Of relief!
My work to-do list is long, and my weekend plans include only studying for two microbiology tests next week, but there is a spring in my step! Because! The GRE is over! I took it last night, and I’m happy with my scores.
Convinced I had completely bombed the quantitative section, I was more-than-words-can-describe surprised to see that my quantitative score was 710. I was a tiny bit disappointed that my verbal was 620, but I am not complaining in the least.
Whew. Now I can use the mental space previously allotted for the GRE for something else.
Chronicles of Chronic Pain
I don’t want my blog to become My Health Saga, but check out my left hip!

You can't see my butt, but it's under there.
I finally went to a physical therapist (yeah, yeah, the irony) for my hip pain, and I’m so happy with what we’re doing. We’re going through years of chronic pain to get to the root of my problems.
And the root is that my hips, particularly my left, are way too mobile. I’m not blaming yoga, but getting super stretchy in my hips and hamstrings did not help me at all. Having super flexible hips is probably fine for people who also have strong hips. But my poor left hip is weak and stretched to all get out. Because that’s what I’ve been doing for the past five or six years…stretching what I thought were tight muscles. Unfortunately, they were weak, strained muscles.
When doing the initial evaluation measurement, my therapist was totally appalled at my amount of hip mobility. At the end of the visit, I showed her a series of stretches that I like to do, asking whether or not I could continue doing them. Appalled again, she exclaimed that I should not have that much flexibility in my hips! In its current state, my left side is a time bomb waiting to go completely out of whack.
Now I’m working on tightening and strengthening those suckers. No more yoga for quite some time, not even child’s pose. No deep squats or lunges. Nothing that brings my knees above my hips (and preferably, I shouldn’t even have them level for now). I’m still learning what I can’t do. For example, I totally blew out my hip this weekend while swimming (frog kick!) and gardening (squating!). So, I’m trying to figure out how to move about without hurting myself.
The tape supports my muscles and allows me to sit without pain, among other things. It’s also a reminder when I’m flexing my hips too much because it gives a little tug on my skin.
I look forward to the day of sitting, sleeping, and moving without pain!
To sit more comfortably at work, I fashioned a chair wedge out of an old exercise mat. Before cutting the mat over the weekend, I was sitting on my GRE math book (which was nearly the perfect size, but tended to cut off butt circulation).

DIY wedge cushion
Other Stuff
Over the weekend, I made one of my favorite things: roasted beets! I know some of you don’t like beets, and I think you’re crazy!

Pretty AND tasty!
Monday morning, we had quite a rude awakening. Some guy fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into our neighbors’ SUVs. Yes, plural.

Monday morning alarm clock
Just by chance, we did not park behind this SUV. Our usual alignment is SUV #1, SUV #2, our car. But someone’s mother was over on Sunday and messed up our usual parking. Thank goodness! Otherwise SUV #2 would have smashed up our car.
Speaking of smashed up, my campus is totally torn up. It is seriously impossible to get anywhere without running into this:

Campus is a-mazing.
It’s really frustrating to walk on campus at this point.
That’s it! Have a good week!