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.