Warning: Long post with many photos!

I went to my parents’ for a week, and I thought I would blog from there, but the trip up there took 12 hours, because we missed the first ferry by 10 minutes, and the one we caught was delayed by an hour due to high (40 mph) winds (and the ride was quite rough)… and really, my back had quite had it when we arrived at the airport after about 5 hours of traveling, so after 12 hours I was in agony, and my body responded by giving me a 4-day-long migraine starting the next morning, which responded slightly to the injection I got at urgent care on the evening of the third day, and then came right back again late the next morning.  However, I did quite enjoy 2 days with my parents, my sister, brother-in-law, and most of all, my most adorable 2 1/2-year-old nephew.

The unfortunate thing (besides the pain) is that my brother and his wife were only there for the first day and a half, so there was only one family dinner, and I missed it, because I was hiding out in my parents’ bedroom, in the darkness, completely nauseated.  I could only eat rice, with one ice pack on my back and one heat pack on my neck, and/or an ice pack on my head.  And I had to eat some rice, so that I could take my pain medication… I was very thankful that the last time I went to urgent care they prescribed me a nausea medication that dissolves on my tongue, because without that it would have been a much less pleasant night (the island doesn’t have an urgent care that’s open on the weekends and we arrived Friday night at 11pm, so I waited until Monday to go to urgent care, which is really more of a walk-in clinic, although I don’t know why I waited until late in the day…).

For both of the days I felt well, my brother-in-law’s mother was there.  The second of those days was Thanksgiving, and my brother-in-law’s sister, husband, and two kids, 7 and 1 1/2, were there that day as well, so the house was quite full.  The two neighbors also came over for Thanksgiving, so after much squabbling, the two leaves were put in and then removed from the dining room table, and the kitchen table was brought into the dining room and the tables were put together so that the 12 adults, one 7-year-old, and two babies could all sit around one table together.  My mom had baked 5 pies for some reason, and it happened to be my brother-in-law’s sister’s birthday, and a few weeks earlier was my parent’s 40th wedding anniversary (which is the reason my siblings wanted us all together) so the previous day my sister decided to bake 2 cakes, one for the birthday and one for the anniversary, so we had 2 whipped cream Princess Torte cakes (a Swedish recipe) right after lunch, and then there were leftovers from that, plus two different kinds of pie (pumpkin and pumpkin/pecan) for dessert after dinner!  I only saw two pies on the table, so I don’t know what my mom is going to do with the other three!  She always goes overboard with desserts!  There were all kinds of breads and cookies all week and blackberry pie and lemon raspberry bars, and… I can’t remember it all!  I brought my camera, but I wasn’t feeling well, so I actually didn’t take a single picture the whole time I was there!  No, that’s not true. I did take one. This one. It’s R and my parents’ Bouvier, Tek. He’s just over 1 year old.

Thankfully R took quite a few… here are two of Tek, who we both thought kind of looked like a bison when he lied down…

My mom made a batch of Gak, and R, myself, and my brother-in-law sat down to play with it… my brother-in-law imitated an elephant, (which I thought looked a bit obscene, and I could NOT stop laughing)…

I’m SO glad R snapped these photos!

Of course, my nephew had to imitate, but by the time the elephant nose got around to him, it was quite extended!

This is from some movie, I can’t recall at the moment… more laughing ensued on my part…

And of course it had to be mimicked!

R and I read the little one lots of stories (although I only got to read on the last 2 days)…

Here I am with a migraine…and my brother’s dog Pip on my lap.

And here I am feeling better, knitting! I’m also listening to a book on CD, Eckhart Tolle’s, A New Earth. I’m somewhere on the 3rd disc of 8. It’s interesting stuff. My sister-in-law recommended it. On a related topic, I just had the last class of an 8-week Mindfulness Meditation class at Stanford University on Tuesday. I did not meditate every day like you’re supposed to, but I have started to meditate some, and I have become more mindful. The book for the Stanford class is Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Full Catastrophe Living, which I haven’t read all the way through yet either. However, if you’re dealing with chronic pain, I would highly recommend the class and/or the book. Other people in the class (besides those with chronic pain) included those with ADD, anxiety, sleep disorders, tension with their children, psychology students, medical students, and others. Jon Kabat-Zinn teaches Mindfulness classes in the Boston area and I believe there are other classes elsewhere in the country and possibly worldwide.

I’m also reading this book now and then that my mom gave me, How we Choose to be Happy, by Rick Foster and Greg Hicks. I haven’t gotten very far into it, but it seems to have a lot of very reasonable information. Being suddenly bombarded by chronic pain a year and a half ago has put an unimaginable amount of stress on my internal happiness, my relationships with my friends (both because I’m always dealing with pain and also because I’m often stuck in the house and I can’t socialize due to pain), and my marriage. It’s nice to have references to help me find the path to happiness again. I think these three books can all be references. I still have a long way to go…

I have a very strong tendency whenever I’m upset about something or in a lot of pain to gravitate to my knitting, pick it up, and completely immerse myself in it, because I know that it is the one thing that I can count on that will generally make me feel endlessly satisfied, especially when I’m designing something new. I think that it’s good that the thing I run to is productive (i.e. it’s not gambling or drugs), but I’m not sure that this is a good habit to have…

Remember I mentioned that the kitchen table was taken out of the kitchen and added to the dining room table? Apparently my nephew was still sitting next to the kitchen table eating lunch! He was left all alone in the kitchen! Kind of silly looking…

Last, but not least, my sister brought my nephew’s Halloween costume, which she made: an Elmo Monster costume!

She also made an Elmo Monster doll, so my nephew would be more enticed to wear the costume, which apparently worked out pretty well! He wore it several different days to surprise different guests who came and went…

That’s all for now! Tune in next time for some knitting content!

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