My Broken Bone

Miserable doesn't even begin to describe how I am feeling right now.

Yesterday I headed out (in sub zero temperatures since Spring has decided to avoid us for now) for my run.  I have moved my running training to outside to prepare for my 5k run up in Mayo.  Only about 500m from my house, I rolled my ankle out on some gravel (it gave a very audible pop) and down I went.  As I skidded on my hands/knees/face down the road all I could think was thank god no one was around to see that fail in action!

I laid on my stomach for a while... and then got myself on my arse for a while...  And then realized that no one was going to rescue me so I had better head for home.  I thought I had just sprained my ankle and somehow I limped back up the hill to home. 

Matt was on call and he took me down to the Health Centre for x-rays.  The misery started when I looked up at the screen when he said, "Sorry sweetie, it is broken."  I could even tell on the x-ray that I was broken.  The distal end of my fibula is fractured.  Broke the tip of it right off down in my ankle.  I fell apart then and started sobbing.

Sobbing over a broken ankle?  I know, drama llama.... But I have plans!  Big plans!  Huge plans that are royally screwed over by a broken ankle.

Epic trip around the Yukon with my girlfriends?  On, but not sure what shape I will be in.

5k run up in Mayo?  Out.

Squash?  Out.

Training for my hike?  Out.

53km hike of the Chilkoot trail on July 3?  Don't know.

Right now I am still sitting here in Faro.  On Monday we will hear from the surgeon as the whether or not I need surgery.  If not, I will still have to drive the 400k to town to get a cast put on.  I did the unthinkable and googled my injury.  Healing time?  A long fucking time.

I am disappointed.  I feel bad for my hiking partner.  I feel bad for the friends that signed up for the 5k run with me.

I am worried about the effects of being forced to sit here and do nothing for weeks.  I am a stress eater and am going to have to manage my eating to the utmost level.  Other commitments like the sewing projects I am doing with the Youth Group and volunteering at our Crane & Sheep festival are all going to be on hold.  I don't even know how I am going to manage my own kids at this point.

In November I will be having my skin surgery and have been dreading the healing time afterwards because I will have to sit and do nothing for weeks on end.  And now I am being forced to do that twice in one year.  I am going to lose my mind.

Perhaps later this week I will be back to my happy self and see some sort of positive in this heap of misery. 

The Last Ten Days

The last ten days have been a whirlwind of activity.

I started a mitten make project with the Youth Group here in Faro.  It is going to take ages to get about 15 teenagers (almost all boys!) to complete their mittens, but it will be fun!

The boys and I flew to visit my parents for a week in BC.  The travel was killer.  We drove from Faro to Whitehorse, killed 5 hours playing, took the plane to Vancouver, quick stop, then a plane to Fort St. John, and then a 1.5hr drive to my parents house (we left Faro at 8am and arrived at my folks at 1am).  I think it took me two days to recover from that and then I had to repeat it all backwards just four days after that.  But the short trip was worth it.  The boys got to visit with their only two cousins, see their only actual Auntie and Uncle, and have some quality time with their Grandma and Grandpa. 

Then Cavan turned four on Sunday and we had a little party and day of celebration for him.  I made him a great looking ninja turtle cake.  While he is happy to be four, he is now pissed off at the world that he cannot attend school NOW!  Waiting until fall is not impressing him any.

And I have still been running too!  I did three runs while down at my parents and the longest run was 28min straight.  When I came home to Faro, I tried a 30min run the next day, but puked after 16min and was too dizzy to try running again.  I think I was just exhausted!  We are going to back up the program by a few weeks and take it outside now that the roads are clear of snow.  I am going to be cursing the hills of Faro soon!

I bought myself a real bike with heaps of gears and took it around the block tonight.  I had to push it up the hill to my house though!!

AND!!  I got myself a kick ass huge tattoo on my inner forearm! 

Now the mishmash of photos:

Happy with his new birthday scooter!

Kick ass tattoo.

Lots of love from neighbourhood friends!

Ninja turtle cake and a kid buzzed out on orange pop!

Wee gluten free ninja turtle cupcake for Matt!

When did my baby boy get so big?

Cavan trying out a little skidoo at my parent's house.

My boys and their cousins attacking my brother.

Cousins!

Rednecks R Us.

Trouble from biggest to smallest package.

So I am going to run a marathon...

Okay, marathon is a bit misleading.

Today I registered and paid to run the 5K at the Mayo Midnight Marathon on June 22nd.

Quite honestly, the thought of running 5k makes me want to yak.  But I am a goal setter and I need something to work towards.  I won't be running it all alone either; my friends that are coming to the Yukon in June will be joining me!

I am now up to running for 10 minutes at a time and yesterday I wanted to quit so badly while running the second 10 minute stint.  Thankfully, my running partner kept yelling at me and that kept me going. 

Yesterday was a 5m warm up walk, 10min run, 3min walk, 10min run and then 5 min cool down walk.  So 33 minutes total and I covered just over 4km in that time.  As soon as the roads are clear I will start running outside.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would run.  Much less register to run a 5k.

Canning Apples

This week I discovered two bags of apples that we had forgotten about in our second fridge.  Yes, we have two refrigerators; we need lots of fresh food space once every couple of months when we go to town to stock up.  But these two bags got shoved into the crisper and forgotten about!  So what do you do with a heap of apples that just aren't that yummy for eating raw?

Can them into apple pie filling!

A friend had canned some apple pie filling with apples from a tree in her yard and I thought that would be fun to try.  Cavan and I cored and sliced up the bags of apples and shoved them into pint jars.  Then we made a syrup out of water, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cornstarch.  Next sealed it all into jars and then a hot water bath.  Oy they looked so good!

Tonight I tried my first baking with them.  And now an admission.... I don't know how to make pie crusts.  Yep, hanging my head in shame over here since my mother makes amazing pie crust.  So what do you do with a jar of apple pie filling instead?

Dutch Apple Cake!

Canning the apples!

My mom's recipe!  So instead of the topping, I just dumped on a jar of my apple pie filling.

Cake batter in the pan waiting for the topping.

Time to bake!

Done!!  And wowweeee does it ever smell good.

Couch to 5k

I have been working on a running program over the winter and am pleasantly surprised at how I am doing. 

The program is just an app I downloaded from itunes for a couple of dollars.  I hop on the treadmill and every so often the program yells at me to either start running or slow down and walk.  I watch a tv show on the ipad or listen to music to make the time pass quickly.  I have finally mastered the buttons on the treadmill and have yet to fall off (knock on wood).  There are three sessions a week and it is set up as an eight week program.

So this was today's program (week 4 session 3):
Warm up walk for 5m
Run 3m
Walk 2m
Run 5m
Walk 2m
Run 5m
Walk 2m
Run 3m
Walk 2m
Cool down walk for 5m

Now, I am a very slow runner at just 7.5km/hr and my walking speed is 5.8km/hr.  But hey!  I am still doing it!  Today I covered just over 3.5km in the 34 minutes of the program.  Plus I walked to and from the gym, so another 1.5km.

I have never run for 5 minutes straight.  I am sure I never even did it as a kid.  Well, unless it was for smarties.  I might have run 5 minutes to get smarties.

In just two more sessions I will have an 8 minute run.  Just thinking about that makes me want to barf.  And by the end of the eight weeks, the program has you running 35 minutes.  I don't know about that!!  But I will keep on going and who knows, perhaps I just might run for 35 minutes.

Some excitment, some humour, and crafting results!

A mixed blog post here!

First the excitement part.  Last night I booked the plane tickets to Los Angeles for my reconstructive skin surgery!  I got a fantastic deal on seats and both Matt and I are flying there return for just under $1300 total for the two of us.  Wow!  And even more amazing?  The money I used to buy the plane tickets had all been donated from amazing friends!  Nearly $1800 has been donated to my surgery fund.  I cannot say thank you enough to everyone who has contributed.
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Some humour that I posted on facebook the other day:
Me: Hunter, do you think it was a good decision to put the balloon into the toilet while Cavan was peeing?
Hunter: Nope, but it was a funny one.

Smart ass kid. I guess he is taking after me. And Matthew. Damn those smart ass genes.
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And the results of the crafting disaster from yesterday!  Very, very fugly.  But the boys think they are awesome and believe there is no way daddy will be able to steal the chocolate now!

 

Crafting Disaster.

I love crafting with my kids, but once in a while my well laid out plans like to laugh in my face.  Today's project was just that.

I laid out the supplies for our daddy chocolate traps.  I am anal on being organized.  So everything was set up just right.  Or at least I thought.  Sheet was put on the floor.  Chocolates were put into balloons and tied to a laundry drying rack.  Glue was thinned with some water.  String was cut to manageable lengths and sitting nicely in a tray.  Boys were down to just their undies.  Perfect!

Uh huh. 

Boys in undies have full access to wankers.  I attempted to get a nice shot of our craft set up:

Wanker grabs by both.

So the plan was for them to grab a piece of string.  Put into the glue.  Remove from glue and get the excess off and then wrap the string around the balloon.  The boys deemed the glue to messy so they wanted me to do the dipping and they would put it on the balloons.  Well that was a full on disaster.  Strings fulled with glue were just flying around.  Hitting me.  Hitting them.  Getting into hair.  Hands went back to wankers.  Screams were heard as they were worried their wankers would be glued closed forever.  Kill me now.  Where is the booze?

Finally, this mama resorted to having them just passing me the dry strings and I did the rest.  Then I threw them in the bath and I went to survey the scene of the disaster.

The sheet I so thoughtfully put out to help contain the mess?  Yeah.  Watered down glue soaks right through.  So I had to scrub the floors.  Then I see glue on the sofa.  More scrubbing.  Glue on the wood stove pad.  More scrubbing.

It is now 4:25pm and the boys are in pj's already.  I am ready for bed.  And the glue balloon disastors are drying.  The plan is to pop the balloons tomorrow and the chocolate eggs inside will be trapped so their daddy won't be able to steal them when he returns at the end of the week.

I am going to sneak a mini chocolate.  Maybe take a swig of the ready-made mojito mix in the fridge.  And the tv is going to watch my children for the rest of the evening.  This mama deserves that at least.  Right?

Never again.

I wish this picture showed off the glue...

Who knows.  Maybe they will work?