Balancing Physical and Mental Health

After hurting my right knee last week from over-doing it, I've been trying to take it very easy this week. In all of my down time, I have done nothing but sit on the couch. I went back to having Kevin and my family cook for me, didn't go outside much to walk around, was unable to go up or down stairs, and tried to only play with Little John while sitting (which is often difficult with a 2 year old). During grad school, if someone would have told me that I could sit on a couch for 18 hours a day, I would have thought that sounded like heaven. Now, I couldn't disagree more.

All of this sitting around and doing nothing gives me too much time to think and worry, so the beginning of this week week has been a little rough mentally while I'm trying to physically rest up. I never realized how active of a person I really was. I can't sit still for two seconds! I must get that from my dad, because you can hardly tell he's even had back surgery. He's been back to his go-go-go self, with the exception of laying down more often when he needs to rest his back. 

I've still managed to stay busy despite all of the resting though, for the sake of my mental health. There's a fine line between losing my sanity while resting my leg and doing enough to stay happy without hurting my leg. 

On Wednesday, my new phone came in so we went to pick that up. I decided to go from my Droid to trying an iPhone. By some miracle, the Verizon store wasn't packed and it actually went pretty smoothly. And 24 hours later my old phone that hasn't been working properly for WEEKS turned on and stayed on perfectly fine. Of course.  

There are a surprisingly large amount of pictures
that come up when you Google Droid vs. iPhone.

We'll see if I keep it. So far I'm still on the fence, and I have 14 days to trade it in if I change my mind. I don't absolutely love it like everyone says they do. I can't stand the navigation compared the the one I used to use, and gchat is absolutely terrible on iPhones. Since those are two of the biggest "smart phone" things I use, I'm having a weird time adjusting (I know, first world problems). I do love that it doubles as an iPod though. I've been listening to music non-stop. The camera is pretty nice, too, but I still think my Droid camera was at least as good, if not better. 

Wednesday evening, Kevin and I drove half way to Cincinnati to meet up with his parents and his brother Stuart. Stuart is in town from Chicago this weekend, so it was great to see him! We went to Warner's BBQ in Jeffersonville since it was in the middle, and we probably had at least 8 pounds of a variety of meat (pulled pork, ribs, sausage, brisket, pork chop, and I think I'm forgetting one) on the table between the five of us. It was delicious for Paleo lovers, but definitely not the place for a vegetarian.

Testing out the iPhone camera while waiting for the rest of the Anderson clan.

My friends Carli and Nicole are in from Minnesota this week, so on Thursday a bunch of us got together at Nasty's. I grew up two doors down from them in our old neighborhood. Nate came too, and so did their brother Chris. There were boyfriends, girlfriends, and cousins there as well, but this is the gang that grew up together. It was great seeing them again!! We usually only get together once every year or two. 

Misty Meadows kids

On Friday, Kevin picked up some food and we took it easy and stayed in since I'm trying to balance the rest and have fun thing. On Saturday, my itty bitty baby sister graduated from high school. I can't believe she's going off to college in a couple months! Time seriously flies. I debated for a long time about going to the ceremony. I really wanted to go because I think it's important and meaningful to be there, but I also thought it would be torture on my knee. After showering and getting all ready (an exhausting process) and after Kevin strategically fit the wheelchair in the back of his car, I ended up deciding not to go. 

The ceremony is packed with families, you have to park far away, and the wheelchair we borrowed from a friend doesn't fit me. My foot hangs off the end about 6 inches and the leg rest doesn't adjust, so I would've risked someone ramming into the end of my foot the entire time. I also have no idea where we would've sat because my right knee won't let me do stairs right now and we probably would've had to have made special arrangements for wheelchair seating. As awful as I felt about not going, it turns out it was a decent idea because my dad said the traffic was horrendous (sitting in a car isn't super comfortable) and then he sent this picture. 

Looks a bit crowded for a messed up knee.

I saw her after though, and I'll definitely be at her graduation party :) 

Congratulations, Caitlyn! I am so proud of you!!

While my family was at Caitlyn's graduation, Kevin and I decided to go out and enjoy the day since we had gotten all ready. We went to Lavash for lunch, then to the Park of Roses. It was all much easier on my knee than the ceremony would have been, and it was a good distraction from feeling horrible for not being at her graduation. We sat outside at Lavash in the most perfect weather ever and it was delicious, as always. After lunch, Kevin met up with Hayes to throw some discs at the Park of Roses, and I sat under a tree and did my physical therapy and napped. I can't even describe how wonderful and relaxing it was to just be outside. Also, physical therapy is way more fun when this is your view:

On a random note, I painted my nails by myself last week! Caitlyn helped me before when I couldn't reach my foot (thank you!), and it was an accomplishment for me to do it myself. It may not seem like a big deal, but I had to keep my knee bent further than normal and hold it there longer than for what is comfortable. Yay for multitasking and doing my nails while simultaneously working on increasing my ROM. 

We ran into Coady at the park. He had gone to the Rose Festival, which was this weekend. That would explain why there were a million cars at the park. Coady told us that this is the week out of the whole year that the roses are the most beautiful. I wanted to go see them on our way out, but decided that I should rest my knee since I'm working on this whole balancing fun and rest thing. 

Once the boys were finished throwing discs, we all relaxed under the most awesome tree for a while. Then Hayes tried to convince Kevin to wear a Superman cape.

But Kevin decided he didn't need a cape. He ran up the tree and started doing pull-ups to train for Tough Mudder. 

 (Thank you Coady for snapping all of these pictures since I couldn't get my brace on in time!!)

We left the park and went home to ice my knees for a while, then we went to the Hovest house to hang out with Tony, Megan, Ezra, Jim, Amanda, Eevee, Michelle, Jim, Megan, Adrienne, and Jon. I haven't seen Jim, Amanda, and Eevee since they moved to Boston over a year ago, so I was very excited to see them!! For the first half of the evening, we mostly watched the babies be super adorable. Eevee kept flashing Ezra and trying to take her dress off. Then they would have conversations that sounded a lot like "a gagaga blablabla eeeeee!" They kept talking back and forth in their baby language and squealing and it was so stinking cute. We ate dinner, had some of Miche's awesome cupcakes, and played Cards Against Humanity. It was a lot of fun, and I could sit with my brace off since we were at a house instead of out at a restaurant. It's always more comfortable without the brace, so we could stay for much longer than usual. 

 

Ezra and Eevee. I kept trying to get a picture when they were looking, but it just so happens that babies move a lot and don't often pose for pictures when they're 11 and 16 months old. 

It was awesome getting to see Carli & Nicole and the Words since they're all so far away now (move back to Ohio! :), and overall, it's been a better week as far as balancing activities go. Both knees are feeling better and better each day, and the second half of the week I felt busy enough to not go totally crazy.