Ankle Update

Well folks, I guess I just found out either how feisty I am, how bullheaded I am, or how stupid I am. After hobbling around for a week while my foot stayed somewhat swollen and became progressively more bruised, I finally called the docor this morning. I went in and saw the P.A. this afternoon. Everything seemed to be going quite well until she figured out where the major source of my pain was (right over the ankle bone). Then she said, "well that's not good, that's a non-weight bearing bone and you could have cracked it." So she sent me for x-rays. Lo and behold, it was cracked, but that's not all. There was a chip there from a previous break. Apparently I broke the ankle one of the two times I sprained it last fall (I suspect the time right before the trip to NYC to meet up with Abby).

So now I'm in an aircast for the next 2-3 weeks. Isn't that going to make a trip to the beach this weekend just a barrel of laughs! To top it off the aircast pressing against the ankle bone makes it hurt worse.

Father Mattison saw me just before I got the x-rays. He said at least this gives me a good excuse to lay around and do nothing. I suppose, but I really wasn't wanting to lay around and do nothing. What it does do is make me think about whether my former couch potato status wasn't less dangerous to my health...At least I have to wonder about walking on uneven ground. I looked at the exercises to stregthen your ankle after it heals. I was already doing them before I hurt it, how discouraging is that.

The good news is that according to the doctor's scales I weigh a pound less than our scales at home. The extra good news is that even sitting around all week I still lost another pound. I also have figured out a hand weight routine that takes a full half hour. I may not get a lot of aerobics in, but I'm going to have biceps and triceps by the time this is all over. Total weight loss so far according to our home scales 12 pounds in 8 weeks. Have I mentioned that I love Weight Watchers program?

Fortunately for them, my kids have apparently inherited their ankles from the other side of the family. Sprained ankles are an uncommon occurence in that genetic pool. It's a good thing!

Hobbling

That's what I'm doing today and will be doing for probably the rest of the week. My thorn in the flesh (weak right ankle) managed to fail me again yesterday. It now (along with my foot) sports a huge purple bruise. My left knee has a great scab on it the likes I which I haven't seen probably since I was a roller skating 10 yaar old.

I decided to go for an endorphin producing walk yesterday. I was frustrated with some family tensions and decided that a walk might make me feel better. Part way into it I decided to try running (a certain young man of my acquaintance had told me that running was the best exercise for weight lose). Now did I fall down while running? Nope, I might have looked pretty funny, but the running part went just fine, although I couldn't do it for more than about 40 strides at a time. It was just plain walking that did me in. I stepped to the side of the road because of a passing car and apparently stepped in a very small depression. The ankle twisted and I fell down, gashing and scraping my knee and tearing a hole in my new capri pants (I'd only worn them 3 times!).

I got up and tried to figure out which way would be the easiest to go home (both involved a hill, but one involved crossing the highway twice). I decided to continue on, on my present course. The ankle hurt, but I could walk on it. I unfortunately did not have my cell phone which was home getting recharged, otherwise I would have called for help. I walked and walked (over a mile) and finally made it home. I met my daughter and niece on the way and joked that I wondered if you got more activity points for walking with a twisted ankle. When I got home everyone was more concerned that I had heat stroke than about my ankle (it was pretty hot out and I was pretty red).

That is until the ankle started to puff up. Then the ankle got some attention. Ice, elevation, and supper in bed. Now today I'm hobbling around, but I can guarantee everyone that I'm not going to hobble very far. This puppy really hurts. This is the worst sprain I've had yet. I'm not going to be running again any time soon, but at least now I know I still can.

Oh, by the way, I got those endorphins, but I think I used them all up walking home on the injured ankle.

Weekly Musings

I've been thinking a lot about Mary, women, and the Church this week. DD's bf brought Kevin Orlin Johnson's book on the Rosary down this past weekend and loaned it to me. Something that I noticed in the book spurred a bit of a discussion about the way that the pagans saw the Church as demonstrating values that they had previously seen in their mothers. I noted that in our current culture women have been doing just the opposite, embracing those things that they saw as primarily masculine values (competition, hardness, drive for success) and rejecting feminine traits (like softness, receptivity, compassion).

This morning I happened to pick up The Ratzinger Report and was just sort of flipping through it. I came upon these comments that Pope Benedict made when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger: "The correct Marian devotion guarantees to faith the coexistence of indispensible 'reason' with the equally indispensible 'reasons of the heart', as Pascal would say. For the Church, man is neither mere reason nor mere feeling, he is the unity of these two dimensions. The head must reflect with lucidity, but the heart must be able to feel warmth; devotion to Mary (which 'avoids every false exaggeration on the one hand, and excessive narrow-mindness in the contemplation of the surpassing dignity of the Mother of God on the other', as the Council urges) thus assures the faith its full human dimension."

Then he goes on to say: "To use the very formulations of Vatican II, Mary is 'figure', "image' and 'model' of the Church. Beholding her the Church is shielded against the aforemention masculinized model that views her as an instrument for a program of social-political action. In Mary as figure and archetype, the Church again finds her own visage as Mother and cannot degenerate into the complexity of a party, an organization or pressure grou in the service of human interests, even the noblest. If Mary no longer finds a place in many theologies and ecclesiologies, the reason is obvious: they have reduced faith to an abstraction. And an abstraction does not need a mother.

With her destiny, which is at one and the same time that of Virgin and of Mother, Mary continues to project a light upon that, which the Creator intended for women in every age, ours included, or better said, perhaps precisely in our time, in which - as we know- the very essence of femininity is threatened. Through her virginity and her motherhood, the mystery of women receives a very lofty destiny from which she cannot be torn away. Mary undauntedly proclaims the Magnificat, but she is also the one who renders silence and seclusion fruitful. She is the one who does not fear to stand under the Cross, who is present at the birth of the Church. Bu she is also the one who, as the evangelist emphasizes more than once, 'keeps and ponders in her heart' that which transpires around her. As a creature of courage and of obedience she was and is still an example to which every Christian -man and woman- can and should look."

He said it so much better than I was even trying to! Thanks, Jim, for loaning me the Johnson book and sending me down this particular thought path.

Moving Day

Well today was a big moving day for my daughter (you know, the HTML genius!). We got her bed and chairs and tv, vcr, dvd player etc. moved into her new apartment. We thought we got the futon moved in too, but when we opened the box we discovered there were pieces missing. So dh has to go to the warehouse tomorrow and yell at someone to get the missing pieces. I'll take them up later in the week. She also wasn't able to get a table and chairs yet. She has a couple of Telescope chairs to sit in though, so she's sort of half camping out, half moved in.

It's a great apartment and it's not the first time we've moved her. It's just the first time that we've moved her someplace that wasn't essentially a dorm. It seems a lot more permanent this time.

Fortunately, it's only an hour and a half away and it's a drive I do on a fairly frequent basis. It's the same area where most of us (dh excepted) went to college so it feels sort of like home anyway. Now I get to go back to taking her out to lunch or dinner every now and then. Maybe I should even sign up for an evening class this fall...

There's a church right down the street from her and some other great parishes in the area. She has friends, she has a job, she has a nice landlady. She even has a porch, a backyard, a garage, and a dishwasher. I think it's going to be a great experience for her. I'm just going to miss her.

Oh, by the way. You'll notice my links didn't get organized. Things got a little too hectic. Maybe next weekend, in between watching Pirates II and giving her cousin driving lessons, she'll get a chance to help me organize my links. I wouldn't count on it though. Life is moving fast these days.

Re: Count Your Sheep

I mentioned in my earlier post the link to Count Your Sheep. If you're having a blah day, or even just in need of a chuckle, check this one out. Start at the beginning and be prepared to sit at the computer longer than you probably intended to. I have to say, I wonder whether Karen Edmisten's Ramona has been reading Count Your Sheep, or whether the creator of Count Your Sheep has been reading Karen's blog. Some of the things the little girl at Count Your Sheep and her sheep say remind me of Ramona. I also must say, that the creator of the comic isn't aware of the fact that sheep DO spend some time in the air. It's part of gamboling and it's one of the most amusing parts of raising sheep - no new "sheep evolution" needed.

I Really Must Organize

I have added some links lately. One of the latest is a cute cartoon called Count Your Sheep (I couldn't resist, naturally). However, what I'm noticing is that just like my bookmarks page, my links are in sad need of organization and categorization. However, Miss HTML Genius is no longer living at home, so I have to wait for her visits to get help with the blog. She's coming home this afternoon and hopefully (once we've finished bed and other furniture shopping) she can give me some assistance.

She really has to create a notebook labeled "HTML Simplified For Mom" because I forget half of what she tells me from one session to the next. Homeschooling your mother apparently is no easier than homeschooling your children.