“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It Goes On.”
Robert Frost

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Summer Can be a Pain in the ....

Face it... none of us is getting any younger and try as we might to stop the aging process, so far few have made much headway in that direction. I try not to grumble too much about getting older but now I'm starting to understand what my parents and grandparents were talking about!

Things just get a bit harder to do as the years go by. Unfortunately sometimes we are the last to know it! That was my situation when after a heavy thunderstorm with high winds, a few of our trees branches were literally twisted off of the tree and thrown into the neighbors yard, and I decided to jump into action! I mean, why not, I've always done this sort of thing over the years...


 


Feeling that this was my responsibility because the hubs was away on business for a few days, I decided to drag the branches back into our yard.  I figured I could do that much as he would handle most of the sawing, cutting up and hauling them away.

There were about four larger branches that fell in the neighbors yard.  I surveyed the damage and put on my heavy garden gloves and started dragging the branches back into our yard. They were all about 4 to 5 inches in diameter at the thickest part.  I handled the easiest ones first.

This tree branch kicked my butt!


In the photo above the branch had come down between three 5 foot tall arborvitae trees and I knew it might be tough to get it out. Even though this was on our property I figured that I'd gotten the others out that I could get this one moved too. I was painfully wrong! As I was bending over and pulling on the broken end of this tree branch with all my might, I felt and I think I also heard a strange kind of kerplunk and a ripping sound. For that one moment I'm thinking, "Did I rip my pants?" I wish! 

I quickly and painfully realized that something was terribly wrong with my gluteus maximus muscle, gluteus medius muscle, gluteus minimus muscle, tensor fasciae latae, also known as buttox muscle! Who knew there were so many muscles in our rear ends, I only found this by Googling how to best treat a pulled butt muscle.  Anyway on with my story.... and it's OK if you are laughing right now, I get it!  Now that I'm feeling almost back to normal, it is pretty funny...

After the weird sound, it was the pain that clued me in. After a few choice words I retreated to the house, at least I could still walk! Anyway after the major pain subsided I figured I was going to live.  So I popped a couple of Aleve pills and lay face down on the bed till they worked their magic.  I decided to Google my symptoms to see what I might have done to myself and that's when I found all you ever need to know about how to take care of a pulled or torn glute muscle.

Well it's been almost two weeks and my right butt cheek muscle is feeling better, but I must get up and walk around every 15 minutes, so needless to say, I haven't' been sitting at my computer that much lately! This is my excuse for not getting around to your blogs, so you can let me have it. I'm ready for all your jokes.  Bye the way, feel free to use this story if you ever need an excuse to get out of work etc....

In light of all the horrible things that have happened around the world and right in my own state, sometimes we need to laugh at ourselves and realize that our own problems are still not that bad!

So I'm ready! What do you have to say? 

~~~Diane~~~




Monday, July 4, 2016

Summer's Here



Summer's here and it's already July! Where has the time gone? Hope you are all enjoying this wonderful time of year and getting out there and having a ball. With all the bad stuff that we hear about every day, I think we owe it to ourselves to enjoy life as much as we can! So whether it's reading a book in your hammock or kayaking down a river, I hope you are doing it!

It's been busy around here. Trying to catch up on all the gardening the house maintenance and all the rest seems to take longer with each passing year. I'm not saying I'm getting old but it does seem to take more time and effort on some of these projects!

I hope my Canadian friends all had a wonderful holiday, we in turn are celebrating our Independence Day here on the 4th of July.  We don't go out to the fireworks every year and this year we will skip because my husband has an early morning departure on business.  So it will be a quiet night in watching the celebratory events on television.








Below are some photos from last year. We go to a park next to the large Lake Minnetonka.  It's somewhat of an effort to get there. Parking is crazy and the closest you can usually get is about a two mile walk, dragging your lawn chairs. Once there we claim our spot and just hang out.




Here's the lake shot taken about 8:30 PM, it was a bit overcast but a bit of a pinkish sunset is visible. What you are seeing in the background is not the other side of the lake, but an island in the middle of the lake. Lake Minnetonka is really quite large.

The rest of the shots are of the fireworks display. They are always fabulous and last about 30 to 40 minutes.




















 This last shot is the big finale! It's always impressive.




So that's the end of the fireworks. Hope you enjoyed them!






The first and the last images in this post are 
both vintage and in the public domain.



You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, 
not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House 
in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw 
Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. 
You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. 
~Erma Bombeck



See you all soon! ~ Diane