Izzy

I haven't been blogging much because I've been spending all my free moments with my niece, Izzy. As crazy as it sounds, I haven't been able to spend much time with her these past sixteen years. I can count the number of times I've seen her on one hand so I'm super thrilled we're finally getting to hang out. We are two peas in a pod. I have more in common with her than anyone else I've known. We both love olives and dark chocolate, bananas in our cereal, and are diehard sushi fans. We are both perfectly content to sit down with our art projects and happily work on them together. Izzy likes to color, paint, draw, and make jewelry. She has this pack of 200 gel pens that she worships, which is eerily similar to how I feel about my paper collection.

We started an official Izzy journal and it's been so much fun to work on it together - I ask the questions and she draws the answers. It's been a fun way to get to know her better. We both love silly, happy movies, but especially Disney movies, and unlike everyone I know (excluding my brother, Jason), she not only doesn't mind that I talk the whole way through movies, she talks the whole way through movies too.  She also has a tendency to get incredibly loud, especially when she gets excited, which has startled me a couple times. I kind of knew that I can get loud too, but once, during a movie, I squealed and it scared the crap out of Izzy. It was  definitely a good teaching moment for me.

It hasn't been the visit I was hoping for due to my back problem. Though I've had my first shot, and I'm throwing back anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxers, and icing my back nonstop, I'm still struggling. My discs are still pinching my poor sciatica nerve (those asshole discs). My left leg simultaneously feels hot, heavy, numb, and weak with occasional pains shooting from hip to calf. It's definitely getting better though. I can successfully walk and stand for longer periods. I've been back to work full-time with few problems. I have this fancy ice machine that looks like a cooler with wheels and a handle to pull it. It connects to this pad called a bladder that I wrap around my back. The cooler is filled with ice and water that it pumps through the bladder (such a lovely name). I had a similar one for the knee surgery I had a few years ago, but it wasn't a portable cooler. 

Sadly, I cannot go for walks or hikes or take Izzy on the many grand adventures I planned. I cannot even go upstairs to my office, where I had hoped we would make all kinds of crazy things with glue and paint and papers. It's been a brutal lesson in patience.

Over the weekend Robert purchased a plug outlet thing for the car so I can take my ice machine and go places again. We went out to breakfast and walked half the mall, which was fun. The next day Rachel, Izzy, and I got our nails done. It was my first pedicure and nowhere near as terrifying as I thought it would be. Because I cannot bend over, my poor toes looked so awful I knew I had to do something. I think it helped that my left foot is mostly numb. Afterwards, we went swimming. Well, Robert and Izzy went swimming, Rachel stayed home to work on homework, and I managed to walk in the pool for about fifteen minutes (sans ice machine). It was exhausting but rewarding. I got out of the pool and felt like I weighed as much as a small car. I'm hopeful we can do something exciting this next weekend. I'm thinking about a ceramic cafe where we can all paint together. But I have a special summer storytime tomorrow that I must survive first. Don't get me wrong, it's going to be great. Plus I'm doing the storytime with a coworker who's excited and more than willing to do all the crazy stuff like the hokey pokey. But I'm still nervous about it, and any kind of anxiety, even the positive kind, is exhausting.

But the great thing about Izzy is that she will get just as excited about journaling and coloring the day away as she will about going on a grand adventure. So this weekend will be fun no matter what.