Sitting is the new killer, I learned a dozen or so years ago when after working many hours a day at the computer I developed sciatica--in so severe a form that I could only get around by crawling on the floor. I did not cry but I moaned a lot, I am told. Exercises at the local sports therapy place got me OK again, and I continue doing basic exercises every other day, at least, and have never had that pain again. I was running pretty hard more than two miles a day, still, when I got the sciatica, but a daily period of high energy movement does not make up from the harm of sitting. "Get up and move often" is what you have to do, if your work keeps you sedentary. For wrists, flexing the muscles often may help. The best electrician I ever knew ruined his right hand before power drills became common. (He remained a great mentor to his lads, the best teacher I ever saw in action. Well, I have a dear friend, a master farrier, who also is a great teacher.) When we did our big kitchen renovation ourselves almost 20 years ago I kept two electric drills on the floor near me so I could leave the bit in one while putting in a screw with the other. I could crawl on the floor and could work kneeling just fine back then! Now, sitting is the new killer as well as repetitive motion without corrective exercises.
[We lived for months with great boxes of appliances in the living room (you ever walk around a stove hood?) as we planned out doing the kitchen ourselves except for the wiring and the piping for gas. We never said one unpleasant word to each other during that time or during the work on the kitchen, I swear. We were focused on doing the job right, and we got down to a very few points where we said, "I have to have that" and we got it, in some workable form. The kitchen, I want to tell you, was so well thought out that we marvel at it almost daily, maybe even daily, as we take pleasure from the way we can work in it together. A couple of compromises were not wholly satisfactory. That is the way with compromises! My marble slab for kneading dough is two inches lower than the best height for me--which may be one reason I am doing Skillet Bread so often now, while we are packing bankers boxes of books. I can do the dinner cleanup OK when it is just us but if we have people for dinner (which happens less often every year) by half way through the clean up my back is hurting because the sink is too low. I built it where it is because I am not the only user of the sink.]
[We lived for months with great boxes of appliances in the living room (you ever walk around a stove hood?) as we planned out doing the kitchen ourselves except for the wiring and the piping for gas. We never said one unpleasant word to each other during that time or during the work on the kitchen, I swear. We were focused on doing the job right, and we got down to a very few points where we said, "I have to have that" and we got it, in some workable form. The kitchen, I want to tell you, was so well thought out that we marvel at it almost daily, maybe even daily, as we take pleasure from the way we can work in it together. A couple of compromises were not wholly satisfactory. That is the way with compromises! My marble slab for kneading dough is two inches lower than the best height for me--which may be one reason I am doing Skillet Bread so often now, while we are packing bankers boxes of books. I can do the dinner cleanup OK when it is just us but if we have people for dinner (which happens less often every year) by half way through the clean up my back is hurting because the sink is too low. I built it where it is because I am not the only user of the sink.]
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