Scared to death...just for a second.

We live in the country. The sticks. The boon docks. We have accepted it, love it and wouldn't have it any other way.  Trouble is-there are wild animals out here! And they run free like they own the place! In the past two years we've had various little(and not so little) creatures in our yard (that's to say within 10 feet of the house). We've had, in order of size(just to make it fun!) voles, mice, bats, (all of those have actually been IN the house!) snakes, squirrels(also in the house!), rabbits, stray cats(yep-in the house!), stray dog, raccoons, owls, coyote & deer(not in the house-you crazy?!). Mind you, this is all in addition to the animals we have in our make shift petting zoo outside.  I have no doubts that there are other animals out there too, opposum most likely, eagles (we've seen them up the road and hear them once in a while),we've heard of a roaming bobcat, etc.  I say etc here because I don't dare ponder on this thought too long or I'll never actually go outside to leave the house again!

Anyway my point-when Scott told me there was a fuzzy bear outside the bathroom my heart stopped! Bears have been seen around here, rarely, and not recently, but it's not unheard of.  I suddenly had visions of this 8000 lb fuzzy bear breaking in the bathroom window in search of picnic baskets! I started mentally making a list of all the animals I could save before this fuzzy bear ravished them in his furry.  Cats, ducks, goats, alpaca, Brandon, chickens. Scott would have to fend for himself I'm afraid. I just didn't have enough hands to save everybody!  As it was I might have had to leave Brandon and the alpaca behind! Couldn't hold everybody.
Anyway as I stood there mentally making this list of possible survivors in order of importance I suddenly noticed that Scott was still stood in the bathroom brushing his teeth as if he wanted to have nice breath when he was eaten by the bear! Now, Scott's a thoughtful guy-don't get me wrong, but surely, if nothing else, this would be an opportunity for him to bust out one of his many new guns (Don't get me started on that! It's like an armoury around here. Well crap-now it's started. It IS line an armoury around here but it takes so long to 1. unlock a gun, 2. unlock the trigger, 3. load and 4. get set that if you were to try to ward off any danger with it-even if just by shooting in the air to make noise, we'd all be eaten by the time he got to step 2!) Anyway.

Ok so I've mentally made my list of critters/people to rescue, realized we forgot to pack an 'in case of fuzzy bear emergency kit' so didn't have to worry about grabbing that, decided scott would stay behind as minty fresh bait so I could get away and then I whispered to Scott 'Where is it?' and he said 'On the wall crawling by the bedroom window.'
'On The Wall Crawling By The Bedroom Window.'
I was looking out the bathroom and there was no bear in sight! Hm. This means 1 of 4 things.
A) Scott's gone in sane-most likely with mad cow disease
B) It's one of those super hero bears with invisibility powers
C) In my fright I'd gone blind and was no longer able to see bears
or D) something else.
Now-these aren't mutually exclusive but it turns out the real answer was D)-something else.

Having lived in England for over 11 years I can appreciate the difference in language-believe me there IS a big difference.  There were a lot of little phrases and nuances to learn.  Saying 1 innocent word could mean the difference between you saying you're dressed or naked! So it shouldn't have come as a surprise to me when I realized Scott ment to say WOOLLY BEAR. As in CATERPILLAR! (See how one word can make all the difference!)

Needless to say, it wasn't one of those man-eating woolly bear caterpillars and we survived to tell the tale. I did however learn an important lesson-always know where your 'in case of emergency fuzzy bear survival kit' is! This kit is much larger than our 'in case of WOOLLY bear emergency survival kit' which consists of a camera and a bottle of water-so you can have a sip of water while you take a picture of the caterpillar cause they're so darn cute! (and fuzzy!)

Here's a pic I took using my emergency kit!

Quite harmless and pretty sweet(and tickley!)

We get a lot of these little fellas out by our house.  In fact Scott and I recently had a long discussion about them! You see-they often can be found crossing the road.  Have you ever seen a caterpillar running to cross the road?! It's super funny! Anyway they cross the road.
*I will swerve to miss them whenever possible.  It's just the way I am.  I'm not one for killing much of anything apart from germs in the house. One day we were driving and I said to Scott 'Watch out for that wolley bear' and he hit it! He said 'How can you see them?!' and I said 'They're right there in the road!  Then, as I so kindly started to point out all of the OTHER woolly bears in the road so he would miss them he actually started to HIT them! He says he was trying to miss them but I'm telling you-how hard is it to miss a caterpillar! Anyway he got so bad that he was swerving all over the road to 'miss' them.  Then he started saying I was crazy~where does he get this stuff?! He said if I drove like that I would get arrested for careless driving. At this point I told him 2 things!
1) I swerve towards the OUTSIDE of the road-not into the center of it! and 2) I highly doubt I'd get in trouble for my driving as it wasn't careless, in fact it was EXTRA careful!  I could safely navigate from A to B without intentionally, and in all possible cases actually avoiding, harming any living thing. (if bugs fly into the windshield that's not killing-they are clearly committing suicide-totally different story).
Anyway Scott said he couldn't drive like that, he had to watch the road (at which point I kindly reminded him that these woolly bears were ON the road but he didn't have a rebuttal) & he went back to driving 'in a straight line' (ha! yeah right)

Now I now want a bumper sticker that says 'I swerve for caterpillars and fuzzy bears'. =D
True story folks, you can't make this crap up!

Hm. That's very Pinteresting. Very Pinteresting indeed!

Yes, I know how spell check works. I MEANT to put Pinteresting.
For those of you who don't know yet (and that seems to be a majority of people) there's a 'New' website called Pinterest.

What is it? Now...at first I didn't see the appeal but just hear me out!
It's like an on line scrap book I guess. Particularly useful for crafty people or people like me who aren't crafty but do crafts anyway!
To start you see a bunch of photos from categories that you have selected i.e. food, arts & crafts etc.
Then you browse those photos and if you like any you can click 'like' but if you REALLY LIKE one you 'pin it' to one of your boards(aka categories).
Still doesn't sound exciting does it? I know, but it really IS!
And it gets better! You can pin things from other sites! Say you like a photo that's in an on line article you're reading-you can pin it! Pinterest always gets the credit details so credit goes to the 'owner' and you aren't 'stealing' anything, so that's great.
I've got lots and LOTS of motivation and inspiration for things that I've seen on there in the past week! Everything from sewing and Halloween costume ideas to home decorating ideas (search for 're-purposing and you get BRILLIANT photos of re-purposed things!)
You can upload any of your own photos if you like.
You can follow your friends and pinterest will show you some of the things they've liked recently and then YOU can like those things as well.  For example I liked a Hello Kitty pumpkin, then invited Melissa Thomas to join Pinterest(by the way you need to be invited at the moment so if you want in this SUPER COOL, EXTREMELY EXCLUSIVE club-email me! =)  Anyway now I think I've created a monster, poor Melissa must have an entire 'hello kitty' board by now!  It's really that addictive!

Even if you're not crafty it's great for inspiration for things.  For example today when I signed in one of the new photos I saw was the game TWISTER spray painted on a lawn for a party game! How clever!

Now, going back to something I said earlier... I may be responsible for Melissa Thomas' Pinterest addiction but Donna B is to blame for mine!  She invited me and now I have to check out what's Pinteresting each morning! I love it, and scott doesn't mind eating take out on days when I've wasted a little too much time on pinterest.  That's the one bad thing about it I suppose... You can just 'pop' on to look for dinner ideas and end up finding so many pictures you like that you don't, in fact, have time to cook that night! =D

Anyway, I strongly suggest you check it out! If you start and don't understand it or can't get the hang of it let me know, I'm getting to be quite the expert! 
AND! I've added a 'follow me on pinterest' button on this blog! Just click it and see what happens! =D

See...told you it was Pinteresting! Click Here to see!

Big deal-isn't a back spasm just a cramp in your back?

O  M  G!
Ever had a back spasm? I'm talking a full blown rib crushing spasm? I was introduced to the world of Spaz this week. 
Now, if you've been keeping up with my blog entries then you know that just under 4 weeks ago my horse fell while I was riding and she broke my foot.  Ouch. That hurt. It hurt BAD but I didn't shed a tear. Just went to hospital and if anyone tried to touch my broken foot I just kicked them with my 1 good one. Problem solved.

Now if you've ever used crutches before you know how EXTREMELY difficult it can make your life. Things you took for granted-like carrying a simple cup of coffee, were now impossible.  For the first week on crutches I drank all of my drinks at the kitchen counter. A friend(thanks Melissa) suggested a cup with a lid, which helped immensely but there were still other issues-like making dinner. That was not fun. 
Eventually the dr said I could start to crutch walk-this means putting my foot down slightly and walking on it while still putting most of my weight on the crutches.  Now I interpreted this to mean-you don't need crutches anymore-feel free to dance around the house! I was careful to only put weight on my heal(I broke the 5th metatarsal by the way-long bone on outside edge of left foot). Well after a day or two of that I was in pain so went back to the crutches(except when I was desperate for a cup of coffee!)
So I 'crutched' my way through life until my arms throbbed.  If you use them right you don't out any weight on the crutches under your arm pits, you put the weight into your hands.
Now it was around the end of week 3 that I realized how much I actually do! As a stay at home mom I'm often told-or overhear others say-that stay at home moms don't do much apart from watch soap operas etc.  Turns out that's not true!(fyi we don't even have cable tv so no soaps for me! I hate cable tv). Anyway-muscles were aching a bit but it seemed that was the only work out I could get. 
Then Wednesday my back started to hurt. Do you know where your rhomboids are? Those muscles at the base of your neck between shoulder blades. Anyway I was hurtin so I laid down on an ice pack and took some strong pills that I had in the house. Only things didn't get better-I got much worse! To the point that when Nikki the cat jumped up to lay on my stomach (something he does all the time) I couldn't even move to push him off! I couldn't take a breath! It was awful.
I called the dr to get some advice and while talking to the nurse she said I had to hang up and call 911 YIKES. She said that there was a good chance I had a blood clot in my lung! (double yikes!).
I have to tell you that by this point I was crying-it hurt that bad. I called my neighbour (Thanks Miranda) to come sit by me til the ambulance arrived cause I was freakin out! I'm telling you folks, I've had a broken leg, a broken arm and now a broken foot. I've had a c section after 24 hours of labour and none of it hurt like this. Don't get me wrong-labour hurts like a s.o.b but the contractions give you a small, tiny even, break in between. This was worse.
Anyway-ambulance arrived, lifted me onto one of those boards and carried me out of the house. I remember at this point I was shaking because it hurt so bad, but the shaking made it hurt more! It was nothing like a cramp, as I'd previously thought. I guess, never having had one-a cramp was the closest thing I could think of to compare it to, but I've had cramps and pulled muscles and this, folks, was worse!
Got to hoospital and was given a shot of pain killers and muscle relaxers. I'd already taken hydrocodone and between that and the shot I felt...exactly the same but now I had a soar spot on my bum from where she jabbed me! Gee thanks! Kick me while I'm down.  So they hooked up some iv meds. Great. Now I could almost take a breath without screaming inside. Then...oh god... They wanted me to move! They needed to take xrays and I had to sit up!
Anyway, long story short-it WAS a muscle spasm, they couldn't see any clots, and they sent me home with 4 bottles full of lovely medicines! Two days later I can almost move my right arm enough to shampoo my own hair, but i've learned my lesson about overdoing it.  They said that the spasm was most likely caused by using the crutches too much.  It's like they expect me to sit still all day and night and not move! Hello! Well one way or another I needed a break apparently. Took my pills when I got home and slept most of the next day away. 
Taking it easy(well, easier) now. Still aching but it's nothing a hand full of these pills can't fix!
Moral of the story is... just drink your coffee at the kitchen counter instead of trying to carry it while on crutches cause you'll get burned and you're probably overdoing it anyway and you will send your back muscles into spasms which hurt like a mother!  ((Is that too long of a sentence to be a moral? tough. So long as I'm stuck sitting here I'll type as much as I can! =D ))
Now, where can I get a t-shirt that says 'I survived the back spasm of 2011.?