Life is Healthy

This is what I feel like at this point in my recovery.

That’s Luca trying to right himself after falling out of the sandbox on Saturday. (Notice Claire doesn’t care.) He wasn’t crying (at first), just struggling. Since his center of gravity is right at his diaper, the poor little guy spun around like he was in a snow saucer or was a turtle on his back.

When his mama finally set him straight, he ate sand.
I’m tying to right myself since surgery 12 days ago. Things are feeling better and moving better, but I still need gobs of assistance and that’s getting a little old. I know, I know. I have to be patient. Each day gets a little easier. But sometimes – like when I see someone riding a bike or kneeling in their garden – I want to fast forward to mid-August when I (fingers crossed) will be free from crutches and able to hike and canoe on our weekend “camping” trip with the g-babies. (We’re hardly roughing it. We rented a cabin in Cook Forest. But Claire likes to call it “camping.”)

I don’t want to wish time away. Not really. You know how I’m always trying to stay present and be mindful of each moment? There’s nothing like getting around on crutches to keep a person mindful. Of dogs and rugs and steps and the dark. This is one time I’m grateful I have a small kitchen because I can stand in the middle and move things from the long counter by the stove to the counter by the sink. I can take things out of the fridge and place them on the long counter just by turning around a little. Although I miss the fluidity of my pre-surgical body and the unconscious way I walked up stairs or got in the car, this lesson in mindfulness – since it’s here, although I could choose to ignore it – is a good thing.

It was fun to see the g-babies on Saturday. It gave Claire and me a chance to compare bumps and boo-boos. I was a little apprehensive to show her my incision and offered to cover it up, but my daughter said Claire would be fine with it. And she was. In fact, my incision failed to excite or scare her in any way, and it didn’t hold a candle to the “big BIG” boo-boo on her ankle – the tiniest, minutest scratch ever, but important enough for her to declare it, and not my 6-inch incision, the boo-boo of the day.

Along with grandbabies, it was also a weekend of experimentation.

Sitting around so much (and lacking any padding) is causing pain in my tailbone area. So I Goggled something like “coccyx pain” or “donut pillow” (is there anything you can’t Google these days?) and found a spiffy home remedy site that for the life of me I can’t find again to give you its link. Anyway, instead of buying a fancy donut pillow, it recommended buying a pool noodle for $2 and making one yourself. Larry went to Wal-Mart and picked up a noodle and duct tape, fashioned it to the right bend for my body, I threw a pillow on top, and by golly, it works like a charm! No more pain. Well, there at least.
Larry made a solo run to Trader Joe’s on Saturday, and I don’t know why, but I had a hankerin’ for Belgian endive. He brought home three of the prettiest little endives, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do with them. I’m not up to cooking at the stovetop yet, so I Googled “grilled endive” and I found a million recipes. I opted for simple, cutting them in half and rubbing them with a little olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.
Because of the whole I-can’t-cook-right-now thing, I was afraid the bunch of leeks in the refrigerator would go bad soon, so I Googled “grilled leeks” and found a recipe for them, too. I used a little red wine vinegar, olive oil, fresh basil and garlic and rubbed it into the cut (and clean) folds of two sliced leeks. Larry grilled the endive and the leeks for a few minutes on each side and they turned out fabulously!
We met our match Sunday with the veggie skewers. They turned out charred, dry and overall yucky. Was it using bamboo vs. metal skewers? Not enough marinade? Was the grill too hot?

We moved on, a little reluctantly and definitely humbled, to the fruit. We grilled pineapple, mango and banana chunks using metal skewers, marinated first in pineapple juice, brown sugar and a little nutmeg (the fruit, not the skewers). These turned out very nicely. Very tasty. The bananas tasted like little bites of warm banana bread and the pineapples mellowed from tart to mostly sweet.

Come today, the family has gone home. The house is quiet. And the task of righting myself continues. Like finding new ways to cook food, I’m finding new things I can do rather than dwell on the things I can’t. For instance, I can’t carry a bottle of water or an ice pack with my hands, but I can put them in a shopping bag and tie it to my crutch. Ingenious!

And just because I can’t do these videos right now, it doesn’t mean YOU can’t! Getting back to my giveaway of things that have helped me along my weight loss and maintenance path, this week I thought I’d offer two Denise Austin DVDs: “Shrink Your Female Fat Zones” and “Get Fit Fast: 3 Target Programs – Abs, Arms & Shoulders, Legs & Buns.”
Leave a comment or send an email to lynnbering@verizon.net to throw your name in the hats for one of these two DVDs. If there’s one you’d rather win over the other, let me know, otherwise I’ll put your name in to both hats. Remember, all I ask in return is that you either give the DVD to someone else when you’re done, or keep it and donate a food item to your local food shelf.

I’ll draw a winner on Friday, July 9.