Scattered Sundays and Weekly Meal Plan

Who wants to hear something gross?

Half of you are rushing for the little “x” button and the other half (my fellow sickos) are leaning forward with a “tell me more” expression on your face.

So do you remember last fall when I went to the foot doc? I went thinking I had plantar warts, but she said it was just callouses. She did her thing, and I felt great. For like seven weeks. Last month I finally was at the point I could barely walk barefoot, so I called a different podiatrist. I wanted a different opinion, and this doc was an actual foot surgeon. So, I went on Monday and he was like “so, these are plantar warts covered by crazy callouses. Do you walk a lot”. Um, yes I do. My appointment was at 1:20, and I was already at 17k steps for the day.

Then he’s like “so, I’m going to cut these off your feet” (neat) “and then put some acid on there to keep them from coming back. It will be uncomfortable for a few days”. As my big ole skis were in his hands and he was dabbing this stuff on my feet, he casually mentions “this acid is made from fire beetles”.

Um,’scuse me what?

The first two hours after my beetle “spa treatment”, I was doing ok. It felt a little ouchy, but I was fine. By 6 pm that night, I was hobbling around like I had bound feet. I could barely move, and every step felt like walking on the worst sunburn you could imagine. Day two, I was doing a tiny bit better, but must have overdone it, because again by 6 pm I was a hot mess. I have a very high pain tolerance, but the doc’s version of “uncomfortable” is a load of horseshit.

On Thursday morning, I realized I needed to handle the blister situation. Don’t puke. Stay with me. Be strong, and breathe through your nose. I had been wearing my 10 year old Converse in the house because they were the only shoes I slip in to without crying. That morning they were down my super long hallway by the front door. I needed to get to the kitchen to get a needle and a lighter to deblister myself. I looked down the length of my insanely long hallway, and almost started crying. I don’t give up on much, so I sat myself down and scooted myself on the wood floors from our room to the kitchen. I pulled myself up using the oven, got the needle and the lighter. I put the needle in my mouth, the lighter in my “cleavage” (don’t laugh) and scooted myself back to the bedroom.

Then I needed to remove the foam padding from my feet so I could access the blisters. Some of the sticky part of the foam had gotten stuck on the blisters, and I was hurting so much and sweating so hard while removing it, that I fogged up my glasses. It was at that point, I decided to call the doctor because that shit ain’t right. When the office heard what was going on, they fit me in that afternoon. He did his thing (I almost puked in my mouth), slathered on a ton of lidocaine, and I felt much better afterwards.

I was pretty much incapacitated until Friday. While the whole pain thing sucked (SUCKED), I also felt grateful that I’ve always had a job with paid sick leave. I couldn’t imagine if I was working a job where I was on my feet all day that didn’t have paid time off. There is no way I could have worked a waitressing or teaching job for four days when each step felt like my skin was literally on fire. Trying to decide between paying rent that month or permanently damaging my feet would be a horrible decision.

And no, I’m not posting a photo of my feet. But…if you are a true freak (my people), email me and I can share the photos. 🙂

Shower time!

Dear anyone who was born in the 80’s and thus grew up in the 90’s. Can you remember the last time you saw someone making an “L” sign with their pointer finger and thumb and putting it on their forehead? It seems like it just disappeared at some point, and I’m wondering if that is ever coming back. I feel like hearing “L7 loooooser” was a common occurrence in the halls of my junior high. It may or may not have directed at me. No one knows for sure.

Speaking of the 80’s, I saw this gem over the week. I’m shocked it wasn’t full of pink cans of Tab.

We had a two week period of pretty warm/hot weather followed by a good 12 hours of rain, and our peas are starting to ripen at a rapid pace. I’m looking forward to some super yummy stir-fried pea pods in the next few weeks. Fresh snap peas are the epitome of spring eating.

Want to know something? When you sign in to Panera’s wi-fi, they say it is only good for 30 minutes during their peak lunch rush. That’s a lie. My mother-in-law took Bennett again this week so I could hunker down and get some blog work done. All the local coffee shops that I would prefer to frequent, either don’t have wi-fi (what??) or don’t have adequate food for my lunch needs. Had I gone to a library, I would have had to pack everything up and left the building to eat. While I don’t love chain restaurants, Panera has been a good place to work. I’m very thoughtful about my seat selection and take the crappiest little table in the darkest back corner possible. I ordered food, so it wasn’t just like I was squatting. I kept working, assuming I would be kicked off at any minute, but it never happened. Had the restaurant filled up, I would have given up my seat. But it didn’t, the wi-fi didn’t boot me, and I got to work for almost five hours straight with no little people to look after. And having a dish of mac and cheese was just an added bonus.

The wild peacocks did not appreciate my work on the strawberry patch. They pulled out some plants to allow them space for dust baths.

Since I made the decision for a blog turnaround plan, I have been less bashful about asking others for help. When Troy is home, I “let” him have B solo for a bit and I do some blog work. In the past, I just tried to handle all my ish myself. That hasn’t worked out so well. These solo segments of time have allowed me to focus on tasks that I always tell myself I don’t have time to do. Optimize and update SEO? Yes, finally. Research what SEO actually is? If I must.

I also bought a pretty wall calendar that is just for blog work. We have this great family calendar that has a block for each member of the family, a “misc.” section, and our meal plan. But adding blog stuff would have made it too jumbled and I would have always ignored it. With the calendar just for me, I have created an editorial schedule for the next few months. It lets me plot and plan out post ideas in an organic way that takes in to account seasonal topics, vacation, and other factors. I then gave myself a scheduled time to write and shoot (pictures) each post, and cook the recipe if it is a cooking post. I even made note of specific items I may need from the grocery store for a specific recipe. And the part that makes my organized loving heart so very happy, is the highlighter color-coding I did. I should have known my obsession with office supplies would be a lifelong thing, when I got excited by one of these pens in first grade.

Troy’s phone photo editing is reaching new heights.

One of the things that I spent way too much time figuring out, was how to make my meal plan printable. An ordinary person would probably be able to do it in minutes, but I’m not so tech savvy. It took me 10 minutes trying to figure out what question to ask, 30 minutes of googling and reading, and then an hour working on formatting to try to make the plan below printable. The “preview” button on WordPress isn’t working for me, so I can’t even test it out myself before hitting publish. 🙁 I’m worried that the hyperlinks to recipes may not work, but for today I am putting a check mark on my “to do” list for learning something new. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Troy’s birthday breakfast – Homemade Nutella Pop Tarts (recipe from Smitten Kitchen)

(Clickable) Meal Plan for June 12th-18th

What are you having this week?