Sidetracked Charley

  As frequent readers will know it has not been an easy 2022. First there was the incident of black dog one followed quickly by tripping over black dog two. Followed by the snow at last. Fortunately I discovered Bob and Brad on YouTube. And I have learned to sleep on my back. At least for half the night. But they are not as good with thumbs as they are with backs. I decided to redo the decor in the upstairs of the vrbo, went positively manic about decorating beds with pillows, and stupidly did not count how many screws had to be removed to be over the bunk beds. This aserbated my skier's thumb big time. I do not remember it took 30 days to recover before but it did this time even if they called it Mommies' thumb. But that long not using your fingers, thumb and wrist take a toll. So when I went to lift my battery out of my Corolla I had to ask for help. Bought a new battery and guess what? They are as heavy as the old ones. And you cannot drive a batteryless Corolla to the mecha...

I was an adult of middle age before I encountered the phrase argue for your limitations and they are yours . Until that point I had seen my limitations basically as those forced upon me by others. If you are female you are most likely familiar with most of those beginning with nice girls don't do that . And I usually responded with, Who wants to be a nice girl?  And in my youth I wasn't even sure I wanted to be a girl.  Who wants to be labelled a second class citizen at birth. I was raised in conflict on so many levels from a father who told me I could be anything I wanted to a mother who sent me away on my freshman year in college to earn my Mrs. degree. I was encouraged by society to go along to get along. And it wasn't until and it wasn't until I was teaching adaptive skiing to adults and children with perceived limitations I encountered the concept of arguing against your perceived limitations. I learned to not see them in my students and in my role of teach...

Entry to the Binford-Bell Studio Last night when I climbed the stairs to go to bed every muscle in my body was weary, my shoulder hurt, my back ached, and I was totally aware of everything which had not been done yet for the Angel Fire Studio Tour this weekend. Some things I knew I was going to do this morning at the last opportunity like make the Snickerdoodles. And some things I had decided just didn't need to be done. And too long of a list of I cannot do this also remained. I am not one to admit I cannot do things, but I was too exhausted and too wounded to do them.  I have made it this far after my ski accident in 2001 by adopting the Adaptive Skiing model of "Argue for your limitations and they are yours." And concentrating on progress and not perfection. Not easy for a perfectionist energizer bunny who was always rewarded for doing. While I focus most on the CBT of that accident I also compressed three discs in my neck, damaged my shoulder in a complex man...

On Christmas Eve 2001 I was teaching an upper level semi-private ski lesson at Angel Fire Resort. Three and a half hours later I re-engaged in the world to find myself being driven down the mountain to the front emergency department. I was sitting up without neck support in the back of a Subaru on a bumpy road. I walked into the ski patrol office where I had to pee in a cup and complete an accident report. A report I got entirely wrong because it ended 20 minutes before the accident. We had to come back to the name and address part. I got the name off my name tag. They released me to drive home. To make a long story short I was hit at high speed by a Oklahoma resident who had drunk lunch, tossed into the air, and landed on my head. I suffered a CBT, three compressed disks in my neck, and a complex injury of the rotator cuff on my left shoulder. Guess what got the most attention once everyone decided I was not going to just die or go away? Even I paid the most attention to my ...

I have reached 68 a few months back. It was a major milestone for me not because of any physical issues but because both my parents had died at 67. Them and what seemed an inordinate number of my relatives. Only two seemed to live past 67 and they went into their 80's but one forgets that in the year of your parents' death. So happily into 68 I find myself feeling invincible except when around a friend of mine that seems preoccupied with dying soon. Now reason why she will. Probably won't. But she is always saying she is old and she is a year younger than I am. I pass it over because she is recently widowed and her late husband wanted most that she die with him. Yesterday the topic was retirement homes in Florida. She obviously has done some research. "We're getting old. We need to be looked after." This said as we were putting up snow fence. "I'd be dead in six months if I did that," I told her when she proposed I join her in this. Flori...