Jewelry Organization on the Cheap

I love jewelry. Some ladies have power suits; I have power necklaces. It is very rare that you'll ever see me without at least earrings on, and if I'm at the office, you can guarantee I'll be sporting a necklace & earrings. (I love bracelets, too, but I can't wear them when I'm treating patients.)

I have collected a fair amount of jewelry over the years. No need to call hoarders, by any means, but in my tiny, organizationally challenged home, it was getting a bit difficult to manage. For years, I've had my necklaces thrown stored in a box on a shelf, and my earrings & bracelets tossed into a desk drawer along with my makeup & hair accessories. It was getting difficult to find things, and when I tried to grab one necklace, there were always at least six others tangled up with it. The earring situation was getting out of hand, too. I tried to organize the drawer by puuting my earrings into some jewelry boxes i got for free, but, it was still a mess, and I kept forgetting which box a pair of earrings might be in. It was getting so bad that I wasn't even bothering to put my earrings away. Just left them on the desk in a pile.

I finally got fed up with it. But a typical jewelry organizer wasn't going to work. The jewelry boxes that sit on a shelf never hold enough jewelry pieces for me, and I don't have the funds or the space for the big wall or freestanding organizers. Craftiness Activate!

I grabbed my old bulletin board from high school, and covered it with some canvas I had in my stash. I turned under the edges of the fabric & just stapled it to the cork. A spare piece of ribbon got thumbtacked across the top to hang earrings off of. Nearly all of my earrings are on fish hook type wires. More thumbtacks went in to hang necklaces & bracelets off of.

"Why did you hang it so high? I can't bat at any of that!"

Boom, done! Completed in an evening, absolutely free, & takes up no space in the apartment. All my jewelry is now easy to find. For my sets, I keep the earrings just above it's matching necklace. Added bonus: with all the necklaces hanging from the same level, I can quickly tell which ones are longer/shorter than others, which makes the trying on of necklaces when I get ready in the morning much faster! If I try to pair a necklace with a shirt, but the necklace is too long, I can quickly tell which other, shorter necklaces are better contenders. And now I'm much less likely to throw all my jewelry in a pile on the desk again!

Today: phone meeting with the business coach (cringe), run stats for the office, make a housewarming gift to give to a friend tomorrow night, & chillax with the much-neglected-of-late husband.

TGIF!

Tatting & a video tutorial!

I've still been plugging away at tasks to get done at work & in craft-land. In the latter category, I mentioned before that I'm working on Jane Eborall's TIAS. http://tatitandsee.blogspot.com/2013/01/introduction-to-tias-2013.html I'm liking this project. It's in bite sized pieces, which keeps me from completely ignoring all the other things I need to get done (we have to wait a few days between the release of each piece of the pattern). This project is also teaching me some new techniques.

Here's my progress so far:

Day 1

Just basic rings & chains. Working with size 10 crochet cotton.

Day 2

In this section, I got to learn how to do a split chain. The interwebs were surprisingly lacking in tutorials for needle tatting such a thing. I found this video & tried it, but didn't care for the results. The sideways ring bothered me & my mild OCD. I ended up doing the split chain the same way as a shuttle tatter would, and like the results much better.

Day 3

Nothing new. Just a continuation of the split chain to climb up to the next row, which is a ring & chain shorter than the previous.

Day 4

Adventure Time! This section involved creating an outline using Catherine Wheel joins. The internet produced absolutely zero tutorials for how to do this type of join with tatting needles. It seemed to be a shuttle-only technique. I tried to substitute other types of joins, but nothing produced the nice, neat, smooth edge I was seeing in other people's pictures. So I tinkered & figured out a way to make a Catherine Wheel join happen for needle tatters. And then I used my shiny new tablet to make my very first video tutorial! Woot! I almost feel techy! Head on over to my YouTube channel to watch the tutorial. (With a special appearance by the ever-adventurous Tali-cat!) If you have any questions, feel free to ask me there or here on the blog.
I'm still not sure what the TIAS project will be, in the end. That's part of the fun! There will be something like 11 parts to the pattern, so we're not quite halfway there yet. My guesses so far: a basket, or a hat. We'll see!

Well, that's enough adventure for this morning & I'm out of time. Happy Wednesday!

Determination

Yesterday's mastermind meeting went well, & I got a few new insights to apply to my marketing, as well as some insights into my own psychology. My knee is still progressing. I was able to wear my jeans again today for the first time since the injury! Yesterday also saw a couple bonus patients, so huzzah for that! I didn't get any time to craft yesterday, though. By the time I got home from my friend's birthday bash & sat on the couch to look at a craft pattern, I promptly passed out. So again, I have no pictures of current projects for you.

Today: unexpected visit from my mother-in-law, head to the office to do paperwork while the hubby's gone to martial arts, and either hang out with some friends tonight or do laundry. And craft. :)

Catch-up

Yesterday started too early to get blog post in. Had a networking meeting at 7:30, then went straight from there to an all-day business building seminar, where I had some great light-bulb moments, good insight, & ideas on ventures to get new patients that I need to implement asap. And homework. Need to go through the notes again this weekend, before I forget what we talked about. If I don't do it before Sunday's over, I know I'll never get to it, & it'll become shelf-help.

I realized yesterday that the yellow fuzzy scarf wasn't actually eating up that much yarn, & was working up to be lighter weight than I preferred. Fuzzy scarves should be WARM, dammit! So I frogged it & started over, this time doubling the yarn. I only got an inch or two in length reworked, but I'm liking the thickness better. It's coming out wider than I prefer, but I'm not going to worry about that.

I want to get caught up on Jane Eborall's tat-along project. Linky link. If you're not familiar with a craft-along, here's how it works. Jane maked up a tatting pattern. She'll release it, but in small bits over a period of time. No one has any idea what the pattern will look like when it's done, & we can send her our progress pictures & guesses if we'd like her to post them to her blog. It's free & fun & feeds the craft monster that's been raging out lately. I've only finished day 1. Looked up how to do a new-to-me technique so I can do day 2. There's a simpler option to the pattern, but I like to learn new things, and the technique in question prevents me from having to cut strings & hide ends as often. I hate working in ends! In any project! Pictures of the tatting later, hopefully tomorrow.

On tap today: a business mastermind meeting this morning with the same coach as yesterday (I adore her. Different coach than the one that I have the calls with), another checkup on my knee, a handful of patients, & a kareoke birthday bash for a friend. For crafting, I'm setting my sights on the tat-along & working on the scarf some more. I also need to plot my attack on the tassel belt I mentioned a while back. Less than 2 weeks before I need that!

It's Friday, baby!

Accomplished!

Well, whatdya know, I actually got crap done yesterday! Huzzah! Got my stats done & sent, finished up a spreadsheet that will make it easier to compile stats in the future, set up a new paper shredder, and got caught up inputting insurance payments & write offs through what was received in November. Still need to do the same to get December's insurance payments processed, and then I can dig in & work on getting my accounts in better order. Not sure that's going to happen today, though.

When I got home, I started in on the scarf my friend requested. Had to reference the interwebs to remember the gist of how to knit. I'm not a huge fan of knitting, so the skills were rusty, as I've only really made one knit project. But since I'm limited on how much yarn I have, & I can't get more, I chose to knit it, since that uses less yarn than crochet. I picked up some gigantic knitting needles, too, which will make this guy go that much faster & easier. Fluffy yarn is hard to work with, since you can't see the stitches, which is another reason this yarn is better suited to knitting than crochet. It's coming along nicely.

 

The husband's conversation with his boss went ok. He voiced his concerns & they're working to figure out solutions to the problems. Everybody's on the same page there, now, and nobody screamed. Woot!

Today is a new patient first thing (hooray!!!) as well as some other patients scattered throughout the day, then I have to cut out early for a networking event at 4:30. Any spare time I get today though will be spent on those December payments. I still have a file I need to send off to auto insurance adjustors, too, and I really have no excuse for stalling this long on it. Need to get that done.

Crickets

Today is a ghost town at the office. No patients on the books at all. Hopefully that will translate to me getting a lot accomplished. A couple projects I could/should work on include getting my stats completed & sent off to my business coach (yep, still haven't done that yet), making up a list of patients that dropped off the grid & I'd like to reactivate, track insurance claims & payments, & do an accounts receiveable cleanup (figure out what money is still owed me, & what I'm stuck wih having to write off because I let it go too long). All are big projects, so I don't expect to get more than one finished, but we'll see. Still need to see about how to block facebook on my work laptop. That would definitely help my productivity!

Yesterday, my last patient was running very late. I didn't mind a whole lot. He felt bad though, especially since this isn't the first time he's run late, so he offered as appology to be my technical consultant. Works for me! I'm very non-techy. He heads a departent or two at Charter. Writes web pages for them, etc. He said he'll do some research over the next couple weeks to see how we can get the office set up to do email & text message appointment reminders. That's been on my list for a while, but I haven't gotten around to it. Hoping this works out! :)

I hung out with a couple friends last night. We meant to craft, but ended up chatting with each other & one friend's family members all night, which was just as pleasant. Though we got no crafting done, I did go home with a huge bag filled with yarn from one friend who's downsizing homes. The other friend saw some eyelash yarn she liked and asked me to make her a scarf from it one of these days. The craft bug keeps biting! :)

Today, the husband is planning to talk to his boss about the issues he's having with her & the office. He's reached his breaking point with frustration there. I feel for him, & hope it goes well. He can tend to be rather condescending & verges on yelling when he gets aggitated, though, so hopefully he can keep the rage-monster in check! We're both praying he doesn't get fired for letting his boss know all the major problems he's having with how things are being done there. He needs his sanity, but we also need his paycheck to pay the bills. We'll see how things go in the next 9 hours or so.

I have no crafty pictures for you, so enjoy the Tali-cat!

An interesting Tuesday...

Weekend wrap-up

Oy. Didn't get around to posting over the weekend. There goes my perfect attendance reward, lol. Friday's call with the business coach wasn't too aweful, but I still really need to get marketing & new patient inflow figured out. Friday evening, the hubby & I had a lovely dinner at our favorite sushi place. We even treated our cat to a small piece of sushi fish when we got home. She was VERY happy about that! Saturday morning was spent crafting at a friend's house. I finished up a couple more pending hummingbirds & worked in the ends on a few small crocheted & tatted pieces. I greatly dislike working in ends, but it must be done. These pieces aren't needed for anything at the moment, but I like to keep these little bits around just in case I need a little doodad at some point. Saturday afternoon was spent playing with my new tablet & figuring it out. I'm very non-techno-savvy. I don't even have a smart phone. (I LIKE my flip phone, thank you!) But I'm liking the tablet quite a bit. After the hubby got jome from capoeira class, he asked if I'd like to have some friends over for a belated bday celebration. Sounded good, so we called everybody & I spent the rest of my day cleaning before people got here. And by cleaning, I my clearing the clutter out of the living room & transferring it to other areas. My office/craft room (the croffice) is now a complete disaster zone. >_< But a grand time was had with the friends. After they left, I syayed up entirely too late playing on the tablet & trying to figure out the best configuration for the tassels I made an eternity ago for a dance tassel belt. The sickness gripped me pretty tight at the end of the night, so I popped a couple nyquil so I could breathe & sleep & stop hacking up a lung.

Sunday. Oh Sunday. We we supposed to meet my parents back in my hometown for a birthday breakfast with them at 9:30. I wake up to my mom calling my phone at 10, asking if we were still coming. Yikes! Aparently the nyquill knocked me out so hard that I didn't notice I'd turned off my alarm when it went off & rolled back over. The man & I flew out of bed & out the door to meet my parents at their house instead, for gifting, to take things over there we don't need at the apartment, & to retrieve things we do need that we've been storing over there. A quick visit & we were flying out the door again, getting to our weekly D&D game about 15 minutes late. My sickness had me pretty floored, so I'm not sure what happened in the game, but I'm pretty sure we were awesome. Got home & collapsed on the couch watching a few eps of Spartacus.

Today, I'm feeling much more in the land of the living. I've blogged too long again, though, so I'll be flying out the door again. I sense a pattern here. Have another appointment for my knee, & I still need to get my stats compiled & sent to my biz coach. Crafting tonight with a friend who needs some distraction. Happy Monday!

Friday

Aaaaand it's Friday! I'm not as excited as most would be though. Every other Friday morning, I have a phone meeting with my business building coach. I always dread those calls, especially when things are slow at the office. He always expects that I can get so much more done than I ever do. Maybe it's the strange time vortex I seem to exist in, where everything I do takes three times as long as it would take anyone else. Maybe it's my irrational hesitation at the unknown & in the face of things that terrify me, like a lot of marketing ideas do. Either way, there's a half hour of sweating & frustration coming up this morning. I always leave myself some time after the call to calm down & get my head back on straight before I'll see any patients.

Yesterday was my birthday. It was fairly meh for the most part, and the weather was dreary, damp, & dark, but there were still some highlights. :) Went out to lunch with a friend & the hubby. Got lots of hello's on Facebook, including a very sweet sentiment from my dad. My dad stopped by the office on his way home & brought me Captain D's for dinner, which I haven't had in ages. We used to go to Red Lobster for my birthday a lot, but we weren't able to this year. He knew I'd be stuck at the office all evening, & he wanted to treat me to dinner both as a birthday treat & in case I didn't have time for dinner otherwise. That ended up working great, because my evening patients shuffled their appointments around, so I actually did get stuck at the office too late to have grabbed any dinner before dance practice. The shuffle also gave me time to sit down with my dad & have a lovely time just catching up. My life's been so helter-skelter that I haven't had much time to just chat. Can you tell I'm a daddy's girl? ^_~ The dance ladies got me a sweet birthday card. And when I got home, I discovered the hubby had forgotten his promise NOT to get me a bday present. He bought me way too many exensive things on the ski trip, & he has an ammended speeding ticket to pay for. We're not exactly comfortable financially, so he promised he would treat the ski trip items as my early bday presents. But he got me something anyway. A shiny new Microsoft Surface! Eeeep!!! I've been looking at getting a tablet for the office, and mentioned the Surface at one point. My techie friend & colleague further convinced him it's what I need. So poof! I has a new toy! :D Super happy! Even though he really shouldn't have spent so much money on me! I need to call my accountant today & figure out if/how I can classify it as a business expense, since I'll be using it for work, & make it a tax write-off. I figured I might have to return it & buy it back again, this time with the business's debit card so the money trail looks right, but I'm not sure. Just in case, I kept it in the box, even though I really wanted to play with it!

My knee is healing still. The Kinesiotape is working and has greatly reduced the amount of bruising. I think the swelling has gone down some, too, but it's hard for me to tell. Another reason I know the KTape is working: I'm getting sick. I didn't expect that one! Makes sense, though. Now that all the guck from the injury (blood, other fluid, dead cells, etc) is draining out of my knee finally, it's getting into my lymphatic system. My body's now having to deal with getting all that mess flushed out, & is likely neglecting my immune system a bit. Ah well. I'll live. :)

In crafty news, I'm still looking for a tatted jewelry set pattern. I'm just not really feeling the free ones I found. I may peruse etsy later & see what patterns are availabe for purchase. I was also very happy to discover that my favorite tatter, TotusMel, took my suggestion for where her newest design could go in overall design. :)

Today: work up stats & a marketing calendar before my coaching call this morning. Call my accountant to figure out the write off issue & just to ask in general what the heck I need to start putting together for him so we can do my taxes. See if there are any more appeals I need to make with insurance companies. And the day will probably wrap up much more pleasantly than it will begin: with a belated bday dinner at our favorite sushi spot & maybe a bit of tatting. :)

Birthday! Meh.

It's my day of birth. Horray! Meh. Kinda not feeling it this year. I guess all the craziness & responsibility of running a business (especially with no business training) has turned me into a boring old lady. I was hoping to sleep in today, since I don't have any patients til 11:30. Then I realized last night that I have a zillion admin tasks that *must* get done today, so I set the alarm once again for 5:30. And like a repeat of Tuesday, I kept hitting the snooze til 7, snuggling with the hubby. Oh well.

Yesterday was a bit odd. My one patient of the day didn't show. But that meant I had time to have lunch at home with my man. As I left the apartment, I heard a guy from a moving company upstairs telling his buddy, "Man, I need a chiropractor! Or a new back!" I happily got out of my car, went up to him, told him I could help, & gave him my card. His buddy asked for one too. Let's hope that chance encounter turns into some new patients! Got my knee worked on, complete with a healthy application of KinesioTape to help the swelling drain. I'm loving the KTape! Still waiting to see the swelling go down, but the bruising is looking better, & it hurt less to walk. Though when my man got home, he was very surprised to see a big blue octopus-looking thing on my leg. Got a call from the office during lunch that a patient was going to bring in his son as a new patient for me later that day. Woot! About an hour later, he cancelled, saying his son didn't want to come in & his dad was unable to convince him. Boo. So yesterday was another no-patient day. Those kinda suck. But I was able to spend the rest of the afternoon in my lounge pants on the couch at home with the snuggly kitty, looking at tatting patterns while listening to my training audios in an empty house (for some reason, I hate listening to them when anyone else is around). My knee was pretty happy about that.

Le kitty, Tali. Aka Queen Sheba Tali-kat.

Our artist friend, Radiant Grey, made a mash-up of Tali & Tard, The Grumpy Cat.

Had a dinner of buffalo jerky & a smoothie, then headed out to do a dance demonstration. Happily, my knee held up just fine while dancing, though it was a bit grumbly afterward. After I got home, it was more audios while I played litchen tetris, trying to make my new set of dishes I got for Christmas fit in my teeny tiny kitchen. Made it work, finally, & I managed to consolidate to two different dish sets, service for 4 each. We've had quite the mismatched pile of dishes forever, like 6 or 7 different patterns & types, so it's nice to look in the cabinets & see things that match, mostly. Eventually I'll order another set of the new dishes & swap them out with the old set that's still here.

Today's agenda: Pay bills, make up my marketing calendar, maybe some more audios, compile my office stats from last month, & send them to my business building coach before our phone meeting tomorrow. I never look forward to those things. >_< I'll also be contemplating on tatting patterns for the silent auction. I think I'll call it done on looking for patterns. Didn't find anything that made me want to jump right up & start making it, but I found some that I think look nice. Just need to narrow it down now. To celebrate the BDay, I'll treat myself to some Bread Co for breakfast, a friend is taking me out to Bread Co for lunch (hey, it's yummy!), & I'll probably splurge on a Java Chip Frappucino at Starbucks after dance class tonight. Probably won't be home to see my man again til 10pm. Lame.

Have a great Thursday, everyone!

Adventures in Tat-land

Three days in a row of blogging! Woot! I may still be sucking at getting through my daily tasks as planned, but at least I'm doing *something* I said I would! ^_~

Yesterday, one patient turned into three! Hooray! Today, I only have 2 patients on the book, but one already rescheduled. C'est la vie. Getting my knee worked on today & doing a dance demo tonight, so yay for that! The knee is still healing. Tightened up a bit last night, but it's looking better every day. Yesterday, I managed to get the business account balanced & paid the office bills. I got the pre-made Paleo meal plans printed off, but I haven't looked at them yet to determine what groceries I need to get. Intended to clean out the fridge after work, but the sink is already full of dirty dishes because the dishwasher is full of clean dishes. Asked the hubster to empty the dishwasher for me so I can do the rest of the dish shuffle today. Yes, I'm lazy. But I don't ask him to do many chores beyond emptying the dishwasher, taking out the trash & recycling, & sorting his dirty laundry for me. ^_~ Looking at yesterday's list, my predicted 75% completion was actually more like 25%. Boo on me.

Today will be spent working on the personal accounts, paying more bills, listening to business building audios (NOT my favorite task, but must be done), working on the marketing calendar (I REALLY need to do this one! C'mon, Vicky! Can't get new patients in the door if I have no plan or idea how I'm going to do it!), call to reschedule the two patients I meant to call yesterday, toss icky fridge things, look at the meal plans, & plot the grocery list.

**If you struggle w/ keeping straight the zillion things that need doing, check out www.rememberthemilk.com. I love that site! You can have multiple to-do lists, move items between lists, see ALL your tasks in one place, send tasks to others... Check it out.**

Now what was I up to yesterday that caused me to get so little of my tasks done? Well, partly looking at tatting patterns. Tatting is a form of lacemaking that was big in the 1800s. I discovered it & fell in love with it when I stumbled across the work of TotusMel. Check out her Etsy page here, then see what she's up to at her blog here. A couple summers ago, I learned how to tat with a tool called a shuttle. It's a bit slow for me, but I love it. Recently, I decided to try to learn to tat with a needle instead of a shuttle. I got some tatting needles for Christmas, & brought them along w/ me to play with while traveling to CO on the ski trip. Between a book on needle tatting & TotusMel's videos on Instructables, I picked it up pretty easily. Holy crap it's so much faster than shuttle tatting!!! I'm in love! I'll probably pick up the shuttles again if I'm working on a larger piece, since they can hold a lot of thread wound around them, & with needles you have to use a much shorter, cut length of thread, but I think I'll be a needle tatter 90% of the time now. Needle tatting is also way easier to learn & do than shuttle tatting. I'm a happy crafter. :)

As soon as I learned how to needle tat, I recieved inspiration to do a big tatting project. As I mentioned in a previous post, my Aunt passed away while I was on vacation. Through Facebook posts from family, I learned that in her final hours, she communicated to her daughters that she would visit them from the other side as a hummingbird. I was instantly compelled to make tatted hummingbirds for my family members to remember her by. One of my cousins asked on FB if anyone knew where to find hummingbird lapel pins she & her sisters could wear at their mom's funeral. I was already working on it. Fortunately, I had brought along some blue thread, my Aunt's favorite color. I spent an evening scouring the interwebs for a free tatted hummingbird pattern. Finding none, I found a few pictures of ones already made, which I stared at trying to figure out how to make them. I got close to figuring it out with one design, but it wasn't quite there, so I found a place to buy the pattern & did so. Unfortunately, it wasn't an immediate download, so I kept hunting while I waited for the emailed pattern. In that time, I found another pictured design I liked better, so I worked up a prototype of that one, referencing the pic to figure out how to make it. Eureka! Got it figured out after a 2nd prototype, & started cranking away on more.

Took me between 25 & 30 minutes to make one, start to finish. I posted on FB that I'd be happy to make one for anyone who asked. In the end, I had requests for 35. At the funeral, a few extra people wanted some, so I made about 4 more there. And I have three more to make for family that couldn't make it to the funeral. 42 hummingbirds in all. Everyone loved them.

I feel so blessed that I was able to make these for everyone. I wasn't very close to this Aunt, and her death at 58 was no surprise to me, as she's been in poor health for as long as I've known her & even worse health in recent years. I'm sad that she's gone, & my heart aches for my family who mourn her more heavily. I thank the devine intervention of God, Buddha, the Universe, whatever you'd like to call it, that made sure I had the skills & supplies at hand & the time needed to make these birds. It's nice to know that something you made helps heal a breaking heart.

The tatting continues with other projects! A couple days ago, a friend asked for submissions to a silent auction at an upcoming craft & artist show/fundraiser for her non-profit. I'm currently looking up tatted jewelry patterns. I'd love to make a necklace & earring set to put in the auction & help my friend raise some funds for her cause! I haven't found anything I like yet, but I'm hunting. I'm leaving my tatting books on my work desk as a carrot: finish something on my to-do list & I get to look at patterns for a few minutes! Now if only I can groom myself to have the self-control not to dig through patterns *before* I finish anything...

A final note: I need to make shorter posts! My idea of 20-30 minutes of blogging was more like an hour today. >_< Happy Wednesday, everybody!

Crash & Burn

Welp, as predicted, I got very little accomplished yesterday. Got the button sewn onto the husband's dress pants before he left for work, took care of patients (minus two who forgot their appointments), checked insurance benefits on the patients I saw yesterday (but no more than that), called one insurance company to figure out why they didn't pay me (a dizzying phone call, resulting in me now knowing for certain they're not going to pay me), trimmed the kitty's claws, and collapsed in a heap wondering why I didn't get all the tasks done I'd set out to. Actually, now that I look at it, I got about half of my list done, just like I'd predicted. Go me? :/ I added a few things to the list throughout the day, though, so it doesn't quite feel like I was all that productive.

Today is already turning out to be no better. Hit the snooze on my phone alarm for literally an hour & a half. And since I didn't get a grocery list made, I'll be buying breakfast, lunch, & dinner out today. Not so great for the tight bank account or my attempts to be Paleo. Le sigh. BUT I did pick up several paleo cookbooks & already-done meal plans w/ shopping lists (pdf form), so I'll work on taking a look at those later today.

As promised, here's you're quick story for today: the tale of the Craftaholic's Mountain Adventure, or How I Bashed the Bujeezus Out of My Knee.

We went to Breckenridge, CO over the week of New Year's for the annual family ski trip with the in-laws. Much fun was had, despite children & some adults being more moody than usual. The slopes & town were packed for the 1st half of the trip, as it was a holiday week. Finally, Jan 1st, the crowds dissipated as most people headed home. We decided that was a great day to get out early, before what was left of the populace did, and hit up the higher, more difficult trails. The hubby & I strapped into our snowboards & headed up the mountain. We came to a spot in the trail with a nice, steep grade where I'd be able to get some good speed without any obstacles to deal with. I stopped & told the man to head down the mountain & get a video of me boarding (a yearly tradition. Yes, I still suck, but I suck less & less each year! Lol!). He boarded down about 100 yards or so away and signaled for me to begin my run.

Now, dear readers, you must know, these were far from ideal skiing & boarding conditions. Breck hadn't had fresh snow in over a week. That, combined with massive crowds, meant the trails had turned into hard-packed solid ice in some areas. It's called SNOWboarding, not iceboarding. Snowboards have no control when going over ice.

So I started my run for the camera. I made it all of 5 seconds into the run, then hit a patch of ice & start to lose control a bit. I did my best to correct myself while in motion, and had almost regained control, when I hit another, much larger patch of ice, causing my board to completely slip out from underneath my feet. While I was facing up-mountain. That meant I had no time to position my body to distribute the force of the fall. So I fell, full force with all my body weight, at speed, into a solid sheet of ice, directly onto my right knee. Insert screaming & a few choice expletives. At first, I thought I'd shattered my knee cap. After a minute, I realized I could still move my knee, despite the pain, which told me it wasn't broken, at least. Brian got concerned when I didn't come down the trail (he was too far away to hear my screaming), so he unstrapped & started walking up the mountain to check on me. A couple passers by checked on me as well. After a few minutes, I discovered I could still stand, so we boarded, gently & uber-beginner style, to the nearby mountain-side restaurant for a lunch break. The side of my knee had already swollen by then. We chilled there for half an hour or so, then boarded back home, because boarding was easier on me than walking from the bus stop would've been. Despite the injury, I did manage to board again the next day, too. I couldn't miss our last opportunity to board before we went to Missouri!

Once I got back to St. Louis, I got it checked out to make sure there's no hairline fractures. Preliminary reports point to no fractures. Huzzah!. But it's still swollen & burised & hurts, and the main area of impact is numb to light touch & has delayed sensation of sharp stimuli. Neat! I'll live. It's healing. Swelling is going down, bruising is improving, & the numb area is decreasing. Still not sure what structures exactly were injured, but I'm happy to be on the mend. My knee, however, did not appreciate me being a responsible adult yesterday. It much preferred me lazing about on the couch all day in sweat pants, not on my feet walking around the office or at a desk, wearing tight knee-high dress socks. This morning, you can still see the line of color change in my bruise from where my sock was & where it wasn't.

And we carry on.

The battle plan today: Balance all the bank accounts, pay bills, call more insurance companies to figure out if I can get paid, re-verify benefits for more patients, call a couple patients who said they'd call to reschedule but never did, work on my marketing calendar, clean out the fridge, look at the meal plans & shopping lists I got & plan my grocery store trip, and wrap up the day with a networking meeting. It's an incredibly slow day at the office today--only one patient scheduled--so I should be able to get all of this accomplished. Realistically, I'll call it at 75%. Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Stay on target...

Happy new year, everyone! Here we are again, at the first few blank pages of the 365 page book of 2013. Let's hope it's a great, uplifting, joyful read!

After catching up on the blogs I follow, I noticed soemthing person does that I'm going to try for myself as well. I'll be attempting to post every day. Not much, just a quick blurb. 20-30 minutes of typing, tops. And I'll be closing each post out with a snippet of what I plan to get accomplished that day, not so much for your entertainment, but more to keep me on target with what I truely have to get done, instead of being overwhelmed by my ever-growing to-do list.

So far, my book of 2013 has been... interesting. It started in the middle of a ski trip. Jan 1st was the best day to be on the mountain during our trip because the holiday crowds were finally gone! The hubster & I went over to a blue/black run to have some fun & get video of me "shredding the mountain" (i.e. making it down without falling), and in true +5 klutz fashion, I bit it at the very beginning of the run. Banged up my knee HARD. More on that in another post. Jan 1st also denoted my first confirmed & scheduled new patient for the year! Unfortunately, she's had to reschedule to come in much later in the month, but it's a new patient, none the less! I need those! While on the ski trip, I brought along a good selection of crafts. I used that time to pick up my shiny new tatting needles I got for Christmas, & between the book they came with & the interwebs (you MUST check out TotusMel on Instructables.com!), I learned needle tatting pretty quickly. So much faster than shuttles! And easier to correct mistakes! The only downside is that you can't work with as long of a piece of thread at one time as you can with shuttles, but adding new thread is less of a pain with needles, so it's not really that big of a downer. Back on the down side of the roller coaster, I immediately put my needle tatting skills to use, making about 40 tatted hummingbirds as memorial lapel pins for my Aunt who recently passed. (My mother's second oldest sister, & the first of that generation to pass.) Friday was our first day home from vacation, & was spent getting my knee looked at by a friend interning at one of Logan's clinics, and tatting hummingbirds into the wee hours of the morning. Most of Saturday was spent at my Aunt's funeral. Sunday was blissfully lazy; one of those "I need a vacation from my vacation" days. Slept til 11am, lunch from QDoba, D&D with friends, and an evening full of family snuggle time on the couch w/ the hubby & the Tali Cat. She's reeeeaallly happy we're home!

On tap for today: Sew a button on the hubby's dress pants. Like, now. Help a lot of patients! (Ended up with many grouped up today after being gone from the office for a week & a half.) Start checking insurance benefits on every patient, now that it's a new year, which typically means a new start to deductibles. Call insurance companies that haven't been paying me where I think they should have. Start planning a marketing calendar for the office. (Did I mention I need new patients?) Clean out the icky stuff in the fridge. Work up a meal plan for the week so I can figure up a grocery list. Trim the cat's talons claws. (Did I mention she's really happy we're home? As in, kneading me every hour? With claws digging in?) Collapse in a heap at the end of the day, wondering why I stalled & only got half of this list done, and wondering when our bags from vacation will magically unpack themselves.