Lucky

I love the latest STR kit. I am not sure if I would have bought yarn this colour if I where browsing a yarn shop, but now that I have it I really like it.

I love the whole idea of it. The yarn is called Lucky. The way things have been going I think we can all use a little luck. I plan to knit these with lots of positive thoughts and with luck in mind. Shannon will you please post a picture of yours too, I notice sometimes they are dyed differently and I would love to see yours.



I am thinking of setting a little goal for myself. Do you think I can finish the socks I have on the needles and my lucky pair before our cruise?

Finishing Weekend

I spent a fair bit of this past weekend doing a bunch of finishing. Paul and I spent an entire day (I thought it would take 2) finishing the ceiling painting.

Mid-winter I had done the dinning room and kitchen, but I stopped in the hallways. Saturday Paul and I did all the hallways and we did our big front room. I am glad to have the front room done, a portion of it is about 12 feet high at the peak. I was so glad to have Paul's help on this part. He climbed the ladder and did all the highest work for me. He also used his long reach to do the part over the stairwell. So glad that is done. Now I need to think about painting the walls in the hallways.

More importantly:



My finished sweater having a bath. It is still a little damp from the blocking and I have to confess. I have not sewn up the two seams yet. The only thing left is to seam from wrist to shoulder on both sides and then it will be time to find the buttons.



We also puzzled all weekend long. The red was the hardest part. I felt like the puzzle was pretty hard, but when I think about it it came together pretty fast. There were 5 of us working on though.



Two close-ups for APL:





Should I drop it in the mail for someone else to try?

Easter

We went Deb's house for the annual Easter Egg hunt. What a good time we all had. They are on half an acre and they hide eggs all over the place. This year the kids even found couple that they missed last year.

I love this picture of the boys of the boys hunting together. There were at least 12 kids hunting plastic eggs filled with goodies. At the end of the hunt all kids empty the treats into one great big bowl and they are divided up equally. I love the system, it is fair and the kids are into it so everyone is happy.



Wren went a-hunting for more than eggs. She had me laughing so hard, here she is putting a old ear of corn into her basket.



Not to long ago I was complaining to mom about not having any family here and how hard that can be sometimes. As we all sat around the table with the kids I realized that I do have family here.




After the Easter Egg hunt we took Sebass out for his first dirt bike ride. He had a bit of a rought start. Paul told him to wait for minute and he would show him how to ride it. Paul turned his back and Sebass hopped on the bike and took off. Needless to say he had his first fall and was a little cautious to get back on.

He did get get back on and took his time and paid attention to what Paul had to say after that. He did a good job for his first time out. The bike is very small and gutless, perfect in my book.





I can't tell if he is having fun in this picture or if he is scared out of his wits. What do you think?

Catching Up

Today Paul worked and I got to catch up with the kids. We had a great time together until I ran out of patience.

For some reason they are all amped up and over tired. They played 6 games of hockey in 3 days and they played full ice. The kids team won all 6 of their games. They did not have a 1st place team or second ect. in the tournament. Every one who participated got a t-shirt and medal and a goodie bag. The whole thing was about having fun and not about winning. Pretty cool.

Speaking of goodies, Angie Peg Leg sent me a little care package. She spoiled us with some Peeps and a great puzzle. It is one of those mosaic puzzles, (like your mickey mouse Shannon) I picked a bit at Shannon's when I was in Ca. but I have never tried on by myself.

The kids are quite the puzzlers and they have been waiting for me to open it so they could put it together. Sebass is really quite good at puzzles. He helped me with it for a long time. After an hour or so he had put in a fair number of pieces. He was so proud of himself he put in one piece and said, "Mom! Did you see that I put in another one, I must be genius!!!"

I laughed so hard. Thank you Angie, you sent us a great puzzle! And the laugh with Sebass...priceless.

Quickie

I like a good quickie now and again, don't you???

I only have a couple of minutes Paul and I have been invited to the season end Blazer dinner. We are the team chiropractors so we get a free ticket every year. Can't miss a meal that I don't have to cook or pay for.

We are enjoying our spring break so far, we spent a lazy day playing games with kids yesterday and today Paul took the kids to their first hockey tournament. It is a fun little spring break camp, they play 2 games a day, all three kids are on the same team. Paul is bench coaching them during the three camp so I will be working a little extra this week. I don't mind, I think Paul needs a little breather.

Good news about our medical community, two doctors in town, one a neurosurgeon called us to apologize for not coming to our open house and both have made arrangements to come visit our office on Wed to see what we do and learn more about the SpineMed Decompression table. Slowly restoring my faith in humanity.

Now if I can babysitter to help Paul so I can cruise stress free that would be wonderful. (I have not registered online yet, I was hoping to on my lunch today but ran out of time)

Medical Community?

I think everyone knows that we have a Decompression machine at the office; Decompression is the newest technology to treat ruptured/bulging disks of both the lumbar and cervical spine. It is a non-surgical technique to heal these problems, it is incredibly effective (around 88%-91% the exact number is not coming to head right now) and non-invasive.

We have spent the past several weeks putting together information packages and delivering them to all the medical offices in our area. Our goal has been to educate the medical community how to take care of these patients without meds or surgery. We sent out over 128 packages, some of which were hand delivered. We followed up with phone calls and an invitation to our office to come and check out what exactly decompression is and check out the Spine-Med table.

We asked the doctors to RSVP and we sent out faxes reminding them the day before they event. We had only 2 doctors RSVP and less than 10 doctors show up. All that showed were chiropractors like ourselves, a physio and a massage therapist. We had several of our patients that have gone through the treatment protocol in attendance so that they could share their experience and answer any questions that might come up re pt care in our office.

One part of me is so positive about what we did, I think any energy we put out to educate our community is great. Another part of me is disappointed with our local medical community. If I had the chance go into every doctor office in my area and meet the doctor and learn what he/she is about and how they practice and what their medical philosophy is, I would jump on it. It would make me a better doctor. I would be able to refer my patients to the right practitioner for their individual needs when I needed to do so. We would all provide our patients with a higher level of patient care if we knew one and other and opened the doors to discuss our cases working together to get our patients well and keep them well.

When I look back at the last paragraph I think, utopia. It will never happen. Then I think about the way our office works. There are a few MD's in town that refer us patients on a regular basis. When this occurs, we treat the pt. for a bit and then we send the referring MD a letter. We talk about how the pt. first presented to our office, our exam findings, our treatment protocol and how the pt. is doing after x number of visits. This is not utopia, this is standard opperating procedure in our office.

Is really so hard to open the door and create relationships in the medical community? We can't be the only doctors in town looking for the best way to treat our patients...so why didn't more doctors show up? Really the term 'medical community' is a misnomer if we don't take the time learn about one and other and use each others strengths to benefit our patients

Pot Party

A patient of ours invited us to pot party on Sunday night. That is a cooking pot party not the smoke it if you have it kind of pot. I have to say the pot party was so fun that we are going to have one of our own in 2 weeks or so.

Are you all wondering what a pot party is???? It is all about Saladmaster pots. (I hope I spelled that right) They are a specially designed cooking pots and pans made out of surgical grade steel. They are made of metal with no impurities to contaminate your cooking. The same metal that is used for hip and knee replacements.

For the party a rep/cook from company comes to your house, brings the raw food and cooks it up for you and 6 guests using the pots and a cooking technique with no oil, no butter and no salt and pepper. They serve you dinner and do the dishes. You get a hostess gift every time you have a party and there is no obligation to purchase the pots.

The pots are crazy expensive but the free dinner party in your own home that you don't have to cook...priceless. The dinner party we went to was fun and informative and there was no hard sell to buy them. They do ask you to book a party so you can get the word out for them and of course you can buy the pots if you like.

The salesperson/cook told us stories about people who have earned the whole set by having dinner parties and never purchased a piece of cookware. I am ready to sign up for that plan. Free food and free pots???? It sounds to good to be true.

We are hosting out first pot party in a couple of weeks, I will let you know how it goes. Next time you come to visit, expect a pot party in your honor. I am going for the whole set.

Hell of a Week

I feel like this week has been a little rough around the edges. Stress levels have been a little high around here. Paul has been feeling pressure at the office and he is bringing it home with him. He has been short tempered and the kids and I seem to have responded in kind.

We spent a bit of time this talking as family and trying to get everyone on board with doing their part to make things a bit easier around here. The kids are doing their chores with no more whining, Paul is trying to be more patient and I am trying to spend a bit more of my time at home playing with the kids.

I had a nasty experience on Tuesday afternoon. I was on the way to pick up the kids at a friends house and then I was to pick up Sebass at school. I stopped at the stop sign at the bottom of the hill and looked both ways before crossing the highway and turning left.

As I made my left-hand turn I glanced in my side view mirror to keep my eye on the semi-trailer that was going up the highway. I saw him start to fishtail and lose control of his truck and then I heard the crunch of metal hitting metal.

It seems that the woman who stopped behind me at the stop sign did not look both ways before crossing the highway and she pulled out in front of the semi-truck. I saw what was left of her car and I had nothing but dread in my belly as I figured I was first on scene and have enough medical knowledge to be of help.

I was so afraid of what I would find I took a couple of deep breaths before I got out of vehicle. As I walked across the highway I could not believe it when I saw the driver of the car standing on the side of the road with not a mark on her. I was shocked that someone had walked away from this accident. The woman was in shock, she had no idea what had happened and only complained of knee pain. As I took her hand and looked into her eyes I realized that I knew her. She lives two doors up the street from me. Can you imagine???!

The driver of the truck was out and walking around he was so concerned for the woman in car I don't know he had paid any attention to his own body. I don't really know to much about what happened from here, a couple of other people pulled over to help. I waited until medical attention arrived, made sure another witness had my contact information for the police report.

The woman in the accident has a daughter that goes to school with my oldest. She asked me if I would let he daughter know she had been in accident and make sure that her daughter got home safely and her husband was informed about what was happening.

I have seen accidents before, but nothing like this one. I am telling you it is nothing short of a miracle that everyone walked away.

On the lighter side:



We have had a little trouble with our online service. We did an upgrade on our internet service and it has sucked since. We had tech support have a look at it and we seem to be up and running better than ever.

MakeUp Case

I out grew my old make-up case a little while ago. My addiction to Bare Minerals is perhaps a bit out of control. Maybe not, the stuff lasts forever and I only buy a bit here and there...



I ordered a make-up case from the same web site that Shannon got hers. I think that mine might be a little bit different. Shannon, I can't remember if yours has that double decker slide out thing on both sides or just one. Mine has a double-decker on one side and a tall one on the other.



I was a bit surprised when I moved into the mew case and I was able to fill it up. You should have seen Paul's eyes pop out of his head when he saw it all open and full. He wise enough not to say anything, he just popped his eyes back in, gave his head a shake and walked away.



I was a bit afraid that those of you that are not familiar with Bare Minerals would think with all the make-up I own I must look like a clown. I don't. I took this quick self-portrait the same day I took the pictures of the make-up case-Friday? I was on the way out the door to Costco and wearing my everyday face. I have even have on a bit of eyeshadow (gold I think) but BE is so sheer that you would have to try very hard to cake it on.



(Are all self taken photos a little weird or is it just me?)