The Talking Back

Steve and Sarah just left to take Meagan to the airport (after her lovely two-week visit) and Nathan is due to arrive home from work in a little over an hour. So for the moment it's just Snowy and me at home, updating the web site and having scintillating Snowy/Becky conversations. (Which tend to be a little one-sided since Snowy is a man of few words.)

There will be a longer update coming soon but I wanted to briefly address a few comments/questions about our newly painted wall.

Guerrina asked what color the paint is: it's Bungalow Gold by Eddie Bauer. A couple other people asked why we painted the wall when it already looked so nice. It was mainly because we are trying to "neutralize" the house as much as possible so that when potential buyers come in, they have a little bit of an easier time picturing their "stuff" in our rooms.

Now if we could just get a few buyers to come by and look at it, we'd be set. We're still stuck at our record of TWO viewings in seven months! "Anonymous" left a clever rhyme in that regard:

Mirror, mirror on the wall
How many buyers did new paint call?

At this point, the paint has called zero buyers but we will continue to wait. And pray. And hope. And paint.

My back is doing quite a bit better after four chiropractor visits. The long hours in the car on the way to and from Charlotte were not real pleasant (pain wise) but fortunately there was a lot going on in the van to take my mind off my discomfort.

First of all, I had this handsome van driver at my side.


And behind me, I had Nathan who was doing his best to be an entertaining van guy. (If you're wondering why Sarah is not intently watching the "The Nathan Show" going on in front of her, it's because she's listening to her favorite music on her iPod.







And of course, I also had Sir Snowy by my side, keeping a careful watch out the window for any Marauding Squirrels or Evil Birds. He's very protective, that way.


And that's all I'm going to write for the moment because my back is currently yelling at me, "Hey YOU! Get up and stretch, and walk around a little!"

Or something like that.

At any rate, I'm outa here!

My Pyrocracker

Do you want to know the WORST thing about my visit to the chiropractor yesterday?

It was when the lady doing the x-rays told me, "Hold your breath. Let it all out. Okay, now breathe normal."

Breathe normal? She wants me to breathe normal? How in the Sam Hill does one breathe normal?

I wanted to yell at her, "It's normalLY. You need to add the LY! Please, I beg of you. Add the LY. You are driving me CRAZY!"

However, as much as I wanted to yell, I managed to remain semi calm and just limited myself to intense gnashing of my teeth each additional time she told me I could "breathe normal." (Grrrrrr.)

As for the exam itself, I think I have made the list of The Top Ten Most Difficult Patients of the Year for my wonderful chiropractor. (Or as Sarah used to say, "Pyrocracker.")

The good doctor made several valiant efforts to "adjust me" and was not overly successful. The highlight of the whole visit was when he was doing this thing where you lie on your side with one knee up and he kind of pushes and pulls and yanks at the same time and you feel like you're going to fall right off the table and your whole body goes into violent spasms of rebellion and your already tight muscles get even tighter and you have to resist a very strong urge to punch the nice doctor's lights out.

You know, that adjustment.

Anyway, right smack dab in the middle of it, I let out the loudest of loud yelps and when he was done I said, "I have always hated that particular adjustment!"

He promised that in the future he would find another way to do it; I think my yelping rather unnerved him.

After he had tried several other things (that didn't go real well) he paused for a moment and said, "You must REALLY have a lot of stress in your life."

I just laughed.

I'm sorry. I really did laugh in the face of my pyrocracker.

I said, "Yeah, you might say that."

The pain is still there. The stress is still there. I can't move easily or bend over. It hurts to get out of the chair. It hurts to get into bed. It hurts to even think about moving.

And so today I will go see the chiropractor once again and we will discuss the x-rays which "the breathing lady" took yesterday. Then he will once more attempt to get something to move in my tight-as-a-drum back and neck.

I'll be seeing him at 10 am for my Happy Adjustment Appointment and then I will immediately drive to Raleigh for my Happy Mammogram Appointment. And the timing is especially wonderful because my mammogram appointments always make me extra stressed, mainly because of my complicated history and the breast cancer scare of last year.

So this morning when I see the chiropractor, I will be bringing in an extra layer of stress with me! Isn't that just so very thoughtful of me? I'm a self-service patient! I provide my own stress!

I'm good like that.

Yucky Happiness

It's only 6:45 pm but I'm headed to bed with doses of Xanax, Flexeril, and Tylenol on board. I'm having major back pain/spasms, I feel stressed and I'm weepy for no reason. I sound like a real delightful person to be around, don't I?

Steve is such a patient and loving husband; he helped me get out of my clothes and into my pajamas, because doing anything other than making tiny motions causes me pain. Nathan and Meagan did the dishes for me after dinner which was wonderful.

Sarah is headed back home tomorrow afternoon which makes me happy in the midst of my yuckiness. So I guess I'm headed to bed in a state of happy yuckiness. Or yucky happiness .

The important thing is that I'm going. And I should definitely stop typing before the muscle relaxer kicks in. Who knows WHAT I might say . . .

Lolling

I've been on a muscle relaxer since last night due to my back going "kapooy" on me for the first time in over a year.

I've never taken a muscle relaxer before and I've found it to be very, um, relaxing. I just loll around the house like The Great Smith Sloth and drift in and out of naps. Really rather fun.

Tomorrow morning I'm scheduled to play keyboard for two services at our church. I'm thinking that I should probably discontinue the medication before the services because it would not be a good thing for me to be lolling in la-la land in the middle of a song.

On the other hand, it might actually be sort of entertaining! The keyboardist suddenly falling alseep on verse two? THAT doesn't happen in church just every day.

Thankfully, I have Meagan and Nathan around so I'm happily working them like slaves; in fact, right now they're at Wal-Mart picking up a few "easy to make" things so that we can have supper with a minimal amount of concentration and focus involved.

So here's the rest of my day.

Eat.

Go to bed.

Okay. I'm off to do so some more pre-dinner lolling . .