Another Weekend has Slipped on by.................

I've got to keep this semi short.  After a great, very early morning of shooting pictures with Dawn and Osu in the fog and the snow on Saturday, my back went out on me.  Sure, I had no problem breaking down boxes, packing up the recycling, helping dawn carry a 27" TV to the car.  However, just trying to move the already placed TV a bit further back in the RAV resulted in an extremely sharp pain and me crumpling over immediately.  After coming back home from dropping things off, I carefully laid on the couch in the most comfortable position I could find.  Later, I tried to get up.  It was nearly impossible and horribly painful.  We eventually did track down a doctor on duty (rare in Deutschland on a Saturday) in Velburg, driving there quickly so I could receive a shot of something and a prescription for some weak German meds that have done nothing to really alleviate the pain or help my back.  After a restless four hours of sleep last night, on the couch none-the-less because I can't walk upstairs, my back does feel a bit better today but not much.  I'm going to try to go in to the clinic on post tomorrow so I can maybe find out what's wrong.  The German doctor offered no exam and no diagnosis - just the shot and the prescription.  I know that the problem is not muscular and it's not nerves.  Been there, done that.  I'm afraid this is something worse.  I know pain, unfortunately all too well, and this is bad.  I'm pretty bummed about it.  The gout and arthritis has slowly been improving, my knee has felt better with rest the past few months - now this.  I'm falling apart.  I joked with Dawn that marriage has broken me :)

Anyway, we did have a lot of fun out in the snow in the early morning fog and we were able to take some nice, moody pictures.  After doing some chores after our jaunt down the road, we had planned to go back out so I could take some pictures of Dawn in some specific settings I had in mind.  The snow, the dark woods in the background, low hills off in the distance.  It would have been nice.  We may have to wait until next year now.  Dawn left on a work trip just a bit ago and won't be back until Friday.  Then, if I can walk, we leave on a trip for Switzerland with the ski club (I'm not skiing, obviously).  The snow is quickly melting away outside as the sun has made its first appearance in some time today and it's relatively warm.  It would be great to go out and take some pictures, even without Dawn here, but the three stairs leading down to the driveway look like Mt Everest right now.  There will be other days.

Anyway, here are a few of the pictures I shot yesterday.  The entire set can be seen HERE on my Flickr page.