Small changes are hard to see. You just have to keep at it, until they eventually add up to big changes. And you have to guard yourself against letting several little back steps add up to big backslides. I keep having to remind myself of all of the above. I'm particularly prone to giving up when weeks of daily exercise leads to absolutely zero change on the scale, no matter what my neighbor swears she sees when she sees me working in the yard. I get frustrated cleaning the same dishes and sweeping piles of cat and dog hair every day, never getting to the deeper organization and cleaning. I never know whether the small changes I'm making at physical therapy are adding up to real improvements, or just wishful thinking. I am devoted to my new healthier eating lifestyle, but I am currently in a death spiral of sugar binges, which makes it so much harder to tell that I'm on the right path. All the aches and pains that disappear when I eat only organic whole foods (and no sugar or wheat), come right back to hobble me when sugar is in the pantry and I know about it. I truly believe that I will feel better if I can just stop my hand from reaching into the bag of chocolates, but faith has not yet translated into strength.
The ongoing experiment with my physical therapy might finally be adding up to real improvement in my feet. Or foot, to be accurate. I have been putting up with some incredibly intense dry needling on only the right calf, for pain that refers down in the soleus and gastro-something-I-should-look-up-and-memorize. I had been thinking that the foot feels less constricted, like I have better blood flow and joint mobility. Today, the difference in ability was marked. By the time I sat down to do the towel crunches (if you didn't see the picture last week, I have to move a weighted towel by grabbing it with my toes), I still can barely move the thing with the left foot, and it hurts like I am broken. The right foot performs the task with skill and ease. I'm starting to feel lopsided and awkward, and I'm ready to declare it a success so we can start working the left. Too bad for me that Bones has control of the experiment, and he says we have one more session like this. I have to assume he knows better than I.
It's so hard to tell that I'm having much of an impact on the Park as a whole. I spend hours on weeding, to step back and realize that I only did a three foot by five foot patch. I cut the grass and by the time I turned around (a couple days later), it looked like I never touched it. Surely my daily efforts are doing something. I can't say that once I finish a spot and move on that it will stay clean and weed free, or that my purchased plants will grow. Poison ivy keeps trying to rear its ugly head everywhere I look. It seems that there are different varieties out there, so I have to constantly be on my toes. I'm seeing more plants emerge from the dried husks of last year's growth, showing me that I have so much trimming to do. Plus, I might want to be a little more cautious about the plants that are in trays with no drainage. I had a few in danger of drowning, while I procrastinated. And I have to admit, for all of my kvetching, the rosebush that suffered the worst damage from the roofers has benefited the most from heavy pruning. Putting all that air in the middle, and removing the weak tangles, has resulted in a much more vigorous bush in the long run. I should have had faith that it would all be okay.
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