and two steps back. That seems to be the way of it around here lately.
First off, my back. I was hurting again pretty badly on Thursday/Friday until my appt Friday morning. The sitter came to watch Allie and I had my therapy, which consists of the electro-stimulus while on the traction table, and then the "active" electro-stimulus while gently bouncing on the big therapy ball, then my adjustment by the chiropractor, and then I treated my poor body to an hour long massage. Ahhhhh. I felt much better after leaving. Then Saturday morning I cricked my upper back area which may have been more sensitive or something after all the stuff I had done on Friday. Cooper, the ornery-est cat I have ever seen, insists on jumping into my nice silky satin curtains in the bedroom because he sees the shadows of the hummingbirds in the early morning sun. Grrr!! He has snagged my curtain in several spots. Anyway, I was all snoozing away sleeping in (John had gotten called in during the night and was still gone) and I hear the crazy cat snagging the curtain again and I flew up out of that bed so fast I cricked the upper back. Ugh! So dealt with that issue the rest of Sat and Sun and finally today it is stiff but not painful. I have this spray stuff called BioFreeze which is similar to an IcyHot and it is AWESOME. I have been spraying it on my lower and then upper back before bed and it helps the pain.
Today I go back to the Chiro at 5p. I scheduled it late as I am trying to have John watch the kids instead of booking the sitter. He is post-call today and doesn't have to go in. He did get called in around 4a this morning for an epidural but was back within an hour, my guess the girl was too far along or already complete by the time he got there (15 minutes!). That has happened frequently lately, either the moms come in already a 7 and say they want one, he gets there and boom they are a 10. Or the mom wants to go "natural" and then caves around 7 or 8 and again, by the time he gets there they are complete or close to it, and the epidural will never "catch up" with the pain, and the patient (or insurance) will pay for the full amount of course which is close to a thousand bucks.
Anyway - I go to the Chiro on M/W/F this week, all late afternoon. I am scheduled for another massage on Fri but after that not sure when I will have another. It won't be every week that's for sure, as my insurance doesn't cover the massage therapy unless the Doctor actually does it. So that is out of pocket. I am close to meeting my large deductible so I will only have to pay the $20 co-pay which will be nice. Unexpected expenses for sure, but John and I both know that I have to do this to get better, that when I can't function or am in pain then nobody wins that's for sure. I am going to see if I can go 2x a week or even 1x a week after this week, see what the doc says. The office has ordered me a therapy ball of my own, as my insurance apparently covers that, and I will have more home exercises to do with it and I think that will help a lot. I will still have adjustments even after we get over this acuteness, but they will probably only be once a month or every 6 weeks.
Let's see, what else? Got a bunch to get done today, phone-wise and errand-wise. Our tractor's hydraulics are messed up. Crazy! The dealer said they went over it with a fine tooth comb and apparently changed the hydraulic filter or something, which John didn't think much about, but now that it is messing up he is wondering if they saw something else while in there that they didn't fix. He is planning on calling the guy this morning and he is usually really patient and level headed on the phone, but I can tell ya right now he is HOT and that will not be a pleasant conversation. Not to mention the bale spear we already paid for that was to be delivered with the tractor and the guy forgot to put it on the trailer, so he said he would ship it UPS and that was 10 business days ago and we haven't heard from him or seen the spear. So, we will be finding out what the heck is going on this morning.
John will also deal with the John Deere company locally about the baler. But if our tractor is out of commission for a bit, we will have to bale with the old tractor and it can't handle the slightly bigger baler we are buying. Sheesh!
A friend of John's has a farmer friend who thinks that the Case dealer locally should be able to send out to us on a "service call" and potentially fix the hydraulic issue without hauling it in. Will cost us for the call, but would probably cost to haul it in anyway and no one wants to deal with that! So maybe it will be an easy fix. John is quite discouraged and frustrated with that whole deal. This is why we are buying a brand new baler. If we could have, we would have bought a brand new tractor to avoid "used" issues!
Today was Asher's turn to take snacks to school, so I made up a trail mix of sorts out of different kinds of Cheez-Its and pretzel sticks and made all the children (18) little snack baggies. Asher was all proud to be taking the snacks today. Heehee. I managed to fit all the baggies inside a rubbermaid shoebox tote so they wouldn't get squished in the backpack on the way to school. I thought about just driving him in since John is home anyway and could stay with Allie, but John thought that was ridiculous, that the snacks would be fine, and I knew that Asher wouldn't want that either. OK, fine! So that's where the shoebox came into play. Thankfully Asher's backpack is huge and the box fit inside just fine.
Can you believe Michael Phelps? We have recorded the Olympics every evening so that we could watch all the things we wanted to on our own time instead of 11p. LOL. We have seen all of his races - WOW! He is one amazing swimmer and seems like a really good person as well. He seems very humble.
Saturday my friend Paige came for a visit for the day with her 4 1/2 yr old, Jack, and new baby girl, Amelia (4 months). They live in Columbus now but we met when Asher had just turned 2, down in Lexington, at a Gymboree class. We had a good day catching up chatting, the boys played and I loved holding Amelia (Allie not so much, lol). We played outside, saw chickens & turkeys, swam, played the Wii, and then had a nice meal out before they headed back. Here are a few pics:
I am planning on signing Asher up for Flag Football today, through our local YMCA, if it's not too late. I know we will have to pay $10 extra because the deadline was over a week ago, but as of last week they were still letting kids join in. He wants to, and John and I want him to get into an organized sport. I am also going to ask about swim lessons and the swim team. We aren't members of the Y any longer, but I think you can do most of the activities you just end up paying more.
Friday night we ended up going to the Country Club to swim once Ash got home from school. It was a gorgeous day and we won't have too many more chances this summer! John was on call of course, so he took a separate car which we hate to do because double-gas, but in case he gets called in I can't go back to get him late at night with the children. And of course he didn't get called in. LOL. We had a good time though, met some new people and Asher had great fun jumping off the diving board. We have got to get Allie some type of floaties/life vest though as she is wanting to be so independent and not have you even hold her hand, and even though there is a baby pool, it's deep enough that when she loses her balance and falls forward her face goes in and she can't right herself. So going to look for something like that maybe today.
No rain expected all week here. Blah! John has strung together several hoses and has been alternating watering our new trees these last couple of days. I am sure the water bill will be enormous, but those trees cost money too and are an investment in the farm and we don't want to lose them!
OK, I hear John up. I am sure Allie will be right behind him. Onto the busyness of the day!
I am planning on signing Asher up for Flag Football today, through our local YMCA, if it's not too late. I know we will have to pay $10 extra because the deadline was over a week ago, but as of last week they were still letting kids join in. He wants to, and John and I want him to get into an organized sport. I am also going to ask about swim lessons and the swim team. We aren't members of the Y any longer, but I think you can do most of the activities you just end up paying more.
Friday night we ended up going to the Country Club to swim once Ash got home from school. It was a gorgeous day and we won't have too many more chances this summer! John was on call of course, so he took a separate car which we hate to do because double-gas, but in case he gets called in I can't go back to get him late at night with the children. And of course he didn't get called in. LOL. We had a good time though, met some new people and Asher had great fun jumping off the diving board. We have got to get Allie some type of floaties/life vest though as she is wanting to be so independent and not have you even hold her hand, and even though there is a baby pool, it's deep enough that when she loses her balance and falls forward her face goes in and she can't right herself. So going to look for something like that maybe today.
No rain expected all week here. Blah! John has strung together several hoses and has been alternating watering our new trees these last couple of days. I am sure the water bill will be enormous, but those trees cost money too and are an investment in the farm and we don't want to lose them!
OK, I hear John up. I am sure Allie will be right behind him. Onto the busyness of the day!
