ANZAC Day, and less significant matters

April 25, ANZAC Day, is when we remember and pay tribute to the young soldiers from Australia and New Zealand who crossed the planet to fight in World War I, and who were tragically lost in combat, also the few survivors who made it home.

Thank you,  blogistas from New Zealand and Australia who are descended from these brave young people, and thank you to those more recent residents who honor their memory, and to you if you're a veteran.

This year I haven't been able to make my ANZAC biscuits, as near as I can get with the ingredients available to me, but I'm there in spirit.

And speaking of spirit, I'm cooking again! Roast diced chicken breast, with umami seasoning, cayenne and turmeric. Ready for sandwiches. 

This morning, after I'd roasted the chicken, done the dishes and a couple of things, I was done for. Not enough energy for pictures, even. My ambition is a bit ahead of the available energy. I plan a nap before Emil visits this afternoon.

Happy day everyone, try to plan better than your humble blog writer. 

Here's why getting back to cooking is significant

Mail call and Misfits

Awake again at dark o'clock, and I went to get ice, then on the way to the kitchen, noticed a piece of mail in the basket above the shoe rack. Evidently brought in by Handsome Son and put down for a minute! 

Anyway I found and opened and love it. Handmade! Lovely. Thank you so much, C 

In a place of honor on Walker Two-step's tray.

And this morning HS put out the bags and icepack for Misfits pickup. 

I've been doing well on the food I cooked ahead and now I'm ready for a change of pace. 

Here's Kareem arriving with the box

Handsome Son brought it in and I unpacked and washed the produce 

More of the small gala apples I have midmorning, a bag of trailmix to share with HS, yogurt to go with blueberries, a freebie can of pineapple chunks, also to share, wholegrain bread because my energy isn't back up to baking yet, diced tomatoes for all sorts of use.

All set now. I was tired after prepping the food and putting it away, but it's good to get back into ordinary tasks. 

Speaking of ordinary I had an accidental adventure this morning. I was distracted by something I needed to take care of, unrelated, amazingly, to Hippolyta, and  needed something from the kitchen. 

And absent-mindedly walked there and back completely unaided, forgetting about the walker, till I got back. It felt okay but I trust I didn't do any damage. I'm officially not walking with even a cane without company, so this was a black diamond run. Doh.

Gary has made a bedside step for me, and I hope Emil approved, so I can start sleeping in bed. My back will be happy to get off the sofa. 

Happy day everyone, have you ever managed something successfully, because you didn't know you couldn't?  

Ted also sez, keep on including our trans siblings 

Bit of a dip, but Clatterford helps

Today a wise friend, retired nurse, nurses rule, messaged me to remind me it's not unusual to have a little dip in energy and rise in pain about now after surgery. She's right, so I'm just not pushing myself.

I did my exercises, practiced walking with a cane with HS escorting me around the living room, and did the stairs, same escort. Lasagna for lunch. 

Now it's Clatterford and Mma Ramotswe and ice. 

Happy day everyone, I think we all have a bump in the road now and then. 

Sez Ted 

Earth Day, Textiles and Tea, and an important step

 Still Earth Day as I write, and here are some great Patrick O'Donnell Mutts takes, with Earl the dog and Mooch the cat.

That's all I need to say, said more eloquently than I could. Patrick is a NJ native, just sayin.

And Emil came this afternoon for a really strenuous time, involving testing my ability to stand up from sitting unaided, check, climb the full flight of stairs (!), check, get into my rather high bed, check with apostrophe, use the shower bench in the bathroom that's too narrow to admit the walker, check, come back downstairs, check, walk with only a cane, check, and, get this -- walk unaided at all. I managed all of it, yay. Checkity check. And the session ended with some test movements on the table, range of motion. 

So I still need caution, someone with me when I'm off Walker Twostep, but he may be retired after another week, yay.

Gary is figuring out building me a wood step to enable me to get into bed, in the next couple of days, using scrap wood 2x4 pieces. Then I'll be able to sleep on a real bed. The sofa's worked fine but I fancy being more comfortable. 

After Emil left I fell asleep quite abruptly and just missed sliding off the sofa, but all's well. This was a vintage afternoon.

Textiles and Tea featured Jennifer Williams, an inkle loom band weaver. They didn't show her loom, assuming their audience was familiar, but if you're not, look online. You warp a very long warp to create a long narrow band which can be cut and stitched into wider pieces of fabric. It's a tradition in quite a few cultures.

Happy day, everyone, I hope you have all the help you need when you need it.

I checked out Quinn's recommendation of Jam and Jerusalem, and kept thinking it was just like the Clatterford series I watched and loved and blogged about years ago. Turns out it's the same series with an American title. Joyful reunion!

Various bits of good news

 The first is negative good news -- fifth day home and I don't seem to have caught any virus, despite all the people I was being touched and moved around by. I pretty much expected to catch something,  there's so much about, and joy, I'm fine.

Then my healing approach worked again -- pain during the night, pretty much dispelled by another royal related documentary.

It was about those royal warrants the monarch gives to favorite shops and artisans. Very repetitive, low budget, out of date, and better than pills. 

And great news for friends. You know the sock and glove ministry I have? I knit for a special project, send the work to a community of nuns who add it in to theirs and deliver it. Here's their exciting news

I wonder if they'll meet Colin Firth? At any rate, my nun friends are all excited. Even the dog, Jennie -- I've met her on my visits, she's a bit starstruck, I can tell. Me to the sisters to Spielberg, how many degrees!

Happy day everyone, you never know, you too may be discovered by Spielberg.

Hits and misses

Last night for the first time, I had pain keeping me awake. Not unbearable, but definitely worth addressing. So I finally decided about 3am to go to the dining table/ pharmacy and get an oxycodone pill. I remembered to bring my glasses to get the right bottle. So far, so good. 

Couldn't get the cap off. It's one of those press while turning kind. Many attempts resulted in no success at all.

I was not interested in waking HS with a text alert at that time. He's worn out already.

So I found an alternative source for sleep, on Freevee.

So slow and jerky it induced sleep in a few minutes and I woke this morning feeling much better. HS did unscrew the cap in case I need to get in while he's at work.

Not sure what kind of approach you'd call this, but on this occasion it worked a treat. I don't object to pain meds when necessary, though. 

I've taken so little medicine in my life that it has a bigger impact than on someone more used to it. And I certainly have no fear of becoming addicted. That's more what doctors fear, judging from their handling of this kind of pill. I'm surprised at the number of friends who assumed I feared addiction. It never crossed my mind until doctors insisted no refill etc!

So all's good and if you're cooking ahead of convalescence, I really recommend the soup and quiche idea. I made a split pea and potato soup and a carrot and red lentil, froze them in cup size quantities. The quiche I froze in quarters. It's a nice fast lunch. 

The lasagna works, too. Easy when you're short of oomph for cooking.

So that's us today. Day Four and I can swing my operated leg up onto the sofa without using the leg strap to help lift. Yesterday I couldn't.  Inch by inch! 

Yesterday I embarked on Alexander McCall Smith's retelling of Emma. 

I've seen a few updated and adapted versions, and for me the one that worked best was a movie, "Clueless". Smith does best for me in Botswana.

But you might like it 

Happy day everyone, to each their own.

Exciting times

At the moment life is practicing walking, resting and exercising. Once an hour I walk five minutes. This is pretty dull, maneuvering around the limited ground floor area, endless multipoint turns, 

so I've taken to destination walking. 

Like collecting a glass of water from the kitchen and watering a plant, the coleus is glad about this. Or using the grabber to lift the small waste paper basket onto the walker tray and deliver it to the kitchen for HS to empty and give back.  Anything to add a bit of interest to the Walker two-step expeditions.  The tray has become the Swiss army knife of receptacles.

This morning the contractor friend who designed and built the sofa risers came over with some of his home baked ham and a couple of deviled eggs, enough for HS and me.

Later Gary called to check and wish me Happy Easter, neither of us observant, but who's counting?

I did fine while HS was at work, got enough energy to fix my lunch -- ham sandwich and a deviled egg.  

It's all go around here! And catalogs came in the mail which I'll leaf through, buy nothing from, and recycle.  I've been thinking about resuming the crochet but I doubt if my skills are up to it just yet, a bit wobbly.

This afternoon HS and I were out for the count, snoozing on adjacent sofas, he having been up since 4, to get all his morning stuff done before his 7 am shift start. He had a long day.

I'm a bit low in energy just now, so, happy day everyone, thank you for all the greetings and wishes, all back atcha.

Ted Sez 

Easter, Spring in the northern hemisphere, silliness abounds

 Happy whatever you celebrate today! Easter is about new life and hope no matter what. Spring likewise. And blogger  Barbara is to be thanked for this pagan wheel of the year.

And you see the Easter word origin. I think it means opening, as in weather, the grip of winter (supposedly) relaxing. Anyway, happy day, whatever it means to you.

I think it's a good chance to be silly and cartoonish. In fact I think most times are.

I'm feeling quite important that they've gone to all this trouble to celebrate Hippolyta's arrival. It's odd to feel one of my body parts is a newborn.

Today Handsome Son returns to work, but continues to stay here overnight for a few days.  So this will be interesting, sorting for myself. His shift is early, so he'll be home shortly after noon.  

This house is very convenient for guests, since the second bedroom has its own bathroom you can access without stepping into the hallway, so it's like a little apartment, private.  In fact Handsome Son is revisiting his place where he lived briefly while job hunting after college. 

Plans for the day are mainly about being happy I'm on the other side of the Big Hip Caper, and reading about bees and Botswana. The food I cooked ahead is working out fine, the lasagna reheating nicely in the toaster oven, the soup  good and the quiche better than newly baked. So I'm pretty smug about my brilliant generalship (!)

There's still the usual pain and swelling, you get after surgery, all looks normal to me. So there's that, and I can't say I wasn't warned! It occurs to me that people who may have to get this surgery might be interested in a bit more info. Spring chickens, scroll on by.

I'm writing this lying down, with a mild ache around the hip and lower back. Next time I walk will fix the back. The walking is very tolerable, not the agonizing jolt of pain at every step I was having with Helen. 

After walking and exercise, more ache, but tolerable. My quads burn a bit - I have exercises for that - because all the muscles and tendons were moved aside for the surgery, nothing cut.  So, looking good and I thought you'd be interested. This is Day Three since surgery.

I think I may finally be learning to do things slowly without being wildly impatient at the speed. Takes some of us longer than others.

Happy day, everyone. Just you do you, because you're worth it.

More assistive capers

 The view from the sofa

Complete with leg strap which is the only way I can raise that leg onto the sofa today.

Nice night, sleeping well. Then it got to four thirty am, dark,  and sleeping was done. I'm sleeping on the sofa for a couple of nights until I get the go ahead to do the full flight of stairs to the second floor and my bedroom.

Handsome Son and I had an awful struggle to remove the compression socks last night as instructed, but this morning he got them back on me like an expert, easy.  Great relief to us both.

And I'm getting the hang of things -- exercises, breathing with a measuring thingie, and five minutes walking once an hour.  That part is fine.

The bit that now feels funny but didn't then, was when I first woke, decided to organize my many medications that came home with me, and were in a heap on the dining table.

They came with a chart of when and how and why and how long to take them. My not quite returned post-op brain had a struggle but eventually figured out the morning doses.

Some of them go on for many days, some are my established meds I know, some are taken as needed. It takes a three credit course to sort it, so I planned to calculate the last days to take these various pills, then enter them on my phone calendar. 

At that point I dropped the phone under the table. And I had to cross the room for the grabber. Tried to pick up the phone for maybe twenty minutes, like catching a live fish in your hand.

So I thought maybe the dressing stick hooky end might help, Walker and I went off to the hallway to get the dressing stick. 

Got hold of it and instantly knocked down the grabber to the floor. I can't safely bend, so with both grabber and dressing stick on the floor, I tried to loop the wriststrap of Carol Cane, lucky she was there,  around a hook of the dressing stick. Many times, no luck.

Finally retrieved the grabber with Carol's help, and the dressing stick using the grabber. Then I returned to the table where it all started, realizing I still didn't have the phone. This meant I couldn't text peacefully sleeping Handsome Son upstairs.  He'd never hear me call.

So another titanic struggle took place and finally  I got Carol Cane's wriststrap looped around the phone with the helpful edge of the rug lifting the phone enough for the grabber to seize her firmly and finally land the slippery little customer.

At this point it was getting on for six am, getting light, and I was exhausted. And the phone battery was nearly down. Another Walker Two-step to plug it in. 

Back to the sofa to read about bees. After a foray to the kitchen to get a glass of water and a snack to go with the morning pills.

Handling assistive equipment isn't for the fainthearted. All ended well though this was an unexpected expenditure of energy. 

And I was able to message Handsome Son to bring some things I needed downstairs. It's odd to message in the house, but it worked. I keep realizing I need things from upstairs and can't yet go get them.

Dear Emil texted this morning to ask how the first overnight home had gone, and I said fine, all's well. Meaning now all's well! I may recount the comedy of errors when I see him Tuesday.  Or I may be glad to forget it!

Lasagna for lunch, to recoup my strength.

Happy day everyone, hang onto your phone and your wits.

Sometimes you're the little fuzzy one, sometimes you're the bear. I may have found a way to be both.

Home again, home again, creepity creep

Home now, with Hippolyta, Polly for short, that was a busy day or two. I had two sessions of PT, one in the hospital, one at home today.

Handsome Son brought me home and I've starting using the walker in earnest. Yesterday I did manage to navigate the PT or OT equivalent in the hospital, the bathtub with the bench like mine, the mockup car with real car seat setup, the flight of stairs. So they sprung me today.

HS really should have a fanclub. The stuff he realized to do and did, was far above my expectations. He already got messages from my online pod community thanking him and admiring him. We've started on the freezer meals, so glad I did them.

The expected post operative pain is happening, and I have pills.  

Also better views 

Walker with tray in place waiting the arrival of supper, whee waiting for food to be brought. Nearly as good as being a man, you never heard me say that.

And this 

Frilly hats to minimize friction, by the non wheeled legs, on the floors, and make them glide quietly. Handsome Son and I figured this out. Two pieces of fleecy fabric, two doubled rubber bands. When they wear out I can replace them in seconds.

And here's 

Korean spice bush, viburnum carlesii, suddenly starting to bloom and scenting the whole patio.

And

Late daffodils and early tulips blazing away, first thing I saw coming home.

Happy day everyone, thanks for all the kindness.

Ted Sez