A long, heavy box arrived for me last week containing pieces of wood and bits and pieces of hardware.
Here's a piece that caused some confusion at first.
After putting together each piece and taking it apart at least once and putting it together CORRECTLY I can now say that I have a working easel!!!!
It was such a delight to work on this. It was my first time painting standing up and I am in love. It's so much more comfortable than sitting lately. Sitting for long periods has been uncomfortable for my back so being able to stand is SO FREEING!
I've been carving out pockets of time here and there... inviting in more time for creativity. More time to play. More moments to paint. More space to draw. More permission to doodle. It's all a part of the balance.
Teaching my Wellness Journey class and tending to family life have been my top priorities so blogging sometimes doesn't make top of the list. That's okay. I always come back to it. I had some health issues last week that, while acute at the time, seem to have subsided for now but really the reason they are placed on the back burner for the moment is because Ryan had an ice skating incident on Saturday afternoon. Mike went to catch Ryan from falling and his skate went into Ryan's finger. Ryan's finger got sliced open from one side of his pinky finger to the other side in a smile-shape under/near the nail bed - the nail is gone - with some minor stuff at the tip (the fingertip is still completely intact with only a few small scrapes/holes and a small flap that looks worse than it is). There were no broken bones and no tendon tears. The nail bed area is what the doctors seem most concerned about. We couldn't get stitches because Mike brought him in on Sunday rather than Saturday (he was able to stop the bleeding and wasn't in pain and wanted to get home to play the Wii, which he did with no problem), and that extra day brings more of a risk of infection so they wouldn't do stitches on Sunday. The ER wants us to see a plastic surgeon that operates on kids and does hands to get their opinion.
The good thing is that he's not in pain (as long as you don't press on it/touch it) and much of my energy goes toward making sure he doesn't injure himself further since he's still acting like his normal 6-year old-self: wanting to climb on the couch up over the high end backwards as if he were a jungle animal, spin in circles so fast that makes me nauseous just watching too close to the brick fireplace, and pretending he's walking on a tightrope in a place in our house that provides a tricky balancing act. These were actual examples, in reverse order, while I was trying to cook dinner last night. After each one I specifically told him that he needs to do something less dangerous where he won't fall and possible hurt his finger more. After he made these three choices, which I didn't think fit into the category of less dangerous, I had him sit down with his bottom in contact with chair until dinner was ready (and he was insulted that he had that excruciating 5 minute wait until we could all eat together as a family).
So the past few days have included researching doctors, calling doctors: do they do pediatric plastic surgery?/Do they do hands?/Are they in-network?/are they close by?, making appointments (or trying to), canceling appointments, talking with the insurance company (alway so much fun), making new appointments (because a doctor told me they were in-network but it turns out they are out-of-network so back to the original appt with a close-by, recommended-but-out-of-network surgeon).
TODAY: Our 9:00AM appt with the plastic surgeon was cancelled at around 8:25AM because the surgeon got called away to emergency surgery. We were at the breakfast table eating when this happened. I was slightly annoyed because today, before the whole hand incident happened, was the day I was planning on bringing Jessica in for follow-up bloodwork and she needs to have had no food for the results to be valid. So once Ryan's appointment was made (late yesterday afternoon) I figured we'd have to reschedule. But then it was cancelled and we had already eaten so I couldn't even do that. So I was getting stressed and it wasn't even 8:30am. I was second-guessing the doctor that I made the appt with (we could have seen a different doctor yesterday but opted not to since they do procedures at a hospital further away and were not the ones recommended by the ER). I was upset that I would have to drive to the far office at an inconvenient time. My attitude was totally LAME!!
So I gathered up my resolve... put on my BULLETPROOF POSITIVE ATTITUDE (thanks Kal!!) and said NO! That's not how today's going to be! Instead I got dressed and took charge and totally changed the outcome and feel of the day. We were able to cross some things off our list (hello allergy shots), go to our favorite Indian buffet for lunch (yum yum!), listen to some good music (Vivaldi, Foo, Green Day... not all at the same time), made time to create together (all of us painting in the dining room kids' art room). I started burning my foul mood early on with a good 30 minutes on my bike. I couldn't do an hour like planned but a pretty hard 30 is still a kick-butt way to add some goodness to the day (and it's WAY better than nothing).
Besides having the kids play chess, I got creative and had them also go on a pantry scavenger hunt for some kosher symbols (and J being the overachiever that she is wrote down things she found that were gluten-free and vegan too because sometimes they have cute symbols as well! Ha!) <-- This activity was to prepare her for Hebrew school on Sunday since she is missing her weekday Hebrew class where they are discussing what it means to keep kosher (which we do not). They had so much fun that they didn't want to stop. The challenge I gave them was to find the symbols on 10 things and when I came down to see how they were doing they had two pages of stuff.
I've been wishing and wishing and wishing for snow. The forecasters had predicted it a few times so far and it's missed us each time. It appears, however, that now it's supposed to start snowing right at the same time that I am supposed to be taking Ryan to the doctors tomorrow (at the office that is NOT close by) so forgive me for wishing it away this time... but I really need to get little one to see the doctor already. So how about a compromise? It can snow all it wants in the late evening and into the night. In fact I hope it does. I hope school is closed the next day and that I have another day hanging with my kid posse. Love these two.
Disaster day averted.
