My plans

I feel like maybe – just maybe – God is trying to tell me something.  On Tuesday, while cutting the grass, I maneuvered the lawnmower in such a way that I had to walk backwards a few feet.  In the process, my foot got caught in this total hazard/danger-zone of a drainage pipe that sticks up above the ground a tiny bit.  (It’s just one of the many wonky things about the house that wasn’t done well by the pevious owner, Trevor.  We haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet.  Whenever something goes wrong with this house, we shake our fist and as if cursing him, groan, “Trevor!!”)  With my foot caught, I started to fall backyards and quickly realized that I was soon going to be pulling the lawn mower down on top of me.  In an effort to not mow myself, I did some sort of weird tweaky jerk forward and to the right.  I was able to extract my foot, NOT lawn-mow myself, BUT in the process I felt a sudden awful pain in my lower back.  It hurt so badly and suddenly I nearly cried.  Oddly enough, the sharp pain only lasted a few moments.  It turned into just a dull pain after that and I finished cutting the grass.  When I got inside, I sat with the heating pad on my back and realized how lucky I was that I’d not been more hurt.   

 

Mike and I are in charge of baseball for a week (two practices and two games) as our head coach is out of town.  Since we have all the equipment – including the pitching machine – we decided to take advantage of the opportunity and took the kids to a field Tuesday night in order to give Matthew some extra practice.  Well, my back was feeling, OK, so I thought it made perfectly good sense to take a turn batting.  I have to say – those balls come fast!  The machine is set to 45 miles an hour.  OK, yeah, it’s half of what the major league players tend to bat at, but I’d not batted with a machine in a long time…or maybe ever.  Out of 30 balls, I managed to hit 5 or 6.  

 

After my baseball-playing action I was feeling a little sore, so, I opted not to go for my morning run as my back was still feeling quite ‘touchy.’  On Thursday, I decided for my P90X workout that instead of doing the Legs/back/abs/core dvd that I was supposed to do, instead I’d do the Shoulders/chest/triceps one.  I was being SO smart, right?  Later that afternoon, despite the pouring rain, we had baseball practice (under cover).  I played catch for over an hour.  Yes, you see where this is headed.  Shock of all shocks, I woke up Friday morning, in quite a bit more pain.  Thankfully, the only thing required of me was getting to the grocery store, so I was able to have a pretty restful day and spent a lot of it on the heating pad.

 

After an awful night’s sleep last night – I woke up in pain EVERY time I needed to move or roll over –morning arrived.  Game day!  I’d spent the late evening listening to the rain pounding on the skylights and windows and praying that we’d be rained out.  Um, yeah, today my back is hurting SO badly.  Ya think?!  Unfortunately (or fortunately), Mike was very on top of things and left early to go prepare the field (as we were the home team and we’re required to).  Shortly after he and Matthew left and right before our babysitter arrived to relieve ME so that I could head down for the game, an email was sent out saying that all games before 11:30am were rained out due to the conditions of the field.  My prayers were answered!  But because Mike was busy dragging the diamond, he couldn’t feel my repeated calls to him attempting to say, “The game is off, come home, ya nut!”  Soooo, I drove down and communicated this message.  (Actually, he finally called me back right as I pulled into the parking lot, so we talked over our phones despite the fact that we could see each other).  I stopped at Safeway before coming home and stocked up on Icy Hot back patch thingies and all sorts of different pain meds to try out (but not all at the same time, I promise).

 

So, just what is God trying to tell me?  Well, in some ways the timing is not at all awesome as Mike REALLY needs my help with baseball – we’ve got another practice on Monday – not to mention I teach music in the morning.  BUT, in some ways, the timing is good.  What's that saying?  "You know how to make God laugh?  Make plans..."  I’ve been obsessed with trying to work out plans to start building our stone walled-raised vegetable beds.  Yes, STONE walls.  Meaning each brick/stone weighs 20-40 pounds.  Hmmm, maybe not a good plan with a hurt back, yeah?  I was really hoping to get the project done in time for planting this year, but I’m pretty darn sure, that’s not in the cards.  Duh.  Obviously there’s no rush.  I can spend the summer, fall, winter (and NOT BASEBALL SEASON when we have games-practices 4 times a week!) preparing the beds and getting ready to plant NEXT year…or even the year after.  We’re going to be here a LONG time, so just chillax, will ya?

 

I also think it’s ironic that my back sitch is happening right now.  If this had happened last year at this time I would’ve been SCREWED.  We were painting and doing endless projects for the horrible buyers and packing and lifting and then moving….having a bad back would’ve been a near deal breaker.  So, while this is not awesome, I’ll take it as a sign that – as much as I can – I need to slow my butt down and sit on it every once in a while.  (And put some ice or heat on my back while sitting here).