I was working out at the gym the other day when I noticed a young woman, maybe late teens or early 20s, working with a barbell lifting the exact same weight as me as I did my Romanian deadlift (94 lbs) but doing an overhead press at the squat rack. (All the barbells there are 44 lbs and I could easily see she had loaded it with two 25-lb plates.) 

I started up a conversation with her and she told me she was recovering from ACL tear surgery and her surgeon had encouraged her to do this particular exercise, which involved raising the bar from about shoulder height up and behind her shoulders.

She told me she'd watched me work out and said I was "killing it." She asked me my name and shook my hand. I remarked that she had a really strong handshake and she laughed and said, "I've been told that. That's a good thing, right?" I assured her it was.

I have to say I felt good knowing I was lifting the same weight in my 60s as a 20-something and also that she thought I was "killing it."

Did a gentle hike yesterday in the woods and then we stopped at a coffee shop for late bite to eat.

Once you do your Ancestry DNA, like I did many years ago, you will get periodic updates to your DNA report that purportedly finetune the results each time. 

The latest...

Eastern Slovakia, 38%

Northern Ireland, 23%

Western Czechia, 15%

Ashkenazi Jews in Central & Southeastern Europe, 13%

Bavaria & Western Austria, 6%

A few other really small categories i won't mention here.

My maternal grandmother was Slovakian; my paternal grandmother was Irish.  I used to always say my Slovakian grandmother was married to my Polish grandfather, but Poland is listed on my complete report as just 1%, and I do remember learning through research that while my grandfather's parents LIVED in Poland, my grandfather's older half-brothers and father were born in Austria, so I suspect the ancestral family home was actually Austrian, as these results suggest. My German paternal grandfather is evidently only contributing 6% to my DNA, which is funny because several people who knew me well would say I exhibit very German traits. 

Also of note, a prior DNA report suggested Scottish blood (perhaps intreprid immigrants who kept going and proceeded on to Ireland in successive generations) but that seems to be absent here.

Well, after seeing my surgeon of choice this week and learning he is booking knee replacements 2 and 3 months out (that would mean end of December or January surgery), I decided to wait til April for the surgery because I don't relish possibly having not just the surgery but multiple PT appointments occur in icy or snowy conditions. He said that would be okay.

I have to say I feel a great sense of relief to have this reprieve. In the meantime, I got most of the assistive devices I planned to get to make recovery as comfortable as possible. One of the more expensive items (new, over $200), a cold therapy machine, I found on Facebook Marketplace for just $40 with the box opened but never used. I will inspect it carefully when I go to pick it up at police station tomorrow. She said she bought it in 2024 so if true, not that old and that would certainly be a great savings.

I also have a collection of friends who have volunteered to help; 3 of them are from the group I volunteer with and 1 is an old friend willing to make the 6 hr trek to get here and stay with me for a few days. This warms my heart.

Today I met a new-to-me cousin on my Irish grandmother's side and we had a nice time getting to know one another. We share 2nd great-grandparents who were alive and well in the latter half of the 1800s and into the early 1900s.

Oh, I'm very happy with my new wireless fridge and freezer sensors. The disiplay has a magnet on back and I've just stuck it on the side of fridge.

The freezer temp is zero and the fridge is 37 F, exactly where they should be.

Today was the Methodists' annual craft show. I went first thing in the am so I could have my pick of their yummy quickbreads. I got a pumpkin loaf and also a small "bucket" of cookies of  my choice for just $5. They must have  had at least a dozen types of cookies, so it was fun picking out some favorites: peanut butter, molasses (rich in iron), cranberry-orange and a few others that now I can't recall, so it will be a surprise.

Saw dad after that, my first visit to see him after he was released home from rehab. He now has an aide who is there all day, but not overnight. 

This afternoon I'm having a rare moment of  not having anything specific to do. I did buy a nifty gadget that allows you to see what the interior temperature of your fridge and freezer are, wirelessly, without needing to open the door. This will come in handy during a power outage. I have a power station to keep the fridge going for days, if need be, but I can better optimize how I use it if I know precisely when the temp in either fridge or freezer begins to rise to unsafe levels, at which time I would then charge it with the power station.

I can't complete the setup, though, because I am out of AA batteries, and the batteries you use in the freezer need to be lithium so the sensor you place in the freezer can withstand the colder temps. In the fridge, regular alkaline batteries are fine.

I could go to BJs for the batteries today, if I wanted, but I'm feeling a little lazy so will wait til Monday when I'm down that way to see the surgeon. It's also too chilly for me to do any invasive plant work in the  yard, but the next few days the temps will warm into the 60s, so I will set aside some time for it then.

Next week I'm meeting a new-to-me cousin for lunch. She's on my paternal grandmother's Irish/Scottish side.

Our New England foliage is looking very pretty right now. I think we've got a few weeks left. There's also our annual scarecrow contest in town. Different groups make different scarecrows. Here are a few I managed to snap.

One of our fire departments did this one...

A local vintage gift shop...

The gym I belong to did this one...

I wound up getting a 2nd upgraded Roku for the TV I moved from my office (unused for ages) to my downstairs setup for post-surgery. It took some time and playing around with to get it working, but it is. Next thing I need to assemble is a neat walking assist device for the stairs. I can avoid the indoor stairs but still have the outside stairs to traverse for my PT appointments. It looks like a half a walker with just 2 legs on it, one shorter than the other, so it can avoid more stability going up or down the stairs, especially since i only have 1 railing outside, not 2. I absolutely hate assembling stuff.

Last night we were supposed to get a wicked bad thunderstorm witwh winds exceeding 60 mph. So I charged up both power stations dutifully. Thankfully, all we got was rain but it is annoying that our forecasters sometimes miss the mark. 

Still no heat on...

Well first of all, I still haven't turned on the heat. Depending on where you live, that might not seem like a big deal, but we've had some chilly nights here in the Northeast.  With the local pricing of heating oil at $5.29 a gallon, every precious drop counts. On a cool evening, I just throw on a sweater.

There is total knee replacement in my very near term future. My right knee has been problematic for a long time. What probably doesn't help is the untreated ACL tear I had in my early 20s when my then-boyfriend was teaching me tae-kwon-do and my foot got stuck in the pillow he was holding as the target. Fast forward to about 5 years ago when I tore my menescus (same knee) apparently from doing exercises at home during Covid. Had to have surgery for that.

Since then, the knee has been "ok," but it acts as a definite ceiling to what I can do physically with it. Working out is very important to me but both my knees really limit what I can do. And when I returned from hiking during my Finger Lakes trip of September, OMG. I could only hobble around for a full week. The knee was buckling every few steps. This is what propelled me to schedule a visit with a surgeon, who told me yeah, it is bone on bone plus I have bone spurs from osteoarthritis. He suggested total knee replacement, but, well, it bothered me that he saw me sitting there with my list of questions and yet he rose and was reaching for the door to signal our conversation was over before I was finished with my questions.  Not only that, but he told me he was not a knee specialist, which I figured he was since my research told me (and he confirmed) he does about 150 knee replacements a year.

Well, I DO want a knee specialist, so did more research and found someone I'll be seeing in a few days. He has very good credentials. He was the head of orthopedic surgery at area hospital, has written quite a few papers, etc. etc. Some people have said he doesn't have the best bedside manner, but that's not really what I'm "hiring" him for. It's his expertise that counts, and hopefully his communication skills.

I have traditional Medicare along with a supplemental plan and I've already met my deductible for 2026, so I'm not expecting any big bills.

I remember how quickly they were able to schedule my menescus tear surgery 5 years ago, so this time around, I have already spent a whole lot of time getting ready for this surgery: borrowing various devices from friends, buying many others to make my life easy (eg, a cool thing that looks like have a walker to help you manage stairs, and even a strap that helps you lift your leg, which one person mentioned was the single best thing they bought, since they cut your quad muscle during this surgery), making and freezing soups for easy meals, setting up a bed downstairs so I can at least avoid the inside stairs. There's also a special wedge foam cushion I bought to rest your leg on to help reduce swelling; that and the ice machine (one of the few things Medicare will pay for as durable medical equipment provided the doctor says it's medically necessary) will be my best friends.

I joined an online knee replacement support group and have gotten a lot of tips through people there. 

Since you're not allowed to drive until you're off the pain killers and have the strength to stomp on your brake, it could be 3 or 4 weeks at eh earliest that I can drive, so driving a hybrid, I will have a friend stop by and just start the car and walk away. It will turn itself off automatically after one hour of idling. I also read that I should disengage the auto emergency driving brake and inflate the tires to the full recommended PSI.

I am very nervous about the surgery but feel I need to go through with it, and better to do so now while I'm relatively young and fit than later. I feel I have that in my favor, plus I have a very healthy diet. I have a variety of friends who are ready to drive me, come visit me and other offers of help. My town has a senior transit van that will take you anywhere in town for $6 a ride, so I will have many PT appointments along with follow-up doc appointments. 

I am hoping this surgery can be scheduled sometime in November, the sooner the better so that bad weather doesn't have me slipping and sliding on my way to appointments.

Today was a very warm day for October, reaching 80 degrees. It may be the last really warm day this season, so I decided to clean up my vegetable raised beds, harvesting all the green tomatoes and pulling up the plants.

For the entire season, I harvested 887 cherry tomatoes and 43 plum tomatoes, which got a very late start. I think that beats last year, though I did not check my post here a year ago. Most of the 300 or so cherry tomatoes I picked today were green, and I did not bother saving the green ones last year, but after realizing they will ripen on the counter, I won't waste them

All that remains is the kale, which likes cooler temps and should last into November. I've been eating it regulary in my salads with bok choy, my tomatoes and a simple olive oil and balsamic vinegarette I make. I finished up the cucumbers a week ago. They will be missed, as store-bought can't match them.

I also went to the gym for the first time since my trip, so about a 2 week absence. Boy, they were harder to do!

Tomorrow there's a beach cleanup at a really nice state park over an hour's drive away. Now that it's past Labor Day, maybe it will be less crowded. I'd like to go and hope my initiative remains high to get myself over there. I signed up for 4 such cleanups more or less in my area, and I did not go to the first two, so I would like to go to this one and another one that is the closest to me in another 2 weeks. They do this every year for International Coastal Cleanup Day.