Momilies

My new hot pink cast!

Friday I went to the doctor to get the surgical cast removed, my staples removed, and a new cast put on.  The last twelve days had been frustrating and painful, as I have tried to be patient, uncomplaining, self-sufficient.  All those things I can normally be when things are normal.

I was looking forward to the trip to the doctor, yet dreading it.  I was looking forward to staples being out, getting a smaller cast, and potentially being told I could have some weight-bearing.  I was dreading it because it still hurt in there, and pain on my tibia felt like someone was grinding their knuckles against it.  I had nightmares about the ankle becoming suddenly unstable after being confined in the cast for such a short time.  I tried to let my positive hopes outweigh my fear as best I could.

So, the Perfect Child took off a half-day off work on Friday to take me, since her car is the only one I can get into without a lot of hassle.  Our other cars are compact sedans, and fairly low to the ground.  So her car is my designated taxi at the moment.  We got to the medical building on time, located a wheelchair pretty quickly, and waited in line to check in.  Apparently there were an awful lot of broken legs; as we waited in the waiting room for more than an hour, we saw every manner of crutches, wheelchairs, and walkers on people from young to old.

Finally, in an exam room, a tech very carefully, layer by layer, cut off the ace bandage holding together the plaster pieces that were making up my cast.  She told me that my ankle would not fall apart, that everything had been repaired and that it would be okay.  The cast was finally cleared and and I held my foot still, not even wanting to flex it while she removed the surgical bandaging to get to the staples.

Suffice it to say there was quite a bit of that Frankenstein look – there were 13 staples down the right side (outside) of my ankle, and 8 down the left side (inside) of my ankle.  The bruising looked like a massive thunderstorm and circled and streaked around my ankle and foot, including massive bruising on the bottom of my foot (I couldn’t see it, The Perfect Child reported it to me).  And my ankle is easily twice it’s normal size.  There are also the healing fracture blisters, which I think looked absolutely dreadful.  (There is a page with pictures, but don’t click this link if you are squeamish…)

The tech removed the staples, placed some steri strips, and cleaned up her mess.  The doctor came in next.  This was an orthopedist, but not the surgeon who worked on me.  She had a wonderful sense of humor and said that my blisters looked absolutely perfect.  She said the surgical records indicated a single plat plus an unknown number of screws on the outside of my ankle, and only two on the inside.    I was to receive a smaller, lighter cast, was to continue to be non-weight-bearing, and she gave me paperwork for a temporary disabled parking tag, and approved me for a knee walker.

I do have some nerve damage.  The outside of the ankle has plenty of feeling, but the inside, where one break occurred and the dislocation happened, has no feeling along the skin.  That weird knuckle-against-bone feeling in there?  My nerves gone crazy.  There’s nothing hard touching it at all, and even with the cast completely off, it still felt the same.  It comes and goes somewhat, but I can ignore it a little better knowing that it is phantom pain.  The doctor said it might get better, it might not.  It was more than seven hours between my break and when it was able to be set, and this may be irreversible.  But realistically?  If I can walk again, and bike again, I will be happy.

The cast tech came in and proceeded to torture me somewhat. He had to get my ankle at a 90 degree angle, but it was more like a 120 degree angle in the surgical cast.  It wasn’t painful to let him bend it into place, it was just very very stiff.  Amazing how much atrophy can occur in just twelve days.  He then slid a stocking on, padded up the front of my leg and around the ankle, and used rolls of fiberglass to cast me up.  It was a fascinating process, and took very little time.  I am now dressed in hot pink for the next 12 days, when I go back in to have it removed, the dressings on the blisters changed, and a new cast put on.  They offered me casting in an entire rainbow of colors, including pink or purple glitter.  I may just go for glitter next time.

I asked if I would ever bike and walk and hike again.  I was told if I did everything I was directed, stayed non-weight-bearing for as long as the doctor said, did my physical therapy when I was able to, that I would be good as new.  I had a break in the same leg (an avulsion fracture of the fibula) in 1996 or 97, and I was told the same thing then.  And I was able to do everything normally once I healed from that.  Of course, I was 15 years younger.  But I’m giving this my best shot.  I need to be back on my bike, need to be back walking.  I am not willing to give that part of my life up.

After the long doctor visit, I did get a haircut, which I desperately needed.  And today (Saturday) I got a knee walker, which is way more mobile than the regular walker I’ve been hopping around my house with, and a manicure and pedicure.  With the cast on I cannot reach my toes, and the turquoise nail polish is what my girls put on my toes after I came home from the hospital.  Today my toes are hot pink to match my cast.  I’ve been letting anyone who wants write on my cast.  I’ll get a brand new palette in a little more than a week, anyway!

I am on the road to recovery, trying to keep a positive attitude, and looking forward to my next outing out of the house.  I’m able to work 5-6 hours a day from my dining room table, which is wonderful and makes me feel worthwhile and normal.  I can wash my own hair in the sink and give myself a pan-bath as needed.  I cannot stand and cook, yet, but with the new walker I just might be able to, for something simple.  Life is assuming a new normal, if temporarily so, and I’m dealing.  There’s not much more I can do, right?

At least I get all the close parking spaces now.  That helps.

So this has been a painful week.  Rather literally.  On Sunday I felt like I needed to get away for a few hours.  We’d had some snow earlier in the week, I’d been working on a project that was eating my brain, and I’d not gone anywhere my entire Christmas break  So, I packed up some cookies, a Tupperware bowl of canned peaches, and a couple nectarines and headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park.  I had dressed appropriately for the day in my heavy jeans, two layers of sweat shirts, my boots, a hat, scarf and gloves.  I stopped first at Moraine Park and Fall River, which is completely frozen over this time of year.  You can hear the water rushing under the ice, it’s kind of eerie.  I climbed the path to the little bridge over the falls, climbed around the rocks, took some pictures, walked back across the frozen river (so I could “feel” the water underneath the ice), and back to my car.  Then I headed up Trail Ridge Road, the highest paved road in the country.  They close it this time of year at a certain point when it gets too snowy.  I drove to where I couldn’t go any further, to a place called Many Parks Curve.  This area has a huge parking lot and it was full of tourists doing the same thing I was – enjoying a sunny but very cold Colorado day.

I parked and walked across the asphalt road to the other side, where I stepped in a s small pile of slush with my right foot.  My boot slid forward about two inches, and I tried to correct, which made my foot slide backwards, which tossed me onto my right knee, at which point I knew I was in trouble.  My foot now dangled like a rag doll’s off the end of my leg, although there was very little pain.  Just that horrifying snap that I am so awfully familiar with.  I stretched my legs out and crossed my ankles to keep the bones in place, and didn’t say a word.

Four ladies had been walking in front of me, and just before I fell, I’d been laughing in my head at their ridiculous footwear.  One had on cowboy boots with long, pointy toes, another had Ugg-style boots on.  I was sure they were going to fall.  Not me with my safe boots.  Hah.

Those ladies, however, were my saving grace.  They heard/saw me fall, immediately came to my aid, and didn’t argue when I said I had broken my leg.  One of them had a cell phone with service (mine was in my car) and immediately called 911.  She carefully took my name, and I was able to tell her where on the road we were (she was not from Colorado), and patiently sat through being transferred multiple times until she could actually talk to someone.  And ambulance and rangers were dispatched, and now it was a matter of waiting.  Two of the ladies went to my car to get the quilt and extra sweat shirts I had there, and my purse, and I was able to call the Perfect Child and tell her what had happened so she and her boyfriend could at least drive up and get my car.  As they were entering the park gates, I was being taken through those same gates in the ambulance.

I made a stop at the Estes Park Medical Center, where they assessed me and took a few xrays, where it was immediately obvious that they couldn’t handle my trauma.  I waited for transport down the mountain via a second ambulance and crew, and ended up finally at Good Samaritan Hospital in Lafayette, which has a huge emergency room.  They began treatment quickly, taking off the hastily-places splint and taking more xrays, and by 11 p.m., my ankle had been minimally set and I was being admitted for the night pending surgery.

I broke my fibula in two places, one a near compound fracture, and broke the tip off the tibia, and dislocated the tibia.  For a simple fall, this had very complex results.  By the time they could set my ankle, it had been more than six hours since my break, and they were not confident that the “reduction” was going to work.  If it didn’t, I would have needed immediate surgery, with followup surgery later.  It did work, although there was intense swelling and fracture blisters (don’t look these up on google if you are squeamish).  I spent 14 hours laying on my back in my hospital room, my head down and my ankle up high, trying to reduce the swelling for the surgery.  It must have worked, as I went into surgery in good shape and came out in very little pain.  I have at least one plate and a dozen screws holding the whole thing together.  I’m padded and casted.

I have six weeks or more of healing in a cast in a non-weight-bearing status before I can start physical therapy. I will know more in a couple weeks when my stitches come out and I get a new, smaller cast.  I’m including pictures of my xrays below, which are not particularly “ew”-inducing but give you an idea of what happened inside there.    I am, at this point, feeling very very lucky, and have full faith that I will be healing up nicely.  It just will take some time.

I had amazing care from the first paramedics and rangers on the scene, who treated me with respect and understanding and got me in the ambulance and splinted and medicated for that harrowing trip down the mountain to Estes Park.  The four ladies who stayed with me, whose names I never ever got, were such a blessing.  They went to my car to get my quilts and extra sweat shirts, gave me their mittens when my gloves weren’t enough, and stayed with me until I was put in the ambulance.  I’m sure I messed up a pretty good day for them.  The paramedics who took me from Estes Park down to the trauma hospital were also awesome; that trip down a 34-mile winding mountain road isn’t fun when you are hale and hearty, much less when you are in pain and impaired.  The xray tech at Good Samaritan who hand-held all of the xray plates around my legs instead of leaving the room?  What a trooper…he was standing on the bed leaning down against a plate tucked against the inside of my ankle, while the other tech left the room to push the button.  The crew of 8 or more people that gathered to set my leg were kind and gentle and took time to make sure I wasn’t scared and that I understood what was happening.  My overnight nurses the first night when I couldn’t move were amazing, and my surgeon did the impossible.  I am so thankful for trained medical personnel who have more than training – they have an understanding of how to treat the people they work with,  I can’t remember all their names, and I wish I could so I could thank them directly.

Those who know me know how hard all this sitting around will be, and I’ll cover that in a later post.  For now, just know that I’m okay, I will heal, and I’m being well-cared for by my family.

This is what my ankle should look like:

From the side, I don’t look so bad.

Oh, now I see the problem…

My current view:

Would you look at that?  It’s almost 2013.  I don’t know what happened to 2012, but all I can see of it is a wisp of smoke disappearing around another corner of my life.  Soon I’ll need to be signing things “2013.”  Last year it took almost three months to get in that habit, even though I sign and date things every day at work.  It seems the older I get the worse that is for me.  Pretty soon it will be July or August before I figure it out.

It’s time to work on my resolutions, I suppose.  With just a few days left, I need to be ready!  I do set some resolutions every year, although they are rather soft, not set in stone.  The one year I set a resolution that I actually stuck with for a whole year, it was about reading two books a month.  I think that was three years ago.  Resolutions are hard, and research says that only 8% of people actually keep their resolutions.  I don’t know if that’s because our resolutions are too difficult/complicated/grand, or because we are easily distracted.  At my age, I’ve broken an awful lot of resolutions, and this coming year will likely be no exception.

Still, I should at least try, right?  So, here goes it:  my resolutions for 2013.

1.  Maintain my exercise plan.  It’s winter, it’s hard to keep up with my outdoor walking and biking when it’s 2 degrees and there’s five inches of snow on the ground.  To that end, I’m joining Planet Fitness so I can use the exercise bikes and treadmills.  I still intend to exercise by either walking or riding my bike five days a week.  It is hard for me to carve out the time, but if I don’t keep up with my plans, I end up not doing anything at all, and that’s not helping my health any.

2.  I’m going to read at least a book a month for 2013.  I would set the goal higher, but with two jobs and an exercise routine, it is harder for me to carve out the time to do this.  I have at least 8 books on my “must read” list, and I should get started on those.

3.  Minimize, again.  I realized my office space is “spreading” and there are things I’ve not looked at since I moved from Missouri.  Time to go through some of that stuff and get rid of it. There are other areas of the house that need decluttering, too.  Why do I have four sets of sheets for my bed?  Why do I have a mountain of towels when we only use less than a dozen a week?  We have a big house, and it’s easy to sort of spread out and fill it up, but we don’t need to be doing that, so minimizing is the way to go.

4.  Start a Christmas fund.  This year was not my best performance in the Santa department, including not being able to donate charitably like I’m used to.  I am not making as much money as I made before the job loss, and I failed to plan ahead properly.  I don’t want to feel like that again.  I’m putting away money starting with my first paycheck in 2013.

What are your resolutions for 2013?  Are you making any?

Today, Christmas Eve, I got my annual letter from an old college friend.  She is from Iowa, although she’s now a transplant to Texas, and we both attended college at Northeast Missouri State, now called Truman State University.  She was in her first year, and I was in my second, having transferred from University of Missouri.  We were both in band, although I can’t remember now what instrument she played.  Being in band meant we were on campus a week earlier than everyone else, because we had daily practices to get ready for football season.  Sharon and I had a blast making fun of the players, eating like our moms weren’t watching (because they weren’t), and making all kinds of plans.

Sharon’s college plans ended that year, as she went off and got married.  I stayed on but didn’t graduate until I was in my 30’s, after taking a hiatus from school to have my own family.

Anyway, For the last 32 years, she and I have exchanged cards at Christmas, usually with a letter enclosed.  The letter is general, sort of a “here’s what we did this year” letter.  I don’t know how many she sends out, but I send out only three these days.  And oddly enough, all three are college friends.

When I got Sharon’s letter it reminded me how different our paths ended up.  We started in the same place – band camp – but ended up so very differently.  I have worked full time since I left college all those years ago, and have raised my kids around my work obligations.  Sharon has gotten to be the homemaker I never got to be.  She has time to volunteer, and spends much of her time caring for her adult special-needs son.  Her adult daughter is married with a little boy.  Me?  I have one grown kid, but no grandkids, and one half-grown kid, and one long-way-from-grown kid.  Sharon is still on her first marriage, and probably will make that one last.  I’m on my second marriage.  Sharon has stayed close to her church and stayed active in it; I’m no longer a church-goer and don’t claim an affiliation with any church.

I wonder, when I think about Sharon, and my other two college friends, whether we have ended up where we thought we would.  As a mom to special needs kids myself, I know I never expected some of what I’ve dealt with.  Sharon’s challenges are much deeper, much more life-long than mine ever will be.  Did it ever occur to her that she would be living the life she is living now?  And me…did I think I’d be doing what I am doing (working with disabled students at the college level) all those years ago when I couldn’t figure out what my major was?  If I’d known this was where I was going to end up, would I have done something differently?

Truth is, who we are, the lives we live, are a direct result of our choices, what we learned (0r didn’t), where we put our energy, the decisions we made to go here, or there, to do this, or that.  There may be regrets; I would be dishonest to say I don’t have any.  But I have also had some marvelous successes, and much to be thankful and grateful for.  I’m sure Sharon feels the same.

I read her letter today, with the newsy tidbits, and I wonder, does she read my letters with the same joy, look forward to them with the same anticipation as I do?  I have not received letters from my other two friends yet, but we moved earlier this year and our address change didn’t get to everyone in time for Christmas cards.  But I am looking forward to them the way I always have.

Old habits, I suppose, die hard.

Merry Christmas, to old friends and new, and to those I haven’t even met.  My best wishes for a blessed and happy 2013.  Boy, it’s hard to write that year.  Hard to believe.  1980 was a very good year…it was the year I met Sharon!

Last week Klown, Tater and I went to the open house at the Wise Homestead Museum in Erie, Colorado.  Erie is a tiny town to the south of us about 7 or 8 miles.  I had read about the homestead in the paper the week before.  The house was built in 1874 and at least five generations of family lived in it before it became a museum.

It was, literally, like walking back into parts of my childhood.  This tiny little white prairie house with the green woodwork and the wood stoves and a kitchen full of old-fashioned gadgets reminded me of not only my paternal Grandmother’s house, but the paternal family farm, where I spent plenty of summer weeks as a child.

The homestead is now part of the Erie Historical Society, but family who grew up in the home are still around taking care of it and giving the tours.  I talked to a brother and sister, well into their 80’s, and a daughter and granddaughter, who had spent a lot of time in the home.  The brother had made the gingerbread cookies and strings of popcorn and cranberries that decorated the Christmas tree in the parlor.  The sister was in the kitchen, wearing a kelly green sweater and Christmas apron and asking visitors if they knew what all of the kitchen gadgets were on the shelves.

The house has been carefully restored, including the original flooring, woodwork, and wallpaper.  Several places in the wall had been “cut out” and covered with glass and a frame, to show the construction – plaster, lath, and newspaper!  There were three wood stoves in the home, which seemed excessive for a home that size, except this house is sitting on high prairie in Colorado, and the winters were brutal in such a home.  There were three bedrooms upstairs, all heated with a single stove-pipe coming up through the floor from the first floor.  A fourth bedroom sat off the kitchen.  There was even a “cheese room,” which was kept cold and was on the north-west corner of the house.  This is where they kept the milk, butter, cheese, and eggs during the winter.  There was also a root cellar for storage of winter vegetables.

In one of the upstairs bedroom, a volunteer was stationed selling items in their little gift shop.  She was 85 years old and had been born and raised in a “soddie,” a sod home, in Nebraska.  She’d also spent 50 years in St. Louis with her husband, and they had retired to Colorado. She said in the winters in the soddie, the windows didn’t fit tight, and the wind would blow so hard that they would wake up in the morning with snow sprinkled like powdered sugar on their wool blankets.  I told Klown that if he complained ever again about being cold in the mornings in our house, where we turn down the furnace at night to a measly 65 degrees, that I was going to slap him.

I had so much fun touring the house and talking to the family members who’d lived there.  Many of the kitchen gadgets were things I had used or knew, but one was brand new to me.  I’ll explain it below when I show the pictures.  They are looking for volunteers to help with activities next summer, and I’m giving serious thought to volunteering.  It would be right up my alley to help them with a living museum like this.

This Christmas tree is decorated with small glass ornaments, candles, cranberry-and-popcorn garland, and iced gingerbread cookies.  The brother told me the tree came from the National Forest (we have several in our area) and was the “top”
of a large tree that had been taken down because of pine beetle infestation or disease.  They sell the “tops” of these trees to fund their work in the park.

This was the wood stove in the parlor, in the process of being restored.  It’s stove-pipe went up through the ceiling and through one of the bedrooms.  Note the rug; there was a similar rug on the floor of the guest bedroom in my paternal grandmother’s “town house” in Bonnots Mill, Missouri.

The sister called this the “Original Bread Machine.”  The instructions for making the bread are actually stamped on the lid, and sound an awful lot like the instructions for my electric bread machine.  They read as follows:

Put in all liquids first, then flour

Turn 3 minutes

Raise in pan

After raising, turn until dough forms a ball

Take off cross-piece, lift out dough with kneader

That’s it.  That’s all there is to it.  You then put the dough in the pan(s) and let raise, then bake.  Pretty nifty.

This wall paper was hand-stenciled and very lovingly restored.  This was in the parlor and dining area.

This wall paper was “enhanced” by using the mineral Mica in the paint.  Notice the figure on the left is blue, but at an angle with a flash, the one on the right looks white from the reflection of the Mica in the paint.  The brother was very proud of this particular wallpaper, which was in the kitchen.  His grandfather had hand-painted those figures with the Mica-laced paint to get that look.

Small woodstove in the downstairs bedroom.  To the left are the stairs leading up to two bedrooms that were over the kitchen and this back bedroom.  The stairs were shockingly steep and narrow. 

Spectacularly restored wood floors.  In some places the knot-holes had fallen out and you could see through to the ground beneath the house. 

Note the stove-pipe on the left.  This is the only heat the room would have received.  Because the roof is so peaked here, you’d best be careful getting out of bed in the morning!

The sewing area was in the corner of the kitchen.  This is a fully-adjustable dress form.

Treadle sewing machine in a beautiful tiger-oak cabinet.  This was still operational.

A little patchwork in progress.

Rug-making supplies in an old hand-made basket.  I have recently come upon a box of rug-making supplies, and now I really want to try it!

I was able to identify most of the things on and around this cook stove.  It is in incredible shape for its age (circa 1880) and is still fully functional. 

I have a huge love affair with baby dolls.  This one was in a side parlor, a room that had been filled with newspaper clippings, photo albums, and many antiques that had belonged in the house or were from the same era. I bought an ancient baby doll at a sale this past spring and when my mother was here this fall, she made the baby a bonnet, a diaper, and booties.  Seeing this doll cared for in the same way made me smile.

The house dressed up for the season.  It was a cold, grey day, but perfect for such a house and the warmth it held.  The house appears to have been built in two parts (which would also explain the way the bedrooms were separated – a set of stairs went to two upstairs bedrooms, and a different set of stairs went to the other upstairs bedroom).  There is a tin roof on the older part of the house, and shake shingles on the newer part.  Notice also the three chimneys.  The house was built in the 1870’s, which makes multiple chimneys and wood stoves a bit unusual for the time.  As was typical of older houses, however, there are multiple doors in and out.  One to the kitchen, two into the living room, and one into the main bedroom.

A two-seater outhouse.  This would have been necessary because of the size of the family that lived in it.  A house with four bedrooms meant there were quite a few children!

The small barn was where they served us cookies and hot spiced cider.  It was full of old farm tools.

A fancy barn – it had a nice portico to protect one from the elements.

This has been another weekend of tragedy in our country.  It’s only been a few months since the last mass shooting, and here we go again.  There are other tragedies we’ve dealt with too lately; Hurricane Sandy comes to mind pretty quickly.

And like many others out there, I am glued to the news sites, to CNN, to wherever to get the latest information, to know the details.  Like most people, part of it is watching the train wreck.  The other part of it is wanting to know “why?”

But some things affect me more than others.  Or differently than others.  I remember years ago being informed by our upstairs tenant that their baby had died in utero after a difficult labor.  I remember crying for two days, my heart aching like I’d lost my own child.  I went to the funeral.  This was a person I barely knew.  It was something about the fact that it was a child who had been lost that affected me that way.  I felt sick to my stomach, and devastated.

This weekend’s news had the same affect on me.  This time, the tragedy involved children.  Young children.  And I felt like my heart had been broken.

I had had the advantage of being so busy at work on Friday that I did not hear the news until I came home much later.  And then, I heard it through a facebook post.  From there I went to CNN.com, and read the beginning of the story.  That is all I could stand.  I had to walk away.  I have yet to watch a newscast since, have not read more than just the barest of information.  I am skimming the posts on facebook that bring up the subject, passing them by as quickly as I can.  I just cannot deal with this information now.  Knowing more won’t help me.

I know it is okay to unplug and step away.  Usually I have to do that at some point anyway during a disaster or mass shooting.  I read everything I can for a day or two or three, but eventually, I need to step back, to walk away, to shut it off.  Otherwise, I’ll drive myself crazy.

There is much talk about renewed interest in gun control, in figuring out how to fix the mental health situation in this country.  And I think now is the time to move that direction.  But I won’t be discussing it here, this is not the place.  I will think of my children, who are whole and happy and sane (my son is in the prime age bracket for schizophrenic behavior to start exhibiting itself), and count my blessings, all while I’m keeping the television off.  I just can’t handle it any other way.

I am so sad.

As I’m aging, not always gracefully, there are things I can’t or won’t do anymore.  One of them is driving at night, unless I’m in very familiar territory in well-lit areas.  I just don’t see as well at night as I wish I did.  I figure next time I go to the optometrist, I need to ask about this.  Perhaps new glasses and a different coating would help.  I only wear glasses to drive, so maybe there is a solution.

Anyway, this means I rarely am driving anywhere at dusk or after dark, by choice.  But the last few days at work have had me leaving right at sunset or just before, and by the time I hit the country roads that take me through the rolling high prairie that stretches in front of the mountains, it is getting dark.  I worry about hitting wildlife, as there’s plenty of it.  In the daylight I see raptors of every kind, from Osprey to Falcons to Bald Eagles.  I see coyotes and fox, and the occasional young deer.  At dusk there’s no chance of me seeing them before they bolt in front of me, so I’m cautious.  The more daylight I have, the less nervous I am.

This time of year, it gets dark quickly, and here with mountains in the way, sunset actually happens twenty minutes earlier than it does in other places.  Dark happens fast.  But there is one advantage to driving at dusk like this.  For whatever reason, holiday decorations are big here.  In my own town, at least half the houses on any given street are decorated with lights and other finery.  And it’s no different as I’m driving that ten miles of rolling prairie.  Off in the distance, within a cluster of trees or backed against a hill, will be a house lit with lights, sparkling in the dusk like a refuge from the cold.  The mountains loom cold and tall to the west, and beneath them, in the shadow of dusk, warm, colorful lights outline roofs, garages, and fences.  When the snow falls, it all looks like the most amazing fairy land you can imagine.

Those houses lit up on the rolling high prairie, with their little corrals holding horses, or sheep, or llamas, make me all kinds of jealous.  In the daylight, I know what they look like.  They are surrounded by rail fences, chickens pecking in the yard, pine trees planted strategically on their western side to block the wind.  They look out over the prairie, or up to the mountains, and they have huge stone fireplaces to keep them warm in winter.  It is what I think of when I think of Colorado.  I want one of those places.

That is if I don’t just go all the way and move right on into the mountains.  I’d better start saving my money.

This weekend was my town’s biggest festival of the year.  The Longmont Parade of Lights and Longmont Lights are spread over the first Friday and Saturday of December, and kick off the holiday season right for me.  Our town is a bit parade-happy, and we are happy parade attendees.  Saturday night, I and thousands of my closest neighbors attended the parade, wherein all floats are decorated with hundreds if not thousands of lights.

Last year the weather was very cold, with temperatures in the teens.  This year it was a balmy 36 degrees.  Unlike last year, I dressed more warmly (both Tater and I had our snow pants on) and brought snacks and a thermos of hot cocoa.  We had our chairs, an extra quilt, and our cameras.  The cameras were a lost cause, however, as they don’t take very good pictures in the dark.  I would love to share some of what we saw with you, but you’ll just have to take my descriptions for it.  There will be a few pictures at the end of the blog post, but they aren’t great.

The parade had the usual selection of noisy motorcycles, classic cars (this time it was the P.T. Cruiser Club), cowboys and Mexicans on horseback, and trailers full of football players (state champs, yeah!), girl/boy scouts, veterans, the Historical Society, and the Kiwanis club (sponsors of the parade).  The parade is also a time for local businesses to advertise themselves, and they deck out huge pickup trucks with lights and posters advertising everything from irrigation and lawn companies to mechanics and the local dairy.  My favorite paraders, however, have to be those that hoof it – the high school marching bands, the dance troupes (including the huge contingent from the local Hispanic dance school), the Newfoundland club with their big beautiful dogs, and the dancing holiday characters – gingerbread wo/men, snowmen, Christmas trees, Rudolph, the Grinch, and a dancing penguin.  Something we hadn’t seen in previous years was a group of men and women on horseback, wearing some traditional American West costuming of long coats, chaps, hats, and leather gloves, led by a wagon being pulled by a mule wearing Carhart bib overalls.

I’ll let that sink in for a minute.

Yes, a mule wearing Carharts.  They were cuffed at the ankles to show his powerful hooves, and went all the way up to his neck.  And he looked completely comfortable in them, as if a mule wearing pants were just something you saw every day.

Friday night, the day before the parade, the girls and I went to the Longmont Lights opening at Roosevelt Park.  Again, it wasn’t nearly as cold as last year; last year it was about 12 degrees.  This year, mid-30’s.  It was still cold enough for the ice sculptors to work, cold enough to want to enjoy the fire pits sprinkled around the park, and cold enough to find the watered-down hot cocoa they were giving away still warm enough to drink.  We indulged and had dinner from the food trucks.  Tater had a cheesy quesadilla from the Verde truck, which served a wide selection of Hispanic favorites.  I had a frybread sandwich made with slow-cooked chicken topped with a crunchy slaw and cranberry salsa.  The Perfect Child had lamb sliders, topped with crispy onion straws and cheese.  We all shared a vanilla frozen yogurt.

We watched the ice sculptors work and enjoyed some of the ice skating show that featured mostly young girls showing what they’d learned on our outdoor rink.  Costumed characters made their way through the area, and carolers and music could be heard everywhere.  There were reindeer to feed and pet, as well. Every tree in the 1-block-square park had been strung in lights, and there was no color left out.

The highlight of the night had to be Santa’s arrival by parachute.  Promptly at 7:30, three flashing blobs flung themselves out of an airplane and swirled their way toward the ground.  The park has a huge open space in the middle, and this is what the parachutists were aiming for.  Everyone in the park was gathered on the walkway around this open space, awaiting the arrival of Santa.  Each of the parachutists had flares burning brightly off of their heels.  Soon the first two landed in the big open area and quickly pulled their chutes out of the way.  Santa took his time, moving lazily about, the flares lighting up his green and red parachute.  Soon he was spinning dizzily, coming ever closer to the ground.  I think every kid in the park was holding his breath.  When Santa finally landed, the kids screeched and screamed and ran towards him, mobbing him.  Every kid entered the fray, in a frenzy.  I had never seen anything like it, and all the adults just stood and laughed and enjoyed it.

It was a wonderful way to spend our weekend, and Sunday we didn’t have energy to do much at all.  There was a lot of chilling on the couch, or dozing in front of our fireplace, as our temps were in the teens the entire day.  It feels like Christmas now.  I’m ready.

Heirloom Food Truck – this is where we got the lamb sliders and the flatbread chicken sandwich. 

Lamb Sliders from Heirloom.

Verde – I like their catch phrase.

Sometimes it takes three pictures to get a good one…Tater is such a ham!

I know, I used to post my weekly menu here, and I should probably get back to doing that.  One of the reasons I do weekly menus, or longer, is so I am prepared and not scrambling for dinner every night.  But the other reason is to save money and use up what we have in the freezer and pantry.  And because I only get paid once a month, it is in my best interest to plan ahead so we don’t have an unnecessary lean week at the end of the month.  And this month, I need to be sure I’ve budgeted for every single thing, or I’m going to be in big trouble come Christmastime.  Someone has to pay for Santa’s visit!

So this month I did a very daring thing.  I looked at what was in the freezer, counted every package of meat, and came up with 12.  Our dinners always contain meat.  I know, we could have meatless meals, but that doesn’t work in this house, mainly because of me.  I am definitely a carnivore, and my body (and I) know it if I have not had enough meat protein.  So after counting up what I had, off I went to the store, picking up more meat and veggies and pasta and other things to combine into meals.  Once home, I added the newly purchased meat to the list (after putting it in the freezer, of course), and I had enough to plan ahead 31 meals for December.  I wrote them all on a big list and posted it on the refrigerator.  I didn’t duplicate any meals directly, and there is plenty of variety.  Some nights are cheap meals, some more expensive, but the fact is, I have what I need to get this done.  The only supplement will be fresh fruit, milk, and bread, and maybe a few odds and ends along the way.

I’m thrilled I could manage this.  This is the first time I’ve tried to do it, but I know others that make this work well, and I intend to make it work too.  It will save us a ton of headaches and time, not to mention my pocketbook!

I am very blessed in that I received an upright freezer last month from a friend.  I couldn’t do this without that freezer space being available to me.  The last seven months without a spare fridge/freezer have been terrible, and I’m glad I don’t have to squeeze everything into one small freezer any more.

Bon apetit!

Last night a couple of the young ladies I write with and I headed off to a small gathering that was to celebrate the end of National Novel Writing Month.  There was a bit of a snafu when we got there, however.  Boulder’s Holiday Parade was just getting ready to kick off, and we couldn’t cross the street from the parking garage to the coffee shop where the group was meeting.

Dinner was suggested, and we headed up the street to the Boulder Cafe, one of my favorite places.  There had just been a conversation about fondue.  The girls had never had it.

I am a child of the 70’s.  Fondue was hot then, in more ways than one.  Most suburban families, like mine, had a fondue pot and knew how to use it.  I remember the fondue pot being brought out on holidays or when my mom and dad had a party.  Along with the polyester jump suits and long skirts came the fondue pot.  Ours looked somewhat like this, although I think it was harvest gold, not olive green:

Mmmm, fondue was tasty.  Melted cheese and other flavors, usually wine or beer, with lots chunks of bread to dip into it. No matter what you dip into it, the fact is, it’s cheese, and there’s not much that can go wrong when you are covering food in cheese.

I hadn’t had fondue in years until four or five years ago, when I accidentally bumped into an old friend on one of my trips to Boulder.  We walked Pearl Street Mall, a great walking space that is full of shops and restaurants, and happened upon the Boulder Cafe.  It was Friday night, chilly since it was mid-November, and we were hungry.  Oh, and there was happy hour, and the promise of half-priced appetizers.  We split a bottle of wine and a pot of Alpine Fondue, which was served with chicken sausages, chunks of bread, roasted potatoes, steamed broccoli, carrots and squash, and slices of apple.

It brought back some wonderful memories.

So of course I’ve been there since several times, especially since moving here.  I took my student workers for fondue a few months ago.  And last night, I got to enjoy it again.  I’m not sure my writer friends were as impressed with it as I was, but that’s okay.  They are no longer fondue virgins!