My mother-in-law is a walker. To my knowledge, at least in the 25 or so years that I’ve known her she’s been a walker. What I mean by walker is that she walks everywhere she goes. She doesn’t just walk either, she puts her head down, arms bent at the elbow, sneakers on, and walks like there was no tomorrow. She walks so fast that she always arrives first wherever she’s going and whoever she’s with has to catch up. She goes so fast that there have been times when we’ve had to remind her to stop at street intersections to check for oncoming traffic. She gets into her walking mode and everything else seems to get tuned out. Mind you , she is in her 70’s and still walks this way. I should say, she walked that way up until this past Spring.
This past Spring, my mother-in-law was walking in her usual way, on her way to catch a bus. She was so focused on her walk that she didn’t see the oncoming motorcycle which plowed into her just as she stepped off the curb to the sidewalk. She was knocked down flat on the ground and suffered a concussion, neck and shoulder injuries. It’s actually amazing that she didn’t break anything as hard as she was hit. She was taken by ambulance to the hospital and held several days for observation, mainly due to her age.
Once she was released from the hospital she was pretty much on her own. She lives away from all of her kids and my father-in-law, her husband, passed away a year ago. The one thing she has complained about since the accident is how stiff she gets with her sore back, shoulder and neck pain. It’s not quite as bad all these months later, but it still bothers her. She’s not one to complain at all and she doesn’t like to take medications so I have recommended to her that she try Freeze It Gel and rub it directly on the skin surrounding the sore muscles and muscle sprains. It’s made with Aloe and Vitamin E as well as other herbal extracts and it doesn’t have the medicinal smell that other pain ointments have.
My mother-in-law is on a fixed, limited income and having a supply of Freeze It would be a huge relief to her and to us knowing she had such a great product to relieve her on going pain and discomfort. She can use the product herself and unlike internal medication, there is no side affect. She can apply the Freeze It herself to relieve all her aches and muscular strains. Chances are pretty good that she will not recover much beyond where she is at today physically. She still has difficulty going up and down stairs which is not good because she lives on the second floor. She can’t get out and walk much which is a problem because that was her primary mode of transportation. She is now reliant on others to give her rides or pick up groceries and such for her.
My mother-in-law could really use a year’s supply of [tag]Freeze It[/tag]! Having a supply of Freeze It on hand would provide her with not only the physical relief, but relief from the stress of not knowing how she will afford the cost of pain relief.
Three days! That’s what I have left to get myself, my house and my kitchen ready for Thanksgiving. The time just flies and I need to get busy!
It will just be the three of us this year for our Thanksgiving feast. Even though we won’t have any guests, I still enjoy cooking the whole big meal. My menu is usually the same each year with maybe a slight variation here and there. Of course it starts with a Turkey. My freezer isn’t large enough to hold a turkey so I will be going shopping today or tomorrow to purchase one and put it in the refrigerator to thaw. I actually have a coupon for a free turkey from my local grocery store so I’m sure I’ll be using that.
For side dishes I will have stuffing, green beans, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes with gravy and cranberry sauce. I like to stuff my turkey and have the extra in a baking dish. The green beans are the traditional green bean casserole, you know the one with the mushroom soup and dried onions. My sister introduced me to the sweet potato casserole, I need to find that recipe to make sure I have all the ingredients. It’s so good it tastes almost like a desert. The topping is brown sugar and butter, sort of like a cobbler!
Usually we eat our dinner in the dining room even when it’s just the three of us, but I think this year we might eat at our brand new kitchen table. We’ve really enjoyed that table in the couple of weeks we’ve been using it. If you missed it, I posted about my new table here. In fact, I’m sitting in one of the new chairs at our kitchen island right now.
So, today I think I’ll work on my Thanksgiving dinner shopping list and tomorrow I’ll go to the store and get everything. Wednesday will be house cleaning day and then the big day will be here. I get up that morning and put the turkey in the oven. Then I take my shower and get dressed before putting the other food items together. The last hour before the turkey is done is when it gets busy putting those dishes in the oven. This year I have a double oven which will come in very handy no doubt!
We’ll be going to friends after dinner to share dessert with them. I’m looking forward to visiting and relaxing.
I posted earlier about group text messaging and I decided to give it a try. There is no school this week, it is Fall break, but I would still like the Destination Imagination team to get together to work on their challenge. If I were to text each of the 6 team members plus one parent of each of the six, I’d be sitting here typing out 12 individual text messages on my cell phone. I don’t have a texting plan on my phone, so that’s 12 outgoing text messages I’d be charged for.
Instead, I can use the [tag]networkText[/tag] service for free, type my message one time and it is sent out to everyone in the group. So much easier and so much faster.
My daughter weighed Plinko this morning and she’s up to 23 lbs! Her feet are getting big too, it’s amazing. She is so solid, very muscular. She will be six months old the end of this week and I just keep wondering how big she will be when she’s fully mature. She is extremely strong too, loves to play tug of war! My daughter like to put a leash on her and have her pull her on her scooter down the street. I need to get some video of that move!
I’ve been a Girl Scout Troop Leader, a softball team Mom, a Destination Imagination team Mom, and now a Destination Imagination Team Manager and School Coordinator. All of these positions have put me in a position at various times when I’ve need to disseminate information quickly. Living up north it was usually related to weather cancellations so it was important to reach the participants and their parents to let them know a meeting or practice had been cancelled. This isn’t as easy as it seems.
I could always pick up the phone and call each participant, but what do I do if I get their voice mail? How do I know they will receive the message in time? Then there is always email. It’s fast, I can send one email to a group and be done, but how do I know they recipient is checking their email and will get the information in time? In situations like these I think the quickest and probably the most reliable way today is through text messaging. I’m not a big text messaging person, but when you need to get a message to someone quickly, chances are very good today that people have their cell phones with them and will get the message very quickly.
Because I don’t text very often, I’m very slow at it. So to sit and text an entire group of people, one person at a time, would be very tedious for me. Today I discovered a fee free way to do a networkText only incurring standard text messaging charges that are charged by the cell phone company. [tag]Network Text[/tag] lets you send a single text message to an entire group via the internet. [tag]NetworkText[/tag] doesn’t charge for their service, rather they have received advertiser sponsorships. What this means is that you can use their service to send a text and the recipient will see your text plus a one line advertisement. Not too intrusive in my opinion.
It’s a simple service too, free to join and simple to add a group and it’s members. Then you just type your text message on your computer, choose the group members you want the message to be sent to and send it. That’s it! I’m definitely looking into using this service for my Destination Imagination team members and their parents. It will come in really handy when heading to our tournaments or even if I just need to cancel or reschedule a practice session.
