Crossing the Finish Line

Actually, I have a bit of a double victory celebration tonight.

First, As of 10:30 this morning, I finished my last physical therapy session for my shoulder. I can now honestly say that the pain they show PT patients going through on television is drastically overblown. In fact, I was talking to Michelle, the young PT who took care of me through my rehabilitation. She told me that there were really only two situations where pain is a part of the therapy. The first is with knee replacement surgery. Apparently it can be quite uncomfortable to get everything stretched back out after the procedure. The other is when you have something called "frozen shoulder". This has nothing to do with the icepacks they use, but rather (from my limited understanding) seems to be caused by a breakdown in the normal mechanisms of the shoulder, the end result of which is you can't lift your arm more than a few inches. I guess if I were in either situation, I'd probably be in a lot of pain anyway, so what's a little more to get back to healthy, right?

Of course, just because I completed my course of physical therapy doesn't mean that I get to just goof off. Michelle gave me a series of exercises to do to continue building the strength in my shoulders so that I won't have to experience this trouble again in the future.

My second crossing of the finish line was that I finished making my list of 101 goals to accomplish in 2007. These include everything from fixing some broken wind chimes that are sitting on my workbench, to going on a trip to Hawaii, to my sales goals for my business. I decided to try this on a recommendation from one of my heroes, Scott Ginsberg. In his article on making lists, he claims that this one challenge can make the difference between a good year and a fantastic year.

I'll try to keep you up to date on how I do in accomplishing these goals. I've already got my first checkmark. I put it next to #2 -- "Make a list of 101 goals".

So, what finish lines have you crossed lately?

33 days.