Category: General

Back in January, I posted cryptically and mysteriously about change.  By the end of the week, that change may be set in motion.

I'm still nervous.  I'm still scared.  I'm still excited.

If it happens, I'll post something.  If not, you'll have to deal with the suspense a little longer.

A month ago today, my neighbor fell from a roof onto a concrete patio sustaining serious injuries including a shattered spleen, damage to his lungs, broken hands, skull fractures, and swelling and bleeding in his brain.  It was bad enough that they told his wife that they didn't expect him to make it through the first surgeries.

He will be released from the hospital (University of Utah Medical Center, his life-flight destination) on Saturday.

It's nothing short of a miracle that he is alive at all.  It's even more miraculous that he is awake, alert, walking, and talking. Miracles continue today, helped along by fasting and prayer from friends, family, and Ward members and by Priesthood blessings.

It will be nice to see my neighbor back home again.

(To see his whole journey, check out the "Nephi Moon Updates" link on the right.)

So it's Valentine's Day on Sunday.  What are you going to do to celebrate this rather commercial holiday?

Most people exchange gifts or go out to dinner and a movie or exchange valentines or some combination of more than one of those things.

For the last 10 years or so, Valentine's Day has meant something different to my wife and me.  It used to mean doing some of the stuff in the list above.  Once your oldest child enters Kindergarten, the meaning changes somewhat drastically.  The time I used to spend figuring out what to do for my wife or the money we used to spend on each other was re-purposed. 

With grade school-aged children, Valentine's Day means:

• Dragging your child to the store so they can pick out a box of valentines so they can give one to each of their classmates.
• Finding out that all of the valentines in the first store aren't cool enough or fancy enough or don't happen to have just the right cartoon character on them.
• Going to several other stores until the child finally realizes that the ideal valentines don't exist and you can convince them to settle for what the stores are actually selling.
• Getting home and realizing that your child has misplaced the class list that has all of their classmates' names on them.
• Helping the child search frantically for the list.
• Getting a break once the list is found, since there's a lull in the activity as the child often spends a good amount of time deciding which child gets which valentine.
• Returning to the store to get some sort of treat to affix to each valentine, because all of your child's friends are going to tape a sucker or something to their valentines.
• Helping the child put together some sort of box for their valentines.  This leads to several fits and tirades because your child had something else in mind--like a life-sized cupid complete with moving wings and real bow-and arrow.  You have something much MUCH simpler in mind, like a shoe box with red, pink, and white construction paper.
• Running out of red, pink, and white construction paper, thus making yet another trip to the store.
• Returning home to find that the glue bottle has gone dry.
• Returning to the store for more glue.
• Learning that your child also has to bring some sort of treat for the Valentine's Day party.  This piece of information usually comes out as your child is being tucked in for the night.
• Spending the rest of the night making cupcakes or cookies or some other treat for the whole class.
• Finding out the next morning that the school doesn't allow home-baked goods any more due to safety and security reasons.
• Rushing out to the store to find all of the other parents from your child's school fighting over the last box of donuts or cookies at the nearby grocery store.
• Going back to the school with the crumbled remnants of heart-shaped cookies you found at the seventh store you visited.
• Realizing that you've spent all of your time worrying about your child's afternoon Valentine's Day party and you've completely forgotten to buy/plan/do something for your spouse.

Those of you that have children understand this.  You KNOW I'm right here!

However...

My youngest child is in Junior High now.  I didn't have to help with a Valentines box.  We didn't buy a single crappy box of crappy valentines.  We don't have to bring a treat for a party.  The above situation is over for me.  OVER.

So this year, I have actually been able to spend some time thinking about my own Valentine. 

And what am I doing this weekend?

I'm going to go camping in the snow with my older son.

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's stupid really.

Every morning, I'm supposed to take a little tiny pill.  This little tiny pill is supposed to decrease the amount of calcium excreted by my kidneys and thereby hopefully decrease the number of kidney stones produced by my kidneys.

It's a little thing.  It's simple.  But for some reason, I just can't seem to be able to remember to take a little tiny pill every morning. 

This morning, for example, I even put one little tiny pill in each compartment of one of those pill boxes that has a compartment for each day of the week.  I got all ready for the week...

...and didn't put monday's pill in my mouth.

So the pill I need to take is sitting at home.  Meanwhile, my evil kidneys, free of the magical pill, are building kidney stones at an alarming rate.  If I don't get home soon, one will surely break loose and wreak havoc on my life for a few hours or a few days.

Why can't I remember such a little thing, especially since this little thing can cause other little things that cause huge pain?  You would think that after 8 or 9 or 10 (I lost count somewhere) kidney stones, one of which had to be blasted to bits, I could remember to take a little tiny pill each morning.  Maybe a telltale dull ache in my flank would motivate me.

I guess I'll be making an extra trip home today, because I don't want a little thing to become something painful.

How do you remember to do these kinds of little things?  Obviously what I'm doing isn't working.

Hoo boy.

My elbow is sore, and it's tennis elbow-type pain.  I was careful when I played racquetball a second time, but the soreness has returned.  I didn't play hard, so I'm not worried that I've torn anything.

I'm annoyed.

Sooooooooooo...

I'm going to learn to play racquetball left-handed.  Maybe I can still enjoy the sport and give my right arm a few more months to heal.  All I know is that I can't stand the idea of having another surgery, but I also can't stand the idea of not playing racquetball or doing other things I love to do.

So... call me lefty.  This time, maybe more permanently.

If you can call it playing...  And if you can call what I tried to play racquetball...

My elbow surgery was 5 months ago today.  There hasn't been a single day since the surgery that I haven't had some level of discomfort.  It has diminished slowly from extreme pain to just pain, to a lingering ache, and finally to nearly constant muscle soreness.

Five months of first rest, then lots and lots and lots and lots of stretching, and finally, exercising has done its magic and now I'm finally to the point where I think my elbow has healed.

So today, I tried playing racquetball.  The doctor said to ease back into my regular activities as long as they weren't causing pain.

At first, I was terrified. The feeling in the pit of my stomach told me how much pain and discomfort I had endured.  If I did something wrong, I feared that I might have to start back at square one again, and that thought was sickening.

My first hits were tentative, and quite hilarious actually.  I stretched out well before I started, of course, and then I continued to stretch and play very carefully.  The only time anything hurt was when I contacted the wall.  I didn't hit the wall hard with my racquet, but I knew instantly that I need to be more careful around walls.

For now, I have very little power, though I'm already starting to regain some control.  I'm going to go slowly here, because re-injuring myself would be depressing.

It's been a couple of hours, and I can feel that my forearm is tight and needs more stretching, but I'm still not hurting.  That's a very VERY good sign.  It may mean that I really AM on the road to recovery.

The doctor told me it would take four to six months to recover fully.  I'm right in the middle of that window, and I'm honestly pleased with my progress.

Santa brought Older Son an iPod Touch for Christmas.  He loves it.  I think it's very cool, and I'd probably get one too, but that would be just one more distraction for my already somewhat ADHD brain.  Squirrel!

Speaking of distractions...

My son bought a nice rubberized case for his iPod with some of his Christmas money.  It shipped from Apple directly, and it came packed in what I like to call Apple's Magical Mystery Material.  It's a transparent stretchy material that they use to hold the shipped product so that it doesn't bounce around inside the box when it ships.

It's very stretchy, but unlike shrink wrap, it returns to its original size when you release it.  It's surprisingly strong.  It takes a LOT of force or something quite sharp to cause it to tear or break.

Strange, stretchy stuff.  Strange enough for a blog entry?

Squirrel!

So...  please add your opinion in the comments below:

Hook 'Em Horns??

or

Roll Tide??

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Change is coming.  I can feel it.  I don't know what exactly it will be or how it will change things, but I can feel it coming.

It's scary and exciting all at the same time.  It's never easy, but I always learn from it.

No, I haven't decided to find a new job or a new house or anything like that.  I've moved all of my web stuff to a new virtual private server.

There are a whole lot of reasons for the "move," but the good news is that it should be completely transparent to everyone but me.  There were a few headaches I had to track down when I changed over from one account to another.  Every system is a bit different from every other system. Hopefully there won't be any more glitches.

And now that NaBloPoMo is over, I think I'll come out and play again.