All About Writing

Archive for the ‘Family Stuff’ Category

Posted on April 29, 2012 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook

Too Much Stress – Why do I do this?

As I’m sure anyone can tell, I sort of fell off the bandwagon when it came to blogging through all of April – I bit off more than I could properly chew. It’s one thing to keep up with my writing assignments, work on my new novel and then of course blog A-Z on my food blog which I have done successfully so far. But then I decided at the very last minute to do the A-Z Challenge here and then had a big project that I couldn’t turn down land in my lap and I simply gave up.

I wouldn’t exactly say I’m stressed. But I am up to my eyeballs in paperwork, writing and brainstorming. All the while trying to keep up with my food blogging and family events and everything else that hits me everyday. So yes, I failed miserably on this blog for the A-Z challenge but next year I will get it right and it will happen.

This morning while hanging out over on Empire Avenue, this guy posted a mission requesting a conversation with this starter.

Do you take a day off during the week to relax? Seems an appropriate question on a Sunday.

I had to think about it for a moment or two, but yes I do try to take some time off to relax. Except I haven’t lately, I mean – not really. I overwhelmed myself for the month of April. I am very grateful that I am staring down the beginning of May. I have chosen to make May less overwhelming, less busy and to take some time for A) the projects that I enjoy the most, B) relaxing more and C)stop obsessing about everything.

May begins our busy season in Fife & Drum – there will be re-enactments, events, performances and more. Unfortunately for me (or maybe fortunately) it also means, no technology – haha It’s not period accurate so… there’s my relaxing time.

What do you do to relax?

Posted on February 15, 2012 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook

Champagne Cupcakes and a Big #SundaySupper and #RomanceDinner

I am so blessed to belong to a group of fantastic foodies where our fearless and talented leader (my dear friend Isabel) hosts #SundaySupper each week, sometimes with a theme and we all jump in and participate. This week’s awesome dinner is #RomanceDinner and the recipes being shared are amazing.
I’m not sure how it happened, but there was a bit of a snafu and several people have the wrong link to the wrong blog (because you know writers are hungry people too) and so if you wind up here, because of a link, please please come visit my REAL post.

Delicious Champagne Cupcakes with Strawberry Champagne Frosting
They are totally worth it, and I do talk about all the other dishes and there is no way you want to miss that.
See ya there!

Posted on December 19, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook

The Gift of More Time to Write

I try to make my posts over here as inspirational and as positive as I can. This one however, might just be the exception to that rule. But how can it be, when I title it like that? More time to write? That is a gift!

Except when you do it like this:

Yes, my leg says “Yes”. Why? I had surgery Friday and they do that to make sure they have the correct limb. Because you know I woulda been pretty mad if I had woken up and they had operated on my perfectly good right foot.

So I’m sure you’re wondering what I did. Oh how I wish I could tell you I did some awesome thing like Skiing or Dancing With the Stars (that would be a terrible sight btw, so maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have such an awesome story to tell).

No. Here’s what I did, and what happened afterward.

Last Friday night (I did not dance on tabletops, I may have maxed out credit cards with an ER bill, but I did not go streaking in the park – sorry for Katy Perry reference, but man oh man, that was what I hear in my head after I typed that haha)

ANYWAY.

Last Friday night, Dec. 9 at 6pm I was dropping one of my daughters off, to do this: (see photo on right)

During the month of December, my kids participate in Christmas Traditions on Main Street in St. Charles. Year round they are in a Fife & Drum corps. and we travel all over, but come Christmas time, they lead the parade down main street every single Friday, Saturday and Sunday followed by all kinds of cool Victorian characters and carolers and Santa’s from all over the world.

So last Friday, my daughter (who is visible in the background behind the flag), was heading down to play her fife for the evening crowd of shoppers that swarm the streets at night. The rest of my kids had opted out of that night and were returning home with me after we dropped her off.

We had to park a bit further away than usual, so we had to cross over a street to get to the cobblestones. See the cobblestones they are walking on? They are so pretty. It’s one of the things I love about main street and my town. You have to be careful when walking on cobblestones though, they are uneven and certain shoes can be detrimental to your health. I strongly recommend NO high heels, and I shake my head when I see people down there in them. So unsafe. Anyway.

That’s not the point. But anyway, here’s a blown up picture of the cobblestone. (see photo on left)

See, uneven, as I said. But again, that isn’t really the point here. So already I’m cautious when I’m down there. After we crossed the street, there is a step up onto this sewer before you get to the sidewalk to walk along. Well, anyone who’s ever seen a sewer knows that in front of it, is usually a dip where the water collects to fall down into it.

When there’s cobblestones involved, the dip is larger than normal, and WAY uneven. I stepped down into the dip and my foot decided it liked that spot so it stayed put. I fell forward while my foot stayed totally straight and wedged into this little dip. I heard a snap, I felt a snap and my kids scrambled to help me up. What I can remember is that my foot didn’t actually dislodge from its location until after I began to get back up. By then the pain was excruciating and I knew this was not a simple sprain. In fact, I guessed at the time that I had torn at least a ligament if not two. I knew it wasn’t broken, or at least  I assumed it wasn’t. It took me about 5 minutes standing on one leg and balancing on my daughter to work up the nerve to hop back to the van. I sent my fifing daughter on her merry way to go fife the night away, telling her we’d be back in a few hours.

I won’t lie – I was wondering how I was going to manage coming back to get her, but I was thanking God, literally that it was my left foot and not my right.

Did I happen to mention that my husband was out of town for this? Yeah. Like 2000 miles away in Portland, OR for work.

So I’m not sure how I did it, but I did manage to drive us the 20 minutes home. Hobbled into the house with a lot of support from my kids and crashed on the couch trying to figure out what to do. It took me 15 minutes to work up the nerve to actually take my shoe off because the pain was so bad.

I took some Motrin, put some ice on it and come 8:00pm I hobbled out the door to get my daughter from main street, making a brief stop at Walgreens to see if they had a brace of some kind. They didn’t. But I did pick up some crutches because there was no WAY I could get around without them.

By 11pm I knew I had to go to the ER. My foot & ankle were swollen about 3x’s the size they are normally. Taking my two oldest with me, we headed down to the ER.

Three hours later I was on my way home with a partial cast, a diagnosis of a sprain, a prescription for Vicodin and a follow up appointment requested for Monday with an Orthopedic Surgeon. That probably should have been my first clue something was amiss.

Monday morning I was calling the OS  and they didn’t understand why the ER doc would have me follow up with an OS for a sprain. I couldn’t really answer that. At all. After several hours and many phone calls later, and everyone being booked until after Christmas, my mom called and remembered my OS’s name that we used when I was a kid. What are the chances he’s still practicing? He is! This was good news. I loved him. He reminds me of Albert Einstein. I’m not sure why though Do you happen to know?

Anyway. Appointment was scheduled for Tuesday, which was good, because my ankle was looking REALLY bad. And it only seemed to keep getting worse. The pain was awful. This photo was taken on day 3.

 

 

Anyway, after only 10 minutes with my Orthopedic Surgeon, I was scheduled for surgery for that Friday (which was this past Friday). Turns out, I didn’t sprain my ankle or my foot. In fact, what I did was apparently much worse than that. Ready? I ruptured my Achilles Tendon. In layman’s terms, I snapped the damn thing in half. Yep. Not connected. At all.

Don’t even get me started on how irritated I am with the ER for not seeing this in the 3 x-rays they took, or for not calling in a specialist. My OS said I should’ve had surgery that night.

So Friday I had surgery and I have been told this is going to take 12 weeks to heal. The pain sucks, the Vicodin doesn’t seem to work for very long and I don’t like taking it, and I’m tired of sitting still and not being able to do anything. (yes, I’d like some cheese to go with my whine). I’m allowed to whine – you don’t want to even know what this feels like.

However, as everyone keeps reminding me, I do have more time to write. Yes, I suppose I do.

Except this is not how I wanted it.

 

Posted on June 12, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook

Day 3 with the Kittens

Today was all about getting the kittens used to one of the most traffic heavy areas of our home. The living room. We brought their cage out into the middle of the floor and allowed the dogs to sniff it, the kittens to sniff them, and our cat Maple to check it all out from her perch on the back of the couch.

We wound up putting the dogs in the yard for a bit, to allow the kittens to come out of their cage at their own pace. They did rather quickly and have been running around the living room ever since. Maple still has not warmed up to them just yet, however she did get really curious about their pen. She sniffed it for about twenty minutes cautiously before putting a paw inside and then her entire body inside. So funny. Don’t laugh at my attempt to photoshop the images all together. I’ve never done this before and since its my first time ever doing it, I’m rather pleased with my end result (even though I kinda wish I had thought to figure out how to blend the photos a bit better so they wouldn’t have the edges showing as much – but that’s for another time.)

And, since I’m showing off pet photos… here’s the rest of the clan. I’m really just missing photos of our aquatic turtle, our mouse, and our fish. lol

and our two new babies:

Posted on June 10, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook

As If There Weren’t Enough…

That’s the best way to put it. As if there weren’t enough animals and kids in our home, we have added two more sweet babies to our mix.

This is Cheeto. He’s 8 weeks old.

This is Nellie. She’s 8 weeks old. (I wanted to name her licorice but the kids wouldn’t budge)

They are still very much adjusting to the noise and chaos that is our home, but they are sweet as can be and we finally got them to play this afternoon for a little bit from the safety of their pen. Here’s hoping this transition goes smoothly, but they sure are sweet!