When I had my bedazzled purple cast cut off, the doctor who put me into the cam boot said that I could technically walk on my foot. Dr. W- told me limited weight bearing for two weeks. I opted to stay with the original instructions. Thursday, was my first day out, crutch-free.
It is grand.
Grant you, I walk as if I am a victim of a displaced stick, but it's all good. I have to keep a tennis shoe on, though. The height of the cam boot vs. a flat foot is quite different. I have to walk on my toes if unshoed on the left.
My crutches are still in the truck if I need them. I'm looking forward to going to the grocery today. I hadn't gone before, as I didn't care to go in a motorized shopping scooter.
I go back on the 29th to see what progress I've made and if I'm shoe-ready. I dare not walk anywhere without my boot. I even sleep with it on. Better to be safe than sorry, even if when I take it off, it smells like little kid foot. Eeeeewwwwww!
Smiles in my days:
- Busy, busy. We had an open house Thursday evening where we were able to go to our child's class and get the full run-down of what they do with their day. It helped to explain a lot of things and clarification is always good. I could tell that the teacher was nervous, as she apologized the next day for things that she had missed. I told her how much I appreciated it. She needed an atagirl. You know, sometimes it's a lot easier to get in front of the little people that their parents. If you do something goofy in front of the kids, they'll laugh, you'll laugh and all is done. Parents take things way too seriously.
- Mike, the wonder neighbor, is back from his quick trip to Myrtle Beach. Some old guy ran a stop sign and hit him with his car, though. Mike rolled over the hood and landed on the other side. The man saw that he appeared unhurt and he WAVED AND DROVE AWAY. I told Mike that I'm sure that he'd rather it be him than his girlfriend, Ruth. Wow.
- We caught our last monarch yesterday. The tally sheets will be mailed on Monday. The butterflies will begin arriving in Mexico in about mid-November. We'll see if any of ours made it. Of course, we're really pulling for PMA 912. I mean, I busted my foot for that butterfly and all! I'll keep you guys up to date on whether any of our butterflies make it.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Pumped Up Kicks: What is your interpretation?
"Why, no I don't."
He went on to tell me that it was about a kid who went to school and shot up his peers. Yikes.
Several of us at work have discussed it. My basic thought is that if you can take a fairly liberal minded bunch of artists and college students and offend them with a song, somethings got to be a little off.
I looked up some lyric interpretatons online.
What are your thoughts? Me? I have a love for alternative music. This one makes me shake my head, though.
Smiles in my day:
- Finally, K- has a very "wiggly tooth."
Have a great day!
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Please stop texting while you are driving.
To the offenders,
I have seen two young women driving along, both hands holding their phone while steering with their forearms, texting. The speed is up and down. There is swerving involved. May I put this in perspective of how incredibly NOT OKAY this is?
I have a child. A precious and wonderful child that we adopted. We lost our daughter, Bailey in pregnancy. To lose one child was horrible. You aren't paying attention to the road. You are reading messages. You are answering idiotic things that you needn't be concerned about while you are driving. Please keep my child in mind as you are being irresponsible.
I have a husband. My husband drives about a half hour to work. We've been married nearly 15 years, together for almost 18. I'll do the math for you. Hubs and I have been together since I was 20. He and my daughter are my all and everything.
I have family. My Uncle Billy died when he was 34. He was driving up one side of a hill, when someone decided to pass a semi on the other side. The two met up somewhere around the top of the hill. Instead of swerving away from each other, they ended up swerving into each other. My uncle died 4 days later, after having a perforated colon and developing peritonitis. I was in high school and devastated. My uncle didn't die as a result of texting while driving, but the other driver did and equally stupid thing.
I have friends. I have friends who have lost siblings and children, parents and friends. I have a friend whose sister was murdered. I have another friend whose daughter drowned. I have a friend who had both parents die within 15 months of each other. They have experienced loss far more than anyone should.
When you text and drive, you aren't paying full attention to the road. When you aren't paying full attention to the road, you can't be fully aware of small things that can turn into big things if not recognized.
Let me be blunt. You are driving a very heavy thing down a road while playing with a screen and you could kill my people or someone else's family.
Put your phone down. Pay attention to driving. Deal with your messages when you stop.
Thank you,
Amy at Bailey's Leaf
I have seen two young women driving along, both hands holding their phone while steering with their forearms, texting. The speed is up and down. There is swerving involved. May I put this in perspective of how incredibly NOT OKAY this is?
I have a child. A precious and wonderful child that we adopted. We lost our daughter, Bailey in pregnancy. To lose one child was horrible. You aren't paying attention to the road. You are reading messages. You are answering idiotic things that you needn't be concerned about while you are driving. Please keep my child in mind as you are being irresponsible.
I have a husband. My husband drives about a half hour to work. We've been married nearly 15 years, together for almost 18. I'll do the math for you. Hubs and I have been together since I was 20. He and my daughter are my all and everything.
I have family. My Uncle Billy died when he was 34. He was driving up one side of a hill, when someone decided to pass a semi on the other side. The two met up somewhere around the top of the hill. Instead of swerving away from each other, they ended up swerving into each other. My uncle died 4 days later, after having a perforated colon and developing peritonitis. I was in high school and devastated. My uncle didn't die as a result of texting while driving, but the other driver did and equally stupid thing.
I have friends. I have friends who have lost siblings and children, parents and friends. I have a friend whose sister was murdered. I have another friend whose daughter drowned. I have a friend who had both parents die within 15 months of each other. They have experienced loss far more than anyone should.
When you text and drive, you aren't paying full attention to the road. When you aren't paying full attention to the road, you can't be fully aware of small things that can turn into big things if not recognized.
Let me be blunt. You are driving a very heavy thing down a road while playing with a screen and you could kill my people or someone else's family.
Put your phone down. Pay attention to driving. Deal with your messages when you stop.
Thank you,
Amy at Bailey's Leaf
Sunday, September 11, 2011
The Anniversary: We'll Never Forget.
I've just spent the better part of my evening watching specials on 9/11. I've watched multiple programs showing the second plane hitting the south tower, the collapse, the panic and how not only did the skyline of NYC change, but so did the skyline of our lives.
At the time, I was unemployed. I was still drawing unemployment, as the galleries that I had worked for closed in early summer. I had worked for them as far into the closing as I could, then I was out to find a job. I had found one, at the place that I currently work, but was due to start September 17, 2001.
I was home, going stir crazy and cleaning my home to the point of being able to eat off my floor. I flicked the news on, as I generally did when I ate breakfast, and I saw the NYC skyline with smoke. I heard Katie Couric's voice. At that point, it was assumed that the building was struck on accident. I had been talking to my mother-in-law on the phone.
Then the second plane came.
It was no accident.
Then the Pentagon.
Then Shanksville.
I watched news over the next week to the point where I was in panic attacks. I couldn't sleep without seeing planes falling from the sky. I had to turn the TV off altogether.
I remember when everything happened, the sky became silent. It seems like a dumb thing to say, as everyone knew that. Here, we are three blocks from a small airport, and depending upon the weather, in the circling pattern of a more major airport.
If planes kept hitting buildings, what was next?
I recall going to Drug Mart up the street to fill up bottles of water. It seemed like a dumb thing to do, but someone somewhere (the news or by instruction from someone parental) told me to go stock up on water. Our water supply would certainly be compromised.
When I turned the TV back on, there were erector set piles of buildings with trapped people. There were messages left behind for their families. There were people on planes talking to family as their plane barreled into the south tower.
I felt sorry for us. I knew that there were people who lost friends and family. I knew that there were emergency service personnel that went in to do what they signed up to do and never came out. I knew that there were people -- a lot of them -- that helped each other get out of the towers. These people, as the whole nation, but these people more so would be permanently damaged. They saw things and experienced situations that no one could even guess. Though they were able to triumph over a building that would soon be a grave for many, images are permanently seared into their brains. What they went through during their exit breaks my heart.
There was such a loss of innocence on that day. No longer would we allow planes to simply fly overhead. If a plane made a weird noise or was flying lower than what I suspect would be cruising altitude, we instantly became suspect.
I felt sorry for the children, born and unborn, that miss the opportunity to know these great people.
I feel bad that we are no longer able to live a life with trust for everyone. To travel by air used to be a quick way to go. Because there were people who decided to use air craft as missiles, we must tack at least an hour and a half to our airport wait time. I don't mention this to solicit a "feel sorry for us" response. I simply state this because this is another confirmation that we've lost innocence. Someone can't be absent minded and forget anything behind in an airport. To do so will bring bomb dogs out and federal charges. We now must remove our shoes, because if 9/11 wasn't scary enough, someone decided that they were going to try to take a plane down with explosives in his shoes.
My grandmother had been visiting my sister and was stranded at her house, about 3 hours away from Shanksville. Cousins who had just married the week previous were on their honeymoon and were stranded out somewhere near Grand Cayman. Neither one could get back home.
I remember driving down Mayfield Road near Cleveland, and there were firefighters standing in the middle of the road with boots. They were going car to car collecting donations for the victims of 9/11.
Previous to 9/11, I felt safe. Hubs and I were planning a family, but that day everything for us stopped. Why would we want to add children to a world that we didn't even feel safe to live in? Here I was beginning a new job and we needed to purchase a car for me to get there. We had shared a car for a year and a half, but since I lost my job that was just down the road from where Hubs worked, the option of driving to work together was no longer there. Did we feel safe enough to spend that money?
Fast forward to today. When we visited NYC this past fall, we were returning from Battery Park where we had gotten off of the Statue of Liberty ferry. Our cab, no surprise, was flying down the road on the way back to our hotel so that we could change and go to Times Square to see Mary Poppins. Suddenly, my sister-in-law asked the cab driver, "Is that Ground Zero?"
"Yes."
There was chain link fence up and heavy equipment. Never in a million years would I have picked that place out to be Ground Zero. It looked like a construction site and not like a place where thousands of people lost their life. Maybe it was because there was nothing that marked the importance of the site to people who didn't know.
I felt so dumb not to know.
We were speeding by, but I was determined to take something of the site with me. I wanted to have something for my daughter. When she started asking questions, I could show her something of our trip to help fill in the gaps.
I'm so sorry that I have to explain terrorism to her.
I'm so sorry that I have to explain the loss of life to her.
I'm so sorry that I have to tell her how many people raced into the building to save people, didn't come out.
I'm so sorry that I have to tell her that Aunt Kristin and Uncle Tom lost a friend that day.
I'm so sorry that I have to tell her that we had a war with people over this, the big bad guy who was a head of the bad people who did this is now gone, but more bad people are still out there. Bad people who then killed more people in war.
We'll never forget. We shouldn't. We can't. Not one shred of it or any of the lives that were taken or affected.
At the time, I was unemployed. I was still drawing unemployment, as the galleries that I had worked for closed in early summer. I had worked for them as far into the closing as I could, then I was out to find a job. I had found one, at the place that I currently work, but was due to start September 17, 2001.
I was home, going stir crazy and cleaning my home to the point of being able to eat off my floor. I flicked the news on, as I generally did when I ate breakfast, and I saw the NYC skyline with smoke. I heard Katie Couric's voice. At that point, it was assumed that the building was struck on accident. I had been talking to my mother-in-law on the phone.
Then the second plane came.
It was no accident.
Then the Pentagon.
Then Shanksville.
I watched news over the next week to the point where I was in panic attacks. I couldn't sleep without seeing planes falling from the sky. I had to turn the TV off altogether.
I remember when everything happened, the sky became silent. It seems like a dumb thing to say, as everyone knew that. Here, we are three blocks from a small airport, and depending upon the weather, in the circling pattern of a more major airport.
If planes kept hitting buildings, what was next?
I recall going to Drug Mart up the street to fill up bottles of water. It seemed like a dumb thing to do, but someone somewhere (the news or by instruction from someone parental) told me to go stock up on water. Our water supply would certainly be compromised.
When I turned the TV back on, there were erector set piles of buildings with trapped people. There were messages left behind for their families. There were people on planes talking to family as their plane barreled into the south tower.
I felt sorry for us. I knew that there were people who lost friends and family. I knew that there were emergency service personnel that went in to do what they signed up to do and never came out. I knew that there were people -- a lot of them -- that helped each other get out of the towers. These people, as the whole nation, but these people more so would be permanently damaged. They saw things and experienced situations that no one could even guess. Though they were able to triumph over a building that would soon be a grave for many, images are permanently seared into their brains. What they went through during their exit breaks my heart.
There was such a loss of innocence on that day. No longer would we allow planes to simply fly overhead. If a plane made a weird noise or was flying lower than what I suspect would be cruising altitude, we instantly became suspect.
I felt sorry for the children, born and unborn, that miss the opportunity to know these great people.
I feel bad that we are no longer able to live a life with trust for everyone. To travel by air used to be a quick way to go. Because there were people who decided to use air craft as missiles, we must tack at least an hour and a half to our airport wait time. I don't mention this to solicit a "feel sorry for us" response. I simply state this because this is another confirmation that we've lost innocence. Someone can't be absent minded and forget anything behind in an airport. To do so will bring bomb dogs out and federal charges. We now must remove our shoes, because if 9/11 wasn't scary enough, someone decided that they were going to try to take a plane down with explosives in his shoes.
My grandmother had been visiting my sister and was stranded at her house, about 3 hours away from Shanksville. Cousins who had just married the week previous were on their honeymoon and were stranded out somewhere near Grand Cayman. Neither one could get back home.
I remember driving down Mayfield Road near Cleveland, and there were firefighters standing in the middle of the road with boots. They were going car to car collecting donations for the victims of 9/11.
Previous to 9/11, I felt safe. Hubs and I were planning a family, but that day everything for us stopped. Why would we want to add children to a world that we didn't even feel safe to live in? Here I was beginning a new job and we needed to purchase a car for me to get there. We had shared a car for a year and a half, but since I lost my job that was just down the road from where Hubs worked, the option of driving to work together was no longer there. Did we feel safe enough to spend that money?
Fast forward to today. When we visited NYC this past fall, we were returning from Battery Park where we had gotten off of the Statue of Liberty ferry. Our cab, no surprise, was flying down the road on the way back to our hotel so that we could change and go to Times Square to see Mary Poppins. Suddenly, my sister-in-law asked the cab driver, "Is that Ground Zero?"
"Yes."
There was chain link fence up and heavy equipment. Never in a million years would I have picked that place out to be Ground Zero. It looked like a construction site and not like a place where thousands of people lost their life. Maybe it was because there was nothing that marked the importance of the site to people who didn't know.
I felt so dumb not to know.
I'm so sorry that I have to explain terrorism to her.
I'm so sorry that I have to explain the loss of life to her.
I'm so sorry that I have to tell her how many people raced into the building to save people, didn't come out.
I'm so sorry that I have to tell her that Aunt Kristin and Uncle Tom lost a friend that day.
I'm so sorry that I have to tell her that we had a war with people over this, the big bad guy who was a head of the bad people who did this is now gone, but more bad people are still out there. Bad people who then killed more people in war.
We'll never forget. We shouldn't. We can't. Not one shred of it or any of the lives that were taken or affected.
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