A New Chair, and a Crazy Busy Week

The (right) chair was delivered!  Woohoo!  Jason got his new chair last Tuesday and, so far, so good. He's had to make a few adjustments to the back angle and cushion, but we expected this.  It takes some time to get accustomed to a new chair and to know what needs to be fixed.

Very excited to FINALLY have a properly fitted chair!!!!!

After getting the chair, the week got progressively busier.  Savannah took a(nother) tumble at school.  No broken bones this go round, but she did have to have a cut in her head stapled.  That. was. not. pleasant.  For anyone.  I was crying, she was screaming, and the doctors probably thought we were hopelessly over-dramatic.  Once we left the ER, we walked out to the car, Savannah looked at me and said, "Mommy, I was so scared."  Cue the waterworks in the parking lot.  I had planned to go immediately home post-ER, but Savannah had other ideas.  It was the last day of school for her and there was a party planned, one that we had made cupcakes for the night before.  I explained that we could go home and she could have/do whatever she wanted (ice cream for dinner! movies all night!), but she decided she wanted to go back to school and have a cupcake.  So, that's what we did.  We didn't stay long, but she enjoyed getting to have her cupcake and try out some of the other goodies on hand at the party.

Decorating cupcakes for end-of-year party

Savannah stayed home with Jason Wednesday through Friday while school was closed.  I was very busy at work.  The teaching conference our office has been prepping for all summer took place on Thursday and Friday.  Which meant several long (13+ hour) days for me.  Thankfully, the conference was a resounding success.  Now time to move on to new projects at work!

Back in the classroom, teaching a new group of graduate students how to teach!

Not sure if it was the end of week exhaustion that made this amusing, but this sign had me giggling....

I won't go into too much detail about the weekend.  It started off strong with a visit to the children's museum in Sausalito, but ended with me pushed to my limits--lot of craziness at the house and, due to the physical limitations imposed by SCI, I was the only person who could deal with everything.  After a crazy week, I needed a break and didn't get one.  There was a point when I seriously contemplated curling up in a ball and sobbing.  Thankfully, I've got an awesome partner in Jason.  He couldn't help with the physical demands of what was going on, but he was an excellent cheerleader and supporter.  Most of the time, I feel like we have a handle on SCI, but occasionally we get knocked down.  I imagine this will always be our reality.

This week has been slightly less busy...I'm dissertating a lot, trying to get a chapter to my advisor next week.  Stay tuned for a post on the dissertation process!

Hope everyone has a happy (and safe!) labor day weekend!

An Artist in the Making

I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond on Saturday and, while looking through their clearance racks found this.

It is a kit that is supposed to inspire your child to make a piece of artwork similar to one of the great works of art (in this case, Monet's "Water Lilies").  I saw these types of kits about a year ago, but Sav wasn't quite old enough for them yet, and they were a little on the expensive side, so I passed.  On Saturday, though, this was going for $5, so I figured we'd try it out.

The kit included a little bit of background on Monet and the impressionists.  I talked to Savannah about this, but don't think she was terribly impressed by the whole painting outside in natural light thing...so we moved on to the creating part of the kit.

The kit included basic directions, but the goal is to create art inspired by Monet, not something that is an exact replica.  We began by using the pastels (included) to get the water just the right shade of bluish-purple.

And then began to add the lily pads.  Savannah was adamant that the lily pads be red.

She put the finishing touches on it, and we hung it up in her room on her display wall.  

I think it turned out beautifully.  I went back to BB&B to buy the two other kits (Van Gogh and Klimt) and am saving those for a rainy day down the road.  

In other news--we have an appointment to pick up Jason's new wheelchair tomorrow.  Fingers crossed we actually leave with it this go round!

The Saga of the Chair....

Most of you know the basics of the wheelchair story--when J was fitted for his chair in the hospital, his OTs assume he'd gain back the weight he'd lost immediately post-accident.  He didn't.  Plus, he was wearing an assortment of braces at the time, which made it very hard to get a proper fit.  We were able to make some changes to the chair--new back, new cushion, new wheels, etc--but we can't make the chair smaller.  With this in mind (we finally realized the chair would need to be replaced in the fall of 2012), we began the process of getting a new chair around mid January.

We still don't have the new chair.

The initial delays were caused by waiting for insurance approval.  This took way longer than it should have, though this time wasn't all wasted.  Jason wanted this chair to be perfect, so there was a lot of back and forth between J and the medical supplier making sure all the measurements were right.  Insurance gave the final approval in April/May and the order was officially placed.  While we were on the East coast, we got the word that the chair had been delivered!  Excitement!  We went to the medical supplier the morning after we got back, fully expecting to take the new chair home with us.

But....

• The chair back was wrong.
• The wheels were wrong.
• The brakes were wrong.

Sigh.  No new chair, at least not that day.  This has not been a quick turn around, because the chair back was on back order.  Supposedly it is ready now to be picked up.  We'll see.  I'm not holding my breath.

And we're home!

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

The last part of our trip was something of a blur--lots of time in the car, lots of time with family, and (sadly) an increasingly irritated little girl.  Our last week looked like this:

• Saturday: Drive from Baltimore to Fairfax, pick up rental car (Chrysler 300...a surprisingly good rental car), drive from Fairfax to Fayetteville, NC (miles traveled: 348)
• Sunday: Drive Fayetteville to Beaufort, SC (miles traveled: 262)
• Sunday-Wednesday: Stay in Beaufort (day trip to Charleston)
• Thursday: After an early morning visit to the doctor for me (yay for getting sick on vacation) and a quick trip to Walgreens to load up on meds, we drove from Beaufort back to Fayetteville (miles traveled: 262)
• Friday: Fayetteville to Mathews, VA (miles traveled: 245)
• Saturday: Mathews during the day; late night drive to Fairfax, VA, during which Savannah did not sleep AT ALL, despite not arriving til close to 11pm (miles traveled: 152)
• Sunday: Day in Fairfax, flight home at 6:30pm (miles traveled: a lot)

Total Miles in the Car: 1269 (!)

Hotels: 5 (we racked up some major hotel points this go round)

The flight home was bumpy and Savannah was not entirely cooperative.  She didn't want to sleep (only fell asleep in the last 30 minutes or so, naturally), didn't like that the fasten seatbelt sign was on so much (thank you midwest storms for all the lovely turbulence), and was a little manic through most of the flight.  

Some photos of the last 4-5 days....

Lunch with Mimi

Playing with Sadie

Hanging out with Uncle Evan

Our "accessible" shower in Fayetteville...notice the conveniently located bar above the bench...makes it impossible to lean back against the wall, so J was off balance the entire time.

And the soap trays were (in)conveniently located on the other side of the shower, where no one could reasonably access them from the bench.  Bah.

Happy girl to have lots of time in the pool!

Waiting on our flight.

Finally...she sleeps!

Went yesterday to pick up Jason's new wheelchair.  Due to some problems with the chair, though, we did not leave with it (more about this frustration in another post).

Happy to be home, and even happier to have jammies that match her baby doll!

So, we are now home, and I'm in the midst of getting us settled in again: grocery shopping, (some) laundry, and catching up with work (if you want to see what I've been working on, head over to http://gsi.berkeley.edu/teachingguide/tech/googledocs-editing.html where you can read some of my additions to UC-Berkeley's teaching guide).  I'm also re-stocking our pantry with some homemade goodies.  Jason is a big fan of granola, but I'm not a big fan of the price of granola (and, seriously, you get like a bowl and a half of cereal in each box...boo).  Baking granola, then, is on the top of my list today.  If you're a fan, here's the recipe I use.  It can be modified to include anything you like, though if you want to incorporate fruit or chocolate, do so after the granola has cooled.

Jason's Granola (Honey-Almond with Flax Seed)

• 5 Cups Oats
• 1.5 Cups Slivered Almonds 
• 1.5 Cups Sunflower Seeds
• .5 Cup Shredded Coconut (unsweetened)
• .5 Cup Ground Flax Seed
• A healthy shake of cinnamon and nutmeg
• 1 Cup Honey
• 2 tsp. Vanilla
• .75 Cup Vegetable Oil
• .5 Cup Brown Sugar

-Preheat Oven to 250 F

-Mix first six ingredients in a large bowl; mix ingredients 7-10 in a small bowl; combine wet and dry ingredients

-Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; pour granola mixture into pan

-Bake for 1.5 hours, stirring halfway.

-Cool, stirring the mixture every 20 minutes or so to prevent lots of clumping. 

-Stores in an airtight container for 4 weeks.

Enjoy!

Ashley