2012 in Review

How did the resolutions go?  I won some and lost some I think.

1. Go fishing - I fished a bit in my own state (probably not enough to cover the cost of the trout stamp but hey) and I caught a king salmon in Alaska...that should count for something.
2. Teach Emma to finger knit - I think we have finger knitting down now.  Emma can make a 3 inch wide scarf for days and days.  We briefly attempted crocheting, I think that might be the ticket to moving on to something a little bit more challenging, something like hot pads perhaps.

3. Keep on Running - Running came to a screeching halt at the end of September, but I had some pretty great races before that and set a new PR for both the 5K and the half marathon.  And I logged nearly 500 miles this year.  I still have a lot of physical therapy to go before I'll be able to run again, but it's still on my list of things to do.  With the amount of cartilage damage I did to my knee I will have to aim for quality runs over quantity of miles.
4. Learn how to whistle - Getting better at the whistle I do have, except not any louder...not sure what needs to change for that.
5. Take more field trips: Two specifically are on the list: Hidden Caves and Berlin Ichthyosaur Park. Hidden caves...not done.  But hiking is on the approved list of activities post surgery so that will definitely get checked off next year.  Berlin happened.  We had a good time, my brother and older sister even came out for the weekend.  It was nice having them at the museum.  I would not have noticed all of my family's signatures on the opening day plaque or the pictures of my grandmother on the museum walls had they not been there.

2012 By the Books

So, I thought I had slacked off a little on my reading, but I went back and looked at 2011's list and I only got to 67 books...final count this year is 68. 

I think I loved The Poisonwood Bible the most out of all the books I read this year.  Kevin Smith's Tough Sh*t should be a must read for any Silent Bob fan.  If you haven't read Ender's Game yet you should, but immediately after that you should read Ender's Shadow.  When the movie comes out you can thank me for the advice.  If you haven't read of any of Alan Bradley's books you should, the newest Flavia De Luce novel, will be out at the end of January.  I really did not enjoy the Chelsea Handler books, which is probably the same reason I don't watch her show. 

Have any good book suggestions for me for 2013?

1. Ann Brashares - Sisterhood Everlasting
2. Sandra Brown - Rainwater
3. Alice Walker - The Color Purple
4. Abraham Verghese - Cutting for Stone
5. Greg Iles - Third Degree
6. Wendy McClure - The Wilder Life
7. John Milton - Paradise Lost
8. Markus Zukas - The Book Thief
9. Jeannette Walls - The Glass Castle
10. Christopher Moore - Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff
11. Alex Flinn - Cloaked
12. Paulo Coehlo - Veronica decides to die
13. Jeannette Walls - Half-Broke Horses
14. Alan Bradley - I am Half-Sick of Shadows
15. Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible
16. Alex Flinn - Beastly
17. Kate Dicamillo - The Magician's Elephant
18. Laurie Schloff & Marcia Yudkin - Smart Speaking
19. Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe
20. Beth Hoffman - Saving Ceecee Honeycutt
21. Jenna Blum - Those That Save Us
22. Erick Setiawan - Of Bees and Mist
23. Fannie Flagg - A Redbird Christmas
24. Fannie Flagg - Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
25. Kevin Smith - Tough Sh*t
26 Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex
27. Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms
28. Consuelo S. Baehr - Daughters
29. Sue Miller - The Lake Shore Limited
30. Yann Martel - Life of Pi
31. Jenny Lawson - Let's Pretend this Never Happened
32. Mindy Kaling - Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
33. Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game
34. Squire Rushnell - When God Winks on New Beginnings
35. Raymond Khoury - The Sanctuary
36. Pamela Druckerman - Bringing up bebe
37. Maggie Stiefvater - The Scorpio Races
38. Chelsea Handler - Are You there Vodka, it's me Chelsea
39. Chelsea Handler - My Horizontal Life
40. Lois Lowry - Messenger
41. Virginia Woolf - To the Lighthouse
42. Tea Obreht - The Tiger's Wife
43. Markus Zukas - I am the Messenger
44. Susan Elizabeth Phillips - Call Me Irresistible
45. Doreen Virtue - Messages from Your Angels
46. Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair
47. Orson Scott Card - Speaker for the Dead
48. Deborah Moggach - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
49. Maggie Shipstead - Seating Arrangements
50. Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore
51. Richard Nelson Bolles - What Color Is Your Parachute?
52. Ben Mezrich - Sex on the Moon
53. Alexander McCall Smith - The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
54. David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas
55. John Green - The Fault in Our Stars
56. Benjamin Hoff - The Tao of Pooh
57. John Updike - The Witches of Eastwick
58. Tatiana de Rosnay - Sarah's Key
59. Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist
60. David Liss - The Whiskey Rebels
61. Orsen Scott Card - Xenocide
62. Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose
63. Ruta Sepetys - Between Shades of Gray
64. Orsen Scott Card - Children of the Mind
65. Paulo Coehlo - Aleph
66. JK Rowling - the Casual Vacancy
67. Orson Scott Card - Ender's Shadow
68. Eion Colfer - The Last Guardian

Christmas at our house

It would appear that I took just one picture Christmas morning. 

 The rest will have to be committed to memory.

Emma had her original Mr Nibbles stolen at school earlier this year. 
This was the present I was most excited to give this year.

F-I-V-E



A certain someone turned 5 recently.
 I'm over here trying to pretend he's not growing up too fast.



Sometimes

Sometimes we get dressed up to go to the dentist and Olive Garden and call it a date day.

One more day

I made it 8 miles down the snowy road to work this morning, when the physical therapist called to cancel my appointment.
So I turned around and called in snow day to work, I'll spend one more day with the girls.

6 weeks post surgery

An abyss cannot be crossed in two steps.

~cloud atlas

Oh, but if only it could.

Last night I had that dream again.  Or better named, the nightmare.  The crashing down and the flash of white and the horrific pain in my knee.  It's been a while since I have relived that moment.  After waking with a start and falling back asleep I dreamed I was running a race barefoot through the grass and the girl in front of me was dressed in a tutu and my knee wasn't hurting me.  That would be a nice reality.

Yesterday marks 6 weeks since the ACL reconstruction (and meniscal repairs).  I can get to 110 degrees flexion with some effort, but I can get there.  I have been okayed to bend my knee when walking in the brace now, and sleep without it, and start moving around more.  I still need to go to PT twice a week for a while.  And I'm going to go check in with my favorite FIT instructor next week to talk rehab.

Everything I've read online says at the 4 month mark you can start jogging again.  But I ran into a girl in the hallway today who said she wishes she would have waited longer.  Funny the conversations you attract with a bulky, full leg brace as your fashion accessory.  She took one look at me and asked ACL repair?


I guess I'll take the wait and see approach.  June seems so far away and yet too close all at the same time.  I was really, really hoping that I'd be able to run in the Reno Tahoe Odyssey again in 2013.

A day in the mountains

Sometimes you just need to get out of town for a day. We rounded up some of our favorite people in the name of tree cutting and firewood gathering and headed East.

If I hadn't have had to pee so very badly, I would have missed this gem.  It's in the men's bathroom at Middlegate, NV.
Yes....I had to pee THAT bad.

Emmer's looking pretty good in Bob's carhartt

I found me a baby to love on.  And got out of wood carrying. 

 

My happy place

Found some good treasures

 

 

Emma and Davey bonded over a bag of doritos years ago. Instant friendship.

Trim the Hearth and Set the Table

Advent is one of my favorite times in the Church calendar.  They sing all my favorite songs (People Look East and O Come, O Come Emmanuel) and there are advent calendars and pink and purple candles to light. 


I let the girlchild decorate the tree this year





Bob is the only one who has his stocking hung so far...someone is excited



I thought we'd spend the season working on a family puzzle.  It only took us an evening though.  Next time, more pieces!



There is still a little bit of setting up to do (the nativity scene mainly), presents to wrap, and a birthday to celebrate.
Then we'll be ready for Christmas.

Between Shades of Gray

Yes I typed that correctly.

This is NOT a review about 50 shades of grey.  Just keep moving if that's what you were looking for.  Or, stay a while and browse, maybe you'll find a book suggestion that catches your interest.  This is a story about a girl from Lithuania, who loved to draw, and whose life changed dramatically in 1941 when Stalin ordered her family to a labor camp.

It seems I have read a lot of Holocaust books this year.  Between Shades of Gray falls into that category, but with a little spin on a story we have heard summarized in every world history class.  While the world was focused on Hitler's reign and the atrocities he waged against the Jews, Stalin was busy with his own version of ethnic cleansing.  He rounded up lawyers, doctors, and educators and deported them to labor camps in the Baltic.  On paper, they were accused of being common criminals.  The author's note states that 20 million people died under Stalin's orders.  And unlike the concentration camps that were liberated at the end of the war, the Lithuanian people did not find freedom.  The main family in the novel remained in bondage for 12 years.  Twelve years of hard, manual labor with poorly built shacks to protect against the cold, arctic winters and scavenging for food.

My favorite line from the book:

Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth?  That morning, my brother's was worth a pocket watch.

Adventing we go

I found my fortune amusing on this, the first Sunday of Advent. 

Someone won the mega millions lottery this week so I know that's not it...

The kids are crazy, excited about their chocolate advent calendars this year.

The tree is cut and in the house (that's as far as we got)

The house cleaning is done in preparation of decorations

Looks like we'll be taking it a little bit slower this year

One month review

Honestly, I thought I'd be moving around more by now. The joint and knee itself are still tender and swollen. I'm pretty mobile on my crutches, but it's tiring and I find myself needing to sit with my knee up and iced a lot.  And I catch myself pondering things like how do I know that everything is healing like it should be on the inside? And can't I take a bath yet without having to prop my leg up over the side?

The newest, random fact I learned is that the quad muscle usually keeps the knee cap in it's little groove.  And since my quad muscle is weak and not firing properly it makes my knee cap click across the joint when I bend it for cycling or hamstring curls.  At first it freaked me out.  But physical therapy Ross showed me how to push it back into place.

my dragonfly shaped staple scar

I have seen my future and it scares me a little.  At some point I will have to do the balance board.  I was terribly uncoordinated at the balance board before I had my knee injury, so this should be interesting.  And the girl in this picture, is holding the ball against the wall with her hip and squatting with her repaired leg.  She had pretty much the exact surgery I had in March.  I hope that I am still not at PT 7 months later!  And the man on the slant board, he just had his ACL repaired (no torn meniscus) two weeks ago.  So jealous! 

Two more weeks and I head back to the doctor to see about getting a little range of motion with my leg brace on.