Imagine That

Last week I warmly greeted a colleague before the beginning of the school day.  He responded with, "I am trying to imagine you overweight."  Huh?  Then, realization set in.  Pop (my father-in-law) has been wearing a black Danier leather jacket to school to ward off the cool mornings we have been experiencing lately.  The jacket used to be mine, but it was passed on to Pop before the our family moved north.  Several staff members had complimented Pop on his jacket and he mentioned that it used to be worn by his son-in-law (yours truly).  Worn in my pre-running, overweight (250+ pounds) days.  The colleagues were surprised, and thus the comment above.  I guess I look slimmer than I imagine.  I often still feel like the 250 pound person on the inside, though the comment from the colleague helped me feel this a little less that morning.  It also gave me a much needed impetus to keep running, especially now that the dark and cool mornings make it more difficult to rise early to pull on the running shoes and head out the door.

Food for Thought

I've been reevaluating my dietary choices, partly because my waistline has slowly expanded this past year, and partly as a response to a book I picked up recently at the local library. The book, "Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating" by Mark Bittman, discusses the impact that our eating habits have on our health, and more importantly, on the environment. In the video below, Bittman shares some of his thoughts on the subject.



I highly recommend his cookbooks, such as "How to Cook Everything" and "Kitchen Express". Check out Bittman's website at http://markbittman.com/ for more information and recipes.

Sick on Sunday

For some reason the littlest Sprout and I seem to have had low immune systems over the past two months.  We have both been sick a lot with colds.  I have already used up all my compassionate leave days, am close to using up all my sick days, and it is only the end of January.  I lost my voice this morning, and JK is still coughing, so we stayed home while my spouse and the oldest Sprout went to town to attend church and do the grocery run.  I'm taking a break from preparing emergency sub plans for tomorrow, and JK is curled up on the couch watching his favourite movie How To Train Your Dragon (in my opinion a better movie than Toy Story 3).  From time to time a hear a wistful voice coming from the living room, "Papa, I would like my own dragon."  Thank goodness dragons don't exist (except in little boys' imaginations).

Clinic (Times 2)

Yesterday was a medical day, though no emergencies (phew!).  Our youngest Sprout has been up the past few nights coughing away (so no surprise that his parents are walking zombies at this point), so I stayed home with him to give him a rest day and to take him to the clinic to get checked out (mostly because a lot of his daycare-mates were sick, and pneumonia has been working its way around the community).  The visit to the clinic was painless - we arrived when it opened, had a visit with the nurse, JK said "Ahhhh" when he was supposed to and all was ok (just a cold).  A sick note later, JK and I left the clinic and went home.

Then...

My lovely spouse calls and at 11 AM JK and I are on our way to the school to pick up the oldest Sprout because her nose hurt. 

The nose backstory:
Somehow, on Monday, FK fell out of a chair reading a book at school, did not put her arms out to catch her fall, and banged her nose on the floor.  Blood and tears ensued.  A trip to the office, a cold compress and some quiet time later calmed down Fi for her to return to class, albeit with a very swollen and bruised nose.  We kept a close eye on it over the next day, but she didn't complain about it, so all seemed fine.

Back to the main story:
By the time we arrived at the school, Fi was sulking on the front porch because she claimed her nose didn't hurt anymore and she did not want to go to the clinic (who could blame her?).  However, a number of staff members told EK that the doctor was at the clinic for his weekly monthly visit, FK's nose didn't look great, so why not take advantage of the doctor's visit?  So we did.  This time, however, the clinic was packed with people (due to the doctor's visit), so we waited just over two hours to get FK's nose checked out.  Let me point out that this wait happened over lunch ("Papa, I'm hungry" was an incessant refrain by 12:15 PM), there is nothing in the clinic for children to amuse themselves except reading pamphlets on Hep C or watching a fishing show on the television, and even though we have lived in the community now for two and a half years, we were politely ignored (yes, I get that we will never be fully welcome in the community, but a smile or hello would be nice.  Sigh).  At least we didn't have to drive to town to hospital, where the wait is four to five hours long (as we have personally experienced in previous visits).

The good news is that the doctor took a good look at FK's nose, said that it appeared alright (aligned, no deviated septum), though to keep close watch on the swelling (it should be gone in two weeks).  Apparently, without surgery (painful!) it is impossible to tell if there is a hairline fracture, as it doesn't show on X-rays.  If the swelling does not go down, then something is not right and then we take the next step (go to Winnipeg, we were told).

So, who knows the future of FK's nose?  (I couldn't resist the use of homophones!).  We hope it is fine (please, please, please...).