August ramblings

It has now been six weeks since my knee surgery and I am becoming more and more discouraged. I am still in pain every day and at times last week the pain was worse that it ever was before the surgery. I still have to ice it two or three times a day and I am very sick of it. The doctor said last Monday that I was doing "excellent". I told him and the nurse that I still had pain and they both said that was normal. My sister-in-law had the same surgery one week before mine and we have been a good support system for each other. She said this weekend that this last week was finally better so I am trying to be hopeful. The problem today is that it feels like it is locked up and that is a new pain. I am to return to the doctor the middle of September but if this keeps up, I am going sooner than that. I did research online and found forums where people were still in pain for months after the surgery. But I am very tired of starting every day with an ice pack and a pain pill.

I had a new experience today - I did a Visa training at a middle school and one of the teachers was deaf so a person did sign language as I spoke. That was a very strange feeling - I turned slightly so I couldn't see her as it was very distracting. I believe he is a special ed teacher for a deaf class.

I have been busy with knitting and crocheting. I was working on a sweater for Jimmy but it is a real pain to do and requires concentration so decided to make some afghans for the triplets at the same time. The afghans are very simple but pretty and go quickly. I have one done and another about 1/3 done. I started just before my surgery so that is good progress. Maranda had a pattern for a crocheted flower that was so cute so I got some thread and made one to see how it would turn out. It came out very cute - I had it at work today and it got a lot of compliments. Maranda stopped by my office and she liked it too so I will start on the next one.

In other random news, we are in love with Wendy's new Apple Chicken Walnut salads. Oh my goodness they are wonderful. We are also in love with Memphis Beat - a new show on one of the cable channels. I hope it is on again next year.

The trailer is coming along nicely. We have been going down the last couple of weekends cleaning. I made new curtains for the front room and painted the dining room this weekend. Dennis power washed the outside and the screens of the porch which made a huge difference. We found out we get a few tv stations so we will buy a tv for it. We got roller shades to replace the nasty miniblinds and a blue throw rug for the front room which made a huge difference. It looks much nicer now. The only remaining problem is the water - it has white pvc pipes for the water system and the water smells to high heaven. We put bleach through it and it has helped the cold water but the hot still is awful. Came up with a name for it - the Club House - as in Mickey MOUSE clubhouse. :) Found one more dead mouse this week and Dennis found more places to plug which hopefully he can do that this next weekend. Getting the old stuff out and putting in new has helped and getting it clean really helped. We also bought a couple of chairs for the screened porch and maybe someday we will actually just go down there and sit and relax.
Here are a couple of pictures - one is a spider on the outside of the trailer that is huge and the other is my table nicely decorated with birthday presents