Black Friday

I had a terrible week at work with stupid foot pain.  For some reason, it hurt if I had anything touching my foot, so wearing a sock and shoe was miserable. I wasn't sleeping much at night and the pain was the non-stop, annoying kind that made me incredibly irritable and impatient.  Fortunately, Thursday was Thanksgiving Day and a short day where 5 keepers go in and do 3 hours worth of feeding, watering, medicating and basic cleaning.  We were in at 6:45am and I was home by 10am.  The great thing about working holidays is that I am wide awake and ready to take on the entire day, but suddenly get to go home and have the rest of the day off still early in the morning.

My bad week took a sudden turn for the much better.  I would probably never buy a turkey, but I get a free one from work.  Usually I donate the bird, but this year I decided to make the whole Thanksgiving feast for my family. I've made a few turkeys before, but this was the first time I actually remembered to remove both the neck and the giblets before cooking.  This was also the first time I basted the bird rather than using one of those plastic bags and I must say that it turned out fantastic.  The white meat is tender and juicy and the legs were falling off the bird when it was finished.  I also made real mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie (made by Kaylin.)  We also had Stove Top Stuffing because the kids won't touch it anyway and jarred gravy because the one time I made real gravy from drippings it made me gag and I couldn't eat it.  (Everybody else liked it, so it tasted fine, it was the gross process that got to me...  I love that I scoop poop for a living but can't handle making gravy.  Such is life.)  Anyway, it turned out to be a really relaxing day hanging out with Gene and the kids.  It was exactly what I needed.  Everyone enjoyed the feast and Kaylin's pie was excellent.

Today we're hanging out together at home.  Everyone got to sleep in and I even slept almost 8 full hours in my bed.  That feels like a record.  I then hung out all early morning watching TV in my recliner while both dogs and both cats took turns sleeping with me.  At one point both dogs had Princess sandwiched between them and we dozed like that for a good half hour until Scout couldn't take it anymore and chased Princess off.  I escaped their altercation with no injuries, but they've been having a standoff with much barking and hissing for the past several hours.  Gage plunks down like a bag of sand and sleeps through everyone stepping on him or trying to shove him off.  Tiger is bigger than the other pets so he just stands his ground like a brick wall and everyone eventually leaves him alone. They keep the peace by their indifference :)

Gene and Logan might go to the driving range later, but I think I'll just hang out and rest.  I'm definitely not going shopping anywhere except maybe Kroger.  I think we'll have a day of leftovers and pets and video games and relaxation.  I'm going to try to keep off my feet and keep calm.  I can't believe it's almost December and almost the end of the year.  This year is just flying by!

November Update

Again, time is flying and I have so many other things to do I completely forgot about the old blog.  Since my last entry, the kids went trick-or-treating on a rainy Halloween night and scored ridiculous amounts of candy that I am still munching on almost daily.  Both kids decided they were too old to go out and then at the last minute decided they needed to go.  I had already worked in the rain all day, so Gene was kind enough to take them.  I had my 41st birthday and was not using a walker or any other old people device.  40 pretty much sucked, so I'm glad to have it behind me.  Logan celebrated his 11th birthday with everything Minecraft.  I am so sick of this stupid game that both kids play endlessly and has no beginning, end or point. 

Logan received a metal detector as his birthday present from my parents.  His new thing is treasure hunting.  We've been out three times and he hasn't found anything of value, not even a penny, but he loves everything he does find.  Fish hooks, sinkers, random pieces of metal large and small...  He is accumulating a large collection of useless junk.  I bird and look for rocks and stuff while he digs up his latest piece of rusty barge.  It's pretty fun and gets us out of the house and into the great outdoors.

My foot.  I don't even know what to say about it.  Every time I feel confident that it's getting better, it flares and puts me in my place.  I'm currently going through a series of alcohol injections that are supposed to help or even completely end the nerve pain from my surgery last year.  I usually just have some tingling and numbness below my pinky toe, but for some reason the pain started flaring again a few weeks ago.  The shots themselves are no big deal, but for hours afterward it feels like what your mouth feels like on Novocain.  Then I have several days of pressure pain that is pretty bad the two days after the injection and slowly gets better over the week until my next injection.  Actually, I'm awake right now because the weird pain and itching from yesterday's injection is keeping me from sleep.  I hopefully only have one more injection, but may have up to four more.  Ugh.  Stupid foot. 

I've got a bunch of other stuff I'm working on and will probably not post again anytime soon.  It's a busy time of year, I guess.