Friday, February 8, 2013

Weekly Wrap-Up (2.8.13)

A Slow Death by Asphyxiation 
Recently I've been having some painful, yet-to-be-diagnosed problems with my left shoulder. I'm not big on going to the doctor for minor injuries, so until my shoulder heals or I decide that this situation is major, I'm treating my shoulder myself with an anti-inflamatory regimen of Ibuprofen and alternating cold and heat presses.

The problem is that shoulders are round and bumpy and difficult to ice without actually attaching the ice pack to your body. It took me 15 minutes and I very nearly pulled a muscle in my back (it's great fun getting old) trying to strap an ice pack to my shoulder with an Ace bandage, and even though Hallie was home with me, she was absolutely no help at all. "What-r-u-DOOOO-in, Mama? You look silly, Mama. Why are you crying, Mama?"

Eventually I gave up, deciding to wait until Tom came home - and could wrap my shoulder for me - to ice again. That evening, I brought him my ice packs and Ace bandage and explained what I needed him to do. He's clearly a PhD and NOT an MD (Will's know this for a while), as evidenced by the photo below; instead of gently attaching the ice packs to my injured shoulder, he strapped them on in a way that completely missed one of the most painful areas on the back of my shoulder, cut off the circulation to my entire left arm, and slowly cut off my oxygen supply.
Can you see tell how tightly I'm wrapped?  Within minutes I couldn't feel my left hand
and eventually I could tell that I was taking in less than an optimal amount of oxygen.
If I want to survive this injury I suppose I should start teaching Hallie how to use an Ace bandage.

Fly Over Fields of Gold
Tulips have long been my favorite flower, and I've missed them since we've lived in Texas. (It's much more difficult to grow tulips in places where the winter weather isn't cold, so while someone with a green thumb could grow beautiful tulips here in Texas, I - with my dingy brown thumb, could not). I was blown away when I first saw these stunning aerial photographs of tulip fields in the Netherlands. Gorgeous, right?

Walk in Fields of Gold
And in keeping with the Fields of Gold theme, I'd like to flash back to the early/mid-1990s with the music video of Fields of Gold, one of the hit singles off Sting's fourth solo album, Ten Summoner's Tales. The video itself is a little too tortured 90's for my taste, but I dig Sting and I love this song.

MomsEveryday: Parenting Resolutions
Last week MomsEveryday ran my piece on Parenting (New Year's) Resolutions, in which I list my parenting flaws and discuss how I'm going to do/be better in 2013. Pop on over and check it out!

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