How To Deal With: Old Injuries 1 (The Morning of the Cripple)

When an old injury acts up, usually it doesn't mean you cannot continue your day right? Maybe pop a few pain killers or some anti-inflammatory pills, and you can push through the day until you can climb back into be and ice it. But when you have an injury to the foot, and one that has required not 1 but 2 major surgeries, your day is shot. Well, to be more accurate, what you had planned on being your day is shot, and a new kind of day unfurls at your...feet...
horrible pun...

 

A lisfranc injury - one you should actually only get if a horse stomps on you, not if you slide 6 feet, barefoot, in a rehearsal space during an acting class warm up at 9 in the morning - is a bitch. You wake up one day, it is a little stiff. you spend about 15 min in bed making sure it is okay to walk on, by stretches and exercises you have learned from over a year of Physical therapy, and then carry on with your day. That night you elevate it for a little while. I am supposed to ice it at night, or whenever it hurts badly, but I don't. Where am I to get ice on a train in the middle of London?? But some mornings, you forget to elevate it the night before (for like 2 weeks), and you do your morning's 15 minute check-if-I-am-good-to-walk test and all seems fine. Until, even through the fog and dreaminess of your sleepy brain, you put your foot on the ground and try to stand. And instantly you are awake, eyes bugging out of your head cause it is 7 am, people are sleeping so you cannot cry out, and your brain tells you in a frightened sad voice, 

"I don't think you can make that long commute today. Yesterday you had no seat on either side of the train journeys and walked back to the house when you should have taken the bus."

After hating myself for about 10 whole minutes, I tried to convince myself it wouldn't be so bad, that I could do it! A good pep talk can make armies run to battle, a girl feel confidant in herself enough to head to school, but not today. The second I tried to bare weight on that injured foot again, I knew I couldn't do it. I wouldn't have been able to walk down the stairs to put my shoes on. Or put my shoes on! So, hating myself for an additional 10 minutes, solely thinking about how my class needs me, and I must get to school to help them with our stuff, my boyfriend just stares at me. Worry, mixed with a bit of awe at the conversation in my head maybe, and trying to put his foot down...god I hate these puns...about making me stay to nurse myself for tomorrow and relax today.

Now I am in bed, with three elastic tension bands, an ice pack, a laptop, and a cheap top-up mobile to call into school to let them know I cannot come in. You feel guilty with an injury like this. You are needed or are desperately excited to do something vital for the day, but you have to take care of your injury instead. After a while, some people - who shall remain name-less on here but not face-less in my head - have thought I was milking my pain out so I could get out of doing things, or faking the injury for attention. 

Trust me bitches, FUCK YOU. 

 

If I could fake this, I would be so much happier. Then I could wear high heels again, dance all night and still be fine to go to the gym in the morning. I hate that this happened to me. I was isolated in a room for 3 months after the first surgery, my whole summer spent in doors and in such horrible pain (I had to crawl down the stairs, more than once, to use to bathroom. You don't know dignity until you had to hop on one leg for 3 weeks every time you had to throw up or pee or god forbid both.). Then, not fully recovered, pretended that the pain had ebbed and went to school in another country. Anytime it was unbearably awful, I had to tell a faculty member, and it was embarrassing. The second summer of pain was not as bad, because I know knew the joys of the internet (previously, all I used it for was research and online games. I now know of reddit, pinterest, and other just addictions) and what to expect of the pain. 
Today is the first in many weeks I have been physically halted in my tracks...fucking puns...

I will be fine, is my mantra. 
It will get better, the other mantra. 

I hope so, inner me. I do hope so.

Bye For Now!

How To Deal With : Moving Part 1: What To Expect When Your Waiting

When moving into a new place - be it an apartment (flat), a house, an attic above a bowling alley, or a shack in the woods - there are a few fun facts you learn that you were never taught about life and adulthood. And that schools should prepare you for adulthood as well as academia.

For instance, did you know dry rot is a bitch?

In theory, of course you did. But in practice, we have actually been forbidden to move into our new flat until it has been annihilated. And I am not being over dramatic. Dry rot, mold, and termites are the caners of floor boards. You have to gut them all out or it will spread to other parts of the place. Thankfully, our flat's only issue is the dry rot, and we have been given an ETA on moving in. Sadly, two weeks. I say sadly, because I start University on Monday (TOMORROW!?!), which means commuting back and forth from where I am right now will be 2 1/2 hours...One Way. Normally, that wouldn't be so bad. I am a New Yorker. 5 hours on a train means listening to music or an audio book, completing homework assignments, watching a movie/tv show on my i-pod, or scribbling ideas about a novel that will never see the light of day. But 5 hours everyday, monday-friday with a swing on weekends? Ooo, right. Swing weekends are weekends where I may or may not have to be at school (or in the area) to rehearse and/or study. 

Now another fun fact.                               The stuff. 

I packed my whole life into 4 large suitcases, 1 small suitcase, and an backpack. My boyfriend? Oh, he has packed 1 medium suitcase and that's it. He can't really complete his luggage until we get the real move-in date, because he has a real, adult, job in central London. I am really proud of him, but are all boys like that? I'm not a high maintenance gal, but I still have 4 bags in his garage. Granted most of those are books and heavy winter clothes, but still. Are all boys able to pick up and leave so quickly? Is it because they don't need as much stuff as women do? Or is it because there are more things we women think to bring? I am living out of the small suitcase and the backpack these days anyway . . . in my boyfriend's parents' place. Not a bad set up for a temporary displacement, because honestly they are a great pair. Both funny, easy to be around, and not a judgmental or mean bone in them.

Fun Fact 3 . . .

. . . The waiting . . .

 

 
                          
                                              

While we await our soon to be newly painted, re-carpeted, and dry rot free home, it is important for me to keep busy. I HATE down time, especially when I'm so used to helping or being busy. I became a bit bored and stir crazy after only three days. I have gotten lost in the woods, found two really great restaurants that are not pubs (Chinese and Indian), worked out for 3 hours one morning (mostly kicking and yoga, and old fight routines), baked a harry potter spice cake (I'll post it later), cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the bedroom, sung for 1 whole hour in the shower, gave myself 4 manicures and 2 facials, braided my hair 4 different ways, passed by a lot of little play parks while forcing myself outside on the sunny days, and started reading a book his mom gave me. Things will pick up once I start classes, which is what makes me enjoy the lazy early mornings, the quiet and the calm.Starting to enjoy sleeping in really...this could be the start of a bad habit...but I am totally fine with that for now.

I will keep you informed on any new developments, but as of now? No flat, 5 hour commute to school, and desperate for new reading materials that have to do with theatre.

Bye for Now!

Welcome Back Day!

So heeeeeeerrrrreeeee's Ashley! 

No! Not her! ME!!!

Yes, I AM back! Finally!

I know, I'm the worst! But there has just been sooooo much going on!

*        *        *       *         *

So as you know, the last time there was anything new on this lovely green canvas was back in July. My boyfriend had come to visit, and being so thoroughly distracted, I took a mini vaca from a very young blog. I had so many more ideas for the site, and new articles, I even had plans for vid-blogs on here to show you how to do certain cooking tricks that other novices would slit your throat for. But sadly, when I returned to my precious newborn, she had been stolen. Well...hacked would be the better term. It seems that my fight for Pandora's Recipe Box was not over, but this time the war was not from within. I won her back though! After re-launching the site however, all my stories and photos were gone, and starting over seemed inevitable.

But how can someone start over a blog with a goal and a count-down clock?!?!
It had been brought to my attention that the goal, the original 1 year deadline, might be a negative instead of a positive. 

What if I didn't get to my goal, but still had an amazing journey? 

Nope, still failed. 

So FUCK IT! 

BOOM - Dead line gone! 

And now for the last nail in the coffin . . . To my dear readers . . . 

I am sorry . . . But . . .

SOME SHITS ABOUT TO CHANGE!!!!!!!!

Why? Well, because back in the beginning I wrote a lovely piece on why everyone should take that little voice in their head telling them that "you will fail", or that "you suck", and shoot it in the face. And i stand by that. So to behead that little bitch, I am changing the negative. There is no more time deadline for the weight loss. This is for me, and to be healthy I can't measure my many successes against one failure.

Now there have been a few changes in my personal and professional life. 

 

Firstly, I got into a graduate school. That's right people! I'm gonna get my Masters - British Style. I start this Monday. SOOOOOOOOOOO excited!

Second, I am moving into a new place, with the boyfriend. Never really lived with a boy before. Mostly only girls ever since I was eight and started sleep away camps. So that's gonna be weird.

And third, I finished reading all the recipe books form the summer reading list, and will post reviews on them within the next week. AND a new reading list will be up to replace the old one!

Bye for now!