Hello All! I promise there is a reason I have been slacking in the writing department lately. I have been working on some pretty exciting things and I’ll tell you more about that farther down.

Lately, I have been trying to get back to work more, work on strengthening my core in physical therapy and just taking it one day at a time. I have my good days and of course some pretty awful ones, however, I am beginning to feel like this “new” life is doable for me, for the most part, that is.

My physical therapist has me doing more core and muscle strengthening exercises now. I do a lot of work with a big green ball called a stability ball or therapy ball. This leads me to feel like a zombie after 45 minutes of kindergarten workouts. Yes, I am using the zombie analogy again because that is the best way to describe how I feel afterward. I have never been a zombie but I definitely look like the ones dragging their ass walking on T.V. Whatever. I am fatigued and can barely move my body once in the car. I have learned that I need to move P.T days to different days from teaching days in the afternoon. My body just can’t handle doing all of it in one day and the days where I have done so, my body takes a week to recover. There has been no change in my left leg. I still do not have feeling in it and who knows when that will come back.

I have started to do a few things at barre in class with my students. I do pliés, tendus, relevés, etc. All of the basics that don’t involve bending or moving my back. I even get my leg up on the low barre although VERY bent. I have lost all flexibility when they pulled all my tendons and muscles straight with the surgery and trying to stretch them out is hell. Pure. Hell. I continue to do it in the hopes it gets a little bit easier with every time I do it. I have been down this road before, although a very long time ago. I wasn’t born naturally flexible and it was something in ballet I constantly worked on. I need to summon my 9 year old self that was disciplined enough to obsessively work on it. I’ll get there, I hope.

Although I can never shake the feeling of the rods in my back, I am finally feeling a little less stiff. Now, this in no way means I can now twist or bend etc. However, I do feel less robotic in some movements which makes me a happy camper especially when I watch myself in class. I am trying to come to terms with the fact that I will forever dance differently. This is a constant struggle for me and I’m trying my hardest to get over it. One thing that this surgery couldn’t take away from me is my feet. I know, weird, right? I was once told by a famous ballerina, that my feet tell my story. After so many years of dedicated training, my feet are perfect specimens to show off my craft. When I point my foot, it’s beautiful, it’s perfect, it’s the part of ballerina that this surgery couldn’t touch. This is what I hold on to as I watch myself in class. When I start to doubt myself, or feel depressed about dancing, I literally point my foot and try to remember where these feet have taken me and what I was able to accomplish with them.

This past weekend, we drove up to see Neil’s grandparents in Bass Lake. The kids had a blast and there was plenty of snow for them to sled and build snowmen with. It’s hard not to be able to join in the fun and sled down the hill with them, but I took pictures and watched from a lawn chair. I did fairly well walking around the woods and up a couple small hills. I felt pretty good through the weekend until I woke up on Monday. I think the drive, 2 1/2 hours each way, and sleeping in a different bed and all of the walking really took a toll on my body. Monday I woke up extremely sore but it was yesterday (Tuesday) and today that I am feeling it the most. Laying down is even painful. I totally overdid it and it’s so incredibly frustrating that after having such a wonderful weekend, I am in so much pain. I just want this pain to go away. I want to feel normal. This is hard.

I have been focusing my attention on a new project these last couple months. I know what you are thinking because I am thinking it too. Why would I add more to my full plate? Why add extra pressure to my life right now? I don’t have an answer for that other than because I am super passionate about it and finally after everything I have been through I feel more confident in my own skin. Pulling back that curtain and letting everyone in to watch this journey I have been on really helped me feel more comfortable in myself and in what I was doing. Writing this blog not only helped with my own mental sanity but it also showed me how much I love writing and helping others. Well, another passion of mine has always been fashion and beauty and blogging from that perspective. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever ever try to design a website like that. I was so afraid of what I looked like underneath my clothes or what people would say to think something like this was possible for me to do. Originally, fashion and clothing was my way of hiding my insecurities and flaws.  It is only fitting, that now, I use it to put myself out there and be confident in who I am and how I feel as a woman despite my imperfections and deformities. So here it goes…..I have now published a second blog called Champagne Colored Glasses. A word play on rose colored glasses, this daily blog focuses on fashion and beauty as well as home and travel. My goal is to empower and give confidence to the every day woman while looking through a pair of champagne colored glasses. I must say how supportive my husband has been while I attempt this new hobby of mine. He can now add fashion photographer to his list of jobs. When I explained how I wanted him to take pictures and from what angle up in the woods, he embraced it and even got excited. After looking at the pictures, we gave each other a high five and I said, “Go Team US”.

Please hop on over to my new blog Champagne Colored Glasses and email subscribe too! I also have a completely separate Instagram profile, apriljwagner, solely for this blog. I wanted to keep scolimom and this blog separate and don’t want to force people to look at posts about make-up and my favorite winter boots or any other fashion driven posts unless they want to. Your support on Scolimom has meant the world to me and supporting me through this latest endeavor would be appreciated more than anything. Don’t worry, I plan to continue updating Scolimom with my progress. To be continued….