The Elusive Family Photo

With 2 adult children and all 5 of us still living in the same house, you'd think a family picture would be a simple matter.

No

I finally beat down the defenses over the weekend citing Mother's Day/Birthday wish fulfillment and got everyone outside for NEARLY 5 whole minutes.

Our single family shot in which Ben and/or Jake had not left the screen.  Matt's holding my arm to keep me from flailing at them.

Then the shot of the kids:

In which a minor demon possession runs through the group

AND...the one shot of all 3:

I now remember why it's been 4 years since our last family photo...

Catching up, photographically speaking

 Dae's 16th birthday party:

Our weekend home alone, movies, mud masks and enough junk food to make me gain 2 pounds right before my physical:

Monday at Monte Sano:

Tuesday at Monte Sano:

I set up a 2-day volunteer time at the state park before we left for Disney for folks to come up and drop in and work for an hour or two.  It got great feedback, lots of RSVP's.

In the end, the ranger I spoke with actually did not make any type of list and was unprepared for volunteers at all AND no one but Katy actually showed.

Can't blame the weather, I call "LAME" on everyone.

We walked around for 2 days picking up trash.

The kids were awesome, they worked the whole time without any griping, other than a little lamenting over lack of people to hang out with.

They made the best of it, though.

Tomorrow we have game day at the park.  I added a small 'Halloween' type element to it and I am pretty sure attendance will be way off because of it.  Oh.  Well.

The rest of us (doomed) folks will enjoy ourselves.  The weather has been phenomenal, but just chilly enough at night to remind me...we have not cut the first piece of firewood this fall.

Trying an app!

Looking for an alternative to using my laptop while stuck in the bed. I updated on Facebook, but will do so here now as well.  I am trying an app on my Galaxy tablet called Bloggeroid.  Blogger has its own app, but you can insert post a single photo her post. WTH?  Who even does that regularly?

The doc says 2 weeks totally off the foot, I can resume driving short distances if the swelling stays down after 2 weeks. I am on total bedrest for a week, then I can be up no more than 3 hours a day total, if I use crutches and keep weight off my foot, if the swelling has stopped. It will be 6 weeks before I can start just walking around in the house-foot wrapped, but no crutches. Maybe 8.

I am finding a few things to be hard to manage but I discovered long flowy skirts are the way to go-nothing to pull back up while teetering around. I can of course get up to use the bathroom, so I fix my hair, brush my teeth, put on moisturiser, chapstick...anything to buy myself another minute or two out of bed. I also stand with the crutches and prop my foot up, like a ballerina at the barre, when I can.

My foot does not hurt so much as ache and burn. It wears me out, I sleep 12 to 14 hours a day. I came in from the doc Tuesday and collapsed. Even sitting in a chair to watch a dvd is exhausting, I am good for about an hour. I worry about my long term health, being this sedentary, even with 'good cause' is horrible for a body. Plus, my stamina will be shit after weeks of this and Disney is not far away.

I have been doing some in-bed yoga stretches, isometric exercises, using hand weights, whatever I can to move some. I don't want to have to regain my strength and lose 20 pounds just to get back where I was a week ago.

Mainly though, I am bored. I like to watch movies and read and lounge, but that's with lots of getting up to do stuff. Mess around in the garden pulling weeds, brush one of the dogs, take a few photos, walk to the mailbox, run to the store, do the dishes, make lunch or change out the laundry. Even on my worst vegging out days, I was up every hour for 20 minutes or so, just to tinker and wander around. And that was between active stretches when we were out off doing things. I am not adjusting well, but know I have to do the down time. You get one chance to heal properly-after that it's months more pain, limited function, rehab and maybe surgery not to mention a better than good chance of reinjury.

Okay, well that's my news. In other news, the kids are all off with friends for the day. Matt dropped them at the pool last night and they went home with various buddies, he will pick them up tomorrow at Deb's, where everyone is meeting up for lunch and playing in the river. As much as I want to go, I know it is a bad idea, slick mud and shifting rocks and slippery spots, not to mention the hill.  It's nothing when you can walk, but there's no way I could manage on crutches, I am SO bad at using them even between here and the bathroom.

Okay, I can't see the images, but they should be me, dramatically bored, my feet on the wall to show off my bruised shins and my wounded foot even more wounded after Nia decided to take me out of the pack. I went fom Alpha bitch to wounded wildebeest in one short slip.

Let's see if this thing works!

Round Here Lately

I seem to have this backlog of photos...

So, prepare to sit a while and scroll.

They'll keep until you are on a real computer and not using your tiny phone screen.  That's insulting to my level of professionalism in photography.  haha!

Yesterday, we went out to celebrate WARMTH.

Some blond chick sitting over at the bluff.

Napper McGillicutty

Jake and Rho.  She came over for 3 days and I guess they did not want to blow it,

they barely were closer than this the whole time.

NOT complaining...

Napper still napping

Possible Possum

Crazy steep hill

Oh deer!

The view from a hole in a hollow log.

 The SAME hollow log

Matt's tree mutilation from 1991.

These things don't just go away, people.  Don't carve on trees.

Don't be like Matt.

SHAME

Mirrored trees, light and dark, it's ARTSY, ya'll

Spring beauty.  How I freaking LOVE the spring.

I framed it, I was so thrilled

Napper still napping.

She took down the blond kid, too.

The following 5 photos are of the creek and are all in lomo mainly to bring out the green and make it look MORE like spring...though ALL of that green is either moss of privet.  Which is there year-round.  So none of the below are actual spring shots, just humoring myself.

Not a cabin in the woods!

This is from today, near the sulphur springs.

Front yard above and below.

Benny after the play, he was SO tired he did not even make it to his room.  Or take off his costume!

Bwahahaha, Bunny!  

The sulphur springs, I had him stand like that so you could see the hole instead of the glare, but in hindsight...it looks like he's going to take a tinkle.

Kids, in the rain.

Lunch took WAY longer than planned and the rain caught us about 10 minutes after arriving at the springs.

Still, we got to see and smell them-not much else to accomplish.

That's Luke in the middle with the face.  He's actually a really funny and sweet kid, I have no idea if this is his usual photo face or what.  But he sure looks hacked!

Trillllllll-yum!

LOTS of trillium!

No actual idea what this is.  YET

Come on, it's one of  the first 3 wildflowers up every year.

You know this one.

See the notched leaves?  Like...teeth?

Toothwart!

This is what sulfur looks like coming out of the ground.

Below are shots from dance class.

Even though it's in Birmingham, it was ALL kids from our local homeschool group

We are asking for a class here instead of there!!

Samba line dance.  I think.

Now you are all caught up!

Tomorrow is Matt's day off and we will be cutting more wood.  yay

Saturday is the first of a hiking series we are leading this month.  YAY

Sunday...dunno yet.  Sadly, we are broke and should stay home.  But if that weather is lovely, I think I will be able to fund another tank of gas from some other allocation.  We can stay home and save when it's too hot!  :)