The Road to Recovery

Today was a very big day in our house.  Nathan finally got the pins out of his toes!  They were originally supposed to come out last week, but x-rays at that time showed that his toes weren’t quite healed enough.  So today was the big day.  He is now pin-less, in a new walking boot, and only using crutches as needed.  Needless to say, he is very excited to finally be moving around a little more and seeing some progress.

This last month has been quite a learning experience, for both of us.  As Nathan put it, he will “never take his toes for granted again”.  (He probably will also listen to his wife when she tells him that hopping on one foot up stairs is not a good idea and certainly will not lead to anything good.  That is, unless you consider face planting to be “good”.)  Obviously the “in sickness” part of our wedding vows came unexpectedly and much earlier than expected.  It was certainly challenging and stressful at times, but I feel like I have grown as wife.  Not only that, my brain cells have gotten smarter!  Thanks to this experience, I now know several new things:

1) It’s a good thing that I am not a nurse.

Because I would really be terrible at it.  I have not had any professional nursing training, so I can’t be sure, but I suspect that good nurses do not repeatedly bump the broken bones (on accident, of course).  Or kick them (also on accident).  Or drop sherbet cups on them (again, an accident).

2) How to connect the sprinkler to the hose.

And where to place it in order to water the lawn.  Also, that the hose is possessed and will spray water all over you when you attempt to turn it off.

3) Where to find painter’s tape at Home Depot.

That would be the second paint aisle. Not the first.  And apparently, it only takes a salesperson one glance to realize that I do not belong in Home Depot.

4)  The secret to Nathan’s homemade pizza.

One part of the secret is the ingredients.  Another part is the process.  And the final part is not overdoing it on the cheese, unless you want to fill your house with smoke and be forced to open all of the windows in ninety degree weather.  Obviously, I learned this the hard way.

5) How to take out the trash.

It seems like this would be fairly obvious and straightforward.  But it turns out, there is a method to the madness!

6) I can cook new things without using recipes!

Ok, fine.  One new thing.  But when you go from cooking two dinners a week to cooking seven dinners a week, you realize that you quickly run out of meal ideas.  Last night, I was feeling creative.  And tired of eating my same old garlic bread with premade Johnny’s Garlic Seasoning.  So I got creative with some butter, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and mozzarella.  And voila!  I had cheesy garlic bread.  EDIBLE cheesy garlic bread.  SUCCESS!!!!

7) It is possible to take back our pop cans in a timely fashion.

Those of you who know us know that our garage is filled with bags, bags, and more bags of cans and water bottles.  My dad got tired of it and “tricked” (Nathan’s words, not mine) Nathan into taking back pop cans one day.  I have never been a fan of returning cans, especially alone.  But with some helpful nagging from my dear old dad, I went alone to take back cans one day.  And guess what?  It wasn’t so bad!  The trick is to go to Costco’s can return, and get there when they open.  Their machines always work (hint, hint, Safeway), and they even have a call button for when the bins get full!  I have made twenty bucks in the last two weeks.  (No matter that I probably still have forty bucks more in the garage).  PROGRESS!

8) My parents rock.

They took Nathan to doctors appointments, ran errands for me, and took back some of my cans.  They even installed a special showerhead in the now non-leaky master shower so that Nathan could take a shower easier without getting his foot wet.  I don’t know what we would have done without them.

9) My husband helps me a lot.

I knew he helped me around the house before.  But I don’t think I fully appreciated how much until he physically couldn’t help me.  He couldn’t kill the spiders, make dinner, carry laundry upstairs, or unload all the groceries from the car.  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg with what he helps me with.  I will never take his help for granted again!

10) And finally, my husband thinks I am a terrible driver.

See, normally he drives everywhere.  But for the last month, he has been at my mercy.  Apparently my tendency to drift, speed, and not use a blinker scares him.  I believe his exact words were, “You are the worst driver I know.  I never thought I would say it, but you are worse than Erika.”  (I am really not sure who should be more offended, me or Erika.  Erika says me.  But I am not offended.  He will eat his words when I become the next Danica Patrick.  You don’t need blinkers in NASCAR!)

* * *

Yes, the last month was challenging, but I am really grateful that we had this experience.  I think we will appreciate things more, and be better prepared to handle future challenges.  We still have a little ways to go on the path to recovery, but I am looking forward to things slowly getting back to normal!

Beach Bums

Last weekend, Nathan and I decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and take a day trip to the beach.

 

Now, for some people a day trip to the beach involves a lot of activity –swimming, kite flying, sand castle building, perhaps a walk around the tourist part of town or a trip to the aquarium.  A day trip with us is exactly the opposite.

 

Our day trips to the beach involve hauling a bunch of junk food, People magazines, and beach towels down South Beach until we are far away from all other people (noisy children and dogs, in particular).  Then we lay out our towels, eat lunch, and take naps – all while wearing several layers of jackets.  Somewhere in there, I usually find time to dip a toe (and sometimes my whole foot!) in the ice bath known as the Pacific.  We really know how to day trip it!

 

 

Last weekend was so nice, that the beach actually felt WARM.  Don’t let all our layers fool you.  At one point I actually thought, “I am too hot with all of these jackets on.”  The thought quickly faded, but that’s not the point.  It was warm enough that I even went in to the water up to my knees!  The wind wasn’t too bad either, at least not at first.

 

 

Someone who shall remain nameless was a bit of a Crabby Patty after they woke up from their nap to find their entire towel covered in sand.  So, we packed up our stuff and headed north for a little bit of whale watching!

 

Our first stop was Boiler Bay.  We have seen whales here twice before, so we always make sure to stop by.  We didn’t see any whales last weekend, but it was a beautiful day and the tide was coming in, so we stayed and enjoyed the scenery for a while.

 

 

We returned to the car to find a group of seagulls watching it intently.  Perhaps these were the same seagulls who attacked Nathan’s unopened bag of barbecue chips last summer when we went to the beach (a very devastating loss for him), and they could smell his second attempt at barbecue chips in the car?

 

 

After we left Boiler Bay, we stopped at one other lookout on our way home.  I am sure it has a name, but we missed the sign, so we decided to name it ourselves – behold our pictures of “Suicide Lookout”.  A lot of the lookouts on the Oregon coast completely fence off any access to rocks and water, but apparently they don’t feel the need to do so at Suicide Lookout.  They’ll let anyone jump, fall, or be blown off the cliffs by the wind.  At least the jumpers can enjoy a good view on the way down!

 

   

Yeah, because everyone listens to these signs.

 

 

Sadly, there were no whales there either.  But we did enjoy a lovely day!

The Big Metal Machine

My treadmill is broken.

Not beyond the point of repair, but enough that I can’t use it for a couple weeks until the parts come in and the service man can come back to fix them.  Bad bearing and something called a run belt.  If I am reading his handwriting correctly, it says, “run belt is starting to fuzz”.  I don’t know what that means.  The word “fuzz” makes me think of mold for some reason.  Whatever it is, it does not sound good.  His recommendation was that I do not use the treadmill until the belt is replaced, so my treadmill is sitting silent and off, all by itself in the corner of the room.  It sort of reminds me of the movie Wall-E, where all the old machines and stuff just sat silent and unused, except without all the trash surrounding it.

This would not be such a problem, except that my second New Year’s resolution was to get my lazy self back in shape.  I took an extended (read: 3 month) break from regular exercise due to the hectic-ness leading up to the wedding.  Then Christmas came, and then I found all sorts thing to do instead of exercise, such as:

• Spend an alarming number of hours on Pinterest doing absolutely nothing.
• Watching seasons 1 & 2 of Modern Family
• Must. Read. Hunger. Games.  One night for each book.
• Become obsessed with a free game on my Kindle called Every Word and stay up until all hours of the night playing it.
• Sit around eating leftover pie, wedding candy, and anything else I could get my hands on.
• Stalk the aisles of Costco looking for pomegranates and eggnog (to be fair, at least the eggnog was not for me).

You get the picture. . . I am one lazy lady.

So it figures that when I finally got up the motivation (thanks to new episodes of all my ABC Family shows – more TV and laziness) to get off my butt and onto the treadmill, it starts making weird noises and here we are.

My initial reaction was, “Yay! 2 more weeks of doing nothing!”, but that seems to be the complete opposite of my New Year’s resolution, so I am trying to figure out what to do for the next 2-3 weeks.  There are certainly plenty of people in the world who exercise without the assistance of a treadmill.   Running outside is not a great option, between the weather and my lack of daylight hours.  I do have a couple P90X DVD’s, but every time I do the yoga I get an urge to find that super-flexible girl and kick her because honestly?  No normal person can bend like that.  My dad has suggested Crossfit.  I once tried their daily challenge exercise at home . . . it probably won’t surprise you that I was highly unsuccessful.

Then the light bulb (however dimly lit) clicked on in my head – strength training!  I always complain about my serious lack of muscle.  And I have my two secret weapons – 5 lb. dumbbell #1 and #2!  I have found some fantabulous workouts online.  My thoughts are, if I do these for two weeks, maybe 3 miles won’t feel like torture next time I do get to run.  Because I really would like to make it through an entire episode of my shows at some point!

Upper Body Strength for Runners               via Runners World                           

                                       

        

 

 

                                                     Workouts for Pear-Shaped Bodies via Women’s Health Magazine

(On a side note – this is not to knock on pear-shaped bodies.  It’s just an unfortunate hereditary trait of mine that I have grudgingly accepted, and now I would simply like to maximize it to its full potential).

 

Happy workouts! Hopefully you all are not lacking motivation as much as I am when it comes to your fitness ambitions.  Stay tuned!