You Must be Tired of This

Winter was quite serious about it's first day around here. That is -17F. It is so cold it feels weird to take a deep breath when you go outside.

You know what I find really strange about the cold? I find it odd how quickly we adapt to it. Today it warmed up to -18C and snowed a bit. Everyone who came into the office today was talking about how it is so much milder than the day before. People are very happy that it has warmed up to -18C. Funny.

I drove the truck to work today. Usually I drive the van around town, but Paul had the day off with the kids and had some errands to run so he asked me to take the truck to work.

The van lives in the garage this time of year, so it stays nice and cozy warm. The truck lives in the driveway, it has a block heater and the van does not. So we can plug it in and it won't free up. (Except for last week, when it was parked at the office and the fuel pump froze, chalk that one up to Mysteries of Winter)

When I left for the office I double checked with Paul, is the truck plugged in???? He mumbled something from our warm cozy bed and I scooted out the door. (which I am sure now was a "yes, don't forget to unplug it.")

I got in the truck and drove merrily away...you know where this is going don't you?

I forgot to unplug it from the house first. I did not even realize it until I got to the office. It dawned on me as I turned the engine off. A little to late.

I ripped the plug (it looks like your standard three prong cord only it plugs from your vehicle into an extension cord that plugs into your house) off the block heater.

I am a good wife, I went to the auto parts store to get him a new cord on my way home from work tonight. They were out of them all over town. It is nice to know it's an epidemic. I said to the sales man, "I'm not the only one?" He said, "Oh, no! you have plenty of company."

Still Cold

It is still a bit cold outside, I think it is -17C right now and the wind is blowing pretty good making it feel damn cold.

We don't usually have any trouble with our vehicles or anything when it gets cold, we are pretty well winterized. This year the truck decided to make an exception to our winterized rules.

On Tuesday the mercury hung out at -20C all day. Paul had just filled the truck with supreme gas (I guess that supreme has a lower freezing temperature than the regular stuff.) Anyway the truck would not start in the evening leaving Paul stranded at work.

He thought his fuel line froze and put in an additive that was supposed to thaw things out. It did not. We figured out how to get home from work (gong show) and how to get him at work by 7:00 am Wed while I got the kids off to school before I went to work (another gong show)

He calls BCAA from the office and traveling mechanic comes out to take a look at things. He has Paul turn over the engine and the traveling mechanic says he can fix the problem right away. He gets out a rubber mallet and crawls under the truck, in the snow, in the very cold snow. He instructs Paul to turn over the truck and the mechanic whacks the fuel pump a few times with the rubber mallet. The truck starts right up.

Apparently the fuel pump was frozen and few whacks was all it needed to wise up.

This morning I am at work and Paul calls. He can't make it in, the truck died getting on the highway....blah...blah blah.

The moral of the story is the truck is still in the shop waiting on a fuel pump. They have it in stock, they just FORGOT to call us to approve the work order, so they did nothing instead.

As a lovely addition to this story while Paul was outside trying so hard to get the truck to start on tuesday night. He just about froze. How cold was he you might ask? He froze his cell phone. He has a three year old blackberry that has been through thick and thin with him. He froze it so that now when you dial the numbers, letters pop up.

I did not know you could freeze a cell phone just standing around outside with it did you?

It's Cold

I have been working hard to keep the kids busy with inside fun stuff lately.

Here they are building a gingerbread house:



They worked on this for a couple of hours together with no fighting. I even had some time to make homemade turkey soup while they were working on it.



Up until this weekend our winter had been unusually warm. We had only a bit of snow, and what we got had just about melted away.

Our cold weather has decided to come with a vengeance and plenty of snow along with it. I think it snowed for about 24 hours straight. Starting Friday afternoon and was still going on Saturday night. It was -15C yesterday with a nasty wind.



For the metric challenged:



Today we woke up to clear skies and the wind has settled down some. It was -20C when I woke up this morning, I think that is -4F. The kids saw the sunshine and and decided they wanted to play outside. They were out for about 2 hours on and off today and even longer yesterday.

I guess if there is enough snow to play in then the bitter cold is tolerable? They have been building forts and snow tunnels. I think in this picture that Sebass (in the red coat) is relaxing in his snow bed while PJ and Q are digging in the snow.



I found better ways to entertain myself, cleaned the house, baked some bread, started a puzzle with the kids and now I am thinking I will spin for a bit and watch 27 dresses.

I loved your comments on the last post, I was trying to remember if I told you about the patient that asked me if I was Paul's daughter. He recognized the last name thing...but that was as far as he got. He is my favorite patient of all time.

Smart Cookie

My patients often make me laugh. Yesterday I had a young lady in to see me at the office that really cracked me up.

This young lady came in with her mom and her brother to get adjusted. I know the family well, it is a big family that reminds me much of mine back home. There are four daughters and their husbands and all their children and the parents of the four daughters. As far as I know the entire family comes in and sees us for all of their Chiropractic care.

It just so happened that on this occasion I was seeing a brother and a sister that I have not yet adjusted, they had only seen Paul.

I adjust the young lady first and I talk to her a bit about how she was feeling and why she was in that day. I showed her some range of motion stuff you know; pre-adjustment ROM compared to her ROM after her adjustment that sort of thing. I give her some exercises and some stretches and tell her to come back in a month for maintenance care.

I then adjust her brother, we go through some of the same stuff, but specific to how he is feeling. I talk to him about nutrition and a bit about allergies and ask to see him in a month for maintenance.

When I am wrapping things up, the young lady says to me..."You must have gone to school for a very long time, you are way smarter than that guy we usually see."

I laughed until I was in tears.

I guess you have to know Paul a bit to understand why I laughed so hard. Paul is crazy smart, he is so smart that sometimes he is so far ahead of me I wonder if I will ever catch up and sometimes I think he so smart it puts him a bit behind the rest of us, if you know what I mean.

I told the young lady that Paul and I went to the same school for the same amount of time, Paul just spoke to her about different things than I did, because he saw her body differently than I did.

I really believe that in our office Paul spends far more time on pt. education than I do. He is so good at teaching pts about their bodies and it is one of the big things that sets our practice apart from others in town. Paul and I both love to teach, what I said just resonated with her more than whatever Paul had to say.

Hanging Out

We have been hanging out and playing in the snow. We don't have as much snow as we usually do by this time of year, but I don't doubt it will show up when it's ready too.

The kids made this snowman mostly by themselves. It is pretty big, almost 5 feet tall, the kids got Paul to lift the middle and the top up for them. Good wet snowman snow is heavy stuff.

-10C today, I think that is about 14F. To cold for snow, just right for putting up your Christmas tree and drinking hot chocolate.

Hockey Stars of Tomorrow

I took these pictures while we were skating with the kids on Sunday. It is not actually their hockey skate, they just love gearing up. We do shoot the puck around and what not, and the pads do make for a soft landing when you fall.



That is Q above in the red and below Paul, Sebass and PJ. I think you can guess who is who.

PJ is so funny when we skate on Sundays. She skates around a bit, whacking the puck around with her hockey stick. After a while she skates to the bench and puts her stick down, then she skates up to me and says, "Mom, are you ready yet?"

"Am I ready for what?" I ask her.

"For your skating lessons." She says.

She makes me put my stick away and she skates me out to center ice. She makes me do crossovers (lifting one foot over the other, like your are climbing stairs sideways is how PJ explained it to me, you do it to get around the corners of the rink and to maneuver quickly around other players). Last week after fumbling my way around the circle in center ice, she shook her helmeted head at me.

"Mom, just stop. Try doing them just standing in one spot for a while and when you get the hang of that then you can try the circle again." Totally schooled by a six year old who can out skate me. Priceless.





Apparently next week I am learning to stop on a dime. "You know mom just skate like this" PJ demonstrates skating across the ice. "And when you want to stop just turn your back where your front just was." The kid executes a perfect stop. I may need to wear Paul's hockey shorts for the padding, I fear my backside may suffer during next weeks lesson.

I love how much my kids make me laugh. And oh yeah...they teach me stuff too.

Inspiration

We had a really fun really full weekend. We took the kids to the Santa Claus parade on Saturday and then we took them to "Seussical" performed by the Western Canada Theatre. If you ever have the chance to see this production I highly recommend it.

It is a musical based on the works of Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss wrote 48 books this musical manages to wrap 18 of them up in the same story line. It is wonderful and witty and the kids were glued to their seats the whole 3 hours.

Sr. Seuss used his stories not only as art, but he used his works as political and social commentary. This musical spoke to the good Drs. ideas that "a person is a person no matter how small." (Horton Hear a Who) and managed to put forward the idea that our thoughts create our realities. (Oh the Thinks you can Think) all while keeping kids both children and adults entertained. It was wonderful.

Sunday morning we took the kids skating for a while and then Paul and I were off to an afternoon with Deepak Chopra. Yes you read that right. Deepak came to our little town and spoke to a group of three thousand people a sold out show. He was wonderful.

He opened with some idea's from quantum physics and in the end wrapped it all around to the idea that we are world on the verge of a metamorphosis. He talked about the change of consciousness that is occurring the world today. That we create our world and our reality with our thoughts.

If we all choose to be conscious and present we can change the world. I had this moment during the lecture that I realized that I had been give the same lecture twice in the same weekend. I found it amazing that Dr. Seuss and Dr. Deepak Chopra are delivering the same message in there own ways.

"Oh the thinks you can think...."