Deja Vu

Feeling a little depressed and defeated tonight.  I wrote in my last post briefly about having some foot pain.  Since that time I've had a few more days to heal and recover, as well as ponder on possible causes of the pain.  One night this week, lying in bed unable to sleep, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I've had this type of pain before.  I sat straight up in bed--literally.  November 5th, 1998.  Sophmore year of college, during a fast break drill at basketball practice, I got bumped while shooting a jump shot and came down awkwardly.  Felt like a minor sprain at the time, but quickly became much more.  I won't bore you with all the details--those of you who know me well know the story.  But it wasn't until the season was over, and I'd played and practiced EVERY DAY for six months with debilitating pain, before I finally was diagnosed correctly--and scheduled for surgery that very next week.

For those of you that want to google it, Os Trigonum syndrome, or Posterior Talar Impingement, is what I had then--and I'm pretty certain I've got it in the other foot now. 

I've felt pretty good most of the week pain wise.  As long as I take it easy, walk slow and don't get carried away I'm good.  Hunter wanted to go strolling today, so I loaded him up and pushed him around the neighborhood scouting for puppies, garbage trucks,and anything else he might find interesting.  I spent the rest of the day with an aching foot and a slight hitch in my step.

So off I go to the ortho doc on Wednesday.  My biggest concern is that I won't be able to convince him that this is what he needs to be worried about.  I really just need to get the MRI or bone scan--his preference--so we can get this show on the road.  I'm afraid he's gonna put me in a boot for six weeks, and go the conservative route.

So come Wednesday afternoon, if you happen to remember, say a prayer that my doc isn't a total retard (yes, a fair number of my colleagues are retarded.  IMO its WAAYY too easy to get into medical school these days, but that's a whole different conversation).  Pray that we can skip all the conservative nonsense and get down to business.

Looking forward, I purchased Joy and Hunter's plane tickets to come cheer me on at Ironman 70.3 Texas in Galveston next April.  Southwest had some ridonculous deals this week, I got both their round-trip tickets for 300 bucks-TOTAL. 

I leave you with another pic of my buddy, who got to see one of his favorite farm animals again today-he loves him some billy goat!  Take care!

Harwood Home Makeover continued

Not a lot of words to this post;  mostly just lots of pics of what we've been doing around the house.  

Something that's been in the works for a while, and still in progress, is the side of our house.  The ugly AC units as well as the garbage cans reside there.  So we decided to put up some lattice to make it a little more appealing.  Here are a few pics:

Daddy's #1 Helper

As you can see we get a lot of water runoff from the lot next to us.  Which washed away our sod prior to moving in. So we are now putting in a stone walkway along the side of the house. And Joy added some climbing plants to the lattice, so it's coming along nicely.

Daddy, this stone is a little loose here

Joy's wonderfully creative mind also came up with a pretty cool idea for a wall-hanging-cubby-sort-of-thing to put next to the door.  She wanted something to put the mail in, have a place to hang keys, glasses, and hats, as well as someplace to put watches, garmins, headphones, etc.  Right now all this stuff takes up countertop space in the kitchen.  She laid out the plans, and then I set to work trying to build it.

We also bought some bookcases from Ikea to make our own "built-ins" for the entertainment/playroom downstairs.  It's all done except for the final painting. 

Next up, a planter made out of the 2x4's we salvaged-and moved 1000 miles-from our house's porch in New Mexico.  Oh, and apparently a porch swing too...

On a training note, after my disappointing Half IM last month, I decided to train for a half-marathon this winter to work on my run a bit.  My first run after my race I did some mile repeats and developed a pain in my right heel.  Didn't think much of it, it seemed pretty minor.  Continued to run, and had some great training runs, over the next two weeks, but it slowly has worsened.  After my track workout last Friday morning, I limped through clinic all day, in some pretty severe pain.  Pretty sure I've got a case of retrocalcaneal bursitis, as there's really nothing else in the area other than my Achilles insertion and my calcaneus, and both those seem fine.  So I've done nothing but eat and get fat for the last 3 days, and it has improved a lot-I actually walked around all day today with no limp or hitch to my step.  But I can still tell that its there.  I'm supposed to be doing a 5K this Saturday, but I don't plan on running before then, and I may likely walk the 5K with the rest of my co-workers from the clinic instead of racing it--we'll just see how the week goes.  I'd much rather just shut it down now and be healthy come January than try to push through and get to January with some nagging injury.  I should be able to start running again in a couple of weeks, so a December half marathon is still doable; probably not PRable though.  Anyway, enough rambling, have a good one friends, and I leave you with a picture of my best bud!

HGTV'd out

As I mentioned in a previous post, my honey-do list for our new house is ever expanding.  Originally, screening in the lower deck was not on this list.  But after three months here, contacting eight different individuals/companies, having two of those eight actually return a call and come out to look at the property, and zero of those two failing to get back with me with ANY response, despite my repeated calls....well you see where this is going.  As my longtime reader(s) will recall, this isn't my first trip to the rodeo as far as screening in porches goes.  When we moved to New Mexico three years ago, one of our first projects was screening in the back porch, as our neighbors did everything in their power to encourage mosquito breeding.  You can find the details from that project here and here.  As that house was a rental, we went with a very bare-bones-how-cheap-can-we-do-this theme--and the ghetto fabulousness shows.

 

This time around, though, as we are now homeowners, and plan on being in this house forever as long as the McMenammy's live down the street, I knew I needed to bring my A game.  After much googling and Internet trolling, I decided to go with the Screen Tight system, which you can get through Home Depot.  After drawing up some plans, I made my first of many trips to Home Depot.  

The first step was just framing out the deck.  While the bare bones were already in place,

 I knew I'd need to add some additional framework to make the screen sections more manageable as well as to support the structure.  This part took pretty much the entire Labor Day weekend, but Monday evening it appeared that all was in place. 

Next came the base plates for the Screen Tight system.  After a couple of late nights and another weekend, these were all in place.  Now, finally, lets put some screen up already!  As I didn't race at Redman, I came back that afternoon and had plenty of energy to try and finish this beast up.

Screens in place, time for for the final step, putting on the exterior strips to make it look pretty.  This was quickly accomplished, and Voila!

  Screened-in porch, check.  Time to sit back, relax, prop my feet up...what's that dear?  Oh, the stone path on the side of the house needs to be finished?  Yes, dear...

Really, though, I can't complain.  I do love getting to use my power tools, and J knows this:-).  Plus I've always been the type who'd rather do something myself, and make sure it's done to my standard, than pay someone else to do it, and possibly do a subpar job.  And H is such a wonderful little helper, he wants to do everything I do and it's so incredibly precious.

Until next time friends!