Oh the pies, the pies, the pies!

I LOVE the food at Thanksgiving. I love the potatoes, the turkey, the gravy (oh the gravy!) the stuffing (Love love love the stuffing). But the best part is the pies. I love pie. Ya know, now that I think about it. The pies would eb even better if we didn't eat them ON Thanksgiving. Then I could eat more stuffing and gravy without even considering having room for dessert. We could wait and eat pie the next night and spread Thanksging over TWO days. Now THAT'S a plan! Check in next year to see if I convinced the rest of the world...

Pie Making at our house. The mess is worth it!:


Apple Pie hot out of the oven:



Sugar Cream and Pecan:


Cookies made out of the trimmings from the pie crust. YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY!


Natalie likes the cookies too!

We think it's muscular...(which means it's not cancer!)

That's the verdict. I have a bunch of muscles on my right side that have decided a great way to be is in knots. The other possibility is that the membrane that lines the hip socket, the labrum, has a small tear in it. Can't see that with an x-ray only with an MRI. The fix for that is an orthoscopic surgery to trim out the tear. Since an MRI is quite expensive and the doctor is leaning toward the muscular explanation, I am going to Physical Therapy twice a week for the next month to exaust the muscles so they will calm down and stop being so irritated. I'm also taking 600 mg of ibuprofen 3x per day. AND NO RUNNING. I need to cross train. I hate cross training because I like to run. But I probably injured myself from running too much so I know this is the right thing to do but no other exercise appeals to me that much. I could go to the YMCA and do the eliptical or the bike. Or I could swim. I could get the tires fixed on my bike and bike around my neighborhood (that's more appealing than going to the Y.) I could rollerblade, which I really like but honestly it scares me a bit because if you wipe out on blades the concrete is going to end up with a significant portion of your skin. I don't know about walking. Anyway, after 4 weeks of PT if I'm doing better we go with the muscular explanation. If I'm not better we do the MRI and look for that tear. I'm very very hopeful that the PT folks think that massage is a vital portion of my recovery. (Fingers crossed!) By the way, that's not my hip up there just a google image. Although my hip looked pretty similar to that one!

Going to the doctor

So today I have an appointment with my friendly orthopedist. I saw her about 2 years ago for foot pain that was dxed plantar fascitis. I did 2 months of physical therapy and was as good as new. Now I've been having this really annoying pain in my right hip. It's been going on for several months and I can't seem to get it to go away. If I take 600mg of ibuprofen twice a day I'm pretty pain free. It just doesn't seem like that is a good long term strategy. And with the holidays I need to be able to run ALOT so that I can eat ALOT! I'm very curious to see what she says...I'll update later.

Creativity rears its head

I am not the most creative person. Crafty stuff and I don't get along well. I can't draw or paint. I don't have a hobby that invilves making things. I don't scrapbook...you get the picture. Occassionally though, the small amount of creativity that I do have comes bursting forth like the pent up energy of a geyser. Friday was Character Dress Up Day at my two youngest girls school. The kids are supposed to dress up like the character from a book. And I must say, the creativity burst forth and we had some seriously cute costumes....

So first we have Natalie as Fancy Nancy. Now Natalie wanted to look EXACTLY like Fancy Nancy which required me
to add a felt poodle to the skirt she already had. That is seriously creative!












Next was Isabella as Junie B. Jones is a Party Animal. The pajamas were new because she didn't have any warm PJs but we had the elephant, the hair wrap and the slippers were already had. We also bought the feather boa because really with a house with three girls a feather boa comes in handy!

Surprising self discovery from nursing school

I have small hands and short fat fingers. Not a value judgement just a fact. And I have always tried to grow my fingernails out because I thought it would make my fingers look longer. Problem is that when my fingernails get long they bend and look very very odd. They are also pretty thin so they are never long all at the same time. When I started nursing school they told us we had to have short fingernails in the clinical areas. I sadly cut off my fingernails. Guess what?!?!?!? I love having short fingernails. They look so much better. No amount of growing my fingernails out is going to make my fingers look longer. And having short finernails that aren't all twisted and funky looking is much much better than what I had before! Here's a couple pictures, and actually, they are a little on the long side compared to what I've been doing. Off to happily clip and file!

My Violet

On the window sill behind my sink, I have a violet (and a scrubber brush and my drain cover, there was no editing for this picture!). I got the violet at a charity auction at least three years ago. The kids that the charity helps painted clay pots and they were about $10 at the auction. Seeing as how most of the other stuff started in the three digits we were happy to support the cause by buying a hand painted pot. In the pots were these violets that were barely hanging onto life. They were decrepit. I'm guessing they were donated but the nursery that donated them didn't remove their stickers from the plastic pots before they gave them away so we all knew which nursery had fobbed off their dying plants on the children's charity. Anyway, I brought home this little violet and totally expected it to die because I have a propensity to kill plants. But it didn't! In fact, as long as I watered it on a fairly regular basis it thrived! And it grew and it bloomed these beautiful purple flowers! Eventually it outgrew my hand painted pot and had to be transplanted to a bigger home. I love my violet because when I look at it I remember how sick it was and that somehow, I made it better. And that is just amazing to me!

So, Mom, how do you want to die?

This is the question I was asked by my 7 year old in the car today. It was just the two of us which is pretty rare. But that is definitely a question you don't expect. So i told her something pretty boring (If I'm young I hope it is cancer so I have time to say good-bye and if I'm old a massive stroke would be pretty good.) So after a little discussion (Apparently, my mom said she'd like to die eating ice cream out of the container with my dad. Love that!) I asked her, how do you want to die? "I want to go for a walk at night in a beautiful place with my husband." Isn't that awesome? I asked if I could come too because it sounded good to me. Sure, she said. Then a few seconds later, "But Mom, I think you'll already be dead by the time I'm old." Moment over, but I hope I remember that forever.