My Holiday Update
Happy holidays, everyone!! As you can tell, I have not been blogging much this month of December. Besides all of the craziness and hoopla of everything involved with the holidays, I had a major muscle spasm this month that had me on my back on a heating pad and taking muscle relaxers for almost a week then I was still very limited in what I could do.
I also have scar tissue in my knee for many years and it has steadily been getting worse as I age and all year I’ve been going to physical therapy to deal with it so I could exercise more without so much pain. After all of these sessions with not that much change they tell me at my last session that I may need surgery. Ugh.
I went back to the orthopedic surgeon who occasionally gives me cortisone shots in my IT band in my leg so I can exercise without so much pain (and he also told me to do PT) and as my last ditch effort before surgery he decided this time to stick a giant needle directly into my lump of scar tissue. I thought I was going to die from the pain that night. It was almost as bad as when I was in labor and my son got stuck and caused ligaments to tear inside my hip. The only thing that helped was icing it for 48 hours straight to keep it numb and immobile until the injected fluid was absorbed into my leg and away from expanding the scar tissue. It took several days of no moving and icing it but at least it was over a few days before Christmas and we were able to enjoy a really fun family day. Now my knee feels great and I am hoping it did something in breaking up the mass and I can avoid surgery!
We also had a really nice winter garden of hardy greens under a hoop house and big cabbages ready to be harvested when my back issues were going on and my husband was crazy at work. He was going to harvest lots of it that weekend and one morning early in the week he says, “I think the digital outdoor thermometer is broken, it says it’s minus 15 outside.” We both were like, uh-oh and turned on the weather and sure enough, the arctic cold front came down overnight and I was too distracted with pain to watch the news that week and the sub-zero temps basically ruined our lovely winter crop!! We were sad. The cabbages were huge, too. At least we started growing our indoor sprouts again but I was really looking forward to the spinach, kale and collards that were doing so well out there. Damn Arctic cold front!!! We did finish building a new, little greenhouse by late November but didn’t get anything planted in it before the cold came so we decided to just rely on the hoop house this winter instead. Ha! Now we know better for next year.
Another change that happened this month was for my husband. He received a surprise call in November from a consultant that had worked for him this past year. It was for an unadvertised position at a good company in his field that is poised to do even better in a recession. This consultant became a full time employee there because of the economy and because it’s such a good place to work he said. My husband was not looking for a new job, his was pretty safe even though his present company has done a few rounds of layoffs this year. He decided it was something to go for and he fit the bill perfectly for what they wanted. We think it was meant to be since they chose him and he starts next week. The only downside to this is that he now has to commute 20 minutes instead of working down the street. He gets a better salary, more paid time off, better job security and more exciting work to do so that was the trade-off. He’s really excited for his new adventure.
Since he used to eat lunch at home almost every day, I decided to get him a rockin’ lunch box of some sort that he would love and where I could make him some interesting, healthy lunches in. I did some research and ordered him a Mr. Bento Stainless Lunch Jar – aka a “bento box.” I gave it to him as one of his xmas gifts and he loves it. It has 2 insulated containers for hot or cold food (one even holds soup) and 2 for cold or room temp food. It stacks inside this steel, vacuum sealed cylinder and even has a carry case and comes with a spork but he added chop sticks, too. There are several bento box “food p*rn” sites and blogs to get ideas of what to make from simple to gourmet and we being the gourmet types are geeking out a bit over it, I have to say!
He gave me as one of my gifts Veganomicon, an amazing (cooked) vegan cookbook. There are so many great recipes in there and even meal ideas for the different recipes so I’m sure I’ll be making him lots of good food from that book (plus sneaking in some raw recipes, too!).
Right now while he’s on vacation til the new job starts, we are trying to finish up some house projects and major re-organizing. It feels good to move stuff around and get rid of things. He is building some new shelving in our multi-purpose rec room to make it more user friendly for each of us that uses that room for different activities. I am ready to start doing yoga again there now, I figure that won’t hurt my back if I start slow and build up again.
I’m sure I’ll be back to posting more after the new year and settling into my family’s new daily routine.
I hope you all have a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year!!
December 28 2008 10:36 pm | Home and food and food storage and green living and holidays
December 29th, 2008 at 1:29 am
[...] Random Feed wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptHappy holidays, everyone!! As you can tell, I have not been blogging much this month of December. Besides all of the craziness and hoopla of everything involved with the holidays, I had a major muscle spasm this month that had me on my back on a heating pad and taking muscle relaxers for almost a week then I was still very limited in what I could do. I also have scar tissue in my knee for many years and it has steadily been getting worse as I age and all year I’ve been going to physical th [...]
December 29th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Ouch!! Ouch, ouch, ouch!
Happy 2009 to you!
Nicoles last blog post..Junk, junk, glorious junk!