calm things down (after the 3-4 days of enhanced pain) and then I'll be able to resume physio. It's my right arm and I'm right handed. I have got to get better.

Finally, I've made the decision to stop taking my Cimzia medication (an anti-TNFalpha injection) as it's obviously not preventing flares as it should be and since I've been on it my liver function is getting worse and worse. I'm not going to keep destroying my liver (I don't drink, smoke or eat processed foods so it has to be medication) when I'm not getting the clinical benefit that I should be.

I guess I'm going to be in a rough way this year while I try to fight a broken system and find a reasonable Dr to oversee me. That is one who looks at my shoulder when I tell them I can't use it, instead of x-raying my hands and feet. Also, a Dr who can tell me how any new medication they want to push on me works. Hell, they can even tell me in medical jargon as I speak it! I was appalled that he was pressuring me to take a new-to-the-market drug when he didn't even know how it works. I was royally not impressed!

Meanwhile, I'm continuing my clean eating and quest for simple living in a bid to reduce the number of flares that I have. My ultra clean diet is helping me feel better in myself but I suspect that the flare was already too advanced to be reversible. I've always been fairly resistant to treatments for some reason so I believe that it is even more important for me to do everything in my power to help myself.

In fact, I can smell tonight's chicken and herbs in the stockpot cooking. I can honestly say that none of us have ever eaten so well and such tasty foods. Hubby and Missy often tell me that dinner was restaurant quality. It's become a necessary hobby for the three of us and our repertoire is ever expanding.

How I'm eating a clean diet to improve health, saving money and the planet

My diet has been refined over many years due to intolerances and allergies but in the last 4 months I've taken things to a whole new level.

After my epiphany in France, I realised that my food was making me more sick. I have been careful to eliminate many, many things from my diet for the last 8 years but the improvements were often short lived. I still don't really understand why but suspect it's a side effect of my medication that I can't do without or part of my autoimmune disease.

Marmalade, the bear, shopping at the
 French market

So 4 months ago, I took the decision to eliminate most processed foods from my diet. I didn't eat badly before but I did use some convenience foods, such as jars of sauces or instant gravy to help on the days when I felt too sick to cook.

You will notice that I said that I'm eliminating most, but not all, processed foods. I've found that some things don't make me sick. I guess these items don't contain whatever additives I am sensitive to. One of these foods that I've kept is Schaar gluten-free bread, as I have failed abysmally at making my own. Even Jaws would struggle to bite through these babies!

This wasn't such a big jump as it might sound as for years Missy and I have been restricted to gluten-free and pulses (including soy) free foods. More and more foods have become unsuitable to us as soy (or other pulses) are increasingly being added to foods in place of things like palm oil. Really, we just took out the few things left that we thought were ok.

We started by eliminating all processed foods. Hubby isn't 100% converted in this as he doesn't have to be and I'm sure he's really grateful to his cast iron gut!

After about 2-3 months, amazingly I was getting fewer attacks (autoimmune flares) and my depression has lifted. I feel like the 'real me' again. I can think clearly again and am a lot happier. My anxiety has really dropped. I've even stopped taking CBD oil daily as a result. Heck, the weight is falling off me without trying!

Furthermore, Missy (who has a milder form of the illness) has also commented on how much better she is feeling even though I've not been as strict with her diet (as it was already a strict difficult diet for a child to follow). She says that her pain is a lot better and she is also able to think more clearly. She's also feeling more creative, which is wonderful for an author in the making.

By clearing the foods toxins out of my body I've also learnt just how severe the environmental air bourne toxins are to me. It has been much easier to pin down my triggers as they are nearly always environmental now and in public places where I have no control over them.

So what do we eat now? Mainly, real food. In other words, food that looks like its name. An apple that looks like an apple. A chicken that looks like a chicken, and so on. I cook everything from scratch, including all sauces and gravy. My Crockpot is amazing for this.

The Crockpot I love, but mine is green!

At the moment I have a limited list of meals to choose from but each month I'm adding another one or two to the list. Pinterest has been a great source of inspiration. I've learnt how to adapt recipes for our allergies and most things have worked out quite well. Missy is also getting more into nutrition and cooking with me. She has announced that there is no way she's going back to eating processed muck when she leaves home. Time will tell, I guess.

Apart from the obvious benefits of feeling so much better mentally and pain-wise, there is another huge silver lining. Our food costs have almost halved!! We are currently spending, on average, about £300 per month on groceries for three of us (plus a cat), while still eating meat and buying expensive gluten-free bread. This is our entire food bill as we never eat out any more and take lunches with us. I'm seriously impressed!

We do a lot of our grocery shopping at the market now as 80-90% of what we are eating now is fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy, all of which we can get at the market for a much cheaper price than the supermarket. Twice as much for often half the price!

Baking a gluten-free cake for the
school's bake-off. And there's my
Crockpot hiding on the left!

We do still use supermarkets but most things we buy now are shopping around the edges. 80% of what is in supermarkets is processed and most of that is now off the menu. I might get some tinned fruit and veg, and I still drink tea and coffee (full caffeine too as it has never bothered me). Not everything we want is in the market so we bulk buy about twice a month at the market, prep and freeze what we won't use quickly, then only have to top up things like bread and milk each week at the supermarket.

I think the biggest money saving thing here is no longer looking for gluten-free products. If you look at the ingredients list it's scary. It might be gluten-free (advertised or otherwise) but there are so many more nasty chemicals in them to try to improve taste and longevity that they have been making me ill. Not to mention that they all taste like crap anyway!

Missy ate a ready meal recently and said how awful it was. Her taste buds are no longer used to processed foods so she could actually taste the chemicals in it. Quite an eye-opener.

Another big change is that we are now cooking a lot more as a family. As everything is cooked from scratch, and I'm somewhat limited with the use of my hands, I have become head chef and I now have two sous chefs. It's been fun and a great way to teach Missy how to look after her health for when she leaves home. She starts cookery class in school next week!

Most weekends we batch cook and freeze as many extra portions as we can. This reduces food waste and costs, as well as meaning that I don't have to take on a big meal prep every day. On days when I'm not very good, I can dip into the freezer and we have our own healthy version of a frozen meal.

My sous chefs in action

I'm looking into buying an economical half size chest freezer to go with my two drawer freezers. We freeze ingredients that are cheaper to buy in bulk as well as freezing batch cooked meals. It's far cheaper to do it this way. I really miss my third freezer that died a few years ago.

Last week we noticed another big change. Hubby couldn't work out if it was the week for bin collection or not, as we only have rubbish collected twice a month. Everyone else had put their bins out so it was the right week but we only had 1 black bag of rubbish in our bin... from 2 weeks! We were amazed that a simple change like making food from scratch would have such a huge knock-on effect environmentally. We knew it would help, but not this much!! Amazing! It just goes to show how much packaging we have with our foods. We are probably paying a lot more for processed foods simply to pay for the packaging that is covered in marketing designs.

So this lifestyle change has meant
- better health (our reason for doing this)
-less money spent
-less food waste
-less packaging to recycle (if it can be)
-more family time cooking together as well as eating together at the table.

This is one change that we won't be giving up.

Physiotherapy, a new experience

For some time now I've had autoimmune diseases, including arthropathies. Over 12 years in fact. This year, however, is the first time I've been prescribed physiotherapy. Usually, I'm just prescribed really nasty drugs and we hope for the best.

My right shoulder has flared badly with tendonitis again (frozen shoulder). It's been getting worse since last June and ended up with a massive loss of movement as well as a lot of pain. Over a decade of using a walking stick has taken its toll. I've had tendon problems for well over a decade and I usually have issues somewhere in my body but this has got worse than other flares, compounded by the fact that I'm right handed and can't stop trying to use it.

Missy showing off her flexibility

Back last October, a rheumatologist referred me to physio. I was first seen 3 weeks ago and have had a follow up this week. No x-rays were ordered at the time to check the arthritis component but thankfully my GP ordered them and there doesn't appear to be any major progression. So physio was deemed safe to go ahead with. Thank you to my GP for caring enough to check first.

I didn't have a clue what to expect as I've never had physio on the NHS before. I dosed up on the pain killers before going as I expected to be pulled about in a similar way to my rheumy examination. I needn't have worried though as my physio was really gentle and most the movements I did were under my own steam to access where my limits were and not cause it to get worse. I can't tell you what I relief it was after my previous experience of walking out of rheumy in floods of tears.

The initial assessment showed that I have pretty severe restrictions in movement. I was given 4 non-weight bearing exercises to do 'little and often'. They are quite basic and 3 of them can be done sat down with a cuppa so I did quite well with them.

At least, I did well with them until I had a flare triggered by breathing furniture polish at our local library. Until then, I was actually encouraged and getting a bit of movement back. Sadly, when I flare I get whole body inflammation, most noticeably in my nerves and brain but it's pretty much everywhere. During this flare, I was in such severe pain (not just my shoulder) that physio became impossible. I was forced to rest and wear a sling to take the weight of my arm while I waited out the flare.

I miss being creative. This is a painting I did of
a photo I took in our garden.

Annoyingly, something as simple as someone spraying polish near me in a public place caused me a severe flare (including chemical induced meningitis) that lasted for over 7 days.

I was annoyed, not just by the extreme pain of the flare but also by being put back with my physio after a promising start. When I resumed it was like starting all over again and any benefit from before was lost.

I'm seriously wondering if I need to get another steroid shot into my shoulder to try and bring the inflammation under control. I can't take non-steroidal anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen as my blood doesn't clot and they are very dangerous for me. All I can do is try to avoid triggers meaning that as well as extremely tightly controlling my diet, I also can't go anywhere that there are people. :( The problem here is that our doctor's surgery isn't set up for people like me and involves sitting for hours (Yeah, literally. Last time was 2.5 hours!) in a crowded waiting room with lots of people who wear perfume, aftershave, and other strong scents. Simply trying to see a Dr makes me severely ill. I'm trying to do without steroids at the moment but feel that it's only a matter of time until I might have no choice.

After the flare, I managed to get in about a week of varied intensity physio (dictated by pain and inflammation each day) to try to get back on track.

I saw the physio again this week. I wore a face mask with a carbon filter to reduce chemical exposure. Wow, those things are sweaty but did colour co-ordinate with my purple jumper! Thankfully, there is a little bit of improvement but not as much as hoped. I explained about the flare and he thinks it's just going to take longer because of my illness but can be done.

Missy modelling a dress that
I crocheted for her years ago

Interestingly, that morning before seeing my physio, I must have forced my shoulder while getting out of bed as it crunched really loudly. It was one of those crunching, cracking noises that really makes you feel sick. Yuck! What I did note was that instantly the pain levels halved and I got some movement back. I don't know if I snapped a small bone spur that x-ray missed or what. My physio simply nodded and noted it in my file.

After measuring my range of movement, I have a slight improvement in 2 planes but a drastic reduction in the 3rd plane that makes one of the exercises impossible to do now. I've got some new exercises to carry on increasing the range of movement and one exercise to try to build up a bit of strength in the joint.

I have also noticed that the pain inside the joint itself has gone now but thanks to work from the physio my tendons are much more painful as I'm trying to stretch them out again. I think that's progress though.

I'm now doing the exercises in a bigger session first thing in the morning while in the shower. I find that warming the muscles greatly improves my range of movement so I use this to my advantage. Then I do short stretches throughout the day when I sit down for a cuppa, or to read. I'm hoping this strikes a better balance and I'm sure I overdid things the first few weeks. I also realise now how critical it is to avoid chemical triggers as well as food ones. That is going to be a big challenge.

I'm going back again in 3 weeks for another review. It feels like a challenge now to see how much better my movement can be by better pacing myself. I'm missing my hobbies while my arm is out of commission so the incentive is high. I miss being able to create and I want to get started on planting my garden this month with the seeds I had for my birthday. It has given me plenty of time for reading though and it is World Book Day this week! I quite like that silver lining. Maybe I'll have the incentive to review a couple of the best books that I'm reading. Afterall, I can still type!