Month: March 2017

So, my appointment with the ortho specialist for my elbow was this morning.  The majority of what I consider to be mild-moderate sprain symptoms had faded pretty well, but I was still experiencing some pain that wasn’t going away.

My symptoms are match for a “mild” radial head fracture, which apparently doesn’t show up well on xrays.  Dr Google came up with links that say it can take up to 3 weeks for it to show up!

Treatment is the same as what I’ve been doing, don’t over use it, keep it in a sling as much as possible, come back in 4 weeks.

I’m going to be so sick of that damn sling…..

I’m finally feeling better.  Making it through a standard work day without feeling like I’m going to collapse from exhaustion.  Which is just awesome.

Then this morning I tripped over Arty.  Or rather, I avoided tripping over Arty, who ran right in front of my upraised foot as I was taking a step.  I managed to stop the motion of my foot in time to avoid kicking him, but the rest of my body was already to far into the motion.  I also managed to avoid landing on him.  So at least I’m the only one injured instead of both of us.

Urgent Care did xrays, and assures me that there’s nothing broken.  The doctor also says that since I have essentially full range of motion (albeit painfully) it’s unlikely I seriously tore something.  So, sprained wrist and elbow.  A wrist brace and an sling.  And I will say that as long as I keep my arm in the sling it hurts less…….

If it’s not better in a week I’m to see an orthopedic specialist, referral already sent.

Yay.

In other news, I finally got taxes done, and due to the fact that Husband was part of the Verizon strike back in the spring, or rather, due to the fact that the Union paid out money to all striking employees who walked the lines during the strike, we owe over $600 Federal.  Not that we normally have a huge refund, we have things set so that we get less than $200 back from the Feds normally, but still, it wasn’t a bill we was expecting.

So far I’ve only got the hot pepper seeds started.  Gotta get the tomatoes in pots.  I had also planned to get the final pieces of this danged woodworking project done, since this is a slow week at work and I have several days off this week.  But I’m right handed, and it’s my right arm in a sling, so that’s not happening.  Maybe next week……

We haven’t had much snow this winter.  A couple big storms, but most of the time they predicted snow it fizzled and we got an inch or two.  Or a couple inches of slush with a couple inches of snow on top.  Not fun, but not bad to deal with either.

This time I think we exceeded expectations….

Apollo’s 27.75″ at the shoulder, thats one of the shallower spots in the yard.

My husband snowblowed the driveway yesterday (Tuesday) at about 5:30pm.  At which point there was already over a foot of snow down, based on what was buried in the yard.  This is what was in the driveway this morning about 11am:

Depending on who’s weather predictions you like we’re slated to get another 4-12″ today…..

Pretty much everyone I know uses some form of ad-blocker to attempt to block some of the more annoying advertisements that websites have come up with.  Websites brought it on themselves, ads with moving video and audio, ads that attempt to take over the screen or page, popups, etc, all annoyed consumers to the point where some form of ad-block was required in order to just read the pages you want.

And a few sites have started putting banners at the tops of their pages saying something to the effect of “hey, we understand WHY you use an adblocker, but ads are what makes us money, so can you whitelist us please?”.  And for those I will frequently temporarily whitelist them to see how annoying their ads are, and if they aren’t too bad I will sometimes whitelist them, especially if they’re a site I frequent (it depends though, cause some of the things blocked also affect my privacy, so yah).  Because I do understand.

But recently I’ve noticed a disturbing trend.

Those are screenshots, taken today, of two different webpages.  One is an article from the LA Times, the other an article from Wired.

Now, I am aware, from conversation, on the blogs where I got the original links that not everyone is having the same issue, even if they’re using the same adblocker.  So I’m not sure how these sites are determining who to block and who to not block.  But the “whitelist us or pay us” technique doesn’t work for me.  Neither of these articles, hell, neither of these sites, is so important to me that I wish to give up on some fragment of my privacy much less deal with the annoyance of the advertisements in order to read them.

However I find the trend disturbing…….

It was indeed an ear infection, and the doctor agreed that it needed an antibiotic.  ThankYouGod.

By Thursday I was mostly back to normal.  Still way to much post nasal drip, but no ear problems, almost no cough, no sinus pain.

There’s just one lingering symptom that I can’t cope with.  I’m utterly exhausted in no time flat by even minor activity.

I can’t make it through a full work day.  I barely made it through a 4.5hr shift Friday.  Came home and laid down and slept for 2+hrs and still slept soundly that night.

I’m HOPING that its just the end result of being sick for three weeks straight on top of basically not sleeping for the first week of it due to coughing so much rather than a symptom of something else.  But its frustrating as hell to feel “pretty good dammit” and not have the energy to do much.

Otherwise not much going on.  I need to get more seeds started.  I need to get the greenhouses setup and ready to accept seedlings.  I STILL haven’t done taxes (dammit, maybe this week).  Still haven’t finished this woodworking project which was SUPPOSED to be done back at the beginning of February!

Arg!

The last few days have been absolutely lovely, temperature wise.  Yesterday, even as winds picked up as a front rolled through, temperatures were warm enough I not only didn’t want a coat, but I was considering finding my shorts.

Today?  Well, the predicted high is 30.  There’s snow on the ground, though not much thankfully.  And I woke up to see this out the back kitchen window:

The pictures don’t do it justice.  That exposed root structure is now twice my height.  Minor damage to one fruit tree.  Not a big deal.  The concern though is that there are several more of those giant huge pines running down the far side of the property line.  Two of them lined up such that if THEY went over they’d crush the garage and might even damage the house.

I backed both cars back towards the road by about 15feet, just to be sure they’re clear of any such.  And a check around the bases of both potential problem trees shows that neither appears to be as soaked and spongy as the ground around the downed one.  I’d thought that the wind was starting to die back when I did so, but now its picked up again.  Guess time will tell……