Good Dog Day

Feeling bold and adventurous, not to mention the huge line of traffic leaving the school drop-off circle, I parked my car and took my dog on a hike. As we got to the open space, I let him off leash and started walking. It was great! He followed me and we went at a much quicker clip than when he's constantly stopping me on his leash. It doesn't hurt that a small part of me was hoping to lose him in the process. (Damn ID chip!) But he kept up nicely.

We met up with a few other dogs and two of them went just swell. They were Labs, too, of course and those dogs just love their own kind. I don't know what other kind of dog the third one was, but they growled at each other. Fortunately, my own stepped away when I called him and it turned out uneventful. It makes me like him so much more when that happens. I'm tired of the anxiety his unpredictability causes me. Maybe he's not so unpredictable after all. 

I've trained my dog the command, "Ignore." When we walk by dogs behind fences cat-calling him, I say "Ignore" and he keeps going. You'll click your tongues at me, I'm sure, thinking back to the Incident In Which I Was Dragged. I'll then remind you that it caught me unaware and I did not give the command - at all. That incident did inspire me to let him off leash today. This might be a trend. For my own good, of course. 

After our hike, I felt great. There is nothing like a brisk bit of exercise to get the blood pumping. I decided to do a little yoga when I got home and took my mat out on the back deck since the weather is so fantastic today. Prompted by a little barking, I let Mooch out with me and practiced Defensive Yoga after that. During the warrior pose, I imagined myself with a bow and arrow taking aim at the side of this annoying animal. Alas, I do not own a bow and arrow. He's a good dog. He just does bad things.

Feeling absolutely inspired, I decided to meditate in my new meditation spot. Have I mentioned this perfectly peaceful place? No defense or distractions? No? My roof. You see, I have a flat roof that is very easy to get onto and it has the best views on my property. And no dog. I did discover, however, that  the birds are very annoying - what with all their chirping and so on. But I had a very clear mind when I was done. 

And now I'm going to take on the world!

Family Food

If you know me at all, you know that cooking isn't a talent of mine. I'm not bad at some stuff, but I've always been an eat to live not a live to eat kind of person. Of course, in the last few years I've really learned to enjoy eating, but it never carried over to loving to cook what I eat.

If you know this about me, you probably know all the strange quirks my family has with food, which would explain why I've pretty much given up trying to cook. If this is all unfamiliar, I'll spell it out for your entertainment:

Husband: Doesn't eat chicken. Likes beef, but only ground beef. Will not eat beans. Or salad. Or rice.

Oldest Child: Vegetarian. LOVES sweets. Eats them more than I do, but she's as thin as a rail. No beans, no humus, no salad. No pizza.

Youngest Child: Pseudo Vegetarian - sometimes eats meat, but unpredictable about what and when. Mostly won't, though. Does not eat beans. Does not like pasta or cheese.

Me: No shrimp. I'm going to leave it at that.

I always imagine what our family Venn Diagram would look like. There is barely any overlapping areas where a family meal could exist. We used to at least be able to break out the spaghetti for dinner, but Youngest won't really go along anymore. It's almost like we'd have a rectangle with four circles sitting next to each other not crossing. My husband and I are a bit closer and I can eat with my Oldest just fine. In fact my homemade mac and cheese is her favorite and I make enough for both of us.

Nobody has to tell me that it's my own fault. I spent practically my entire childhood sitting at the table with a cold plate of food that I refused to eat sitting in front of me until I got tired of being stubborn, ate the stuff and got up. I swore I wouldn't do the same to my own children and I haven't. I don't MAKE them eat stuff. Should have, though. Now I've created a set of monsters.

My New Year's resolution was to figure it all out. How do I make eating a family affair again? I got out a few No-Miss cookbooks with family friendly food in them and they're no good. Vegetarian children aren't normal. Kids are supposed to like hot dogs and hamburgers and pizza. At least the Youngest cheese-hater will eat pizza.

The thing is that there are so many things that I would love to make for all of us. As I type this, risotto crosses my mind, as does yakisoba and spaghetti carbonara. Or even a dang Cobb salad. One of my favorite dishes is made with black beans, sliced grape tomatoes, a handful of frozen corn, cubed avocado tossed with a vinaigrette and black pepper. Then there is my wonderful fritatta with mushrooms and onions that my brother taught me to make.

Oh well, even if I could get them to eat all that, when I make it, it's not guaranteed to come out edible. My kitchen escapades have not all been successful. When I lived in Japan, I loved eating yakisoba. When I've tried to make it, disaster struck. I tried making vindaloo before, too, and failed.

I'm sure I'll figure it out. I'm just not really sure where to go from here.

Sewing With Me Mum

I had a wonderful day yesterday. I sewed with my mom. I've been trying to think if we've done this before, but can't really recall. Anyway, I discovered that it's more fun to sew with someone else than it is to sew alone. Plus, she helped me with fitting issues that would have taken me a million years to do all by myself.

We didn't finish anything, but made progress in many different directions. I've got my Crepe Sew-Along muslin finalized. All I have to do now is wait for my underlining fabric and organza to arrive in the mail to move on to the next steps. Also, we got about 1/2 way to 3/4 of the way done on a blouse. I need fusible interfacing for that one. And we worked on a dress, but I need fusible interfacing for that, too.

It looks like there is a trip to JoAnn's in my future. I also did something a bit crazy when I got home last night. I bought some pinking shears on eBay last night. I think I got an excellent deal ($3.50), but I probably shouldn't have gotten them. They're 5.5 inches long, end to end. That's pretty small. I should have gone for some 7 or 9 inch shears. Oh well. They're less than ten dollars including shipping and they're Wiss brand. We'll see when they get here.

Emergency Brace

Day Two of The Brace. What brace, you ask? Well, the brace the emergency room doctor gave me when I went in Monday night after what felt like my cracked rib and punctured my lungs but was actually a sprained/strained oblique muscle. Muscle pains I can deal with which makes me all the more glad for it not being in the punctured lung realm. 

I felt foolish for going to the emergency room but I couldn't go on any longer without knowing how to get relief. You see, I went for a bike ride - because I felt totally fine - and when I got back I coughed a little which caused the end-all pain for me. 

It hurt to move, bend, use my arm and breathe. Breathing is not supposed to hurt. So in addition to the elastic brace, they gave me some muscle relaxers and authorized me to use the Vicodin from my surgery. I've barely taken anything since I don't want to be loopy. 

In the meantime, I've become quite aware at how much I use my "core" muscles, including my oblique muscle in everyday life. It makes me want to do Pilates or something when I'm done healing. Either that or eat more donettes*.

*donettes are those little powdered donuts that you get from Hostess.

Sandwiched

I'm in pain. Out of the blue, my back under my right shoulder blade started hurting. It came on slowly and not as though from an injury. All of my experience as a Hypochondriac Doctor (i.e. diagnosing all of my injuries both real and imagined) could not logically come to terms with this. The only injury that I could dial back to was the incident In Which I Was Dragged By The Dog. Could I actually have an injury start to hurt several days after it occurred?

This was yesterday. Last night I slept sandwiched between my two daughters. Only not a comfortable sandwich with fancy bread served on a fine china plate with pickle garnish and linen napkin, no I was that grilled-cheese with Wonder Bread made with the iron. In the midst of my smash-a-thon, rolling over was a painful challenge. I was wincing and groaning with every move and believing that getting old sucks.

When I showered this morning, I noticed that I had a bruise on my boob. My boob! When I pushed on my chest, I found that the pain traveled from the front of me through to where the back pain was. I was able to finally duplicate and isolate the pain. That links the injury to the incident. I did not withhold the pain medication and met my friend Tylenol for a trot to work.

(Should I be worried that while I'm typing this my cat is hunched down next to my dishwasher like she's about to catch a critter of some sort? Picture Tom staking out Jerry's hole.)

Now I'm wondering if I should see a doctor. It doesn't seem as bad as that, but those ribs and sternum are protecting some things that I need. My heart is in there! I'll decide tomorrow. It's time for bed. The cat and I are going downstairs now.