Hiking Each Day

My back is about 95% better now. I’m hiking every day and I have been for the past month. I’m real excited to be getting back out into nature :) and I’m feeling great lately. I’ve been eating healthy, meditating, taking care of the house, working from home, planning to join some groups this summer/fall once the virus settles down including at least one hiking group and probably one city improvement/ cleanup type group. I’m selling my house and car and getting an inexpensive apartment so that I can begin to build my bank account back up. I love my house…. but it’s too big and too expensive for just me and I sort of just know what I need to do for my happiness, stress levels, travel ambitions, and my future. So, I’m slowly but surely working towards getting to where I want to be personally and financially. In the meantime… here’s some pictures from my hiking trips around this area.

Conservation Lands

Since the snow has left, I’ve been taking a hike every day in conservation lands. My back is close to 100% :) and I’m so excited to get back to the woods!! Here’s some photos from the last two weeks:

Just some photos from the last week

Hung a bird feeder, got this neat antique egg slicer, bonsai tree seeds with a cigar box and metal pot to grow them in :) I cleaned the house from top to bottom now that I’m feeling better, but it really never ends.

My back is about 100% healed and the doctors say I have no more issues to deal with. I’m back at the gym and being healthy again. I hiked on the ice this weekend and can’t wait for warm weather and for the clocks to turn in 2 weeks! I’m so ready to try biking, hiking, and honestly just being back to my old self without pain again. I’m excited for this year now that the weather is starting to turn.

Tonight I took a little ice adventure

I thought I couldn’t get the fire going but I’m good :)

February 2020 Update

My back is doing amazing!! The doctors think I’m going to be back to 100% this year. This weekend, I’m reactivating my gym membership and getting back to it. I’ve basically been in bed for three months and this weekend being my birthday, I think it’s the perfect weekend to get back on track :)

Last week, I took a trip to Germany and Nice/Cannes France. 6 planes in 6 days…Here’s some pictures:

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone. Sorry I haven’t been keeping up with the blog lately, but I’ll definitely post more often in 2020!

I had a second spine surgery 3 weeks ago and I’m slowly recovering well. In a week I have hopefully one last MRI and then Physical Therapy… It’ll be a couple months before I’m back at the gym :) I can’t wait. I’m out of work right now and I’m hoping to get back soon.

I had 5 Christmas parties this year! That along with shopping has been difficult with my back, but I have a little bit of a break now to rest and recover :)

i hope you all have a wonderful holiday season! I’ll post again soon.

Hi :)

Life has been very busy. I’m in a hotel at the moment because I just needed to get away. I cleaned for 3 straight days after being sick for a week. I planned my second spine surgery for December 2nd. I have an mri tuedsday and a pre op appointment on the 23rd… then surgery on December 2nd. I’m terrified………but they say after this I should be back to my old self :) I’ll be able to run and jog and bike and hike, lift weights… do laundry…. put my shoes on… like I used to. I’ve been in pain for years now and it’s worth it to me to be able to live a happy life :)

Recently…. I was able to refinance my house, so I can keep it!! I downsized on some of my bills, got rid of cable, etc. I’m heading back to Germany at the end of January to work on a project with Airbus. I am working with Uber and some other high tech companies on exciting projects. I bought a fish tank and I’m gonna have some saltwater fish :)

I don’t know… things have been so busy lately with work, relationships, the house and I’ve been sick…. it’s been hard to keep up with everything. However, I’m focused on getting better, working hard, getting healthy again and I’m so excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas with the family! I’ll try to post more soon when things settle down a bit. In the meantime here’s some photos from the last couple months.

oh somewhere in there I got Red Sox season tickets … 20 games… I’ll go to a few, sell the rest. there’s a photo from the actual seats :) I’m on the list for patriots too. If you want tickets let me know. I’m excited to take my niece and nephew and continue that tradition that my father started with me and my brother and sister. I got flannel sheets which are warm and comfortable as hell, a down blanket, i smudged the house today and I’m going to continue tomorrow.

Life has been difficult but also great and unique and I’m loving life like we all should… and more-so lately.

Trip to Germany

I went to Germany for work to give a presentation for the European Space Agency on our product. It was a really nice work trip and afterwards, I spent a little time in Germany during Octroberfest.

My paper is published here: http://esmats.eu/esmatspapers/completelist.php?whichYear=2019

…and here’s a couple photos from the trip.

Things have been busy lately

Things have been busy lately. I haven’t posted in a while… went to Newfound lake three times since my last post and on the other weekends, I’ve been taking care of the house. Here’s a bunch of photos from the last few weeks. I’ll post again soon. I have a fun trip coming up in a couple weeks ;)

Newfound Lake

Liz and I went to Newfound Lake last weekend :) We stayed at an old bed and breakfast. I didn’t take a lot of pictures, but we’re heading back there in 2 weeks with the cousins, my sister and all the kids!!! So I’ll post more after that. It was nice to show her the lake, captain blastoff’s, jumping off of sculptured rocks, we filled water bottles at the spring, went to polar caves, etc. I bought some fossils from 300 million years ago from a gem shop...300 Million!! I got to the register and I said “This is 300,000,000 years old, I feel like it should cost me $1,000” and the lady behind the counter said “I can charge you $1,000 if you’d like?” haha it was only 7 bucks for a fossilized sand dollar and a crustacean. I’ll post a picture of the fossils soon. On the way home I found an old Texaco station and had to turn around to take a photo!! How cool is that? People must have been popping in there and stopping by on their way to work and vacation up in the mountains for so many years… and now it’s just a relic from another time.

Me, Liz and Aiden went to see a castle in Gloucester:

Pictures from the week

Some More Pictures From Acadia

Acadia National Park

Hi :) We rented a cabin in Acadia for the 4th of July. I’ve never been here before and I’ve wanted to go for about 15 years?! I’m so excited!! It’s only been a half a day and:

Happy 4th of July!!

Hi Everyone :)

I’m on vacation!!!!!! I’m off for a week starting today and that’s the longest I’ll have been off since I started with my company 2.5 years ago. I can’t wait to do a bunch of things I have planned. I’ll post photos of it all soon. I found out that I’m not using the camera as much as I thought I would and the iPhone’s camera is good enough for day to day things, so I’m going to sell it. This week I’ll bring it with me and take some nice photos, but after that I’m going back to iPhone for a while. I’ll get a real nice one someday and keep it… but the house is expensive and I have other things I want to do. Here’s some pictures from the week starting with my nephew’s football game. He’s the quarterback of a travel team he tried out for and I just taught him how to throw a football a few years ago. I’m so proud of him!!!

I hope you all have a great 4th of July!!! I’m starting mine with a 6 hour drive ;) Wish me luck.

There’s a bunny that lives in my yard. I’ll see him and be like “hey flops” lol and walk right past him within 5 or 10 feet or so. Our conversations are a bit one-sided… but he doesn’t run away really. Last year, I found him as a baby by the garage and he sat in front of me eating grass at my feet. He loves eating weeds in the yard and hangs out when I cook or near the plants if I’m out in the garden. I want to get a dog some time, but for now I have the animals in the yard and it’s nice that they are around.

What Awesome Weather This Weekend!! :)

Homemade Natural Pesticide

I researched how to make homemade natural pesticide for the fruit trees. I’m going to try to keep the bugs off the trees, but to keep the fruit as natural as possible. These are all the ingredients:

I mixed 1.5 gallons of water with 2 cups of vegetable oil, 2 tablespoons of cinnamon oil, and a half a cup of Meyers dish soap. Then you boil water separately and add one and a half cups of cayenne / chili pepper, about a cup of garlic, and some chopped habanero and jalapeño peppers then shut off the water and let it steep over night. I added the hot mixture to the entire mixture in the big pot… brought that up to almost a boil and let it sit overnight last night to cool down. I’ll strain it through a cheese cloth today and that’s it, spray it on the trees. I’ll have to keep applying it as the rain will wash it mostly off and I’m not sure if it will really work, but I definitely wouldn’t want to eat it! :)

Photos From this Week

Peach Trees

Are all these little things on this peach tree actually peaches? There’s going to be so much fruit at this house lol.