Tail(bone) End of the Week

About a week and a half ago I apparently bruised my tailbone playing softball. I was going for the ball and my stupid ankle gave out on me, and I fell on my butt. I’m so graceful.

At the time I was more worried about my ankle, but two days later I noticed my tailbone was starting to hurt. Now it’s gotten to the point where anytime I sit down I’m in discomfort.

I keep thinking it will go away, but it still hurts pretty bad. And I’m not sure if exercising is making it worse… I’ve gone running a few times and I did kickboxing yesterday, and I’m worried that maybe that’s preventing it from healing… Any ideas about this?

I’m thinking I might go to the doctor just to see what he says about it… The Survivor Mud Run is coming up in less than 2 months, and I need to be training, but I don’t want to make it worse…. I’ve also been having ankle pain (but on the inside of my ankle, above my arch), so I also need to go visit an ankle specialist again…. This is frustrating. 

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On a happier note, yesterday was my papa’s birthday (I won’t mention how old he is ). We went down for a late lunch and brought pizza and cake (I know, we’re so fancy).

Papa’s wife, Faye, got home from visiting her sister in France a few days ago, so we got to visit with her, too, and see pictures of the beautiful places she visited.

(B, are you giving me a peace sign with your crazy fingers?)

(That salad hit the spot… thanks Faye!)

(The ice cream cake suffered some minor damage from an earthquake… in the form of B knocking it over on the drive down… still tasted good!)

(My yummy out-of-focus slice of cake)

(It’s a new Kindle!)

(Hey, ZZ and Bo!)

(Hey, Dobbers and B! Lovely pose in a skirt, B! )

(Dobby’s got his turtle- time for a nap!)

Hoping my tailbone can handle a two hour drive up to the mountains on Monday- B and I are going to Skinny Dip!

(Hahaha, not really, that’s just the name of a swimming hole up near Yosemite– people don’t actually skinny dip there. )

Hiking Half Dome

I was supposed to go hiking this weekend, but now it looks like there may be lightening storms in the mountains, so I probably won’t be going.

I haven’t been hiking since May and I miss being in the mountains. It about a 2 hour drive up there, though, so I have to really plan for when I’m going.

I’m really hoping I’ll be able to go hike Half Dome on August 5th (I was able to get a permit to hike up the cables for that day- you had to reserve them three months in advance!).

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I hiked Half Dome (in Yosemite National Park) about 5 years ago, but I did “Dome at Dawn,” which meant we started hiking at about 10:00 PM and got to the Dome around dawn.

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I didn’t do so well on that hike. I am the type of person who needs her sleep, and some meds I take at night make me drowsy, so by the time I got to the cables to climb to the top of Half Dome, I knew I shouldn’t go up them. People have died falling off Half Dome, and I just didn’t have the strength to pull myself up there.

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So for the past 5 years one of my goals has been to do the hike again (in the daytime) and make it up the cables. This summer I was finally able to work it into my schedule.

I don’t know if I’m in shape enough to do this hike (it’s about 15 miles), but I’m hoping I’ll be able to do it. If I end up going, I will be sure to take pictures and let you know how it goes!

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Yesterday my sister, B, and I finally went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. I’ve been dying to go since it came out, so I was excited to say the least.

I can officially report that I really enjoyed it. There were quite a few parts that were different from the book, but most of them worked with the flow of the plot.

B hadn’t read the second half of this book, so a lot of it came as a surprise to her. It was kind of funny hearing her saying, “What?! Oh my gosh!” all through it.

I told her she needs to finish the book to get the whole story.

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I spent today running around shopping for school supplies at GW (huge warehouse FULL of school/teaching stuff at 20% off = AWESOMENESS!) and Staples (yay penny folders!). I spent some of my own money and a lot of the school district’s money.

I came home with my stuff and I seriously felt like it was my birthday.

I can’t wait to start getting everything in my classroom!

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Time to get ready to go to my softball game! Hopefully we finally win one!

Necklace Giveaway Results

Congratulations, FitintheMidwest!

FitintheMidwest on July 25, 2011 at 10:54 am said:

Love that question and the giveaway! I would go back to the woman’s suffrage movement in early 20th century America so I could encourage men to give women the right to vote (I was a history major in college and wrote my thesis on this topic).

You were randomly (using random.org) selected to receive the Banana Republic starfish necklace!

Please email me at stopandsmellthewildflowers@gmail.com with a mailing address and it will be on its way!

Thank you to those who entered! And great answers to the question!   

In case you were curious, my answer would be to travel back to either the 1960s (mostly for the music and fashion) or the 1840s (I’ve always thought it would be amazing to experience life on the Oregon Trail… but only if it was guaranteed I wouldn’t be in any  danger ).

Baby Love

Saturday was my friend Jess’s baby shower, and it went really well!

I made Courtney’s Orange Cream cupcakes to use as prizes for the baby game I had planned. Considering I didn’t have a clue about frosting techniques, and I was decorating them at 2:00 in the morning, they turned out pretty cute!

I also made cinnamon muffins, but they turned out ugly, so no pictures of those.

A group of us helped plan the shower, and we were each in charge of putting together a table centerpiece. Here’s mine (which I threw together at the last minute because I was running late… oops!).

I used blue and turquoise water beads to fill the vase. If you haven’t seen these before, they are pretty cool. You soak them in water for a few hours and they go from this:

….To this:

And then they get to be the size of marbles (the ones above grew until they completely filled that container), and they keep your plants hydrated. They last for a long time and can be reused too!

Another awesome centerpiece made by Jess’s sister-in-law:

She also made the cake and come cupcakes for the guests! So cute!!!

Party pics:

The haul:

I need to get married and have kids ASAP. But only for the gifts…. Haha, just kidding! 😉

The party was in Jess and John’s backyard. Isn’t it beautiful?

The food (already eaten… I was too slow to get a good picture):

One of the games was a contest to see who could create the best baby figure out of clay. One of our friend’s four-year-old daughter made these:

“Here you go Jess, your twins are going to look just like this.”

Jess with her nana and the awesome cake:

Opening gifts:

Me (my makeup had pretty much melted off of my face by then… scroll down really fast so maybe I’ll still look okay):

Friends (we’ve known each other since we were little girls):

A successful party! Jess was exhausted, but she got some super cute things for the twin baby girls.

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Don’t’ forget to enter the giveaway for the Banana Republic necklace!

Click here to go to the giveaway page.

Entries are due by 3pm (PST) on Monday, July 25th!