Back on the bandwagon

The worst thing, the absolute worst thing about having this broken ankle is that I home all the time. I mean like I haven't gone out of this house since last Saturday!!! I have been constantly in the kitchen finding terrible horrible fatty food to devour. I have really fallen off the weight watchers wagon. What is that you say? It might not be as bad as it sounds? No it is really bad, worse even, there is this thing that accompanies me everywhere. I have been thinking of it as the 'blob' but I suppose you might call it my middle section. The reason I am writing this blog post is because I actually need to start holding myself accountable for the food decisions I am making. i.e. I simply cannot use the fact that I can't walk to eat chocolate on an hourly basis. Starting tomorrow I am going to get back to weight watchers, even if I can't go out to attend the meeting I am going to start tracking again.

Catering for the golfing needs of men...

Oh those men with their ravenous, insatiable golf needs. How can a simple [minded] woman like myself keep up?

What, might you ask, are the golfing needs of men? And how might these golfing 'needs' differ from the golfing needs of women?

The Irish Times has just reported on the outcome of the Equality Authority appeal to the Supreme Court on the case involving the discrimination of women from membership at the Portmarnock Golf Club. The Supreme Court has upheld the decision that the Portmarnock Golf Club is not discriminating against women because it was a 'gentleman's golf club, a golf club for gentleman'. 5 euros says that the two male justices that upheld the district court's previous decision are members of that club.

POPPYCOCK I say!

This makes me want to take up golf and bust my way onto that golf course. Any takers?

The last laugh

While talking to my father this past weekend he started baiting me.

"I thought you had a strict no sugar policy, so how come every time I get a picture of that kid [Cupcake] she is eating ice cream or chocolate?"

"Oh Dad, come on I did my best, she was sugar free for, like, 14 months."

"Yeah you sound just like your mother, she tried that kind of mumbo jumbo with you kids. Ha she even tried to buy you guys gender neutral toys. That was a failed experiment. I had the last laugh, I told her it wouldn't make a difference that you guys would turn out to be whatever sex you were born with."

Oh GOD! Classic case biological determinacy syndrome... "Um Dad, I think you should attend a couple Women's Studies classes, we'd love to have you... really."

When I thought about it afterwards, I did have the last laugh in this conversation! Perhaps one might say the ultimate last laugh goes to my mother... If she hadn't thought that gender neutrality could possibly make a difference in how her two girls and one boy were socialised and more importantly, that gender equality weren't something to strive for maybe I wouldn't have turned out to be so committed and focused on feminism.

Back to bed

Or perhaps this post should be titled, "Back to my bed". Yes I have made the move back upstairs after three long weeks of sleeping in the kitchen. It has been wonderful to sleep on a decent mattress and not have some wayward spring digging into my back. The only problem now is that I have to plan very carefully when I will descend the stairs and when I will make my way back up, because it takes a lot of effort so I can only manage once a day for each. Now my 'homecoming' wasn't celebrated by all parties. Of course cupcake is overjoyed to have Mama back where she belongs, but there is someone else who put up some unusual resistance. Yes you read that correctly my own husband wasn't so keen on me returning. It seems that Mr. Sprawl has enjoyed his time alone in our bed. Really I can't blame him, with the exception of the annoying spring and sleeping next to my kitchen table, I rather enjoyed the luxury of not having his legs thrown over me in the middle of the night. I suppose he can't help himself, I mean the poor guy is over six feet tall. I don't however think that gives him the right to infringe on my side of the bed! Even when I was 9 months pregnant I would wake up in the dead of night to find his legs thrown over my stomach. So the natural solution to our problem is to get a bigger bed. I was informed the other day that we could buy the bed but when it arrives he would like just a week or so to sleep there by himself! This is what I can't understand, surely I am the delicate party in this matter, therefore my rest and comfort should be of the utmost concern. Unfortunately we have not come to an agreement and I am desperately awaiting the arrival of the new bed. At least I am out of the kitchen, there is nothing like waking up to the smell of last night's tacos...

It is that time of year...

The days are getting shorter, and rainier. From my kitchen bed I can here a symphony of bottle rockets, m80s and other wonderfully illegal firecrackers. The smell of burning couches, old mattresses and scrap wood from nearby bonfires gently invades the atmosphere, burning the lungs of your average environmentally friendly American. Yes folks, Halloween in Ireland has come again.

This year will be my daughter's first 'real' Halloween. I don't necessarily mean trick or treating but the first Halloween we purchased a costume for her and put up a couple decorations around the house. I had trouble deciding what to dress her up as, firstly because my mother made all of my costumes until I got to a certain age and I had always expected to make Cupcakes. But the ankle/walking situation rules that out so I had to shop online and have something delivered. The selection was fairly limited AND expensive, so I settled on a hairy spider. Mostly because I figured that it would be the only thing she would be remotely familiar with. So in preparation all week we have been singing the itsy bitsy spider while she parades around the kitchen in it. Yesterday was our test run of the costume as we dressed her up for creche. She made the most adorable spider ever! If I had some face paints I would have put a little web or a tiny spider on her cheek. I might make an attempt at dressing up as Frida Kahlo just so cupcake has some company... (Anyone can draw a unibrow right?) Watch this space for more adorable photos.

Adventures in Showering

Our upstairs shower is not exactly friendly toward those with limited mobility. We have a large bathtub-shower combo. The sides of the bath are approximately 3 feet high and it is quit difficult to swing your legs over when you can't evenly distribute your weight. Thankfully I have a very inventive husband who decided it would be best to place a plastic garden chair in the tub for my showering enjoyment. What we hadn't realised before it's first use was that there were no grips on the chair legs, probably due to the fact that it was indeed, garden furniture. After several minutes of maneuvering, muttering, and a few yelps of pain I was seated in the chair. Then my weight shifted and the chair slid down to the end of the bath. I was in the most uncomfortable position of leaning back in the chair with one leg in the air. Covering my leg was the 'Limbo' devise that my darling other-half kindly purchased for me. It is a plastic cover that is water-tight and keeps the cast perfectly dry. Unfortunately the Limbo that he purchased for me was 44 inches long, one that is meant for people with a full leg cast. So after some dragging on the ground and a near face plant that almost threw me off my crutches we got the brilliant idea to roll the bottom up and clip it with a clothes pin. So resourceful! By the way I am going to have a rocking thigh muscle on my right side after all this brouhaha. Cupcake was a little confused as to what my exact purpose was in the shower but clapped with delight when the shower hose was handed to me and proceeded to wash myself. She couldn't understand why I wasn't able to invite her in (she does love showering) and soon it became evident that both of my family members were thoroughly enjoying the hilariousness of my precarious seating in the shower. I quickly sent them from the room to enjoy some soakage time without an audience. It was perhaps the most wonderful (and wonderfully uncomfortable) shower I have ever had.

Recently someone posted this picture of me on facebook and I'd love to share it with you. It is from my 5th grade trip to Jones Gulch, an environmental camp in the California Coastal mountains, one of my favourite places on earth. I am the one on the far left (your far left) wearing a red sweatshirt, pegged pants and a red bandana in my hair. Proof that even if I was a nerd as a child, at least I wasn't the biggest nerd...

Bold

Cupcake has a new favourite word. We are not really sure where it came from except we do know that her father said it to her months ago when she was doing something she shouldn't have been.

Imagine this: I am newly installed on my 'kitchen bed', lazing around like Jabba the Hut in Return of the Jedi. Cupcake cautiously approaches Mama and her purple casted leg. She hands me a hair barrette to put in her hair. I am attempting to gather her hair into a neat looking style when she turns and messes up my handiwork. "Darling, you can't move otherwise you will mess up your hair." She turns to me and smacks me lightly on the arm. "Bold, Mama, bold." Husband and I turn to one another with slight incomprehension. Did she just tell Mama she was bold? Where did she learn that word? Oscar was the next target of her annoyance. He was told he was bold, and justifiably so, after he trotted over and stole whatever bread item she was waving around.

I conferred with Nana, who incidentally was similarly puzzled at the appearance of this new word. She had notice Cupcake shouting at the couch in an authoritative fashion, waving her arms and squawking away when she identified she was shouting "Bold, bold!"

Now everything is bold- Mama, Dada, Lulu, Oscar, the table, Mama's bed, the floor, toys, etc. But the worst part is I think it is hysterically funny. Especially when she pairs it with her narrowed eyes "Grandma-Marge-I'll-get-you-later" glare. I do tell her not to hit when she says it and then I ask her why (fill in the blank) is/has been bold. She doesn't really answer that but rather just keeps repeating it like a little parrot.

Now confession time: I have been bold. This broken ankle really got me down last week. I laid around on my kitchen bed with my leg elevated feeling sorry for myself. This week I am trying to change my attitude, after all I have a ton of work to do. Yes this is a weird, random, freak thing that happened to me. And yes I will be spending the bulk of my time at home with my leg elevated. And finally yes it is painful and I have some physio ahead of me. But if I don't stop feeling sorry for myself I will let that attitude infect my whole outlook. I keep saying that when life knocks me down I pick myself back up. Now I have to do just that. I guess cupcake was right, I have been bold!

You are not going to believe this...

So I know you think that I am terribly patchy with my posting lately but I have a brilliant excuse. I have just been discharged from St. Vincent's Hospital after 3 days with a wonderfully painful broken ankle. I was rushed to ER on Wednesday at noon after breaking my ankle at UCD. It was broken in three places and dislocated. Oh the horrors of it all. I have never broken anything before and this was surely a freak accident. I was simply walking down some stairs and stepped onto my left leg, I then shifted my weight onto my right and stepped on that leg. While standing I heard a crack and I realised, "Oh my God, I just broke my ankle". I then realised it was probably in my best interest to fall to the ground screaming. My ankle was contained by my boots and was at a 70 degree angle from my body (now this is not my foot but actually slightly above my ankle). To make a long story short I had a metal plate and several pins inserted permanently into my ankle and have one big screw to be removed after 8 weeks. Until that time I am not allowed to put any weight on that leg. So I am in effect house bound because my job entails an hour commute on 2 buses in each direction. There is no way I can manage that. I am even tired just coming in from the front room. My new command post has been installed in the corner of the kitchen. Now I can dine and then roll over and sleep. All in one! Ok will fill you in more later, I am in pain now and have to rest.