One year ago I was struggling through the aftermath of knee surgery. My thoughts one year later:
Am I happy I had it done? NO
Do I have less pain while walking? NO
Is my knee prettier? HELL NO
Am I able to do things better since I had the surgery? NO
Can I once again crawl across a wooden gym floor on my knees while in the Lotus position? NO
Am I knee pain free? NO
Do I wish I never had it done? HELL YES!
I hate my new knee and I want my old one back. And, I still have a flipping alien living in my ankle (that was broken.) A little tidbit they left for me after my surgery. I’m sure I paid extra for the frigging thing too! I go to the Orthopedic specialist at the Stem Cell Center on Sept. 2nd to see what he says about my knee and I am hoping he will cut my ankle open and get this damn stitch out once and for all. The alien/stitch thing has been going on since March 31st of 2013!!
**ALIEN update: I dug it out of my ankle with my hot pink TWEEZERMAN’S. I have been picking at the thing that was poking out of my ankle for a solid week. Before that I picked the hard thing off of it but it (as in not belonging to my body) got another one. It was like a mass of calloused skin. But now I’ve lost it and I wanted to look at it with my camera zoom and a magnifying glass. I want to see what the little shit alien looks like. Now I don’t have to embarrass myself by asking this doc about the Alien. That is unless the little shit decides to move back in. Then it’s war. Right now I have a hole on my ankle where the Alien was living.
The dog days of summer are here. HOLY HANNAH IN HADES it’s HOT. Not our normal warm weather, this shit is hot. I have perpetual sweat running down every crevice of my body. There is a constant rash under my boobs which would probably go away if I could wear a bra for longer than 1 hour. I just can’t stand to put one on, they are so hot, even though they lift the boobs up and help to alleviate the rash, I still can’t handle them. These are the days I desperately wish I were a 34 A. The glory of not having to wear a bra is something that I haven’t enjoyed for many many years. Granted, back in my hippie days I went without but that was a L O N G time ago when they were still kind of perky and it wasn’t so gross. I’ve been told it’s going to get hotter next month. I can’t freaking wait. This will be my first September here, bring it on. Can you believe in 2 months it will be a year since we moved? How times flies when you’re sweating uncontrollably.
Last Sunday we took the Dude swimming again. This time we decided not to take Luck or Dooce, they’re not interested in swimming, but this boy is.
We have been sort of slow this week, seems like it’s taking longer to do everything. It has to be this oppressive damn heat. Bill has been working on the handrails and I have been bringing the rest of the kitchen stuff up from downstairs and out of boxes. Just trying to find places for “stuff” is exhausting. The other day Bill decided he would hang the curtain rods that we bought 5 months ago, along with the curtains. I got the ironing board out, set it up over the door in the bathroom and ironed FOR ALMOST 3 HOURS. There were six pairs of polyester curtains that the wrinkles seemed to be a part of the fabric. Like they were melted into the cheap material. Disgustingly hard to iron! We got the rods up and I hung the curtains a pair at a time as I was finished ironing them. They look nice, except for the wrinkles (I know Cleo, I look) they break up all the blue, they billow in the breeze AND they keep it much cooler in here. I had a huge mess to clean up because there was concrete dust everywhere from Bill hanging the rods. Concrete house = huge mess. If you are doing ANYTHING with the walls, it’s messy. Love hate relationship.
YAY for finally having curtains. I love the subdued look they add to the room. Kind of nice to have the glaring sun hidden from view. One thing we never considered building this house is the fact that when it rains we have to close the windows because there is no roof overhang to keep the rain out. None. Zip. Nor is there a roof overhang to cut down on the sun. Because of the lack of any overhangs, all of the sawdust Bill produces is blown around and ultimately ends up on the window screens, then it rains and the sawdust ends up in my window tracks. They are disgusting. I long for the day when Bill is not using the table saw and making dirt. I’m sure he also looks forward to that time!
I made more dog biscuits, this time with a recipe using wheat flour, honey, PNbutter milk and baking powder. I rolled them out and cut them with a glass, baked them and the dogs LOVE them. They are so spoiled, Bill makes dog food to mix in with the dry so they get some vitamins and nutrients from their food and I make them biscuits. Speaking of dogs, last Wednesday I got an email from my friend on Long Island asking if we could take their caretaker and one of their dogs to the vet. Bill and I went up to get Sebastian and Milagro. Milagro has many cancerous tumors on his belly and my friend doesn’t know if the vet will put him down or not. They said it was up to us to make the decision and that they would respect whatever decision we made. Sebastian lifted Milagro into the bed of the truck and jumped in himself. Since we don’t like to have people in the back of the truck we insisted they (he and dog) got in the back seat. We drove down to the vet and wouldn’t you know it, the vet didn’t come this Wednesday, he had an emergency on the mainland. (This vet comes once a week from La Ceiba.) So, this Wed. it’s back to the vet with Milagro. Pets, it’s so hard.
On Monday we had some guys come up here wanting to do landscape work. Bill told them no twice before, then they called, he said no again so they came up, again. What didn’t they understand about NO? Soon after they left I noticed a lot of smoke coming up the driveway and thought they burned up their brakes going down the road. A little later when the smoke cleared I realized the truck was on it’s side on our driveway. Bill went down to see if everyone was ok, they were. Turns out they tried to go up our neighbor’s drive, something happened and they rolled their truck 6 times.
We had Walter over for dinner on Wednesday night. Bill made home made pizza dough and we cooked it on the grill. It was really good. Other than working around here constantly we have not done anything fun. On Thursday I moved more boxes downstairs and organized stuff better, killing my back in the process. On Friday we were to go to our friends birthday celebration and we had every intention of going until Friday night came around. I was just taking a shower at 7:15. At that point in the day there was no way I was getting dressed and going anywhere. We ended up on the couch watching a movie and going to bed early. Early to bed, early to rise. The weekend sort of buzzed by. Sunday was a rainy day, it started right after I got back from the dog walk in the morning and it didn’t stop for most of the day. I baked some Amish cinnamon bread and while it was still warm I took half a loaf down to John. It is yummy and super easy to make. I was having trouble with my oven and have concluded two things: #1. I use an oven thermometer because the oven is C, not F. Oven thermometers don’t work well if they are right against the glass of the door. #2. A ceiling fan directly above the gas oven makes it difficult to get an accurate temperature reading or even get the oven up to temp. I hope to remember these two things the next time. However, this time I lit the oven all alone. Normally I call Bill and make him light it after my gas oven explosion downstairs but I told myself I could do it and not blow up the house. YAY for me.
I took the dogs for their morning walk and it was a minefield of Hog Plum fruit. I hate these trees with a passion. They have flowers that cover everything including my screens and all over my porches, then they start to develop fruit and then the fruit falls all over the ground and rots and stinks and it’s squishy and slippery. UGH!!
I really planned to drive down to West Bay beach for the day but am even lacking the ambition to do that. I do have the strength to walk the one minute it takes to get to the neighbor’s pool though, and that is where I’m headed!!
That is if I don’t melt first!
Mermaid on a Raft 