a hunting we will go . . . . .

Not for animals of course. :)

So i hope everyone had a wonderful Turkey Day? We had a good one. It was amusing though. First, mom and I had been talking earlier in the week. She was having a problem because her oven was going to be in conflict. So i told her that when i lived in WI, my friend k's family used an electric Nesco Roaster to do the turkey. Mom had enver really heard of that and was SOOO excited! She went RIGHT out and bought one. So when i got there around 1230 we started setting the whole thing up to roast her 16lb turkey. So i slathered the turkey with a lot of herbed butter, on the skin and under it. Then put it in the roaster breast side down (lets gravity do it's job and pull the juices into the breast.) Then we added a quart of chicken stock to the bottom to help the basting and let it go. well - the booklet said 4 hours which makes sense for a 16 lb bird. well at 2.5 hours we opened it up to flip it over so the skin can start to crisp etc. And well... the bird fell apart. It was pretty much done. 1.5 hours early. the leg and thigh just pulled off with the entire hip joint with it. So we are theorizing that it STEAMED it which cooked it much faster than roasting. hehehe. So we put it in the oven for a bit to just crisp the skin. So the breast wasn't QUITE as moist as usual but it still came out lovely.

The next day - Mom, S, M and I all went to the camera store. We figured since it wasn't in the mall, and was in a shopping center with not a lot of "gifty" type stores we'd risk it. When we got there, there was a LOT of open parking which was cool. And the store was not too busy which was cool. We went because I wanted a new camera. See i *LOVE* My main camera. It's a Canon Digital Rebel. But it's a DSLR camera. lots of interchangeable lenses etc. The problem with that is that it's really rather awkward to bring to things like parties, and events and stuff when you just want a quick snapshot ya know? So i got this.

The canon Powershot SD800IS. It's so TINY!!! i love it!! so i had to use it this weekend. One thing I did was take pictures of our foliage hunting trip.

This is a picture of the farm.















Pine Valley Christmas Tree Farm - in Maryland

We decided to start our new traditions as a family. (we did not bring the doggies though)

So we got our very first ChristmaChanuKwanzika Foliage to bring home and decorate. We took the wagon up to the field and I managed to hobble around for a while so we could pick out our tree. We found a lovely douglas fir and had the nice man with the chainsaw cut it down for us. Then home we went to set it up. The Green tree looks really pretty with the red walls don't it?


We put the lights on yesterday - I haven't quite worked out the pictures of that with the new camera. We got LED lights and they are REALLLLLY bright so we get this blue HAZE all over the tree when we try to take the pictures. I"ll have to see what i can do.

I a couple of weeks we are going to have our "decorate our first foliage" party. Since we have no ornaments or anything else, we figure we'll feed everyone and they can donate ornaments to our collection and start our traditions.










Meanwhile - surgery is this thursday - here's hoping i'll be walking well again. i'm sure I will post within a day or two after to let you all know how it went. Mom is looking forward to driving my new car to take me to the surgicenter - since she has a sports car that makes it a little more difficult. And we're trying to figure out how we can go shopping while i'm on crutches. I'll update you with more as I know.

A Decision Has Been Made

And I am now VERY VERY poor...

I took a *HUGE* hit on my beloved Mazda 6. (sigh) Unfortunately the dealer is offering all kinds of cash back incentives on new mazda 6's so old ones (i.e. 1 year) aren't worth nearly what they really should be... Oh well.

So it's paid off - it's gone.

I now have a new car.

A Car i never thought i'd ever be able to afford. When the opportunity to lease it for 2 years for the same amount of money i'm paying now on my mazda loan, i jumped at it. I"ll figure the rest out in 2 years. :)

Here's my new baby:

The Audi A4















pretty isn't it? :)

It's the great pumpkin....

And just like the great pumpkin it's equally elusive.

you see - i have a problem.

I have a wrecked left knee. I also drive a 5 speed which means a clutch. This means that I can no longer drive my car safely. I might heal in a few more weeks and be able to drive, but I can't guarantee this is not going to happen again. So i'm looking for a new car.

The problem is that i'm REALLY upside down on my current car. Which sucks. it's only a year old, has less than 10K miles on it, and i'm taking a 10k hit on depreciation. I'm hoping it will be less when i sell it to a famous used dealership (name withheld :) ) rather than trading it in. Key is i have to do it before i get the new car, so i know how much "downpayment" i have left after paying off the rest of the loan on my current car.

So now i'm searching for new cars. And usually i absolutely *ADORE* car shopping. Comparing features, and driving them to see how they handle etc. But this time it's not as much fun. i'm having a harder time picking a car. I love my current car which is making it difficult. BUt i can't bring myself to go into an automatic version of my current car, b/c the depreciation is so bad that i don't want to put myself in that same situation again.

So i'm driving a bunch of different things. And now i feel guilty too. Cuz the dealerships are being *SOOO* nice to me. I know that's their jobs and all, but they are coming to my house to pick me up for test drives because I can't drive to go to them.

I'm also kind of frustrated because i really want my mom to go shopping with me, but she can't get up here in the time frame i need to get a car in. We did the next best thing, and she test drove a car down by her that i was looking at up here and i was on the phone with her during the test drive which was really a lot of fun.

One car makes more financial sense than the other 2 that will cost the same in the long run, but i'm not getting a "this is definitely my car" kind of feel. And i don't know if it's because i'm being "forced" to get a car when i didn't plan to, or just that it's not my car ya know?

It's a very frustrating situation. and because i'm on a time crunch as well, i'm feeling pressured about making the decision which isn't helping at all...

So like the great pumpkin - the new car is elusive...
*sigh*

have a good weekend everyone. I'll let you all know my decision once i've made it.

Oooh look at the pretty . . . *ZONK*

So anyways...

I went to the doctor yesterday. he says while the MRI scan is not optimal they can definitely see a tear on the miniscus. how bad the tear is they don't know. oh and the ACl doesn't show at ALL on the MRi so it's probably gone too.

So there's the deal:

I will be scheduled for surgery (don't know when yet) for them to "scope" my knee. At that time they will look and see how bad it is. If the tear is repairable, then they will repair it and adamantly suggest I have the ACL reconstructed. The reason for this is that meniscus tears tend to happen more often when the acl is damaged or gone. So they figure, why repair the miniscus without doing the ACL, if not having the ACL will just ruin the fix in the first place? right? make sense? :)

Alternatively, if they can't FIX the miniscus, then they will just trim it back so there isn't a flap to get caught inside the knee joint or under the knee cap etc. At that point it's my choice as to whether or not I want to do the ACL reconstruction, b/c it won't be as critical at that point. And ACl recon is not an easy prospect. Time off of work, MONTHS of physical therapy etc. So not sure how great or easy of an idea it would be for me ya know?

oh well - so that's what going on. Taking abreak from the regular trainer that i use since i can't get a full workout with them right now anyway, and going to use the trainer at the gym that's already got 5 prepaid sessions left for now. Then once i have the surgery scheduled i can figure other stuff out from there. Wheee aren't we having fun?

Not much else going on right now - my brother dropped off his dog, so he could drive down to MD to show my mother his new car. It's a really pretty color from what i could see at night anyway. It's been 6 months since he last bought a car. As he said (and i think this is so appropriate) "some people do drugs, i buy cars." And ya know what? As long as it's affordable, and such then i say go for it - its a lot healthier than doing drugs right? LOL

Ahh well - hope everyone has a great weekend if i don't get around to posting again!

You see what happened was . . .

So this little trick or treater came to the door, and she was being CHASED!!! yeah chased..umm yeah that's the ticket. By a bunch of teenage boys in skeleton costumers... I pushed her behind me to protect her and the boys knocked me over and . . .

Umm, ok how about... With all the kids ringing the doorbell, Mister got SO excited and ran right past me, and his 75 lb linebacker doggie body knocked me down and twisted my. . .

ummm ALIENS!!!! yeah aliens came and I got stuck in their hatch and in trying to pull me in while I was trying to fight them off I injured...

hmm. yeah. Truth is - I locked the back door, turned around and must have stepped badly. Thus possibly tearing the miniscus in my bad knee. (sigh) yup - I was even wearing good shoes (my sneakers, tied tightly.) I had just finished working out but we didn't do any leg excercises. I just stepped and KabooM! so yesterday I managed to get into see a new orthopaedist as well as getting in the MRI he ordered. So my next appt is wed to find out what the MRI said. If it *IS* a torn miniscus then most likely I will be facing some knee surgery.

Oh the flip side I got the impression that thenew doctor might be questioning the old doctor's diagnosis of torn acl from 3 years ago. Said the knee didn't feel loose at all like one that would have a torn acl. Of course a Torn ACL would explain how the mniniscus tore so easily since those tend to be related injuries. But the LAST doctor is also the one who said "oh, well it's torn, but since you are overweight there's no point in surgery itwould probably make it worse. just live it." And he would emphasize over and over that because my leg is too big they can't see what the problem is etc. Funny THIS doctor didn't mention my size ONCE during the entire visit. So we'll see what happens.

Oh well. If any of you want to come up with any more fun stories for how i could have hurt my knee since mine is so boring - please feel free to share them... i'd love it. :)