It's 5 Degrees Outside

....which explains why I am almost exclusively INSIDE these days.  Besides just being miserable out, the secondary (actual) back injury (not the original hip problem that just CAUSED back pain but without there being any actual back damage) seems to really hate cold.  We found this out when the first cold snap 2 weeks ago left me laying completely flat and doped to the gills for two days.  As there was also icing of my backside involved, this isn't an experience I am anxious to repeat, so I am leading a Boo Radley existence at the moment, though as of yet I'm not leaving any sort of gifts for neighborhood children.

We did get a break in the cold to get a week of snow last week, which is a bit unusual for Boise.  Usually we get snow, everyone crashes into each other on their way to work because they fail to grasp that 4-wheel-drive doesn't mean one can drive 60 MPH on slick roads--especially with any desire for stops that don't involve impact--and then it all melts off by about 2:00 PM and everything is fine.  THIS year we have snow on the ground, and poor Andy has actually been stuck with doing the snow shoveling, which I usually take care of.  I did do the shoveling Friday before the latest cold snap, but have learned that there are different types of soreness to be on the lookout for.  Just muscles-being-exercised is fine, but when the you're-going-to-regret-this-for-a-week kicks in, I am done with whatever I'm trying to do.  This latter category is new to me this year, and it's not to be messed with it seems.  "Just work it off" may or may not have been a great idea in high school sports, but in one's 40s, this attitude apparently leads to things like drugs, heating pads, and having one's sanity questioned by just about everyone one knows.  Wisdom may not automatically come with age, but the expectation of it does.................

Seasons

I love to watch the change of seasons on Pinterest. We've moved out of "Christmas things I'm way too lazy to make" and have moved into "Valentine's things I'm way too lazy to make."

Conversations Now Possible At Chateau Sutton-Goar

Andy (seeing wife visibly limping):  "Is your back starting to hurt again?"

Toni:  "Not starting--actually hurting"

Andy:  "Want me to get out the electrodes?"

And some people thought we'd already reached maximum weirdness by now........

I Feel Great!

There was a time in my life when I might have hesitated to publicly admit that I was home on New Years Eve.  BUT that was long before the back issues started, and in case I wasn't having enough fun, I came down with a cold Friday, so slept much of the weekend. 

Today, however, I felt like a human.  For the first time in about 6 weeks, my back barely hurt and I was able to do a full PT workout AND it didn't land me back in bed with a heating pad!!!!!!!!!  This is very exciting!  Just last week I was excited over lasting on Christmas until just when my parents were leaving, and it still put me flat in bed all the next day.  I have been up!  I have been human!  I have seen other rooms in our house besides the bedroom!  This is VERY exciting!

Of course, this also removes my excuse for the holiday letter STILL not being done, but as we call it a "holiday" letter, I'm thinking Martin Luther King Day is looking like a nice holiday.............

Not A Creature Was Stirring.......

Okay, maybe not exactly, but we are having our very first quiet Christmas.  Normally, Christmas is amazingly busy, which is fun.  We've spent most of our married Christmases traveling to see family, but a couple years ago I finally put my foot down and said we wanted to spend Christmas in our OWN home, and I have been a Christmas maniac for the last couple years--hosting friends on Christmas Eve, Christmas night--even one year throwing in a Christmas brunch as well.  It's tiring, but great fun.  But this year even I had to admit that my back was not going to be up to it.  I made it to a Christmas party Saturday night, but in order to get there I had to rest most of the day and not do too much physical therapy in order to get there, and I think I just need to be able to do what my back needs to have happen, so for the first time EVER, we're having frozen pizza and watching movies for Christmas Eve!  I don't think I'd want to do it very often but knowing it would be a quiet night, I could brave a rematch with my new toy this morning:

When I was in physical therapy, the "carrot" at the end of the session was called "e-stim," (presumably for electronic stimulation, but I wouldn't swear to it).  It sounded terrible, but was marvelous for pain control, and this summer when my back was starting to hurt more and more, a friend of mine who has chronic pain mentioned she had her OWN estim machine and could do it at home.

I had sort of wavered on the idea, but over the last month my back has gotten worse rather than better until I switched back to last year's exercises which are helping, but I am still very sore.  So, I decided it was worth a try and orderedthe one my friend recommended.

Saturday morning I had Andy help place the electrodes, plug in the wires, and I was ready to roll, so I flipped it to ON.  And this would be a good time to mention that if one is combining the "on" switch with the "intensity" setting, it might be best to make it not too sensitive.  Basically, I turned the knob FAR too much and tasered myself in the upper back.  To be fair, it probably gave those muscles quite a workout considering how sore they have been for the last couple days, but it made me a bit hesitant to try it again until I was sure that I could just rest the remainder of the day if I did it again.  Worst case scenario, it could be PJs and Valium by noon.

This morning went MUCH better, and even after zipping myself a bit when I was adjusting it, I was pain-free for hours.  And I'm feeling even more disinclined to steal cars than ever, so a win-win really...............

On Being a Girl......

As a female, I really like having groups of close female friends.  Women are wonderful (which I can safely say now as I finally married in my mid-30s and my marry-extremely-early family can stop wondering if I am a lesbian--not that there's anything wrong with that........), and I actually feel sorry for American men that they just don't form the close friendship bonds that women do.  Only this week I met a girlfriend for coffee and it hasn't exactly been a great year for either of us, but just knowing that and still being able to pause for a bit to relax together makes it easier.  Another girlfriend and I were recently talking about the "yeah, whatever" approach to the holidays so many of us have had to take this year.  We each normally host Christmas parties, but this year she had surgery and I'm having back problems, so we each scrapped them.  The funny thing is we both have the reputation of "dropping" people from parties, so we were joking about ways to let people know that they had not been dropped and that there just wasn't a party without hurting the feelings of those who HAD been dropped but weren't aware of the fact.  Life has so many ups and downs, but when you have people to ride them with, it's much easier to just hang on.

My closest girlfriends locally are sort of in circles.  The oldest circle is my book club--because as a female I'm almost obligated to be IN a book club--and it's a lovely group of women and I enjoy it every time we're together.  The problem is: 

I do not have enough estrogen for chick-lit books.

In fact, I hate them.  So much so in fact that I will no longer borrow library books from unknown female authors unless I know that they've been dead at LEAST since before Bridget Jones was published.  Men can still be lousy authors, but mercifully they don't generally write about 30-somethings recently divorced, trying to put their lives back together, probably with a close group of friends--one of whom is almost certainly to be struck down by cancer.   Not that chick-lit is bad--it's just past my "girl" line.

With every circle of girlfriends I have, I always know there's a line where we don't connect--which we've sort of dubbed the Touchy-Feely line.  It's probably this line that one needs to cross in order to want children, or to have played with baby dolls as a child.  It's definitely the line one needs to cross for yoga.  I have tried it, but when everyone else is getting "in touch" with their center or whatever it's supposed to be, I am planning knitting projects or my mind decides to smack me with something hideous like a continual loop of "Copacabana" or the Gilligan's Island theme song.  If that is truly my "center," we're better off staying out of touch.  

So I am trying to figure out a way to remain in the book club without having to read any more chick-lit books AND without hurting anyone's feeling because I can't stand their book choices.  The back problems have sort of helped as I ended up being too sore to even attend last month and was saved from discussing a book I couldn't even stand to listen to, but it's not a long-term solution I like to contemplate.  I suppose it's too late to claim latent illiteracy problems...................

Whew!

So glad they were out of the Mayan calendar tablecloths when we went to Mexico for our honeymoon so we got the Aztec one instead:

because the Mayan one would have only good for 1500+ years before expiring today.......