Family “Funday” Sunday

My sister Erika is in town for one week before she moves to the East Coast for medical school.  She stayed with Nathan and I on Saturday night, and made us a delicious dinner of kielbasa, quinoa salad, corn on the cob, and French bread.  We even ate at the dining room table and had grown up dinner conversation!  How old are we?  It was a very relaxing and fun time.

Today, my parents, Erika, my brother and I all went to the coast for a day of family time.  We had a lot of fun, and surprisingly the weather at the coast ended up nicer than the weather at home.  First up, we hit Agate Beach so that we could all get a look at the dock from Japan (none of us had seen it except Dakota and Nathan).

We got there at just the right time, because shortly after the tide came in and you couldn’t get as close to the dock.  What Nathan failed to mention to me was that it was quite the hike from the day use area to the dock. 

And because I just couldn’t resist posting this last photo . . .

I also forgot that my parents’ idea of a day at the beach involves a lot more walking than mine.  So after that, we walked all the way to the rock that you see in the background of that last picture.  It doesn’t seem that far, but trust me, it is.  If you don’t believe me, ask the blister on my heel.

After we left Agate Beach, we drove through the Nye Beach area and stopped to take a look at the shops there.  We never realized they had shops down there.  There was a great little used book store, and also an Irish pub with outdoor seating that Nathan and I just might check out next time we are in town.

We ended the day in Old Town in Newport for some ice cream (yes, it was actually that warm there today), watching the boats come in.

It was a wonderful day, and so much fun to do something as a family.  Especially since Erika is leaving next week, and we won’t get as many opportunities to see her over the next several years while she is in med school.  We used to do family trips and vacations all the time, and the older we get the harder it is to get everyone in the same place at one time.  We certainly did miss our “Crabby Patty” (aka Jessica) and my better half today, but hopefully they can join us next time!

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!

Fourth Of July Fun

Yes, I know July 4th was nearly a week ago.  As you may have noticed by my lack of blogging, I am a little behind lately.  Besides, my neighbors are still shooting off fireworks.  So if they insist on doing that, I insist on sharing our 4th of July a few days late.

The past several years, the more ambitious members of my family have started a tradition of running a 10K called the Butte to Butte on the morning of July 4th (the less ambitious members of the family, aka my siblings, have always managed to find a reason to stay in bed).  First it was me and my parents, then Nathan joined in.  This year Nathan had to sit out due to all the broken toes, but my Uncle Rob joined the festivities.

For all you non-runners, a 10K is slightly over 6 miles.  The first mile of this race is all uphill, the second mile is downhill, and the last four are flat.

I love doing this run, but I am setting a disturbing pattern of being in worse and worse shape every year when it rolls around.  I don’t think I had run any farther than 4 miles since LAST July 4th!  This year, I ran the 10K in a little less than an hour, and only ten seconds slower than last year.  Not bad, except that I felt about ten times worse this year.  I felt great through four miles, but miles five and six kicked my butt.  As evidenced by this super flattering photo of my finish.

If it looks like I am running about two miles an hour at this point?  That’s because I probably am.  Nothing like pain to motivate me to actually attempt to be in shape next year.

Luckily for mom and dad, they photograph just as great as me.

The upside of this run is that it is a TON of fun, you totally get your money’s worth out of your entry fee (this year they even had barbecued hot dogs at the finish line!), and you get such a good workout that you feel no guilt whatsoever when you stuff your face later on in the day.  The downside is that you have to get up at the crack of dawn, and it hurts to move for several days after.  But that is a small price to pay for enjoying this later in the afternoon:

Ingredients: 3

Minutes to Prepare: 5

A Beautiful, Delicious Dessert: Priceless!

I would give you my secret recipe, but then I’d have to kill you.

The other great thing about July 4th was that summer finally arrived!  We had one glorious day of comfortable weather, and we enjoyed a fun, relaxing barbecue that afternoon with some great people.

Since then, the temperature has skyrocketed and I am contemplating a move to Alaska.  I am also contemplating using Nathan’s crutches to knock some sense into my apparently unemployed neighbors if they don’t stop setting off fireworks on a nightly basis.  Wish me luck!

When It Rains, It Drips. And Drips. And Drips Some More.

It’s never a good thing when it rains inside your house.

Particularly when it is raining inside your kitchen.

Seriously, I am not joking.  I really wish I was.

I first noticed the water on the kitchen counter a couple weeks ago.  I did not think a lot of it at the time.  I had just wiped down the counter a half an hour before, and thought that maybe the sponge that I used had been wetter than I realized. 

Two days later, the same thing happened.  Again, I had just wiped down the counter a half an hour before.  But it just seemed weird, since I have wiped down the counter a million times and not had this problem.  I started thinking about it, and realized that in both instances, Nathan had just taken a shower in the master bathroom.  The master bathroom directly above the kitchen.  I think you see where this is going.

So, I climbed up on a chair and felt the ceiling.  But it felt dry.  Then I noticed this weird spot on the ceiling.  It was about the size of a penny and the best way to describe it is that it looked like a dimple.  I touched it and thought it maybe felt a tiny bit damp, but before I could come to a conclusion, my finger went right through the ceiling.  Leaving me with a penny sized hole in the ceiling.  Hmmmm.

I was rather suspicious but did not want to jump to conclusions, so I put a container on the counter directly beneath the hole.  The next time that Nathan took a shower, I ran down to inspect the counter and container.   But they were bone dry.  Mysterious.

I began to think I must be hallucinating and the water must have been from wiping down the counter after all.  I almost forgot about it, until Sunday.  Nathan was taking a shower, and I was downstairs watching TV.  And then out of the blue, I heard a steady trickle of water.  I ran to the kitchen, and sure enough there was a stream of water running through the hole in the ceiling into the container on the counter.  Great.

You may be surprised to hear that the water leak is not my primary concern.  It’s highly inconvenient that Nathan can’t use that shower, because it has built in seats, and when you have four broken toes it certainly makes it a lot easier to shower.  Instead he is stuck with using the other, non-handicap friendly shower.  But that is not my primary concern either.  The contractor and plumber are coming tomorrow, and it sounds like a one day job.  So I am also not worried about having my house torn up or having to leave during repairs.

No, my primary concern is the answer I got from our townhouse management office when I informed them of the problem.  Because guess what?  The leak may have surprised me, but they weren’t surprised at all.  I believe their exact words were, “This is actually the third house this has happened in.  We think it must be because we’re at ten years, and now everything is starting to break!”

Well, that’s reassuring.  We already know these houses have a problem with psychotic, malfunctioning carbon monoxide detectors. (Don’t ask.  It’s a very long and traumatizing story that results in me living in constant fear of anything that sounds remotely like a smoke alarm).  Apparently now they have problems with leaky master showers.  Does this mean the sagging ceiling in the living room is next?

I guess we will find out when my treadmill falls through the ceiling.

Tale of the Toes

For those who don’t already know, Nathan had an accident last week involving a seventy pound fork from a forklift and his left foot. 

I got a call last Wednesday night that he was being taken to the ER by ambulance.  I met him at the ER, where the doctor diagnosed him with three broken toes on his left foot (the 3rd, 4th, and 5th toes).  Apparently this is a pretty impressive feat – most people don’t manage to break this many toes at one time.  Apparently before I got there, one random nurse came by and remarked, “I’m not on this case, but I heard there was an impressive foot that I needed to see.”  His foot looked so weird, the 4th and 5th toes were just limp and hanging out to the left, and the 3rd toe was off to the right.  In the 4th toe, the x-rays showed that the bone had been completely sheared off.  At the ER, they buddy taped everything together and wrapped it up in a makeshift cast.  They gave him pain meds, a tetanus shot, crutches, and instructions for follow up care.

He has had a pretty miserable past week.  The official diagnosis may be broken toes, but he might as well have a broken foot.  He can’t walk because he can’t put any weight on it at all.  He is stuck on the couch, and is in a lot of pain despite constant elevation and ice.  It’s ironic how sometimes we get so busy that we just wish for a weekend where we could sit on the couch the entire time if we so choose . . . but forcefully being stuck on the couch is unbearable.  The crutches bruised his underarms, and the tetanus shot didn’t do much to help the arm situation.  He has been up the stairs three times – once for a shower, once to keep me company while I folded laundry, and once just to prove that he could do it.  Going up the stairs is slow and tiring though, so we are trying to do everything downstairs.  Despite all of this, he managed to stay in pretty good spirits.

Yesterday, my mom took Nathan to see the orthopedic surgeon, which was his first major follow up appointment.  The first important piece of information from this appointment was that he actually has FOUR broken toes.  The big toe is broken in two spots as well.  I am not sure how the ER missed that one, but at least it explains the constantly changing color, bruising, and sensitivity of the big toe.  The orthopedic surgeon thinks that the big toe protected the 2nd toe from breaking.  The second important piece of information is that the big toe and 3rd toe will eventually heal on their own over time, but the 4th and 5th toe will need to be surgically repaired.  The third important piece of information was visual, as the surgeon unwrapped the bandage-cast that Nathan’s foot had been in for 5 days, and they got a look at how his foot is doing.  I warn you now, this is a pretty bad injury, and this picture is pretty gnarly.  If you don’t like to see colorful bruising and gross injuries, well . . . don’t look and keep scrolling.

  My mom was gracious enough to take pictures so that I could see how his foot was doing, since I couldn’t be at the appointment in person.  The color and bruising seems worse than when we were at the ER last week, but his toes are at least not so far in the opposite direction.

Nathan will have surgery this Thursday afternoon to insert pins into the 4th and 5th toes.  This will help them to heal properly and in line with the other toes.  He may not retain full mobility in them, but he will be able to do regular activities like walk and run.  Luckily, your 4th and 5th toes aren’t as crucial as the other ones.  After the surgery, they will give him a walking boot, but it will still be another week or more of no walking, and even then he may still be on crutches for a while.  They will take the pins out in July, about three weeks after the surgery.

The stinky thing is that the surgeon unwrapped a lot of the gauze that you see on Nathan’s foot in the top picture, because he wanted Nathan’s toes to get some more air.  Unfortunately, this leaves all the injured toes partially exposed and provides a lot less protection against sensitivity.  This makes it more painful for him to even get up on the crutches to go to the bathroom, change clothes, put on ice packs, etc.  To add to that, they have some pre-op instructions that we have to follow to avoid staph infections, which includes showering the night before and morning of with special soap.  Unfortunately, both our showers are upstairs, and that’s a lot of travel and stress for a sensitive foot.

This whole ordeal has been stressful and scary, but I am just glad that he did not get hurt worse.  We said our wedding vows, “in sickness and in health”, and the sickness part just hit us a little earlier than expected!  But I like being responsible around the house and taking care of my husband, even if I may be a little overprotective of him at times.  My mom, dad, and brother have been a HUGE help since I don’t have vacation time at my new job yet.  They are taking him to all of his appointments, helping me run errands, and just get things taken care of.  Monday night, I even made the homemade pizza that Nathan cooks for me every Monday (all on his instructions, of course.  I am not the cook in this family!).  It wasn’t nearly as good as his, but it WAS edible (and for me, that’s a pretty big accomplishment).

So, send some positive karma out into the universe on Thursday that his surgery goes well! (And also, that we have two successful trips up the stairs on Wednesday night and Thursday morning for the pre-op showers.)

Flashback Friday: Father’s Day First

“Flashback Friday” is a new series of posts I am going to start here on the blog.  I got the idea a couple weeks ago as I worked on typing the memoirs of my adopted grandfather Nick.  Nick comments about how he has a hard time remembering specifics about some of the stories (for example, someone’s age at a certain time, where they were born, and so on).  This isn’t really surprising considering that Nick turned 97 last month – 97 years will give you a lot to remember!  And for most of his life, they didn’t have the things like computers or the Internet or digital photography that make it so easy for us to capture our lives today.  So it’s not surprising that he has things he has forgotten.  But one thing I have realized as I read and type his stories, is how easy it is for us all to forget – even someone like me, who is only a quarter of Nick’s age.  We live such fast paced lives, we don’t stop nearly often enough to take it all in well enough to form memories that even last a few years.  It’s amazing how much I don’t remember already, sometimes I feel like I have completely blanked out three quarters of my life.  Who knows what I’ll remember when I’m 30 (just the thought of it makes me shudder with fear), let alone 60 or 70?

And that led me to the idea of Flashback Friday for the blog.  I have a feeling that as long as the world exists, the Internet is not going anywhere.  I feel safe in storing my memories electronically in my blog (and backed up on my computer).  So, just as radio stations play Flashback Friday lunch hours, I am going to have Flashback Friday here, featuring some sort of memory I have that I want to remember down the road.  I can’t promise they will be 100% accurate memories, so I apologize to family members in advance for details that I remember incorrectly.  As stated, I have forgotten a lot in my twenty-some years, and of course when you talk about childhood memories, kids see everything happen a lot differently than adults do.  I won’t post every Friday (as you may have noticed, I am a sporadic blogger), but perhaps my lovely family will get on board (hint, hint) and send me some of their own memories to share on a Flashback Friday when I am too busy to blog.

In honor of Father’s Day this weekend, the inaugural Flashback Friday is about my own dad.

I love this picture.  But I will not be writing about it, because guess what? I don’t remember it. What I will tell you about today is one of my earliest memories of my dad that I actually do remember.

My dad used to drop my sister and I off at daycare every morning when we were in pre-school and kindergarten.  We had this routine that we did before he left daycare, which we called “the jump”.  Basically, my dad would hold our hands in his, help us jump in the air and do a somersault mid-air before coming back down to the ground.  I don’t remember how this routine got started, but I remember it was a lot of fun.  I also remember that all the other kids at daycare thought it was fun too, saying, “I want to jump!”, and every morning kids would line up to take turns doing the jump with my dad.

And that is how I always remember my dad, as the fun and popular dad.  My friends always thought my dad was cool.  When I got to high school and had friends and co-workers who had my dad as a teacher, they would all say how awesome he was and how he was their favorite teacher.  (On an unrelated note, they all also thought he was ten years younger than he actually was – congratulations on the youthful good looks, Dad!)  Sometimes when I invited friends over to our house for the first time, they would always comment on how they weren’t sure what to expect in coming over to the teacher’s house, but that my dad was actually surprisingly fun and easy-going for a teacher.  It’s a huge part of the reason that he is a such a great track and cross country coach – kids who might not normally do sports give it a try because they like my dad. 

So, happy Father’s Day weekend to the coolest, most awesome dad on the planet.  I love you!

A Little (Big) Piece of History

Nathan has Mondays off work, so today he took advantage of the nice weather and took a motorcycle ride to the coast.  He rode to Waldport first, and then up to Agate Beach in Newport to take a look at a piece of history that washed up on the shore there last week.

For those who may not have heard, last week a gigantic concrete and steel dock from Japan washed up at Agate Beach.  It is 19 feet wide, 7 feet high, and 66 feet long.  According to MSNBC, it is the largest piece of tsunami debris to reach the US so far (most of the debris is not anticipated to arrive until winter).  When it got here, they tested it for radiation and found none.  Since then, it has become quite the tourist attraction. 

Nathan said there were a ton of people at the beach today, and that there was a constant stream of people walking to and from the dock.  They have state park employees out there to make sure people don’t climb on it (that is the white truck in the third picture).  Nathan said that was probably a good thing, because even as an adult he was tempted to climb on it.  He and his friend overheard the parks employee telling someone that the way they tested for radiation was by scraping pieces off of the side of the dock.  Nathan didn’t touch it (despite what the scientists say, it’s still hard to shake that fear of radiation lurking in the back of your mind), but sort of wishes he had.  He didn’t see the plaque with Japanese writing on it, otherwise he would have taken a picture of that.

For a little perspective on just how big the dock is, he took this picture with people standing next to it (hello, random tourists!  thanks for visiting my blog!).

It may not be quite as large as the freighter that got beached off of Coos Bay in 1999, nor as entertaining as the Oregon Highway Division’s botched disposal of the dead whale in Florence in 1970.  But it is still a piece of Oregon Coast history nonetheless, and I think it’s pretty cool that Nathan got to see it up close.