You Might Be A Redneck...

...if your advertising strategy includes a can of spray paint.
...if lawn gnomes guard the entrance to your trailer.
...if keeping your dogs on your roof seems like a better idea than keeping them in your yard.





I love living in rural Idaho, my walks are always entertaining!

Friends

Jacob is learning what friends are, and tells us who are friends. Usually it's a couple of cars that are friends. The other day he was helping David outside when he stopped and told David, "Mommy is Daddy's friend". David looked at him and told him, "Mommy is Daddy's best friend". It's moments like that one that make your heart full.

Happy Pants

Yesterday was a good day. I bought happy pants. Happy pants are pants that you actually feel happy about wearing, instead of feeling like you'll never be comfortable in them, and the only people that could possibly enjoy wearing them are super-thin clothing models who have never had children or anything except a salad for dinner in their entire life.

Jeans are not happy pants. I found happy pants in the athletic department a couple of years ago, and they include a draw string and sometimes a nice comfortable waistband. I had to buy these after having my first C-section, when putting on jeans was painful. After having my second C-section, I've decided that's all I'm ever going to wear. There's no struggle to place my scarred and unsightly abdomen into pants that are just a reminder of what my body used to look like. Nope, happy pants let me feel happy about having had those sweet little kids, and let me go about my day in total comfort. So three cheers for my new pants!

(Mom, I know you're horrified, but that's what I'm wearing.)

Wrong Line

I ran to the store the other day to grab something real quick. I buzzed in, grabbed what I needed, and hurried to the checkout lines. I was real pleased with how fast I was getting in and out of there, until I saw the lines at the checkout. They were long, and moving slowly. Drat! Just my luck! Next was the tricky part, choosing a line. I seem to have the uncanny ability to choose the line that moves the slowest, regardless of which line-choosing technique I employ.

This time I decided to make a quick mental addition of all the items in each line, and get in the one with the least amount. There was a line with just two people in front of me. Yay! I picked that one. As soon as I got in line, people started getting in the line behind me. That meant I was committed, because if I decided to get into another line, it would be an even longer wait. I figured it wouldn't be too long though, so I decided to enjoy the wait and do my usual grocery line things....which include going into the grocery line altered state of mind. Some may call it meditation, some may call it a trance. I call it somewhere between a zombie and a coma.

The zombie-coma begins with a glance at the magazines and their highly intelligent headlines. "Such-and-such famous person may or may not be dating so-and-so". At this point the higher brain functions turn off in self defense, and you are left an empty shell that stares aimlessly at the candy and toys until it's your turn to checkout. You will note that checkout line designers were quite aware that your intelligence slips to that of a farm animal, because they've designed checkout lanes like long stalls.

So there I was in my zombie-coma, patiently waiting for my turn to be free, when a cashier opened up another lane. The five people behind me stampeded toward it, leaving me no choice but to stay where I was or risk being in a line longer. It was okay though, there was only one person in front of me now and it wouldn't be too much longer. It was just one little old lady and her care-giver, and they were buying cases of things. That should go pretty fast. And that's when it happened. Confusion on the part of the little old lady that was quickly compounded by confusion on the part of the caregiver. And then they brought out the Ad...and started to argue with the checkout cerk. Nooooooooo!

I gazed at the other lines enviously. At least they were moving. I watched helplessly as the people who were part of the stampede checked out one by one. I should have done that! That could have been me!Resigned to my fate I slipped back into my zombie-coma. Having looked at all the magazine covers and candy, I started looking at the ceiling and counting the spiderwebs. There were a lot. Eventually the confusion cleared up, but I think I was in that line for at least 7 minutes (it seemed like 20). Next time I have to choose a line, I need to remember to factor in the age and disposition of the people in front of me , and maybe quantum mechanics as well. They probably have something to do with it too.

Apple Rings and Silly Things

Jacob has turned into my little helper. I was finishing up the apples by drying them into apple rings and making apple pie filling. Jacob was really interested in the process, and wanted to try making apple rings. The apple is now mangled and inedible, but he had a great time trying.
We all got colds this week. Here's the convalescence.
Someone is just a little bit jealous of the fun his little sister has.


In other news this week, we got most of the roof tar papered, and the rest of the redwood bark insulation out. I also ended up tending a little boy for a friend, who just happened to be contagious with cold sores. He had 9 of them. I barricaded him into a part of the front room, and spent the entire day with a can of Lysol and a bottle of hand sanitizer in my hands. Never again.

Another Life Saved

David just called me to let me know how his day was going, and told me about a patient he saw today. He saw this person within the last month, and one of the local docs sent her over to the ER because she was acting so strangely, she couldn't even speak. David sent the patient to a neurological doc, and a couple hours later he called David back. Apparently this patient had a vertebral artery dissection. That's a tear in one of the arteries that goes through the vertebra on the way to the brain. A clot had formed and traveled to this patient's brain, causing a stroke.

The sad part about this case, and the reason I'm even mentioning it is because of the reason she got the tear in the first place. It was from a chiropractic adjustment 2 days prior. David and I had just seen a segment on Scientific American Frontiers a couple of months ago talking about this very thing. Chiropractors turn the neck in ways it wasn't meant to be turned when they do their adjustments, and it can cause tears by putting too much strain on the artery.

I know that I'll probably ruffle a few feathers by saying that chiropractic adjustments cause harm, but if it's going to save someone's life, then I'm going to go ahead and ruffle. I'm including an excerpt from the show, and I'll leave the website address for this episode in case anyone wants to read the transcript or watch it. They take a scientific approach to alternative healing, and it's very interesting...and besides, it has Alan Alda. He's always entertaining. The website is http://www.pbs.org/saf/1210/index.html

Invented by Daniel Palmer in 1895, chiropractic aims to correct blocked nerves - what Palmer claimed were the cause of all disease - by re-aligning the spine. But as former chiropractor John Badanes tells Alan, chiropractic has no basis in anatomy. Conducting a typical examination, Badanes explains how patients and chiropractors alike can misinterpret the popping sound that accompanies spinal adjustments. In fact it's dissolved gas being released in the joint fluid (the same thing that happens when you crack your knuckles) and not a sign that vertebrae are changing position - an anatomical impossibility.

This device, called an "activator," is used by chiropractors as one of many ways to adjust the spine.

Like Badanes, physician Robert Baratz, executive director of the National Council Against Health Fraud, takes issue with chiropractic. Baratz is concerned about the risk of injury during neck manipulation, which can place severe strain on a vertebral artery, leading to blood clotting and stroke. Although chiropractors maintain this type of injury is very rare, a recent Canadian study estimated that 20 percent of all strokes caused by artery damage could be a result of neck manipulation. That figure translates into more than 1,300 strokes a year in the United States.

We made the news! (technically)

Okay, so maybe the story wasn't about us, but we were in the background so I think that counts. They had a ground breaking ceremony for the new hospital today, and since David is one of the friendly faces of the ER, we had to attend. I'm not a pomp and circumstance kind of girl, and I really don't enjoy long-winded speeches full of buzz words such as 'partnership', 'cooperation', and 'future'. But I think we did pretty well behaving ourselves during the speeches, and that's what the camera caught us doing---standing in the back with our children and trying to keep them happy and quiet. It was only 3 seconds, but I'm counting it toward my 15 minutes of fame. I recorded it on the DVR so I can play back those 3 glorious seconds when we were all being good. I'm going to watch it on Sundays when we come home from Church wondering if we're raising children or monkeys.