I fulfilled a Photo Request recently. Mary requested: a close up of your placemats they look awesome The placemats that were on the table when your request came in are reversible ones that I made myself. I used Halloween fabric on one side... |
TODAY'S WORKOUT: Cathe Friedrich's Low Impact Step Phew! It's been a while. This workout is normally quite easy for me, but it kicked my butt tonight. I did it though and that's the most important thing. |
I meant to post this a couple weeks ago when I was still doing physical therapy for the edema in my leg. This is the pile of stuff used to wrap my leg every day. |
Look closely and see if you can spot the double helping of trouble in each of these photos. |
I had a slightly disturbing incident last night. I spent most of the evening putting up Christmas decorations, including getting the candlelights put in the windows. At about 2330, I bundled up and went outside for a few minutes to see how everything looked from the street (we put up the outside lights on Sunday). As soon as I got outside, I noticed a man, who was noticeably under-dressed for the cold weather, walking straight at me from across the main road we live adjacent to. Since we live in the 'burbs, seeing another person outside at that hour is strange enough. The fact that he was coming right at me from out of the darkness and walking down the middle of the street set off every alarm and siren in my head that I have. Fortunately, Mr Moo was watching me from the upstairs window, so I knew if I started screaming, he would be outside in a heartbeat. Just as I was about to make a break for it and head back inside, the man, who was still a fair distance away (read: I could still easily outrun him), very politely asked me if I could help him find "his friend". He was looking for someone named J.T., but had no address and no last name. Can we say "junkie looking for his dealer"? I told him that I didn't know anyone by that name. He thanked me, told me my house looked nice, turned around and walked away. Incident over. As I turned back towards the house, I noticed Mr Moo had come outside with no shoes and no coat on and was halfway down the walkway. Guess the alarms in his head were ringing louder than mine. |
Have you ever really listened to the lyrics of the Christmas song "Jolly Old St. Nicholas"? Johnny wants a pair of skates, Susy wants a dolly; "My little brain isn't very bright"?!? I'm complete moron and can't decide what I want for Christmas by myself? Seriously? Who the frell writes these things? |
How to make a Thanksgiving turkey. Get up before the butt crack of dawn. Get your bird out of the fridge. |
Most delicious and fattening dessert in the history of mankind. 3 cups Rice Chex cereal Mix dry ingredients together in a LARGE bowl. Divide in half. Melt half of the chocolate in the microwave.* Pour over half of mix. Toss to coat with chocolate. Spread on sheet of wax paper to dry. Repeat with other half of chocolate and other half of mix. |
First, roll out the dough. |
Another Thanksgiving. Another year the webcam didn't work. Arrrrgh! I don't know what the heck is going on, but for the past three or four TG's, the webcam in the dining room hasn't worked for one reason or another. This year, it looks like the network went down briefly and the cam didn't reboot itself for a few hours. I have a few pics of people arriving, then the next captures are of a bare table in the dark after everyone had left. It's so frustrating because the RandomCam ran perfectly fine for months when it was pointed at the patio and in kitchen. As soon as I put it in the other room, poof! Network outage. I swear I'm cursed. Tonight, I am missing my high school reunion. The day after TG is just about the only day of the year I can't get back in time for it and it's always the day they choose for the reunions. Tonight's is a fairly major one and, to be honest, I'm quite bummed I'm missing it. I have a few friends that I still keep in touch with, but there are many, many more I'd like to see again. I need to make some phone calls to the organizers so they'll pick a different day for the next one. Mr Moo and I went outside and did some yard work for a few hours this afternoon since the weather was fairly nice. It was cold, but the sun was shining. It didn't seem like we did much, but, after we took a look around in the end, we really did make a decent dent in getting the yard ready for winter. We got the lawn mowed (hopefully, for the last time until spring), the roses/shrubs pruned and mulched, Thanksgiving decorations taken down, and some weeding done. There's still a lot more to do around the sides of the house, but at least the front looks good. It's supposed to rain a little tomorrow, but maybe we can get the rest of it done on Sunday. |
All the stress we went through. All the money we spent. All the sleepless nights. THIS is what makes it all worthwhile. |
It's been a crazy busy day today. We've got everything ready for tomorrow. I'm just waiting on a load of wash to finish up so I can put it in the dryer and get my sorry self to bed. We have to be up at 6:15 to stuff the turkey and get it in the oven by 7:00. A 22 lb bird takes 5 hours to cook. I'm looking forward to how good the house will smell tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving, fishies! |
One of my aunts in Massachusetts sent me an email this morning and mentioned it's snowing at her house right now. It's made me really homesick. I'm glad I decided to visit for two weeks instead of one at Christmas this year. It took me a while to get going yesterday, but I got a lot done once I finally got moving. I finished cleaning the entire house except for a little bit of dusting in the family room, which I will finish up today. The dust is so thick on the entertainment center right now, Mr Moo asked if we needed to rent a jackhammer to get through it. Funny how the one who has never dusted in 10 years is such a comedian. There was some confusion last night over which tables we use in the dining room for Thanksgiving dinner and which ones we put away, but we got it sorted in the end. I changed things up a bit because we're still not 100% sure how many people will be coming. I wanted to make sure that we had enough space to add some extra chairs at the last minute if that becomes necessary. This meant a bit more work last night, which Mr Moo thoroughly whined and complained about. However, if we end up with a few extra people on Thursday, we'll now be able to just pull up the extra chairs instead of having to break tables down and switch them around (like we don't have enough other stuff to do already), which will be much easier. In the end, he couldn't argue with the logic in that. Didn't even come close to getting the pie crusts made yesterday. That's priority one today. |
It's time. Time for me to get off my butt, finish cleaning this house and make a serious dent on Thanksgiving preparations. My goal for today is to finish cleaning the house (dusting, vacuuming and cleaning the loos), get the pie crusts made, and get the tables out of the garage and set. Doesn't look like much when I write it down, but I'm sure it will take the rest of the day right up until bedtime. The key is to keep reminding myself that the more I get done today and tomorrow, the less I will have to do Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Wish me luck! |
Dear People of the Good City of Portland: I realize it's pouring rain right now and that it's kind of dark and treacherous out there. However, if you find that you are completely incapable of doing at least the speed limit (yes, I'm talking to you, person in the SUV who never went more than 30 in the 45 MPH zone), you really need to reschedule all of your appointments and just stay home for the day. It's just a bit of water and hello! This is Portland, people! If you can't handle the rain, it's time to move to Arizona.
I'm sorry the giant, whopping two-lane entrance coming into the hospital was so overwhelming for you (fyi - driving right down the middle of both lanes is never the appropriate solution) and you ended up being in the wrong lane in the end. However, just pulling into the other lane without slowing down, signaling or even looking first, especially when my car is in said lane right next to yours, is never a good idea. You're lucky there was no traffic in the oncoming lane and I was able to swerve across the yellow line to avoid you. Dude, seriously, LOOK before you change lanes.
The fact that you couldn't make a right hand turn onto a decent sized main road without pulling almost halfway into the oncoming lane of traffic, and then couldn't manage to stay in your own lane while driving down said road says one thing to me - it's time to get a smaller car!
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Soooooooooooo busted. |
Still not working out regularly. Sigh. I was in bandages for virtually all of the week and today was just too crazy busy. I haven't been tracking my food/calories for about a week and half now either. My mission is to get totally back on track with my food plan tomorrow. I'm concerned if I don't, I'll end up about +100 pounds by the time the holidays are over. And that would be a very bad thing. Today was still weigh-in day. This weeks weight loss: 0 lbs. To be honest, I'm pleased. Since I haven't been tracking my calories all week, I thought for sure I would show a gain. Guess I haven't been eating as poorly as I thought. Height: 5' 2" Current Weight: 116 Highest Weight: 167 (January 14, 2006) Goal Weight: 110 Pounds Lost: 51 |
We just got home from the official Thanksgiving grocery shopping trip. This year, we bought 21.96 lb turkey and it cost us a whopping $3.51. Woot! Time for bed now. Just one more sleep and I get to take my bandages off for the last time. YAY!!! EDIT: It would help if I could actually get to sleep. Sigh. The itching is absolutely awful tonight. I think my leg knows what's happening and is exacting its one last night of revenge. |
Less than 24 hours of The Mummy Leg to go. |
"NAME THAT MOVIE" CONTEST - 114 Yes, I know it's been roughly a million years since I've updated the movie contest. Sue me. Round 114 is still open anyway. Go. Guess. Make me proud. |
My next door neighbor is outside right now raking up the leaves on our front lawn. When I first saw him as I was coming home from physical therapy, I thought he was just raking up his side and lost track of where he was. I told him he didn't have to rake our leaves, but he said he wanted to as a thank you for dog sitting Daisy a few months ago. All he asked is that he could use our yard debris can because his was getting full. I love my neighbors. |
I had a nightmare last night that Mr Moo and I not only forgot to go grocery shopping for Thanksgiving Day, we totally forgot to cook anything, too! We had a houseful of people show up and not a single thing to feed them. Oops. Fortunately, I'm more on the ball than that in reality. The plan is to go grocery shopping, as per our tradition, late (around midnight) tomorrow night. Although, I might see if I can talk Mr Moo into going tonight instead because we could use the extra day to let the turkey defrost. I shall also be moving the Random MooCam soon. If you would like to join us for virtual dinner on Thanksgiving Day, or anytime beforehand for the prep work, feel free to tune in. |
Mr Moo worked from home all morning and, amazingly, is still here. I got excited thinking he just wanted to be home with me and the kitties, but turns out he's actually waiting on the cable guy. Mr Moo bought an HD TiVo last week and there's some sort of component or two we need to get from the cable company for it all to work. The original time window was 0800-1000 this morning. It was then bumped to noon. It's now 1230 and there's still no sign of him. I wonder if he'll make it here at all today. Hopefully, he won't make it until just before 1700 so Mr Moo will end up home all day. |
Moo is awake and up before 0600. I can't even begin to explain to you how many things are wrong with this picture. I stayed up too late working last night. I fell right to sleep when I went to bed, but had a very difficult time staying asleep and/or getting back to sleep when I did wake up. My leg certainly wasn't helping the situation at all. The bandages are bunched really bad around my knee again, which is very uncomfortable, and don't even get me started about the itching. I'm either going to end up going back to bed in a little while and sleeping another four hours or I'll be a walking train wreck for the rest of the day. Let's hope it's the former. EDIT: Well, I didn't get four more hours of sleep, but I did manage one, which seems to have helped loads. I figure if I can keep busy and drink about a dozen cans of Dew this arvo, I should be good for the rest of the day. ((crosses fingers)) |
I had my leg measured at physical therapy yesterday afternoon. It's gone down 2cm in some places already, which is a very good thing. I told the physical therapist about how itchy and miserable I've been so she's working to get everything in place so I can stop wrapping by this weekend. The plan right now is to wrap through Friday. I will go to the store on Saturday morning to purchase compression stockings and start wearing those as soon as I have them. I will then follow up with the PT on Monday to make sure the stockings are doing their job. If so, I'll be good to go with just the stockings. If not, we'll figure out some alternative treatments until I get another pair of stockings that will work. I can finally see the light at the end of this tunnel and I couldn't be happier. |
We went to our second and final curling class tonight. We even remembered to bring the camera phone with us. We then proceeded to completely forget to actually take photos. So, sorry, fishies. You won't be seeing any shots of Moo doing her curling thang. I will tell you that I bit the ice twice tonight. Fortunately, they were both on my delivery, so I fell over more than down. They were still pretty spectacular crashes, if you ask me. We didn't get to play an entire game tonight, but we went through three ends after we practiced a while. We were all asking so many questions of the instructors that I don't think we could have played all 10 ends even if we had started immediately. Oh, well. We had a good time and learned a lot, which is the most important thing. One of the instructors told me I was a "star pupil" and should consider joining the league, so Mr Moo and I are going to look into since we had so much fun. |
I didn't do a workout yesterday yet again. Bad Moo. The bandages on my leg have been really uncomfortable and miserable the past few days. I'm finding the last thing I want to do during my one hour of reprieve every day is work out. I usually spend it scratching and rubbing lotion on my leg. Friday night was especially miserable. The cotton stocking that goes underneath all of the wrappings developed a small fold right where some of the foam was overlapping. Add an entire day of heavy pressure from the bandages on top of that and you can imagine how much it hurt by nighttime. I eventually woke Mr Moo up in the middle of the night to help me adjust things a bit because it got to hurting so bad. Anyhoo, I still weighed in yesterday. Amazingly enough, I lost weight this past week: 2 lbs. Since this week was my period week, I'm just chalking up the previous week's gain to bloat. Basically, I'm maintaining. This isn't a bad thing per se, but it would be nice if I could actually reach my goal weight before I start maintaining. Height: 5' 2" Current Weight: 116 Highest Weight: 167 (January 14, 2006) Goal Weight: 110 Pounds Lost: 51 |
Had some visitors in the backyard last night. |
Even though it was cloudy out, the leaves outside our window were still beautiful today. |
I'm back with my mummy leg on again. We were a little late to my appointment this afternoon because traffic on the highway was at a standstill. Fortunately, everyone else was running late because of it too, so it wasn't a big deal. Mr Moo paid much closer attention to the wrapping process today. At least I hope he did because he's going to have to do it multiple times over the weekend so I can shower, work out and go to curling class. I really |
I haven't posted a photo in a few days. Here. Have one of the kitties enjoying the sunbeam earlier this week. |
Another day. Another trip to see the physical therapist. She did the full lymphatic drainage massage today. It was all I could to stay awake throughout. It's not deep massage, but it does work parts of the autonomic nervous system, which can make you very relaxed and sleepy. If I had been much more tired, I would have been right out. Instead, I talked with the therapist about sewing, cross stitch and knitting. Turns out we both do all three, so we had lots to talk about. After the massage, she wrapped my leg up and I was on my way. I'm in and out of there in less than an hour. Mr Moo is coming along once again to my appointment tomorrow since he's still not completely comfortable doing the wrapping himself. Unlike Tuesday, I bet he will be paying very close attention and taking notes this time. PS - She had my missing shoe! Yay! |
TODAY'S WORKOUT: Cathe Friedrich's Low Max I can't even begin to describe how glorious it was to get the bandages off my leg today. I almost cried. Once everything was off, I did my stretching then worked out. The workout was absolutely miserable since I haven't done it for an age, but I was so thrilled about just being able to wear my sneakers and bend my leg normally for a little while that I didn't care. After a long shower, I reluctantly got everything together and had Mr Moo wrap my leg once again. He did pretty good job considering he's never done it before. It doesn't feel too bad right now because it's freshly done and it hasn't had a chance to bunch up behind my knee at all. It will be a hot mess come morning after I sleep with it, but I won't have to suffer with it long since I have another appointment with the physical therapist at 11:30. Let's hope she has my shoe! |
Has anyone seen my shoe? I'm missing a black shoe. I have the sinking feeling that we left it at the physical therapy place yesterday morning. I hope someone noticed it right away and set it aside for me. When my foot is all bandaged up, I have to wear the ugly and annoying boot, so I didn't notice we were down one shoe when we came home yesterday. There is a chance that it's in Mr Moo's truck, but I'm not holding my breath. I want my shoe back! |
My leg is on fire and I am in misery. For some reason, I'm sweating like a pig today, which is making my leg very berry itchy. And I'm trapped because I can't take the bandages off until Mr Moo gets home from work. In order for him to re-wrap it later, he wants to be the one to unwrap it so he can reverse engineer the whole process. Meanwhile, I get to sit here with my magma hot leg feeling like it's covered with fire ants, waiting not so patiently and trying to refrain from sawing it off with the letter opener. If he is even a minute late getting home tonight, I'm going to pummel him. |
I had a long chat with the vet yesterday about Zoe's progress to date and the next course of treatment. He was as amazed and thrilled as we were as to how well she has recovered. (It's still hard to believe that just 10 days ago, she couldn't walk or eat on her own and we were making plans for her death) He said he doesn't see it very often, but sometimes some cats just need a bit of Prednisone to turn them around. His prognosis is still the same though. He's as sure as he can be without an MRI that she has a tumor or some sort of cancer in her brain and she will die from it. What he doesn't and can't know is when. He said it's possible, if we're willing to continue with the level of care we're giving her, that she could be around for a few more years. Or she could crash tomorrow and be gone by this weekend. We just have no way of knowing. In the meantime, we're going to start reducing her dosage of the steroids and continue weaning her off the sub-Q fluids to see how she does. Obviously, if there are any issues at all, she'll be right back on both. We'll also be keeping a close eye on her quality of life. If she starts to show and signs of pain or suffering or otherwise tells me that she's had enough, we'll go ahead and schedule the euthanasia again. Until that day arrives, however, we'll just keep on enjoying her company as much as we can. |
Beware of the Curse of the Mummy Leg!!! |
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This is pretty much what my leg looks and feels like right now. The therapist didn't even bother attempting the lymphatic massage today. She just focused on the wrapping. It's a good thing because she ended up having to re-do it all three times. Getting the bandages just right around the joints is tricky business. If it's not done properly, it could cut off the circulation to my leg or foot every time I sit or otherwise bend my leg, and that would be a very bad thing. Since I don't have an appointment with the therapist on Wednesday, Mr Moo will come with me to my appointment tomorrow to learn how to do the wrapping so he can do it. Let's hope he pays close attention.I'm about to head out for my first physical therapy appointment for my leg. Should be all sorts of fun. Not. Me and my mummy leg will be back soon. Later, fishies. |
Curling. Was. Awesome! We had a great time tonight. Amazingly, Mr Moo and I weren't that bad. We weren't good, but we definitely weren't the worst. No matter what anyone ever tells you, curling is a LOT harder than it looks on TV. Like our instructor said, "Any idiot can hurl a stone down the ice, but it takes a lot of practice to do it correctly and accurately." He wasn't kidding. Of all the stones the two of us threw tonight, only one of them made the distance and ended up in the house. And, it was mine. Booyah! It's hard to tell when you watch it on TV, but it's a loooong way from the hack to the house. There's also about a million and one things you have to think about (Am I aiming right? Is my arm extended? Am I turning my wrist enough? Are my hips straight?), so it's hard to throw both accurately and hard enough. We definitely improved as the evening wore on, but we still have a long way to go. A good portion of our time tonight was spent in class discussing technique and the basics of the game. When we finally made it onto the ice, we each took turns practicing our delivery without actually releasing. When we did get around to releasing, the instructor intercepted all of the stones about a third of the way down since the other half of the class was practicing at the other end of the sheet. It wasn't until the very end when we got to try full on throws. Next week, which is our final class, we'll get to play a full game. Hopefully, it will be after we get to practice some more because we all still stink pretty bad. And, before anyone asks, yes, I did fall on my butt tonight. Surprisingly, it wasn't when I was throwing. I was sweeping someone else's stone, hit a wet spot and down I went. It was quite spectacular, if I do say so myself. Even the instructor commented on how awesomely I tanked. Hey, if you're gonna go down, go down with style I say. |
Tonight is the start of our curling class. It concludes next Sunday evening. I'm sure we'll completely stink at it and probably spend more time laughing than actually playing, but Mr Moo and I thought it would be something fun to do together. I'm going to bring my camera, but I'm not sure if I'll have time or even be allowed to take any photos. If I do, I'll be sure to post them. Physical therapy for my leg edema begins tomorrow. I got a call from the office on Wednesday night that my therapist was still going to be out sick on Thursday, so I told them to just cancel Friday's appointment as well and we'd start fresh on Monday. I get to have my leg wrapped from ankle to thigh for two solid weeks. I'm so looking forward to it. ((groan)) I was reminded about a billion times last week about turning the clocks back last night. Did I remember any of it this morning? Of course not! I've been up for about four hours now and I still haven't got a clue what time it is. |
Look, Momma! I'm walking around on my own. |
Speaking of Christmas, we picked up some ornaments for our tree while we were in South Dakota last month. |
I didn't do a workout today. Just not feeling up to it yet. I am eating better though, which at least is a start. I'll get back to working out soon enough. I must since Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner. Guh. Still weighed in though. I'm +2 lbs from two weeks ago. Not good, but not as bad as I thought it might be considering how much garbage I've eaten over the last week or so. Height: 5' 2" Current Weight: 118 Highest Weight: 167 (January 14, 2006) Goal Weight: 110 Pounds Lost: 49 |
Zoe Update #749 There really isn't much to report. She continues to be stable. She's not 100% back to normal (she never will be), but she's doing a hella lot better than last weekend. She's able to walk around on her own without too much issue (her balance is still a bit wonky, but not too bad), her appetite is good and she's making urine. All of the criteria to avoid lethal injection. She's still not drinking water on her own, but the doctor said that isn't shocking since we're still giving her the sub-cutaneous fluids every day. We're going to start cutting back on the fluids starting tonight to see if that will spur her thirst a bit. We're also to continue with daily full doses of the steroids until early next week when we'll report back to the vet once again. I'm fairly certain he'll want to start cutting back on the steroids at that point, so we'll make the appropriate course corrections as per his instructions. |
I asked for Halloween photos the other day. I didn't get many, but here are a few. |
I polished off the last of the Halloween candy yesterday and had a terrible stomach ache all day long. I can't remember the last time I've wanted to throw up so badly. It wasn't a pleasant day. Between the Halloween candy and using the stress of Zoe's situation as an excuse to eat "convenience" food, my diet has gone completely to hell this week. I don't want to weigh in tomorrow, but I must. I'm going to do my best to get back on track today, which should be easier now that all of the candy is gone. |
From this year's Chick-fil-A calendar, The Good, The Bad and The Hairy: |
