Dan Clark of Muscatine (my dad) is the subject of today’s “10 Questions” feature in the Muscatine
Journal.
Archive for January, 2008
Well, first I apologize if I’m just sounding whiney. I intended just to add this as an update on the previous post, but I forgot how to do that so now it gets a post of its own which means you all get the email notification. Sorry. This probably isn’t worth that. Anyway, here is my update: I feel worse! Thank you Kate for your concern. I do generally have a high tolerance for pain, and its not necessarily that I’m not tolerating this pain, but rather that it is debilitating me! Yesterday I pushed through the pain all day, but last night Josh had night class and I ordered pizza and made the kids sit and watch a movie with me so that I wouldn’t have to move. When I put the kids to bed at 8 I took a really hot shower and then crawled into bed also! Josh helped me get a drink around 10 and then I got up around 2:30 and tried to soak in a hot bath for a while before returning my decrepit body back to bed. Josh apparently called the First Nurse line to see if he should be getting me a doctor’s appointment and they said its probably just a virus but if I don’t improve soon I should go see my regular doctor. This morning Josh got the kids to school and took Elena in to work with him after setting up his laptop in bed for me so I wouldn’t get completely bored. So overnight and today the same pain that I mentioned yesterday has been amplified as well as spread to other parts of my body like my wrists, fingers, elbows, lower back (yesterday was strictly upper back) and some glands in my neck/throat as well as my sinuses. So yeah, it’s incredibly difficult to move, next to impossible to pick up and/or hold things, and my head hurts. Even writing this post I’m sure is a humorous site–I’m a disheveled mess laying in bed next to a laptop with my head on Josh’s pillow (’cause it’s taller than mine) and poking at the keys one by one with two fingers on one hand. (Which IS slower than how I usually type with two fingers and the thumb on each hand!) Anyway, I’ll probably live and Josh is taking good care of me, but I appreciate your sympathy and well-wishes. I’ll try to post something more interesting and uplifting soon.
…Myself! I feel broken. That is to say, I am in pain. To quote my adorable children, “my body hurts!” My joints are sore, but not in a flu-like way, or in a way that would make me immediately think arthritis or something, that is, my hands feel fine, and that’s what they always show in arthritis pain commercials is people wringing their hands, well, my hands are fine. But my ankles, knees, hips, back, shoulders, neck and collarbone hurt like the dickens!!! For those of you who know me really well, this should clue you in to just how badly I feel: last night I let Josh try to give me a massage. And for those of you who do not know me so well, I say “TRY to give me a massage” not because he is inept at giving massages, but because I am so adverse to receiving them that I make it difficult and I shift and try to squirm away. When I first knew Josh he was pre-chiropractic and all the girls around would purr for one of his massages, after almost 9 years of marriage I think I’ve let him massage me 3 times, so in that way I was probably a big dissappointment to him. But he knew that before he married me, and I digress. So, I am in pain. This morning I took a lot of Ibuprofren and had a shower but that did not make me feel any better. Cleaner and better groomed, but no less in pain. Anyway, I will try to stop complaining, I have more Christmas retelling to do–when I get to it. Right now I have to take Elena to the grocery store. She’s pretty insistant–got her own boots and coat on and everything. Completely unrelated, this morning she saw a commercial for Shirley Temple movies and has been walking around the house singing “animal crackers in my soup.” It’s very cute. I will update here if I find that I have in fact broken anything or I’m just being a big baby.
This post will be short and sweet. I thouroughly enjoyed myself over the holiday break (Peking egg rolls, Olive Garden fettuccini alfredo, sugar cookies, fancy cheeses, chocolate truffles, the list goes on!) and I ate a lot more than I probably should have, definately more than I have grown accustomed to eating, but so far my trusty inaccurate bathroom scale shows that I have not gained ANY weight! And, as a check to its balance, I put on the smallest jeans that I’ve fit into thus far today fresh from being washed and dryed in a dryer and they still fit. So now I just have to get back to eating the way I should and hopefully the weight will continue to come off.
The day after Christmas I got to hang out with my good friends Jeanna and Danaka. We had a lovely lunch at the Olive Garden and did some shopping. I was prepared with gifts for each of them for their birthdays (Jeanna’s was the 23rd and Danaka’s the 3rd of January) and I believed we were not going to be exchanging any gifts for Christmas so boy was I surprised when Jeanna handed me a big bag full of little goodies! I felt awful that I didn’t have anything else on me to give her but my appreciation, appreciation for her small gifts and for her friendship. Oh, and Danaka passed along to me a most fabulous pair of boots! Unfortunately, they are a half-size too small, so I may have to see if I can stretch them out somehow before I can wear them. Also unfortunately, although I consciously made sure the camera was in the car with me, I never did take a photo with the girls that day. :s When we got back to town that evening, I dropped the girls off and then headed out to Staley’s farm to scrap the night away with Kate and her mom and Angie. There was a lot going on and we cut the night short, but I did manage to finish 5 pages–one of which was a challenge issued to Kate and I by Angie to utilize specific circular stickers and a transparency. It had started snowing again so I spent the night at the Wheelers and got up early the next morning to get my hair done in Nichols. I got back to Muscatine just in time to catch a ride with Josh and the kids to Wayland for our Widmer Christmas gathering. Josh took the kids straight to the nursery and we didn’t see much of them for the rest of the night. I had a nice visit with my relatives including a few cousins that I haven’t seen in years and years. 
We played dominoes and had a fantastic spread of holiday snacks that I could not seem to get enough of. If you ever have a chance to try Mushroom & Leek cheese, I totally recommend it! We were all having such fun together that it got pretty late before we realized we hadn’t started the Bingo for presents yet and so we thought we’d better forgo the game and just draw numbers to get through the pile of white elephant gifts faster. 
It was pretty funny. I tried to capture some of it on video, but I kept missing the really funny parts, like when Aunt Linda started laughing so hard she almost fell out of her seat. This is probably my favorite photo from that night though: 
Sometime the night of the 24th Elise said she heard “jingle bells” which woke her up and so she went to the bathroom. When we got up the next morning this was the sight out of our bedroom window 
Elise believes that if she hadn’t gone to the bathroom, she would have seen Santa and his reindeer!
So, Christmas morning we opened our stockings and enjoyed our breakfast and tried to pack up some of our stuff and then it was over to Thraps for more Christmas celebrating. Thraps always read the Christmas story from the Bible and dress up as the characters to act it out. Since the Grandparents weren’t able to come down this year, Craig got to do the reading. 
Jacob was one of the three wisemen. 
After the story, we retire to the room with the tree for present opening. The Elf-helper is in charge of passing out the presents. This year Cameron got to be the Elf. 
Isn’t he a cute elf?! We played some games with Thraps and we all watched Ratatouille together. We got it for Elena for Christmas. None of us had seen it yet! It’s pretty good. It’s really cute to hear Elena say “Ratatouille!”
We spent the 24th with my family. At least, we meant to. Sarah and Scott had spent the night at Scott’s folks’ house and we didn’t know when they were planning on coming over and Mom and I needed some things from the grocery store so we went to Fareway and then hit up the Goodwill. Little did we know that it was quarter day!!! We ended up spending THREE hours there shopping and I didn’t even get beyong the childrens section! We did some serious damage! But we had to pack up and get home because Sarah called and complained that we weren’t at home with the rest of them. Mom made some delicious beef stew for dinner and then we opened presents. Now, I have been known to be something of a traditionalist, especially when it comes to holidays. When I was growing up, we always had a real tree, and we would go to Christmas Eve candelight church service and open presents Christmas morning–starting with stockings, and we’d have some form of eggs and monkey bread for breakfast. Of course as we’ve grown and moved on and had children of our own some of these traditions have had to change, and I know that many people who may have done real trees when their children were home switch to fake trees when the kids have grown and moved out. When we moved out, my mom replaced the real tree with a large metal tree-like plant stand which she decorated with lights and ornaments. Last year she put the metal “tree” out on her front porch with lights and for our “tree” inside she put tinsel on her huge ponytail palm plant. This year, there was NO metal tree-like thing, and nothing decorating the palm. And I fairly firmly believe that if I weren’t SUCH a strictler about it, she wouldn’t have botthered putting up the stockings either. Josh still made everyone omeletes, but (with much sadness in my heart) I willingly gave up the monkey bread (for ease of maintaining my weight loss) and we had cranberry scones instead. But, I guess what’s important is that we had a nice time all together.
On the morning of the 22nd we exchanged gifts with the Wheelers and then had to rush off again to get to Josh’s aunt’s house for that family Christmas get-together. We had a fabulous meal and it was nice to see (almost) everyone again. We were just about to begin the present exchange when Santa and Mrs Claus stopped in for a quick visit. 
Oh, and did I mention that we got to see Josh’s sister Laura who had just returned from an 18-month mission in southern California? 
The kids got lots of wonderful new books to read, and Josh got a NERF gun with glow-in-the-dark NERF pellets. We had to rush away again because we were supposed to be in Muscatine that night for my brother-in-law Scott’s surprise birthday party, and it had started snowing–REALLY coming down! It took us an hour and 10 minutes to get from Cedar Rapids to Coralville (usually a 20 minute trip) so, for almost the first time for us, we opted to be safe and stay the night in Coralville and miss the party. I think ultimately it was a good decision becasue then next morning on our way to Muscatine Josh and the kids counted all the vehicles in the ditch (and there were some really scary-looking accidents) and they came up with around 47. I was a few minutes behind them in the car and I counted even more (and some of them still had people in them so they must’ve happened between us that morning!) Our big excitement that day was when Josh arrived in Muscatine and I was still on the road and he called me to say that he couldn’t find the big plastic bag that had ALL of the kids snow clothes in it!!! He knew it had been in the van that morning when he went to church, but now he couldn’t find it. He thought maybe it had somehow fallen out of the trunk when he was packing up other things in the Wheelers’ parking lot, so we called them and asked if they could look for us and of course they didn’t see anything so I got to freak out for a good long time. It wasn’t until after I arrived and started unloading in Muscatine that Josh realized that Jacob had taken the bag of snow clothes inside. !!! Ugh. >sigh of releif< Later that night my parents watched the kids so that Josh and I could go out and celebrate with the Wheelers who were up in Muscatine for their 10th wedding anniversary. We had yummy Peking and then hung out and played some games etc. in their hotel room. They’ve posted pictures on their blog.
On the 21st the kids had early dissmissal from school and we had planned a surprise anniversary party for our friends the Wheelers for that evening so we rushed through opening our presents so that we could get on the road because bad weather (FOG!) was setting in. It was a little bit stressful, but clearly, the kids didn’t think so!
Unfortunately the fog did keep several people from attending the party that evening, but we had a fun time and the Wheelers were definately surprised!
There is so much to say, inevitably I will forget much. When we travel it is extremely difficult to post here because my parents are Mac people and not only do their computers give me problems, but their internet does also. When I try to access my blog on their computer it automatically shuts down their internet browser! So since we’ve been traveling since the 22nd and there have been so many holidays and gatherings etc I am WAY behind! So, first I would like to address the issue of my Christmas cards. If you didn’t receive one, don’t fret yet, I’m still working on getting them all out. I had almost all of them ready before we left home, but for whatever reason I didn’t get them sent. Honestly though, you’re not missing much by way of the cards. Those of you who have received your cards can attest to that! Also, I had meant to put a nice long newsy letter recapping the year etc here on the blog so that when everyone got their cards that basically say to come here there would be a nice message waiting. Yeah. Didn’t get to that either. I tried, but that was when I experienced the frustrating issues with the afore mentioned Macs. So my apologies go out to our card receivers and non-receivers alike. In good news, we did get to see many of you in person and we had a wonderful time seeing friends and family and catching up with loved ones. I’ve got lots of pictures and I’ll be putting several up here. But for now I will just say that we are safely home from our travels and we had a lovely little vacation and hope that all of you did too. All the best from the Thraps for 2008!