1.  Welcome to yet another Friday including the ever present question: how will Laura’s body crash and burn this week?

2.  Bwahahahaha! Just kidding.

3.  Except those AARP mailers don’t seem quite so ridiculous now.

4.  Good news first. My knee MRI results actually weren’t that bad.

5.  That rings pessimistic but if you know Real World Me you know my track record with medical stuff.

6.  Which is why I didn’t put a whole lot of stock in the doc’s belief that I could heal my torn meniscus with PT.

7.  I believe Bear’s actual reaction was What? Does he KNOW you, mom?? She isn’t wrong.

8.  But miracle of miracles I made progress even with my less-than-stellar PT practice. That stinkin’ meniscus is laying flat now, praise great caesar’s ghost.

9.  So why does this stupid thing still hurt so bad? Turns out there’s fluid under my kneecap.

10.  Plus — wait for it — a moderate level of arthritis. I KNOW, I’M OLD! GEEZ!!

11.  All of this means going for an injection next week to decrease inflammation. Then I’m looking at a gel injection to decrease friction.

12.  This all sounds good enough in theory but frankly I’m a little scared to google knee injections just in case the needles are ginormous.

13.  Which brings us to my back.

14.  Again, good news first. I’m upright. So there’s that.

15.  Do I enjoy out-of-the-blue stabbing pain that stops me in my tracks? Not particularly, no, but again. I’m u-p-r-i-g-h-t.

16.  PT guy seems 90% sure my pain is from a herniated disk. Okay then, how do we fix that?

17.  Here’s how we fix that. Apparently we start with simple PT exercises I’m supposed to do every hour.

18.  Seriously? SERIOUSLY??

19.  I’m trying to muster up a good attitude here but I can’t lie, it’s a struggle. Every freaking hour?

20.  At least I get time off to sleep but still. UGH.

21.  Gem shared the mantra “The only way out is through.” Which is true. Infuriating, but true.

22.  Dammit.

23.  I put the October calendar up yesterday and that’s always a bit of a wake up call.

24.  You know what comes after October? November. Then December.

25.  IT’S TRUE.

26.  Please don’t make me think about the holidays yet, my brain might just implode.

27.  Kind of impossible to ignore Halloween though. We have more than a few houses in our neighborhood that are — ahem — exceedingly enthusiastic about the holiday.

28.  I’m not talking your typical cobwebs strung along the front porch, spider and witch decals in the windows decor.

29.  I’m talking all out, full scale, can’t mow your grass because the twenty enormous yard decorations dwarfed it sort of enthusiasm.

30.  One stuck in my brain is the giant headstone reading “Here lies Nate. He brought my daughter home much too late.”

31.  Does that smack of daddy-with-a-shotgun or am I being overly sensitive?

32.  Who me? Overly sensitive? Don’t be ridiculous!

33.  Our house is not what you’d call the “fun” Halloween house. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in handing out great candy but that’s pretty much the extent of it.

34.  Let’s just say the years we had a carved pumpkin were our version of going all out.

35.  I know, I know, I probably scarred my kids for life. Whatever, it’ll give them something to talk about during midlife crisis therapy.

36.  This week I gave Chicken Enchilada Casserole a shot. I used corn tortillas so it would be gluten free but otherwise followed the recipe.

37.  I don’t quite know how to describe our collective reaction to this dish. Here goes.

38.  Three of us were what I can only call ambivalent. We liked it — two liked it enough to eat second helpings — but all three of us were very “Well…I like it…kind of? I don’t hate eating it, but I like other stuff better. I just don’t see myself wishing you’d make this dish every week.” So basically meh, it’s food, I’m full, let’s call it a day reactions.

39.  The fourth came back with “Dinner tonight was fantastic! Thanks for cooking.” You just never know…

40.  Happy Friday and welcome to the weekend. I hope you have plans a lot more exciting than back stretches every sixty minutes. Bless.