Slow Quilting

I’m so glad that more attention is being paid to taking a leisurely attitude towards quilting. Mark Lipinski has been advocating for slow quilting for a while now and quilting daily also recently featured an article on it. Slow quilting is really the concept of slowing down and enjoying what we do. It isn't about how many projects get down nor how quickly and it is also a step away form the commercialization of quilting. We don't always have to have the latest tool, product etc.

I’ve always been a “slow” stitcher as I do almost everything by hand and work full time so I don’t get to devote a lot of daily time to it. I began to feel a little intimidated by all the other quilting folks I ran into who had finished this project or that project and had then rushed on to yet another project. I also began to notice that many of the quilts in my quilt show also looked almost exactly like its neighbor and/or were fairly simple in design. Now don’t get me wrong I enjoy simple and straightforward as much as the next person but I began to notice that there seemed to be less variety and interest in the recent crop of quilt patterns. It seemed to me that people were less interested in being creative and more interested in just getting product out there. I understand why people and shops are pushing product, they too need to make a living after all and I do enjoy buying new materials but…I also don’t want to feel chained to a craft that I’m supposed to enjoy. Sometimes I want to be creative and play with my fabric without necessarily producing an end result. So when I saw one of Lipinski’s Rules I was stoked “Slow Stitching is about enjoying the process, rather than anticipating a deadline or project completion” However I need to do more than stitch slowly – I need to stitch mindfully - “Slow Stitching is making time to immerse yourself in your creative process” - I stitch but I’m not always thinking about why I am stitching. Sometimes it, like reading these days, can be a bit of a chore. This feeling is all on me as I worry that I’ve got all these projects piling up so I need to go back to the rule that says …don’t anticipate completion…So this morning I took this advice and just sat and thought about the block I was working on and why I was working on it rather than “this should have been done last year”. I found that I enjoyed my time with the fabric more and it made a great way to start the day before heading to work.

I’ve decided to incorporate this attitude on a daily basis – how about you, do you think you can craft mindfully in whatever it is that you do? I think if you do you’ll fall even in more love with your craft.

The Good taste Book police are at it again....

Oh internet, I see you are being naughty again posting articles sure to infuriate those of us who read those horrible populist books. A few weeks back romance novels were slammed, this week it is the turn of Young Adult fiction and the adult readers of YA to be harassed. Evidently reading either romance or YA if you are an adult is equivalent to being caught eating a Twinkie on the sly. At the very least we populist readers should be embarrassed, at most reading this type of material will evidently cause some sort of horrible brain lesions incapacitating any intellectual spark we might have once had.

These arguments flare up periodically and they always amuse me as the people making these assumptions always assume, quite broadly, that someone who reads a Rick Riordan, or a Nora Roberts never ever picks up anything “literary” that the Aimee Benders; the Joyce Carol Oates; the Richard Powers; the Tobias Wolffs are never read by the same audience. They also assume that genre fiction (and I’ll use the term genre for YA for the time being even though YA isn’t a genre) has nothing of substance or literary merit. When one timidly points out an author such as Jane Austen could be considered a romance author there is a sort of dismissal, a sort of “well Austen isn’t literary in the way we are talking about”. When it is pointed out that Cormac McCarthy has written a novel of speculative fiction, or that Colin Whitehead has written a horror novel this too is immediately dismissed. They will tell you that McCarthy hasn’t written speculative fiction, he has just used a futuristic setting. Whitehead may have zombies (zombies!) in his book but it isn’t horror. At this point one can only walk away as the argument can never be won.

Personally, it annoys me that even genre lovers will use the argument the “but we do have some literary” works in our canon. Why can’t we enjoy our pleasurable books, why must we fell guilty that we aren’t reading heavy, serious works? After dealing with long commutes, boring jobs, aging parents, illness, problematic children we need escapist fiction and it's a lot cheaper than therapy. I'm not saying we shouldn't include some literary fiber in amongst all that lighter fare but don't insist that everything we read be highbrow.

Finally, the naysayers need to recognize that genre fiction can and does spark the imagination that can then lead to real life innovations. Reading a "frivolous" book can lead to complex explorations of social issues as readily as literary fiction (science fiction anyone) or may lead to explorations of topics that the reader might not have known about. I cannot count the number of times that I've read a light novel and then gone to the library to explore historical periods or biological concepts foreign to me, nor am I alone amongst my fellow genre readers in this respect. As for YA fiction, why not try and understand what teens are interested in or what might be going on in their world, why can they not read something that they might relate to, why must they read adult fiction? They will become adults soon enough and turn their backs on YA. Trust me, I know, I work on a college campus and most of the undergrads view YA as "too young" for them. Until they reach that stage though let them be and let those of us reading our frivolous fripperies be as well. It's not like we're blowing second hand smoke in your face and I promise we also won't turn into drooling idiots . On that note I'm off to scare myself silly with The Bird Box.

Great Straw Bale experiment

Earlier this year, before talk of a drought, I had read about using straw bales for planting veggies and decided I would perform an experiment. I’d use a straw bale to grow a couple of tomato plants and then use my regular half oak barrel planter for another two tomatoes and see what happened.

As it turns out there were two initial hurdles to this plan. The first being that a friend kept going on and on about how water intensive straw bale gardening was. Since we are in a drought I was a bit hesitant about going forward with the straw bale but then decided to go ahead thinking I’d use grey water to water them. The grey water turned out to be a problem for a variety of reasons but by then I’d already started conditioning my bales. What I’ve discovered is that, except for the initial conditioning of the bales, I use no more water to water the bales than I do to water the plants in the oak barrel. I think I may even use slightly less as the bale tends to hold on to the water on the inside. Fortunately I had also started conditioning the bales and then, huzzah, we had a week worth of rain so ended up using less water than anticipated.

The second hurdle turned out to be my own inability to read. I went out and got two hay bales instead of two straw bales and I panicked. The hay bales did take longer to heat up initially and I do still occasionally see small sprouts of live hay along the sides but for the most part the hay bales have rotted nicely. I used the second hay bales to plant Thai and sweet basils and they’ve gone to town. The most exciting results are in the tomato department though. I have over twenty tomatoes on the hay bale tomatoes and zero on the tomatoes in the half barrels. There may be a slight skewing of the results in that my S.O. Forgot to bore drainage holes in the barrel and, for a while, the tomatoes were drowning, That has been fixed and the tomatoes have made a comeback so it will be interested to see what the final yield will be between the two types of containers. Personally my money is on the hay bales and I’ll def. be using this method to plant next year.

Two new things

I actually managed to do two things on my spring break list. I can check off gym and recipes. I know of course that I have to keep going on both of these, they are not a one- time goal, but I’ve now got a good start on them. Now if I could just get that cat print quilt done…

I have two very fit friends that I exercise with and danged if they didn’t talk me into trying something called TRX resistance training. We watched one class before going ourselves and it didn’t seem too bad. The TRX website claims that everyone from athletes to seniors can use it. It looked like you just hung off of straps using your own body weight and indeed this is pretty much what it is. It couldn’t be that bad, right? As it turns out – yes it could. The workout itself was pretty tough for this middle aged biddy bat and my muscles definitely felt things post workout. The same day I could feel it in my thighs and my triceps, the next day the thighs were quite a bit sorer, my stomach muscles chimed in and I found out the I use my triceps muscles when using the rotary cutter. Can you say ow? I certainly can. My friends are now trying to talk me into a ten week course – I’m not sure I could survive that, but we will see. I am glad I at least tried it though.

My husband and I recently signed up for the “farm fresh to you service.” Basically all this means is that x number of times a month local farmers deliver organic fruits and veggies directly to the house. It’s a little more expensive than buying groceries at Safeway but the flavors are far superior. I never cared much for fruits and vegetables growing up though my mother loved them and did everything she could to get us to eat them. Unfortunately her method of cooking most vegetables was boiling – not a lot of flavor involved.

Since I have all these new fruits and vegetables coming to the house I don’t want to waste them so I’ve been scouring the internet for recipes. One of the items in our first shipment was endive, a vegetable I’ve never had before. Luckily I found a great recipe for it : grilled endive with pistachios, dried cherries and feta cheese. It was excellent and now I’m an endive fan. This recipe and a lot more can be found on endive.com

Spring (break) is afoot

We’ve just entered one of my favourite times of the year. All the students have departed the campus for spring break and it is so quiet and peaceful. The weather is perfect and I can now stroll the campus sans fear of being slammed into by a sleep deprived student on a bike. The ability to think and plan has renewed my zeal in trying to get things done. One of my friends must feel the same as she has instituted a clutter club. I’m not that motivated but I do have plans. Therefore, without further ado, I present my list of things I’d like to happen over the next week.

One: While the kiddos are gone attempt to reinstate weight training at the gym. I’m thrilled to say I actually got a head start on this one. I went last Friday and again today. It was glorious not having to share the machines with a bunch of sweaty jock types – just us aging staff this week! I’m even thinking of the hubster go for a walk or two after work this week.

Two: Continue looking for recipes that match a Mediterranean diet vibe. Iowa girl eats sometimes has some great recipes as does Eating Well so I think this should be an easy one to accomplish. We’ve already found and tried three recipes that are keepers. I’m particularly enthused with the Portobello Mushroom sandwich with sun dried tomatoes and goat cheese. YUM.

Three Try and keep my newly planted garden alive while cutting down on water use. I’m hoping to learn how to use grey water from the washing machine to help accomplish this goal. I don’t want to be a water waster but I do love home grown produce so this one is going to be a work in progress.

Four catch up on my “let’s use up the cat prints” quilt that I’ve been working on since the beginning of Jan. I’ve been plugging away at it but lost ground thanks to covering odd hours at work when my student staff couldn’t come in during finals week.

Wallow in popular culture -In a burst of enthusiasm I went to the library last week and picked up a ton of books. I have just now realized that my best window for actually reading the is this week so – I will read two off the pile before the 31st. I’d also like to catch up on some of my telly programs. Walking dead has been quite the nail biter and I’d like to know who lives/dies gets eaten before the season ends. It would also be nice to try and get a little Downton watched. I haven’t even finished the season premier.

Fabric New Year's resoluiton

Most crafters I know tend to have a hoard of materials they work with. Knitters have yarn stashes, quilters have fabric stashes and so on. Most of us tend to become addicted to our particular material of choice. There are even flickr groups encouraging the aforementioned addictions. I happen to be guilty of having more than one stash for more than one craft but I had vowed to at least reduce the fabric stash. Sadly this was not to be. For some reason 2013 had been a particularly appealing one in terms of fabric collections. I managed to fall in love with three different ones. I was very proud of myself though as I found the perfect pattern for one of the collections but, just my luck, this particular collection only had three fabrics in it and I needed at least three more in order to make the pattern work. It was also just my luck that the collection I fell in love came and went in a flash so I could no longer readily find related fabrics for it in the brick and mortar stores. This meant I had to shop on-line to try and match fabrics and we all know what this means. I’d receive a packet of fabric and realize that what looked so good on the web turned out not to be such a great match. Then I’d buy another bit of fabric and the process would repeat. So now I’ve got even more fabric in the stash, sigh.

I do enjoy about meeting a fellow addict though as it is always fun to be had in confessing our sins. Sometimes I begin to think that, even though I hear about other people having a hoarding/stash problem, I am the only one that really has the problem. However, I then meet someone at a store, at a show etc., and discover that a. I am not alone, and b. that I may not even have the biggest problem (assuming we want to call it a problem and I’m not sure I do). I went into a quilt shop to pick up a recently quilted quilt (thanks Margaret at Golden State) and got to chatting with the clerk there. I discovered he was a fellow block of the month junkie and we then talked about what on-going projects we had. He got out one of his projects and darn if I didn’t learn a new trick. This gentleman uses interfacing instead of the plastic vinyl for his applique overlay. Interfacing is certainly easier to find than vinyl so I think I might try this trick. I also had severe stitch envy as his applique looked perfect.

The above is all just a precursor for my fabric New Year’s resolutions. Since I didn’t winnow down the stash last year I have avowed to do so this year but in a manageable chunk for me. I have an entire drawer of cat fabric and I have decided to use up four of those fabrics in their entirety. This doesn’t seem like much I know but if I try and think about destashing entirely I panic but I’m okay with slowly using up fabrics. I even have a specific design for the cat fabrics, a disappearing four patch, and have even done a few and like the pattern so—fingers crossed that four yards or so of fabric “disappear.”

I’ve also made the resolution that I will finish embroidering and then put together my blocks (which are already appliqued) for my Raining cats and dogs BOM. This should be fairly easy to do and then I’ll need to find a quilter to quilt it. I have another BOM which I swear I’ll finish every year. I have no idea why I can’t but this year I’ve decided that I just need to finish two blocks, i.e. I’ll chip away at it slowly and not be upset with myself when I don’t get it done. Now that I’ve learned a nifty new trick with interfacing perhaps I’ll even do three! I do have the new quilt I’ve started but I’ve decided to let that one come together as I feel like it. I am so in love with the colors of the fabric I may put a lot of effort into completing it. I hope to be good purchasing wise this year but we all know that I’d be kidding myself, like Smaug I need a hoard. This year though at least some of it will be used! What’s you fabric resolution?

I want to believe

Lately Mulder’s catchphrase has kept echoing through my head as I pick up yet another piece of genre fiction that has garnered rave reviews and which ultimately disappointed me. I had a recent run of reading several highly praised books that I really did not enjoy. I want to believe that all those readers were correct and the book that has so disappointed me really did deserve all the praise heaped upon it. Here’s the thing though, I don’t think they really do deserve the praise and while the mood I am in will affect how I relate to the story I don’t think that it is just me in crankypants mode either.

Genre fiction has always necessitated a certain suspension of beliefs in order to be enjoyed. One cannot approach it the same way an engineering friend does by picking it apart using logic. Logic, at some point, needs to take a back seat to the story. We all know logically that little old lady knitters don’t stumble across dead bodies and solve the murder on a weekly basis while the cops can’t; that there really aren’t wizards casting spells to bring down the mighty dragon; and that the undead are not cannibalistically gobbling down the neighbors. Genre fiction readers are willing to buy into the story but the characters within the story still have to follow some conventions of normal human behavioral patterns. When they don’t follow the convention it makes it so much harder to maintain that suspension of belief. To give an example I recently read a mystery/thriller novel in which our heroine has barely ventured out of her apartment for many, many years. She has panic attacks, a fear of crowds, etc. The author makes a real point of how psychologically damaged our heroine is. Then the author does something that makes no sense. She has our heroine hop into a plane and fly across country. Our heroine isn’t overly disturbed by this even though she should be –the last time she flew was pre 9/11 and getting through security alone gives the average traveler kittens and airplanes are confined tin cans of crushed together humanity but the heroine brushes it off with a “I was a little distressed but I’m proud I was able to do it” type of moment. Puleeze – this girl should have been a shivering ball of neuroses by the time she touched down. The book goes downhill from there and while I was willing to buy into the story initially I just couldn’t. Genre fiction is plot driven and while character isn’t king it should still count. However, it seems over the past few years more and more readers are willing to suspend greater amount of common sense to get a thrill. Sadly I cannot throw common sense out of the window but I bet the next time I see a heavily hyped novel I’ll still probably read it because I still have faith that the next truly great genre novel is out there – but I’ll be borrowing from the library instead of throwing money down the drain of “you’ve gotta be kidding me” storyline that seems to pass for good genre lit these days.

my one year ankleversary - a reflection

My ankleversary was August 7th.Today I had my final visit with my orthopedic surgeon ,sans cute resident goslings alas. As far as he is concerned everything is great and for the most part it is. It’s been one year since my tumble down the stairs and I’ve managed not to re break it in spite of the fact that I’ve a. managed to do the traditional trip over nothing on the sidewalk more than once and b. survived being shoved behind by a t-shirt toting tourist and on stairs no less. I “celebrated” the anniversary by going to yoga class.

So now it’s been a year lets revisit what I and my friends refer to as the unfortunate incident. I never thought I’d be the proud owner of not one but two walkers; a quad cane; crutches and a bath seat. Due to superstition I’ve decided to keep them. I figure as long as I have them I won’t break anything again but as soon as I get rid of them – well then, doncha know I’ll need them again. Besides the walkers have come in handy – I’ve lent them out twice.

I think of the recovery process in stages – phase one was the initial three weeks post break/surgery and probably the phase I was the most pathetic. Before the incident I was an okay exerciser, I made sure I got in at least 10,000 steps per day; rode my bike to/from work; went to the gym to weight train at least twice a week and had been taking a yoga class for six months. Post incident initially I was totally helpless, if my husband forgot to put a cereal bowl and food on the counter at approximately waist height then I was doomed. I literally could not even stand up long enough to grab a bowl from the overhead cabinets.

Then I got the hard cast off (phase 2) and got on the soft walking cast it was a tiny slice of heaven. I could actually move so much freely through the house. Unfortunately I could also go back to work and I did so with the help of my trusty scooter. Getting the scooter off and on the back of my car was pretty darn scary at times as we had actual slick pavement even here in California. Thanks to a very good friend helping me though I made it through that phase.

Eventually I got the walking boot off (phase 3) and probably entered my greatest depressive phase because I walked with a limp, a really bad limp which did not seem to get better and which also seemed to alarm my physical therapist. Trust me when your PT looks worried this is not reassuring. This is also when I had a minor setback in terms of getting my workers comp to pay for and authorize more than six PT visits. Eventually they did okay a total of 12. When I finished PT my gait still wasn’t great and my therapist thought I needed more – sadly that was not to be due to insurance restrictions. However, I had started going back to yoga as soon as Hermann the boot was off and after several months of downward do and triangle pose (neither one of which are my favorites) I feel like I’ve got most of the motion back in my ankle and I don’t limp like Quasimodo anymore.

I’m now in phase 4, the rest of my life post incident phase, and while I’ve yet to get my gym going, weight training Der Kommandant mojo back I have started biking regularly again and even braved a “deathmarch” aka flow yoga class a few times. I did discover last week though that running ever again is probably not going to be an option. After an hour of walking on the treadmill I decided to do a 5 minute test run. Bad idea – for days afterward the plate side of my leg felt tender to the touch and I had to go back to wearing my fashion plate black compression socks – yowza! I do have the occasional swelling in my ankle still and we won’t even discuss the plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendonitis in both feet which may or may not be a result of bad gait during the initial boot off phase. All I can say for those of you in the earlier stage of your ankle recovery, it does get better, but it can be a bumpy ride so grit your teeth and hang on. Yep I know that advice is really annoying when you aren’t there yet but trust me you too will eventually be singing I will survive at the top of your lungs.

I also have to say it wasn’t all bad, I did learn how to stream shows on my computer and spend a lot of time with my elderly, very faithful cat friend who stayed with me day after day. I also have to acknowledge and thanks “the saint” who carted me around town wheel chair and all; sat through several crying jags and who was just generally extremely patient. Thanks as well to all those friends who called, e-mailed and cajoled and allowed themselves to be seen in public with a lady with a walker and really ugly pants.

Creative Frustration

I seem to have hit a wall creatively. I don’t feel like doing any of my various crafts lately. I finally forced myself to resume working on a machine pieced quilt I had started before I broke my ankle. The quilt isn’t anything special, just a way to use up some pinks form an earlier project and is intended for the cats to loll about on. Yet I am having the worst time working on it. It is boring. There is no real contrast and the pinks are greyed pink so there is not sparkle or brightness to the quilt either. I know I shouldn’t care as the cats certainly won’t and the project is supposed to be a stash buster. However, it is very difficult to work on something that doesn’t sing to me. Of course, I then started to think – “what if I threw in some black. I don’t have black, maybe I should get some.” Err, this type of thinking is not going to help the stash busting.

It didn’t help matters in that I’ve seen two fabulous gardens that just look gorgeous and have color everywhere. One of these is Keelya Meadow’s garden. She always knows how to put colors together and she had a beautiful display of pink, purple and orange tulips that took my breath away. Then, this past weekend, we went and saw the “bulb guys” garden. While he doesn’t have the artistic styling’s of Ms. Meadows his yard too was fabulous. He had tons of tulips, daffodils, anemones etc laid out and it was wonderful to look at. Now, of course, I cannot wait to plant my own bulbs but in the meanwhile maybe I should take some ideas form these gardens and try them in a new quilt – right after pink the ugly is done .

Kitty play and the broken ankle

So this past week I have been trying to play with our latest acquired cat, Molly aka the tank. She just loves to chase us as we run down the halls trailing a feather toy behind. I engaged in play this way with her twice but it turns out the broken ankle doesn’t care for this type of rough housing. Two of my three breaks are totally healed - one small break remains in the tibia and I suspect this tiny, tiny break is what is still making the ankle so cranky. There was much throbbing and shooting pain after I “ran” up and down the halls. Oh, and Molly has a bit of a temper and somehow she knows to target the bad ankle for her nips and swats, bad kitty, bad. I really need to go faster so heal ankle heal.

However there is much to celebrate - I am beyond thrilled that I walk fairly normally now and have been able to walk about 2.5 miles without feeling ankle fatigue. This is a definite step up from the beginning of Feb. when the ankle still got tired after ~ .5 miles or so. I now go up stairs without thinking about it at all, can go up and down the library step stool effortlessly and am thinking about resuming bike riding. I did a half mile trial run on the bike the other day and I think it is time to resume the bike commute. I am absolutely thrilled though that I no longer wear a compression sock every day (what a fashion statement that was) and finally had the bottom of my bed unelevated.

There still needs some improvement – I still cannot go downstairs without going really slowly and awkwardly, I still cannot run, my calf muscle is still a joke, getting up from the tub still requires the "splayed giraffe" move and I still cannot do child's pose or thunderbolt in yoga.

I do have a “it's a fact of life” reality with the ankle and I suspect some things are going to be status quo for awhile,for example, talk about stiff, in the mornings I give Frankenstein's monster a run for his money. I’m also pretty sure I am never going to be a yoga queen or even finish a five K race as a runner (and yes I did at one point run 5 ks) but – you never know

distracting spring

I almost hesitate to say this as various parts of the country are still in the firm grasp of winter but…. Spring has definitely arrived in my area of the country. Tulips, jonquils, daffodils, freesia are all in bloom and some are even fading. My sweet peas, borage and cerenthe are all showing signs of vigorous growth and I may start to have blooms from them soon.

The imminent arrival of spring has forced me to be out in the garden weeding, prepping the soil etc., for my annual late March early planting of the annuals. Since I’ve been so busy outside I have had even less time than usual for either reading or posting about what I’ve read.

However, since I have a few free minutes I would like to say that February was a good month for fantasy. I cannot recommend highly enough The Rook and The Girl who circumnavigated fairyland in a ship of her own making.

The Rook by Daniel O’Malley opens with the protagonist Myfanwy Thomas standing over several dead bodies with no memory of who she is. She quickly discovers that she has lost her memory and that Myfanwy (past) has provided documentation for Myfawny present to survive. It soon transpires that she is a high ranking albeit administrative official in a secret organization. She soon comes into contact with a variety of unique people and life forms as well as plots galore. Myfanwy(present) is such an interesting cool character that the book was just fun to read. It alos doesn’t hurt that there are nice subtle touches of humor as the book progresses as well

I reviewed the Girl who circumnavigated fairyland in a ship of her own making by Catherynee M Valente on goodreads so won’t say too much here other than it is a smart, lushly imagined tale that still has some real heart to it. I am so looking forward to reading the sequel. Here is hoping that the sun and blooms don’t keep me entirely form a good book, but I suspect March’s have read bookshelf is going to be a touch slim. May those of you still in the clutches of old man winter soon feel the touch of the goddess herself.

January's best read

As promised I am trying to make this blog more about books and quilting and less about ankles. Since I am participating in Book Chick City’s 100 books in a year challenge I thought I’d post a review of the book I found most interesting in January. I was somewhat chuffed to see that I had finished nine books in January. This is a large number of books for me to have read these days. Of the nine books I finished I was most impressed with Ashfall. Ashfall is a young adult novel which posits the question of what one young man would do to find his family after the volcano in Yosemite explodes and wrecks havoc with the environment. When we first meet Alex he is pretty much a typical teen guy. He is far more interested in staying home alone and playing video games than going on a road trip with the rest of his family. The initial action happens pretty fast. Almost as soon as Alex’s family is out the door Yellowstone’s volcano explodes and Alex is trapped in a burning house. He manages to escape to find shelter with the neighbors. Events force him from that temporary shelter and Alex head out on the road to try and find his family. Along the way he meets a young woman Darla and her mother.

What most impressed me about the book was the realism shown in trying to survive after the volcano explodes. Alex is not some mythic character able to fight off bad guys. He is a fifteen year old boy who happens to know some martial arts but this doesn’t always help him when confronted with a larger, stronger opponent with a weapon. The author is not out to romanticize life after volcano yet he never uses the gritty reality of living post eruption for shock effect. There are some very uncomfortable moments in the book especially in the depiction of the so called refugee camp run by FEMA. Imagine those poor souls trapped in the superdome during Katrina magnified by a hundred and you get the idea that the refugee camp was not a place you wanted to be. The author also made me think about my own survival and whether I would be able to do some of the things in the book the characters do. As an example, think about your pets – there is no food, silicosis is a very real possibility for all living creatures – so do you try and save your pet or do you do the merciful thing?

The action comes in fits and starts throughout the book but I think this was a good decision on the part of the author. It allowed us to get a deeper feel for the characters of both Alex and Darla. We are allowed to see both strength and weaknesses, physical and mental in Alex and Darla. Much of their physical fight is tied up with their emotional dilemma. Alex is persistent that he will find his family and Darla has to come to terms with the death of her mother. For awhile, Darla, who had been caring for her farm long before the ashfall, really loses it. As an aside here – thank you, thank you, for depicting a girl clever and inventive enough to create machinery out of spare parts, do mind numbingly hard farm labor and still realistically come across as a girl. To watch them both struggle made me feel all the more for them.

The author did not make the entire novel bleak. Throughout the book we get lovely small vignettes of people still helping one another. Even though the cost of survival is huge some people still tried to maintain some kindness and loyalty in the new world.

Overall Ashfall is a very fine example of a post apocalyptic novel in either the YA or adult area. If post apocalyptic literature is your bag definitely try this one out.

100 books in a year

In an attempt to move this blog back to something besides broken ankle news I’ve decided to participate in Book Chick City’s 100 books in a year challenge. It turns out I did fairly well last year in that I read more books than I thought I had – 82 total, yay me. So theoretically I might be able to make 100 this year.

For anyone interested in participating you can go to their website

http://www.bookchickcity.com/2012/12/details-sign-up-bccs-100-books-in-a-year-reading-challenge-2013.html

physical therapy - not as bad as it's rumored to be

I started physical therapy a couple of weeks ago. The experience so far has not been quite what I expected. To be quite frank it has been rather anti-climatic. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but I did think there would be more things to do once I got there. I’m very goal oriented so I wanted to be doing something –preferably exercise related with quantifiable reps. I was also prepared for pain, after all we’ve all heard PT horror stories from co-workers, friends etc ., and they always use the word pain somewhere in their descriptions. The good news is that, up to this point, there has been no pain. The bad news is that Der Kommandant (and yes my exercise friends do call me that) has not gotten a lot of exercise at PT yet. I have been given a set of exercises to do at home - most of which I had already been doing anyway.

At my initial visit my physical therapist measured my ankle six ways to Sunday to determine the ankle’s size and range of motion. Frankenfoot is 2 inches bigger than the normal ankle and, oh joy, I have a negative three on the dorseflexion scale. The plantar flexion wasn’t so hot either but at least we weren’t in the negative there. Dorseflexion, for you children at home, means how far one can point one’s toes upwards. A negative three basically means I’m screwed, at least for the time being. She also pointed out the muscle atrophy in my calf. I had to restrain a little bit of sarcasm there as no one comes out of a cast with nice lookin’ calf muscles. She then handed me a sheet of exercises to do at home and I had her watch me do two of them. We ran into a bit of a catch 22 as I could not bend my knee enough to do one of the exercises and she told me that this was due to the dorseflexion being so bad but that I had to do it properly to increase dorseflexion. Still not sure what I’m supposed to do to this day but keep giving it the old college try. After all the measuring I then got a nice foot massage and sat with my foot in hot water for fifteen minutes with electrodes in the water. I never did feel any tingling from the electrodes. She did give me one good piece of information though and that was that I was bringing my bad foot up and then stopping and bringing the good foot up to meet the bad foot. I’ve since been trying to walk with more of a stride. I did tell her that I’ve never had a “normal” gait and that my mother used to describe my walk as “jock with polio”. Also ,judging from the wear in my shoes I’ve never used the ball of my foot, ever. This might explain the tight heel chord the OS always talks about. Currently, even though I’ve gotten rid of Hermann, I am walking pretty much like Frankenstein’s monster, sigh.

My subsequent two visits were similar to the first visit sans the measuring and with the addition of five minutes on a stationary bike. On visit number four though I did get to do something new. The PT had me pick up about 30 marbles with my toes and put them in a box. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I’d already been practicing this exercise with ball bearings. She also had me use a roller under my foot which felt pretty good. Sadly though, while the increased activity has lead to some really eye-popping swelling of the ankle (with the oh so fashionable compression sock on I might add) I have not seen a lot of improvement in my gait and this has lead to some pretty severe depression on my part. I’m hoping to shake that soon but at the moment it is pretty much Bleaksville in ankle city. Hoping to report better news in the next couple of weeks

three month ankleversary

November 1st was my three month ankleversary and I went in to see the orthopedics doc for what the next step might be. I started my usual ritual at check-in by inquiring if I was now listed as a worker’s comp patient. The standard reply was that, yes I was in the system as worker’s comp. It seems that no matter how many times I ask this in any given visit that the incorrect insurance company and/or myself will receive these horrendous scary bills. Nevertheless one has to give it the old college try in the hopes that one day things will be correctly billed.

The second step was to take the usual set of three x-rays. To my surprise however I was not going to be lying on the pallet for these but rather standing. The tech told me that not only would I be standing sans boot but that I would also have to climb up onto this tiny weird looking step. Yeah, right since going up and down steps had already been so beneficial to my ankle. However, I gamely climbed up holding on to various pieces of X-ray equipment with a death grip. After many, many repositionings I was allowed to step down and resume the safe embrace of Hermann aka the boot. I do have to say taking even those small steps without the boot was the weirdest feeling ever, it was indescribable how the linoleum felt on my foot.

The doc then came in and then told me my ankle looked like it was healing well. As an aside here I should mention that I am being treated at a teaching hospital. Since it is one of the best in the country I’ve had no concerns about the quality of treatment. What I do love about it is that you are never quite sure who will be in the exam room with you on any given day. I’ve always been fortunate to see my surgeon but on various occasions he has brought in a medical student – who was a bit of a mumbler and who kept looking at the floor. He also had a clammy handshake so I’m not sure he is cut out for the life of a surgeon unless his confidence level is raised considerably. On another occasion he brought in one of the pack of residents previously seen in the hospital. It was not the incredibly good looking but brutal handed one but one of the quieter ones. None of these folks are what I’d call talkative. They tend to give you the bare minimum of information and it is then up to you to burrow out any further nuggets of wisdom. Fortunately, this time, it was just the doc and a P.A. P.A.s tend to be more communicative as a rule so I had hope that I’d learn more than the usual, “x-rays are looking good” statement I usually receive. Sadly this was not to be the case. Instead ,just as a diver looks for pearls by prying open the oyster I had to pry , with words, but gently. I found out that yes, it is okay to wear compression socks to reduce swelling; I can resume Yoga; I can, if I feel confident enough resume riding my bike. Personally I think we are being a bit premature on the whole it’s okay to ride your bike thing. It is a good thing I’m not a gung ho athlete as I can just see someone leaping on their bike only to go for a dismount and then Crack goes the ankle. I amy give the stationary bike a go though to help rebuild the calf muscle.

The other big piece of news the doc imparted was that I could get rid of the boot and begin walking without it, “as comfortable”. I always love the “as comfortable” bit as I am such a cautious Nelly that I’d probably stay in the safety of the boot forever. I asked him to elaborate on that statement (remember you, the patient must burrow for additional info) and he told me to not wear the boot unless I’d be walking for long distances and that wearing the boot for these types of trips might be beneficial. I then asked about the pain I was having at the forefront of my foot and it turns out that Hermann might not be the security blanket I had thought he’d been. That bad boy had helped cause metatarslagia. I had evidently been putting almost all my weight on the bad foot on the ball of my foot and since Hermann is pretty unforgiving in that area it caused inflammation. Suddenly I now had no desire to continue in the boot. Good bye boot, hello too tight tennis shoe!

We’ve now been boot free for a week and while I cannot say I am loving it I have discovered that not being in the boot and liberating myself from the walker has been somewhat freeing. I actually weeded the front portion of one of my flower beds, was finally able to clean my kitchen properly and even managed to do some laundry. In order to use the washer and dryer I have to go down a step, one tiny, tiny measly step but until Sunday that step was my Mt. Everest. I am happy to say I conquered Mt Everest and went on to “climb” the front steps. Who knows what I’ll accomplish next. I feel like I missed out on so much. Summer is gone and now it is almost Thanksgiving.

that which does not kill me.....

That which does not kill me turns me into a puddle of limp exhaustion… In the early days when I was reading other broken ankle blogs I was always curious as they all seemed to taper off into nothingness at about the 6-8 week mark. Surely things must still be going on so why not write about them. Well now I know why… Once “real” life resumes it is just too damn tiring to write anything. I’ve been back to work for 3 and ½ weeks now and all I can say is that I’m impressed that every day I make it to 5 p.m. and then manage to drive home.

I am also convinced that my workplace is out to get me. On a normal “able-bodied” day the university can be hazardous. We’ve got students riding/skating/walking all on their cell phones and totally oblivious as to where they are going. Then, in addition to the kids, you’ve got faculty and staff who are all trying to drive down the street without trying to kill any of the kinder and also not paying a lot of attention to people below their line of vision, i.e. me on my scooter.

Let me give you a glimpse of an average day post borken ankle. I’ve already chronicled my first scooter ride up to the library. However that particular ride now seems like a piece of cake as it occurred before the evil sentience known as the university knew that I was back. Now that it knows I’m here it has turned its full maleficent force into creating new and interesting obstacles for me to surpass on my journey into work.

I arrive at my parking lot which incidentally is .25 miles from my work (and yes this is the closest parking lot and yes I emphasize this alot) I get out of the car, lift the seated scooter off the car and away I go. I had pre-scouted out my path before returning to work and it was a pretty straightforward if longish one. Sadly it seems that I will never be able to use it. Observe as i attempt to transverse it. I start down the sidewalk and the university has thrown its first obstacle into my path. The university has decided to overwater the sidewalk in front of me, my boot doesn't do well on wet pavement so I turn to go a different route. Oh look - the groundskeepers are out with their leaf blowers. I decide to proceed forward even though this means a possible cedar chip in the eye. With eyes closed as much as I can to avoid grit blowing into them I scoot by not one, not two but three of these guys with blowers going full blast and blowing debris directly into my path. Normally no big deal if you can walk over leaves, acorns etc. but when you are on a scooter running over, say a tiny, tiny acorn it is a recipe for disaster. I cannot tell you then number of times the scooter has almost tipped. However I’ve made it past the diabolical groundskeepers only to discover that I must now turn away from my usual route yet again as the university has decided to dig up pipes underneath the area I would normally travel. Oh lucky me, the route I must now traverse has a tiny tiny little opening through fencing to bypass construction work, but wait there is more, it also happens to have a blind spot so one has to put one’s body into the opening and hope that no one else is coming. This, of course, is not the case as we have a kid on a bike, cup of coffee and cell phone in hand. With an unbelievable burst of adrenaline I make it through the opening and scoot as fast as I can off to the side. It’s a narrow miss but I make it. My last part of the journey is now upon me. I must now go past the coffee kiosk. Caffeine deprived zombies to all sides I make my last mad dash and…make it to the safety of my building. That, children is how my workday begins

The broken ankle returns to work

Hermann(the boot) and I returned to work on Thursday. I, myself, prefer to think of it as the broken ankle Olympics. We had started our training early. I had rented a seated scooter in anticipation of the long trek from parking lot to my library. For those of you who have never visited my fair campus the closest parking area is about a quarter mile away, and yes this includes disabled parking. Not that I will ever be able to park in disabled parking as I foolishly mailed in my form to the DMV. I was obviously on drugs at the time or I would have known better. However, I digress. I, and my handsome trainer started practicing several days early with the scooter. I would roll out the back door, push my way into the front yard and approach the car. I would then get off the scooter, open the back door to the car and, on one foot, shove the scooter into the back seat. This is somewhat equivalent to shoving a cat into a carrier for a vet visit. Neither I not the scooter were pleased with the action but we got the job done. Still on one foot I then hopped up to the front seat and drove around for a bit. Of course before the drive could commence I had to catch my breath and wipe away the torrents of sweat pouring down my face. After the drive I parked the car and pulled out the scooter . The scooter having once been put into the back seat did not wish to come out. To continue with the cat analogy it was a bit like trying to pull the cat out of the cat carrier once s/he arrived at the vet. The scooter, I swear, developed claws and hung onto the backseat for dear life. Once again, though , I persevered hopping about on one foot. My handsome assistant was not allowed to help as I had to prove I could perform these actions on my own. He did attempt to give what he thought was helpful advice such as “why don’t you turn it upside down and put it on your bike rack?” Why yes sweetie, I’ll just haul up 20 lbs to shoulder height while hopping about on one leg (not).

Having proven that I could indeed get around on the scooter I chickened out and had the saint drive me to work my first two days. We arrived at our parking space and I began to push myself along and towards the general direction of the library. I encountered my first hurdle at a gently sloping hill aka Mt. Everest near the library. I’d push a few feet, rest, request oxygen, and then push a few more feet, repeat the request for air and then push again. Eventually I reach the top of the hill and my right thigh announces that it has had enough thank you very much. However, we still have approximately 500 yards to go so the thigh is conscripted back into duty and we reach the front doors to the building my library is in. Bless all universities for having such solid, solid doors. The doors are wrestled open, and I make it to the second floor to encounter another set of doors. Another wrestling match ensues and voila, I have arrived. I have arrived one half hour after exiting the car. Sadly it appears that I am the Eddie the Eagle equivalent in broken ankle Olympics.

My work day commences with the boss handing over a whole slew of work and various colleagues chatting to me about how nice it must have been to be at home, lolling about in bed and reading. Yeah right, it was just like vacationing at the beach, everybody should try this. However, this did not astound me nearly as much as the reactions of various library patrons. I am ensconced at the front desk, foot on a pillow and the pillow on a library stool. Directly behind me is my walker. A clueless patron would ask a question and I’d get up, hobble around the desk on my walker and in every single case the patron would have a look of astonishment on their face. It was as if the big black boot were totally invisible and that all library staff sat at the front desk with their leg propped at a ninety degree angle from their body. Personally I think we should all be very worried that the crème de la crème of academia are so totally clueless or else be concerned about their fashion taste if they assumed that Hermann was standard footwear.

One other, tiny, tiny factor that turned my return to work into an Olympic event was a visit to the restroom. The library has not restroom so we have to walk down a hallway ~300 steps or so. Sadly, I could not go this way as there were stairs. Stairs and I are not on speaking terms since they chose to fling me down them so I had to go the long way around to use a handicapped ramp. Like an idiot I chose to do this on a walker. Big mistake, I might as well have walked the Appalachian trail. It would probably taken the same amount of time as well as the same amount of resulting soreness in me bum muscles. Future visits were done with the scooter.

Overall I did survive my first two days along with the resultant fatigue at the end of the day as well as the brain fog throughout the day as I reacclimated and my body realized it would not be getting its two hour nap. Tilly, my faithful kitty also survived the separation but neither she nor I were happy about it. For any future broken ankle folks, may I recommend going back to work half time, oh and avoid those hills!

Partial weight bearing to commence

Yesterday was a long day. First up I had an appt with the orthopedic surgeon. Initially, I saw one of the residents who was happy with my range of motion progress. He also commented on the fact that my foot seemed pretty strong when he asked me to push on his hand with it. Hurrah for diligently doing my ABCs (with the foot of course). The main ortho doc was impressed with how well my scars had healed, thanks to my genetics I’d like to point out, but less so with how tight the calf was. He remembered that both my good and bad legs have this problem. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that even my own mother told me that I walked like a jock with polio and this was years ago. He also told me that I am now allowed to put some weight on the foot using the boot as comfortable but will have to continue using a walker for another six weeks.

I love vague pronouncements such as “as comfortable.” As far as I am concerned as comfortable means lying around with my leg propped up or lolling around in the wheelchair for pretty much forever, less chance of bones re breaking that way. Intellectually though I know a certain amount of weight placed on the leg actually helps the bone heal. Like a brave little soldier I got up last night and took a few steps using the walker. It didn’t feel so bad so I took a few more. Then it dawned on me that I might not be placing any weight at all so I had my husband get out the bathroom scale and I put my bad foot down on it. I pushed down as hard as I could and could only exert 28 lbs of pressure and I knew that I had indeed not been putting any weight on the foot earlier. So I tried it again and this time knew I was putting down some weight. As a reward for being hauled all over kingdom come and then being forced to work my ankle swelled up pretty much like a puffer fish. Today, we are allowing a little more elevation and a little less perambulation though I am forcing it to do some walking.

The other doc I saw yesterday was a pulmonologist. Her first words were “why did Dr. urgent care want me to see you?” Err “I don’t know, you tell me.” Unlike ortho doc though she was quite informative and took some time explaining exactly what the pulmonary embolism had done to my lung and why I felt pain in my back. She showed me the CT scan and explained that little white dots (veins) was good, and the pinky vein was bad, as it had been blocked by the embolism. She then went on to explain that the walls of the lung should be smooth, pointed out where mine wasn’t and explained that was where the fluid had accumulated. The back pain is due to a shared nerve between the lung and shoulder. When the fluid started pressing on the nerve the shoulder registered the pain. Very cool. Less cool was when she told me she felt I needed to be on blood thinners for an additional month, sigh. Oh, and I’ll probably be more susceptible to blood clots in the future. Yipee for me.

Onward and upward, every step in the boot and on the walker means I’m that much closer to being healed.

Urban fantasy - the good and the bad

So I just finished my umpteen thousandth urban fantasy and it got me to thinking about what I like about this subgenre and what I don’t like. Obviously there is something to like about them as I read quite a few so let’s start with the good.

Urban fantasy, at least for me, is pretty much a female centric version of a lone knight (medieval not dark knight) protecting their world. Obviously there are some good male urban fantasy characters that spring to mind – Harry Dresden and Atticus O’Sullivan for example, but the genre really is saturated with women heroines. These heroines tend to be strong, independent types who are able to take care of themselves, thank you very much. There generally is a love interest, generally male, but our heroine is not dependant on this person in resolving their issues. It’s great to have this type of role model to counteract all the thin pouty helpless female images we are inundated by in other visual media. I also really enjoy authors taking certain tropes and tweaking them and the universe in which all the characters reside. As long as the rules remain consistent within that universe I’m a happy camper.

So, let’s move on to the less desirable qualities in urban fantasy. One of my biggest peeves is that we introduce a trope such as a fallen angel, vampire etc and have the character differ from the standard but then don’t explain why this character isn’t following the expected behavior associated with this trope. My most recent read used fallen angels including Lucifer yet did not explain whether Lucifer and his associates were truly evil or not and how they function in the author’s universe outside of being convenient plot devices to move the story forward. The author doesn’t have to expend the whole novel sketching in character but doing so as well as showing the heroine’s reactions to the goodness/evilness of these secondary characters is going to add depth to the story. One liners are sometimes used to sketch in brief answers such as the following “mortals are not permitted to know these things” but this is just lazy writing and poor world building in my opinion.

I’ve also noticed that author’s don’t necessarily think about basic questions a reader might be asking themselves as they read the book. To use the example of the fallen angels above, if there are fallen angels/demons destroying cities then where are the other angels, if there is Lucifer then where is God? Author, it is your world so think of a reason why these other characters may or may not be in your book. Once again, you don’t have to spend the entire novel on this type of question but a paragraph or two isn’t going to hurt either.

There are other things I don’t like about urban fantasy but my last gripe concerns the injuries our heroines sustain over the course of a novel. This gripe can extend to many other types of genres, by the way, as it seems to be endemic. Our heroine gets knocked unconscious, beaten, shot, what have you and yet never really appears to be debilitated by what happens to her. Inevitably there is generally some healing spell, salve etc. that rejuvenates her but never have I read where the heroine is laid up for days due to a concussion after a blow to the head or in extreme pain due to being shot. Make the heroine a little more human and have her suffer a bit before healing her. It makes for a more appealing character in my opinion.. Well that’s all I’ll say on the subject for now.

What fresh heck is this?

Yesterday was a bit of a busy day for me. I got some gardening done if you call sitting in the chair and reaching the one spot I can weed gardening. I also started another paperbag book and got caught up on some light reading. Evidently attempting to lead something approximating a normal life though has sent THE FOOT over the edge.

Instead of having my usual pins and needles last night we went into full blown my foot’s on fire sensations. Massage and ice helped but as soon as those stopped, whammo – 3 alarm fire at the end of my leg. I was so tired I just wanted to sleep but no such luck…. Another interesting and relatively banal phenomenon is that the skin around my incisions has begun to peel. My ankle on both sides rather resembles someone’s badly burned back where the skin begins to peel off. Can I get a resounding ewww? I’m taking this phenomenon as a good sign and that happy new skin is underneath evenif the gross factor is high.

All of this has contributed to the heck that is currently going on but what is most heckish at the moment is my cat. I do not know why but she absolutely has to sit on my chest right under my chin. If I gently dislodge her she immediately climbs right back on. I, of course, am a sitting, make that lying, duck. I’m trying to keep the foot elevated in hopes of appeasing it and diminishing the pins and needles. The only reason I’m able to type at the moment is that we’ve come to a compromise. She gets to lie between my legs under the covers while I get to sit in the most painfully contorted position possible. One leg is straight out elevated on pillows, the other is bent forming a little tent for her. So why not just move her off the bed you ask? Because she is 22 years old and I just don’t have the heart to do so. I know I’ll pay for it in hip pain later on but let’s face it at 22 I might not have her around that much longer so I’ll let her be for now.