January 1: Welcome to another new year and a new decade. I'm trying out something new here at the monthly journal with putting the date of each entry. I have noticed an inconsistent tense running through my journals this year that my high school English teachers no doubt would find offensive. So, I thought at least this way, I can just write for the day. So let us see how this will have been once.
We had originally planned to go snowshoeing on the first day of the year as we would prefer to do every year, but the weather didn't cooperate. After the brief snow dump of a few days ago, the weather made an about face, and started dumping rain on everything below 4000 feet. Since our favorite route is below the snow level, we decided not to go. Instead, I just didn't get out of bed until close to 7am. It'd be nice if I actually felt rested after sleeping in, but I don't. Yet, it doesn't keep me from wishing that I did and trying again next time. We spent the day mostly reading after the girls finished their piano. We took down the Christmas tree and set it outside. Jada and I put in a new towel rack (that we bought some time in the first year of living in our house and has sat beneath the counter all this time) in the master bathroom. Then we visited Gramma. She was a bit under the weather, but we were still there for a little over an hour. After the girls went to bed, Jada and I watched a couple episodes of The Middleman, which Mandy got us for Christmas (it's silly in a similar way that the Tick live action series was. I like it), and then we went to bed by 9pm. We were tired.
January 2: After doing some quick grocery shopping, and minor garage cleanup during which I almost crushed Jada with a Christmas tree container (luckily, she was able to block it with her super strength) that I was trying to get up into the attic above the garage, we had friends over to play and exchange presents finally. The afternoon was spent mostly reading again, and we finished it off with a visit to Gramma. The girls finished a 500 piece puzzle this week. They selected their next one too. The people there were nice to give them their own large piece of cardboard to keep it on underneath the current puzzle they were working on. We went out to dinner at Red Robin, and then we played a new game called Qwirkle as Jada headed out to do her massage appointment.
January 3: On Sunday we went over to visit Gram after breakfast, but she was asleep. Luckily we had some other errands to run, so we went to Home Depot to get some new sockets for our electric burners for the stove top, and we had some things to drop off at Goodwill. After lunch we tried Gramma again, and this time she was awake, so we spent around an hour and half over there. The girls each played piano for her until we had to leave. They also started a new 500 piece puzzle, a beach scene in Hawaii! Jada had to get our dinner into the oven, and we had to get the girls finished with their thank you notes and ready for going back to school tomorrow. They can't wait to get back to school. I can't say the same for Jada, but I think that is only because she has to wake up early again! In the evening, Scarlett sat on my lap for the first time since Flower was given away. I think she has been avoiding me. Maybe she thought if she got too close, I'd make her disappear too.
January 5: The girls were really excited to be back at school on Monday. It sounded like they had a really fun assembly too with a group that came out and ant taught the kids how to make music: rhythm, notes, words. I didn’t sleep much last night on account of getting home around 1:30am from the emergency room. I’m sorry, did you just say something about the emergency room? Why, yes. Yes I did. Why do you ask? Oh right, I just said something about the ER. Let me tell you, and unfortunately it doesn’t involve a George Clooney, Dr. McDreamy, Dr. Cox, the JDizzle (that one's for you, Mandy) or any other made up ER doctor (Howie Mandel anyone? St. Elsewhere? Ok) Anyway, The story begins, as so often is the case, playing basketball in our Intel League game last night. We had an early game (7pm, our only game earlier than 9pm this season). Jada and the girls came to watch as our only fans which everyone on the team appreciated. We so rarely have fans. I had been having a decent game right up to about 4 minutes to go as I grabbed a rebound coming across the lane, I went back up and got clobbered. All I remember is landing on someone’s foot, feeling my ankle wag a little bit, and then lying on my back clutching my ankle while teammates were trying to drag me to my feet. I could barely stand, but I started heading for the foul line since I felt that I was in the act of shooting. The ref didn’t see it that way (what game was he watching?). He had the foul on the ground before the shot attempt. So I limped off the court and tried to keep moving on the sideline. We won the game, so that was good. We got home, I laid on the floor and watched the second half of the Blazers/Clippers game (Blazers lost. Ugly.) with my foot elevated and iced. After an hour, I got up to go to try to shower, and finally took off my sock to inspect the damage. I had a nice sized bulge on the top right side of my right foot. Walking was quite painful, and by the time I reached the bathroom, I was pretty light headed. That’s when I started shaking uncontrollably kind of like you’d shake if you were in shock. I hadn’t done that since after I had my wisdom teeth out. Jada got me into bed and laid next to me to help me calm down, and convinced me that I might want to get an X-ray right then instead of waiting for the next afternoon. I called one of my teammates who lives pretty close to us, and he graciously agreed (Thanks again, Mike!) to drive me to the ER at 10pm. Man, if you ever want to feel bad for humanity (other than watching the daily news, that is), spend some time in the ER at night. I was there for about 3 hours total, so that was actually pretty good. The nurses and doctors would come in for a few minutes, and then disappear for 40-60 minutes. They have such a bad job dealing with the people that are constantly screaming at them for meds and what not, all I could do is be pleasant and make the little jokes about how I felt the need to feel closer to the Trail Blazers so I had to get injured for team unity. Sort of like getting a tattoo but much less embarrassing and permanent (I hope). Luckily the X-Rays were negative. No fracture, just a really bad location for a sprain just below the ankle bone. The doctor said I got lucky. I prefer to attribute it to my steadfast refusal to drink milk to keep my bones nice and bendy. They kept offering me pain medication, which I thought was a little odd, but I told them no thanks since I had ibuprofen at home. So my 37 year streak of avoiding breaking a bone continues, but my streak of avoiding the ER ends at 6 years. Not bad for being incredibly clumsy and playing sports that put me directly into danger constantly (cycling, basketball, soccer, child rearing). This morning, I was telling the girls about it at breakfast. What they got out of the evening was how when people got knocked down, their teammates or the other players helped them get back up. I thought that was a pretty good thing to take away. I stayed home from work to just keep my foot elevated in hopes of decreasing my overall time out since I think we still have 4 games left in the season. So far, the foot feels ok, but I haven't tried walking with a shoe on at all. Tomorrow, I plan on going back to work, so that'll be interesting. We'll see how the rest of today goes, and how it feels in the morning.
January 9: The rest of the week went ok. I ended up staying home again on Wednesday to keep my foot up. My ribs stopped hurting finally at some point during that day. I didn't remember hurting my ribs, but Jada said she thought someone fell on me when I was on the floor. I was pretty tired of just laying on the couch by the end of that day. The upside is that I made good progress in the book I got for Christmas from Jada, the Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons. (If you love basketball, specifically the NBA, as much as I do, and you find yourself nodding your head at the statement that the best movie parallel to Kobe Bryant is "Teen Wolf", then this book is for you.) It was difficult sleeping because my foot would start throbbing in the middle of the night, then it'd get itchy under the wrap, and since I had been lying down all day, my body didn't understand why I had to continue to do that so I was tired all the time. I know, not much of a change from normal. I was back on my feet (pun intended) on Thursday, so I went to work and tried to stay at my desk as much as possible. Same for Friday. I did find that I was able to walk a little more normally on Friday as long as I was moving in a straight line. If I had to turn or avoid someone walking towards me, that was a little more difficult. I was able to get a referral from my doctor for a physical therapist so that maybe this time, I can get my ankle to heal properly unlike the last time I had a major ankle injury which never quite felt the same. We also started seriously thinking about what to do during my sabbatical. Last time we had a baby, but I think we are avoiding that idea these days;)
The girls had a good first week back to school. And they slept in every day, except for Saturday, of course. Ellen is still nailing her spelling tests. I can't really criticize her hand-writing much since it was my worst subject all through grade school. Phoebe still loves her teacher.
Saturday morning, we were supposed to go to the mountain for some snow shoeing, but because of my injury, we'll have to put that off for at least another week. From the weather reports, the conditions weren't going to end up being very good today anyway. We instead went to change our change at the bank and stop by to see Gram for an hour. She was awake this time and mostly in good spirits. For the afternoon I had to put my foot up for a while because it was throbbing, and the girls finished piano.
January 10: Phoebe made up a song called "Cookie Dinner" with lyrics such as, "you're the cook, but I'm in charge. Cook - ie Dinner. I'm eating. Cook-ie dinner". I'm sure there were some "baby"'s and "Ooh ya's" and "Uh-huh's" in there somewhere too. Mostly spent the morning around the house getting piano practice and laundry done. I finished my book of basketball while icing and elevating my foot. We visited Gramma in the afternoon. We also finally played a new game that we got from Mike and Carrie for Christmas called Settlers of Catan. It's been a highly praised game on the intertubes that I read. The initial setup on first read seems daunting, but the actual game play was not that complicated, and we were up and running the first time in about 15 minutes. The games don't take too long either. It's different every time. The kids just had to understand and get used to the points system and trading of resources during their turn. I think they'll get it soon enough.
January 17: I didn't have much time to write this week. I started physical therapy on Monday the 11th, and I had another appointment on Friday. The bruising and swelling are going down, but not gone completely. I've been doing some ankle strengthening exercises with a rubber strap, but that's about it. Though I did start getting back to the gym this week too (thanks to Jada kicking me out of bed when my alarm went off). It wasn't easy earlier in the week when things kept conspiring against us sleeping. First, Ellen accidentally knocked her railing off her bunk bed. The loud thud of it hitting the ground woke everyone up at 1am. It took forever to go back to sleep after walking all over the house to try to figure out what the noise had been. Then Scarlett thought it was playtime so she scratched at the door for a while, and for good measure, she scratched at the girls' door too. On Wednesday night, Ellen and Phoebe started their gymnastics class. They were slow getting out of bed the next morning. Friday morning as I was getting ready for work, Phoebe watched me put my ankle brace on over my black sock, and she stated, "With the black brace over the black sock, no one will be able to see it." I said that's fine, I'm not wearing it for attention. To which she responded, "But no one will ask you how you're doing." This from the girl who cries at the slightest of provocation. Saturday was the usual errands, piano, and visit to Gramma's for a couple hours. In the afternoon, I checked out my bike to see if it was missing me. I wanted to test the ankle on the bike, but my commuter doesn't fit into the stationary trainer. I didn't want to back the van out of the garage to get to my Specialized to set up and lube and air it up since it hadn't been used since the Fall. Instead I put on my rain gear and rode the commuter out into the rain and up the hill and back. My ankle did surprisingly well, but I did notice my rear brake needed to be dialed in, and my right pedal bearings are hosed so I'll need to buy a new pair. My chain is over due too. Such is the price for putting 4000 miles on a bike in all conditions. In the evening as I was doing my ankle exercises, we heard a sound like someone running into a door or something falling off a shelf. Jada went to check on the girls and found Phoebe sitting in the corner of her room behind the door. What we think happened is that she got up to go to the bathroom or sleep-walked to the door, ran into it instead of opening it, and then sitting down in the corner since it was too dark to see. As soon as Jada opened the door, she got up and got back in bed as if nothing had happened. She didn't even remember it in the morning.
Sunday wasn't much different. I did some leg work at the gym for the first time avoiding direct weight bearing exercises. However, I did do the eliptical trainer for 15 minutes. I did ok, but my ankle started feeling fatigued towards the end. I also managed to finish my second Christmas present book about a family's bike trip across Canada, Blood, Sweat, and Gears: a Rowdy Family Bike Adventure Across Canada on Seven Wheels by Joe Kurmaskie and his wife. It's a pretty quick read, and it gave me many ideas about the possibilities of what we could do. He had already convinced me that it was possible to hook up the trailers to the tandem from his magazine articles for Bicycling. I'm not sure I'm ready for unsupported touring yet. I need to build my roadside repair skills and tool kit more first. We knocked out 5 errands in less than 2 hours. After lunch, we spent over 2 and a half hours at Gramma's. The girls both brought some piano music so they could play in the great room. The folks there seem to really appreciate it. Phoebe flits about between the puzzle table and our little group naturally. Several of the residents know their names. Phoebe drew a picture from one of the puzzle boxes, and Ellen wrote a story behind it for one of them who is very generous with her puzzles and presented it on Saturday to her, and apparently she had been raving about it since then. She was carrying it with her when we saw her again this afternoon. Everyone was really well behaved today too, so that was good.
January 24: It's been a whole week since I was able to write. I continued with the physical therapy on my ankle, but by Thursday's appointment, I had improved to the point where I was cleared for load bearing activities on the ankle. I still move about as well laterally as most big men in the NBA a this point, but I can't turn or stop terribly well. Pretty normal week over all though. The girls had their second week of gymnastics. On Friday, Jada had made arrangements for a getaway to Cannon Beach where we stayed at the Surfsand Resort. So that we didn't have to leave one car at my campus all weekend, they dropped me off at the MAX station on their way to school (well, it's not really on the way, but they still made it to school on time). It's only a 15 minute walk from the station to the front door of my office building, and even though it was sprinkling, it was a pleasant walk. Jada and the girls picked me up after work, we had dinner, and left for the beach. It was rainy on the way out, but it wasn't important. We brought lots of games and our swimming suits to pass the time if need be. We got checked in to our large apartment sized suite with 2 bedrooms, a front room, and a large bathroom. Oh, and there were 4 TV's. That was just unreal. They had large screen Dell's in each of the bedrooms and the front room plus a smaller LCD in the bathroom. That's 3 more TV's than we have in our house. The really odd thing was that there were only 2 garbage cans. Figure that one out. Anyway, it was all recently remodeled, and non-smoking facility. The girls fell asleep almost immediately after we got settled in. Jada and I didn't stay up much later than them.
Saturday morning, the girls were up by 5:15am, but they at least lay quietly enough in bed that we didn't hear them from the other side of the suite. We left them in there until 7am when I just couldn't stay in bed any more. We awoke to an only partly cloudy sky. We ended up having a beautiful day all around with sun, light winds, and a high around 50 degrees. We went to breakfast at the Wayfarer Restaurant which had a deal where the kids got to eat free. We followed that with a walk on the beach for a little while. The girls brought their cameras, and during check-in, they were each given a bucket as well, so they carried those with them. Low tide wasn't until around noon, so we went back to hang out in the room for a little bit. While we were there, the neighbors were smoking on the deck, so we reported them to the front desk. It's always nice to have the deck door open to listen to ocean in a non-smoking facility only to be accosted by that smell which quickly gets into the room. We went back to beach to check out the low tide. It wasn't as low as it typically is in the spring, so we couldn't go out very far. It didn't stop me from trying. Jada called the girls out who had been following me in because she saw a wave coming. I didn't retreat quite so quickly, but I was standing near a rock that I could stand on that got me just above the water level, but my pants still got a bit wet. I waited for the water to recede again, and I got back to the beach as Jada and the girls laughed and laughed. Luckily, I had the camera and video camera with me. Jada still got a picture on her phone, and Ellen took one with her camera as well. After that, we headed back inside to go to the pool for a little while. We stayed there for about an hour and tried to get the girls to remember a few of their swimming strokes since their swim lessons started up again this weekend. That was followed by some piano practice in the room. When Ellen was done, she read her book out on the big deck in the sun before we headed over for our 5pm reservation at the Wayfarer. Did I mention that the kids get to eat free there? And we didn't have to drive our car all weekend by staying just in that little area? And the food is really good, mostly healthy, with enough choices on the kids' menu to satisfy our big eaters? We all got stuffed, and Jada and I brought desert back to the room for after the girls went to bed.
On Sunday morning, the girls were up at 5:15am again. This time I had made the mistake of saying they could read quietly after the clock in their room said 6am, but they weren't allowed to wake the other one up. So, of course, Ellen kept asking Phoebe what time it was until 6am. Live and learn. The weather dial had changed back to rain. So we got this 1 fluke spring day in the middle of winter, and it just happened to be on a Saturday that we were at the beach. While we were at breakfast again at the Wayfarer (again, free kids meals), we overheard someone saying that they had a wedding yesterday during the nice weather, so maybe we got the benefit of their good karma. Who knows. We're certainly not going to rebuke it. After breakfast, we decided to play the Settlers of Catan instead of walking on the beach in the rain. We had the door open to listen to the ocean, when all of a sudden, the smell of smoke came barreling into the room. Jada went out to tell them to stop smoking, and I called the front desk again. We found out that we got lucky twice. These were completely different people than yesterday. What are the odds? The folks there were very nice and gave us a credit on the room as a result, so it wasn't even as expensive as it would have been otherwise. Other than that, we had a nice weekend, and it was over way too soon. We got back to town in time for lunch. However, I was still so full from dinner the night before and breakfast, that I didn't eat again until dinner. Phoebe did her piano practice before we went over to visit Gramma followed by going directly to the girls first swim class. Ellen got moved back down to Phoebe's level because she still isn't able to swim across the pool, but she's close. She was upset, but she'll probably move back up again next week. Unfortunately because we were gone all weekend, we couldn't stay for open swim. Too much laundry to get done before Monday and back to school. Ellen finished her piano before dinner.
I posted some of the pictures that the girls took on their photo page here.
January 25: I rode my bike to work today. It's the first time in this year so far since I managed to hurt myself on the 4th of January. If I'm being honest with myself, I may have been overdoing it with my ankle this past week. I couldn't pivot my right foot to get it out of the pedal comfortably, so I had to do it with my left contrary to the last 15 years of habit. I was riding ok otherwise, but my ankle was definitely sore once I was off the bike. Can I ride tomorrow? Yes. I could. Is it a wise choice in my healing process? Probably not.
January 30: The girls started drama club on Tuesday of this week. On Wednesday, I went into the school to help out with the Passport Program again this month. I had a lot of kids that I know through the girls this time, but I always have to leave before Ellen and Phoebe's classes come through. After I left there, since I can't ride it this week anyway, I dropped my commuter bike off at the Bike Gallery for its yearly overhaul. I save at least as much in gas each year to afford it. Plus, from November to February, they have a half price special on overhauls so that's nice. I picked the girls up from school as well since Jada was doing observations for full-day kindergarten at other schools. They finished their day off with gymnastics. Thursday night I had another physical therapy appointment. They said I'm still about 4 weeks away from fully healed. It looks like I'll miss the end of the basketball season after all. The girls also both officially finished their original compositions for piano. I'll have to see if I can get them filmed playing them some time soon. Ellen's is called "A Night at the Ball" and Phoebe's is called "Skipping Along". I picked up pizza on the way home. It looks like we're getting close to needing to order 2 pizzas. We finish off a large pizza now.
On Saturday morning, Ellen actually slept in. Phoebe was up at her normal time of 6am though. We stopped by to see Gram, and the girls played an imagination game with her where they traveled to Hawaii and were royalty. Gramma seemed to have a really good time with that. After lunch I went for my eye appointment. My prescription hasn't changed at all. I talked to them a while about the problems I have with my Bolle cycling glasses where they keep falling off my face now. Looking back through the records, we found that I bought them in the year 2000. My sunglasses were in 1998, and the regular frames I'm wearing now are from 2003. I guess I tend to hang on to things. Anyway, I was looking at some Oakley's this time which use prescription lenses instead of an Rx insert like the Bolle's. I'm not sure yet. I got the information for what my insurance would and wouldn't cover to think it over. I like having all the different lenses options on my current glasses so I can run clear lenses all winter and amber through early spring/fall and dark tints in the summer. With the Oakley's, I'd need to buy the extra set of prescription lenses which are quite expensive. Then I went to pick up my bike from the Bike Gallery where it had been for its yearly overhaul. I had to replace the rear cassette again this year, and my front rings are worn too. They didn't have those in stock though. I'm going to have to start replacing my chain every 3 months to try to get more wear out of my components. It's much cheaper to buy new chains than replace all the rings, I can tell you. I also picked up a new pedal wrench and chain tool to make things easier around the garage. While I was out, Phoebe played some piano while Ellen read. In the evening, Jada made dinner for us all before heading off for an appointment of her own. I got the girls into bed and worked for a couple hours before bed. I managed to hurt my ankle again stepping on a cat toy. It was right before I was going to do my nightly strengthening exercises.
January 31: It's the last day of January. We went out for breakfast at our favorite local restaurant, the Murrayhill Cafe, because one of our friends gave us a nice gift certificate. We followed that up with a visit to Gramma where we attended Mass with her. After Mass, the girls played some piano for her. Their composition pieces are coming along very well with the practices. In the afternoon, Jada went over to her friend Laurie's house to do some scrap booking with her while I rode herd on the kids to make sure they got their things done while I got laundry and dishes (and this journal) done. Then it was off to swimming lessons. I watched Ellen do a really nice swim across the width of the pool. She seems to be getting it. Hopefully next weekend we'll have time to stay for open swim to work some more. Phoebe still seems to be lacking confidence to swim across, but I did see her give it a try. We all met back up at home afterwards for dinner, had shower time for the girls, and to bed.
So that's all folks. See ya next month.
Journal entry: January 31, 2010