Bent Bear Blog

As I've said before, I'm not one for making new year's resolutions, preferring instead to pick a few areas of my life that need a little maintenance and focus on them in a general way. These are usually areas that I would like to feel better about, or projects that I've neglected over the last few months. 

Therefore, I present to you the 2010 edition of Construction Projects and General Maintenance! 

It is my hope that 2010 will be the year that I: 

Continue taking better care of my health. 

This is a hold over from last year. I rejoined the gym in September, and had been going regularly during the fall. I let a cold and some schedule changes at work derail my efforts. Now that things are settling down, I need to get back on a regular workout schedule and get rid of some of the weight I (re)gained. 

I'm also going to attempt to cook more healthy meals for me and Steve, maybe focusing on vegetarian / meatless dishes a few nights a week. 

Continue my R.N. studies. 

This is a hold over from last year. I didn't make much progress, but this is probably the one thing I can do to improve our lives in the long term. Once I have the letters R.N. after my name, I'll be making a few more dollars an hour, and be able to pursue job opportunities that aren't available to me as a LPN. 

Continue to explore Buddhism. 

Last year, one of my goals was to reconnect with my spiritual side. I spent considerable time working on this and I think I've found a spiritual home in Buddhism. 

I'll write more about this later, and i think this may become a frequent topic of my blog as I sort things out and learn more about the Buddha Dharma. 

Blog More Often

I'm going to try to update this thing at least weekly for the next year. With all the things going on in my life, there should be plenty of material. 

Eggs Benedict.  And yes, I made the hollandaise sauce from scratch. 

It was freaking fantastic, even if I do say so myself. (Steve said so too..) The hollandaise sauce recipe is from Alton Brown, host of Good Eats on Food Network: 

Ingredients

• 3 egg yolks
• 1 teapsoon water
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Directions

Pour 1-inch of water into a large saucepan; over medium heat, bring to a simmer. Once simmering, reduce the heat to low.

Place egg yolks and 1 teaspoon water in a medium mixing bowl and whisk until mixture lightens in color, approximately 1 to 2 minutes. Add the sugar and whisk for another 30 seconds.

Place the mixture over the simmering water and whisk constantly for 3 to 5 minutes, or until there is a clear line that is drawn in the mixture when you pull your whisk through, or the mixture coats the back of a spoon.

Remove the bowl from over the pan and gradually add the butter, 1 piece at a time, and whisk until all of the butter is incorporated. Place the bowl back over the simmering water occasionally so that it will be warm enough the melt the butter. Add the salt, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper. Serve immediately or hold in a thermos to keep warm.

The Sauce turned out perfectly, and putting it in a thermos was a great idea.  I was able to poach the eggs (something else I had never done before) and cook the canadian bacon without worrying about the sauce going bad in the process. This is something I will definitely be making again.

 Just as long as we have enough Lipitor.

Good news at our house! 

Steve had his 12 week follow up with the orthopedic surgeon today, and was given the go ahead for full weight bearing on his right leg (The one that was broken in the car accident 3 months ago. He's eager to start driving again, having purchased his new KIA Soul last weekend.  He'll be working with the physical terrorist therapist for a few more weeks to get used to walking again, and strengthening his leg. 

The weather is starting to cool off, and there's a tinge of autumn in the air.  Fall is my favorite season of the year, and I'm looking forward to cooler weather and the changing leaves. Hopefully, we'll get to take the trip to the Fiesta Ware outlet that we were going to take before the accident in May. And of course, we haven't visited IKEA in a few months either. I'm starting to have withdrawal symptoms. 

This is also the time of year that I start getting the urge to  do more cooking. I'll be posting some of my adventures in the kitchen here on the blog, along with the recipes for the things I cook. This weekend, I'm planning on making Eggs Benedict for breakfast, and Chicken Piccata for dinner. Check back Sunday evening for an update. 

In todays "Creepy Toy Find" segment, I give you this little gem Steve and I found at a local craft store a few weeks back. This cuddly little polar bear cub sure was hungry! 

He seems to have eaten another polar bear, a walrus, a manatee (must have been one of the rare arctic manatees) , and an emperor penguin.  

Since Steve is not mobile for a few more weeks yet, I have been walking Dakota before I leave for work in the morning. It's a bit of a pain, but getting to see this sunrise was a great consolation. 

It's the friday before memorial day weekend, 2 days before Steve's 41st birthday. I've planned a busy weekend, a trip to West Virginia on Saturday for a visit to the Fiesta Ware Outlet, and some slot machine action at the Wheeling Island casino, with Sunday spent celebrating Steve's birthday, probably dinner at our favorite sushi place, and cake at home. To start the weekend, we decide to go out for dinner, before coming back home and relaxing after a long week of work. We are 2 blocks from the house, and about to turn onto the main road when all the plans we've made for the weekend, and indeed for the rest of the summer, are changed for us in one horrible second. 

I saw the car out of the corner of my eye before Steve did. I had just enough time to yell his name before the front end of the Cavalier made contact with the drivers side door of Steve's Focus. Then there was the crunch of metal, and shower of glass, and the acrid smoke of antifreeze and oil burning on the hot engine block. 

I examined  my hands, my arms, my legs, looking for any signs of damage, moving each joint expecting to feel the sharp stab of pain from a broken bone. Nothing. Not a scratch. I look over at Steve, he's bleeding from a small cut on his left ear, his hands brushing glass from his beard and the front of his shirt. My hearing comes back, and I notice that the engine of the car is still running. "Turn off the engine Steve" I say, in much calmer a voice that I ever imagined I would use after something like this. He does. I ask him if he's OK. He says he is, but that he can't straighten out his leg, his knee feels stuck. 

The driver of the other car and her passenger are fine, walking around the vehicles, surveying the damage, calling 911 from cell phones. I call too. Just as I hang up, the EMTs arrive. They come to Steve's car first, since we are still sitting in the car, assuming that we are both injured. I get out of the car, tell them I'm fine. Steve can't get out of the car, his door is jammed, and he can't get hi knee to work enough to climb over the seats. The EMT has to help him, and once he's out of the car, he is unable to stand fully on his right leg. He will be in the squad truck and off to the hospital within 10 minutes for x-rays and a diagnosis of a tibial plateau fracture. This will require surgery, which is performed at OSU medical center on June 1. Steve will be unable to put any weight on his leg for the next three months. 

Steve is doing well. THe surgery was a success, and he should make a full recovery. He's getting around the house with the aide of a walker, and we have a wheelchair for longer trips, so at least he will be able to get out of the house this summer.  I'm in nurse mode at home, making sure he takes his meds, and giving him his Lovenox shots every morning.  

We are both starting to relax a bit, after running at full speed, and being worried about his leg for nearly 2 weeks. Now the healing, and the rehab will occupy our time, and hopefully by fall, he'll be back to normal. 

Happy Easter, or whatever spring holiday you choose to celebrate... 

Here's an Easter Fail: 

I’m not one to make new years resolutions. They never last, life gets in the way, and any specific goals I ever set at the beginning of the year are usually long forgotten by Easter. 

But this year, I thought I would pick a few areas of my life that I feel need a little maintenance, and focus on them in a general way. No specific goals, just areas that I would like to feel better about, or projects that I’d like to be further along with at this time next year.

So, it is my hope that 2009 will be the year that I:

Start taking better care of my health.

I am at least 70 pounds over weight  and I feel every ounce of it. My knees and ankles scream at me just about every morning, but even more so the morning after I’ve worked a 12 hour shift at work. I can’t continue to do my job and carry around all this extra weight. I gained a lot of weight when I went to nursing school, and then more when I quit smoking. Nursing school was 4 years ago, and I quit smoking 2 years ago. It’s time to focus on the extra blubber.  

Reconnect with my spiritual side.

When I was younger, I was a much more spiritual / religious person than I am now. Over the last few years, I’ve neglected that part of myself, and I really do miss it. I feel sometimes like there is something I need to be thinking about, something bigger than myself. Over the next few months, it’s my intention to explore my spirituality again, and hopefully become more grounded than I have been lately.

Complete my R.N. Studies.

I have the books, I have the materials, and I’ve been paying the bill for the last 4 months. I just need to sit my ass down every day and study! For some reason, I just can’t get past the first two chapters of Introductory Sociology…..zzzzzzzzzzz….See? just typing the title made me sleepy!

Read More for Pleasure.

This may be wishful thinking, what with all of the stuff I need to read for the R.N. classes, but I have a stack of books I bought last year that I just never got around to reading.  First up: The Watchmen.  Steve has been after me to read it, and I’d like to finish it before the movie comes out in March.

Reconnect with Friends I’ve lost touch with, and open myself to new friendships.

I’ve lost touch with so many good friends over my lifetime. I have theories as to why, and I’ll write about that later. But this is the year that I will try to get back in touch with people that matter to me. And it’s also the year that I will be looking to make some new friends.  

Today marks the 2nd anniversary of my last cigarette. 

Here's an interesting piece of math: 

The current price of a pack of smokes here in Ohio is about $5.00. 

In two years of not smoking, I have saved nearly $4,000.00. that's a nice chunk of change. 

Now, if only I had actually put that $5.00 a day in the bank...    

Where to begin? 

It's been a busy couple of weeks, with little time to sit and think, let alone write. A week of endings, beginnings, and of things finally feeling right after feeling wrong for a while. 

An Ending: 

One week ago today, we buried Steve's step father, Ron. He had been ill for a while, dealing with the aftermath of a botched knee replacement surgery (MRSA infection), congestive heart failure, and declining health after 70+ years of not taking care of himself. In the end, it was pneumonia that caused his death on November 16th, just a few hours after being removed from the ventilator he had been connected to for 7 days. 

The funeral was small, attended by close family and friends. Ron had 3 children from a previous marriage in addition to Steve and his brother and sister.  Steve is doing OK, and his mother is starting to adjust to life without the drama of having an ill spouse to occupy your time.  

My feelings are mixed. Ron was a bigoted, opinionated bastard at times, full of bluster and ego. This led to times when I just could not stand to be around him, declaring at one point that he made Archie Bunker look liberal.

But, he was a good provider and husband for Steve's mother, marrying her when she was a single mother with 3 children, providing a home for them, and raising them like they were his own. I guess that's no different than any of us. We balance our good side with our bad side, and in the end all we can hope to say, or have said of us, is that we did our best. 

A Beginning: 

We found out in August that Steve's niece Karie is expecting her first child in April. This past week, we saw the first ultrasound pics of the baby. It's a girl, and her name will be Haiden. I can't wait to be a "great uncle bear" and have already suggested to Karie that she rent a copy of Auntie Mame to see just what she's in for. I fully intend to make sure that two of little Haiden's first words are "Prada" and "Tiffany's". Every child should have an "Uncle Mame"