My So Called Life Sunday

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Sore Thumb

Ever wonder why dogs have icky, dirty teeth?

And don't wear jeans?

Well, I've figured it out.

It's because they don't have opposable thumbs. 

And when you can't use your thumb - brushing your teeth and buttoning your jeans is pretty much out of the question.

I know this because two weeks ago I hurt my thumb chasing after Duke. 

He was trying to steal our neighbor's jeans.

And his toothbrush.

No he wasn't.
Honestly, I can't really explain how it happened, because it is all a painful blur. I just know our 112lb dog got out and went snooping down the street. I found him in Grumpy Old Man Neighbor's garage.  As I tried to corner him and grab his collar - he thought it was a game and bolted around me - and I jammed my hand into Old Man Neighbor's work table instead of Duke. I also scraped up my face and my other arm on Old Man Neighbor's work bench and fell flat back on his garage floor. It would have been comical if I had caught this on tape. Maybe even profitable, and for sure Super Stardom Status earning, as AFV is very popular in this house. 

At the time, however, it was not comical. I stood up nauseous from the pain. I'm a fainter...and so for a split second I thought about sitting back down. But then I remembered I was in Grumpy Old Man Neighbor's garage. And I had just made quite a ruckus. I decided to wobble my way home rather than risk being found out. I looked at Duke and decided, at that point he could run away to Timbukto for all I cared and angrily told him as much. He promptly stuck his tail between his legs and followed me home. 

Back at the house, I realized I had really hurt my right thumb. It was already swelling and turning colors. I winced every time I touched it...but I could bend it, so I figured it wasn't broken. Just jammed up really bad. Maybe sprained. Queen Procrastinator here, popped some Advil and told myself it would be all better in a few days...I just had to tough it out.

Well, two weeks of many Advil and glasses of wine before bed later, I still couldn't really do anything with my thumb without wincing. And I'm right handed! So it was not only painful, but getting really annoying. By the end of the day, the pain would ache all the way up my arm. So, I finally made an appointment to have it x-rayed last Monday. The x-rays showed that not only had I broken my thumb, but I had torn the ligament away from the bone. When that happened, the ligament took tiny pieces of the broken bone with it. AWESOME. My doctor referred me to an Orthopedic Surgeon and told me to call him ASAP.

Wait. 

Surgery?

'Cause I hit my hand on Old Man Neighbor's work table?

Chasing after our dopey dog?

This can't be right.

I walked into my appointment with the Orthopedic Surgeon yesterday, fully expecting him to roll his eyes at me. Fully expecting him to tell me that I just needed to splint it for a few days. Fully expecting him to say "This is no big deal." After all, I'd been walking around for two weeks acting like this was NBD. It couldn't possibly need surgery.

Well....the Dr did roll his eyes at me a bit. But not because it was no big deal. More because he thought it was a VBD! Seems that since I had decided to limp along for two weeks with a broken thumb, scar tissue was starting to form around the broken pieces of bone and misaligned joint. If left like this, I was going to be be prone to more injuries, and the joint would forever wear with the bones rubbing against each other - which would equal constant pain and misuse which would lead to early arthritis. He recommended surgery immediately. Like....as in the very next day.

And I repeat. 

Surgery?

Cause I hit my hand on Old Man Neighbor's work table?

Chasing after our dopey dog?

This can't be right.

Oh, it's right!

And it's happening today.

And we're not talking a minor procedure here.

We're talking can't eat or drink all day, get knocked out, have pins drilled into my bones, wear a cast for FIVE WEEKS, do physical therapy kind of surgery.

So the moral of the story is folks...

Take your dog to the dentist.

And don't live next to Grumpy Old Man Neighbors.

Who have dangerous workbenches.

And when you hurt yourself...don't be a Queen Procrastinator.

Get thy self to a doctor!

I never realized how much you use your thumb until I couldn't.

Jean buttons and toothbrushes top the list. 

But opening sting cheese packets or bags of Goldfish is pretty damn near impossible as well.

Holding a blow dryer? Nope - not happening.

Writing anything? Hurts too much to grip the pen.

Typing anything? Either it takes forever...

orijustrefusetousethespacebarandyoucanreadblogpostslikethisforthenextfiveweeks.

I'm thinking this might be a fun time to let the girls blog for me. 

They LOVE any excuse to type on the computer right now.

So I think I'm going to dictate and they can type. 

Or maybe I'll just let have free reign.

Let them tell it like it really is around here.

Stay tuned!

Surgery is at 3:30 today.

I woke with a nervous stomach.

Not because of the surgery. Not because of being put under.

But because I knew I wasn't going to be able to drink any Diet Coke after 6AM.

Late afternoon surgery is not a good idea when you're caffeine addicted.

Just sayin.

I made a middle of the night run to Shirley's for "breakfast" to calm my nerves.

I'm thinking I need a better story to tell for the next five weeks than:

"Rumpelstiltskin Thumb due to Dopey Dog"

It sounds way too fairytale. Even for me. I need to Grimm it up a bit! My Dr. said they call this type of injury "Skier's Thumb" in the orthopedic world. Because crashing on mountainous, black diamond moguls while holding ski poles often results in a similar injury. But everyone I know pretty much knows I haven't been to the snow. And that I SUCK at skiing. I haven't been anywhere near a black diamond slope in over 15 years. Are you a story teller? Help me come up with a good one!

Happy Year of the Dragon

Last Sunday, my parents and I took the kids to experience the celebrations for Chinese New Year. We walked all over Little Saigon (much closer than Little China for us) throwing poppers on the ground.

We visited all the outdoor markets and bought hot candied mango, fresh lemongrass, red gladiolas and pink peach blossom branches. The fabric and the produce markets were my favorite.

We visited all the curio shops and tried on paper mache masks.
Grammie even bought the girls traditional Chinese dresses.

The highlight of the afternoon was seeing the Dragon parade pass right in front of us.

Tonight we are having a Chinese New Year celebration for dinner. I'm not daring enough to serve some of the stuff we saw for sale on Sunday (raw eggs and snails still in their shells!) So we'll be having a very Americanized feast of Chinese chicken salad and egg rolls. After school, the kids and I are making these Almond Cupcakes with fortunes inside again, for dessert. I've been saving the China Little Passports just for this occasion! I've set the table with everything red and gold and Megan wrote place cards using a Chinese alphabet worksheet she got at school. We are looking forward to a fun night learning more about China, its people and their customs! 

Happy Year of the Dragon!

Two Favorites Tuesday and a Menu Plan

Oh boy.

Yesterday was a good day for little, old me...

And the silly things that make this silly girl giddy.

Two of my favorites came back with new happiness for me to enjoy!

One, Miss Cyrus released the new music video of her cover of Bob Dylan's Lonesome When You Go, celebrating 50 Years of Amnesty International. I love the video - the abandoned house and how everyone is by their lonesome playing their instruments. It's solemn, pensive and perfect; focusing on the music - not on Miley, not on costumes, not on dance moves. I love her voice here too. It's mournful and full of sentiment. So not Hannah Montana. And so not Untamed. I love those two versions of her, too (of course)...but this feels like what she is meant to do. I've always thought vocally she'd knock it out of the park (and finally be taken seriously as an artist) if she'd just shake the fear of her Father and Godmother's country music shadows and embrace the folk/country genre rather than the pop. To cover someone like Dylan takes some serious guts, no matter what the cause. And to do it well....well now I'm just waiting impatiently for a new album with more of THIS.

Two, Zoe Hart and Bluebell, Alabama returned to my television. In my next life, I'm moving to the South, naming my children after trees, and spending my days sipping sweet tea while I sit on my wrap around porch. Love this show. I love Rachel Bilson's spunky character, her fabulous fashion, the vintage-ness of everything and everyone else in town, and oh Lordy, I love the romantic push and pull that is the energy between Zoe, George and Wade. Can you tell from my collage below who I want Zoe to end up with? And...I do not love Lemon, but I think Jamie King plays her fabulously. So excited for the winter season. I will be sad when May sweeps is here.

Here's what will be on our table this week:


Monday - Open faced tuna melts and caesar salad
Tuesday - Spaghetti and meatballs with garlic knots
Wednesday - Chinese New Year dinner - Chinese chicken salad, egg rolls and almond cookies
Thursday - Book Club. I'm bringing herbed turkey meatballs with cranberry bbq sauce
Friday - Roasted turkey breasts, escarole and cannelinni beans, and 5 minute Artisan bread (both recipes from the Farm to Feast I went to.)

366 Photo A Day Challenge

I committed to taking one photo a day this year. That's 366 pictures. Whoa. I remember hearing my friend Julie grumble over this same commitment last year. But I also remember how awesome she felt when it was done! So...when I really started to think about it, I knew I would need some guidelines and inspiration to stick with it. Or all my pictures would be of food. And drinks. With an occasional psycho self portrait thrown in. So I asked my friend, April, if she'd be willing to help me come up with ideas for the next 11 months. Or 335 days. However you want to look at it, that's a lot of pictures I needed help with!

I asked April because I love her. Her spirit, her youth, her heart, her creativity, her introspection, her blog...and especially her eye for creative shots! Her photography is beautiful and fun, so I knew she'd be great at this. April was just as excited as me about the task and we got started tossing around ideas that night. What we enjoyed the most, was how many prompts could be left up to interpretation. We were excited to see what each of us were going to do with the prompt. Once we had completed a list for February - and realized all the different possible shots - we thought it would be fun to put the list out there for anyone to do! How much fun would it be to see multiple interpretations?! That lead us to create Photo366.

Want to join in the fun? You can play along just for the month of February or for the rest of 2012! You can use our list as inspiration just for yourself, or to post each day on Instagram, or blog your shots at the end of each week. Whatever you choose, we hope our "prompts" inspire you to get creative with your picture taking. We will post a new list of prompts about a week before the next month begins. You can follow us on Instagram or Twitter to be sure and get a heads up when the new prompts are posted. (@aprilmwalker and @bringingupburns on both!)

A few things we are excited to include every month, and are eager to see your interpretations of:

• Each month will start with a color. February is RED. Could it be your wearing red, seeing red, hearing red, tasting red, being red, reading red, watching red, feeling red? We are excited to see!
• If you play along all year, we'll work through the alphabet. February we'll take shots of the Letters A and B. Could it be Apple, Author, Anticipate, Appalling? Book, Begonia, Boiled, Between? What will you shoot? 
• On the 15th of every month, the prompt will always be "You on 15." Can we each interpret this self portrait 11 different ways this year? I'm gonna try!
• We will try to recognize holidays and events each month with abstract prompts. February we've included ones like "Romance and Makes You Blush" for Valentine's Day, "Favorite Movie" on the day of the Oscars, and "Leap!" on the 29th. So fun, right?!

So...that's Photo366! If you decide to play along in the month of February, we'd love it if you'd blog about the challenge and link up below. That way we can come follow you and be sure to see all the pics you'll be posting. And you'll be able to find others who have committed to the challenge and see their interpretations of the prompts too! We'll post a new linky each month, so by linking up - you're only committing to one month at a time. The linky is open until Feb 29th, so whenever you post, be sure and come back and link up as April and I are most excited about seeing your pictures. Above of all, have fun with it!