The past few days have been crazy busy, packed with events from morning till night. On top of that, Dr. Google says that I have carpal tunnel in my right wrist. It started hurting about two weeks ago, right about the time that my ribs stopped hurting and I was thinking about working out again, of course.
I started noticing it when I would pick up Camille or use the computer for an extended period of time. I think I stressed it because I carry her on my right side, using my right forearm to support her and I brace my left hand against my wrist. I guess my wrist wasn’t happy being the bearer of 25 lbs so it started protesting. In addition, the glorious trackpad on my Macbook Air isn’t helping matters. All that finger swiping puts a lot of stress on that wrist. Now I’m even more like my mom — wrist brace and all.
My wrist doesn’t feel much more supported in the wrap, but it does remind me not to use it when possible. We’ll see if it’s any better in a week or two or I may have to go to the doctor. It just feels like I need my chiropractor to adjust all the little bones in my hand and wrist and things will be all better. :sigh: That’s one of the things I was looking forward to this summer. Oh well. Where’s my workman’s comp?
I didn’t get a chance to post about National Day back when it happened last month, but I didn’t want to forget it entirely. National Day is basically the American embassy’s 4th of July celebration in February because it’s too hot to celebrate in July. Everyone dresses up and goes to the embassy and all the important people from other countries and foreign embassies are invited and we feed them American delicacies: McDonald’s, Subway, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, and KFC. Seriously.
When someone told me about it, I didn’t believe them, but it actually turned out to be really fun. The embassy courtyard is decorated and the fountain lightbulbs are changed out to red, white, and blue ones. The palm trees are wrapped in lights (you can see in the above picture) and the fast food vendors build really nice displays to serve food from (the Subway one is right over my shoulder). There was something strangely fun about watching people in formal dress walk around with containers of chicken nuggets.
It was the one time you actually can take photos inside the embassy compound, but I didn’t know it so I didn’t bring my camera. Boo. I have this photo that a friend took and then the one below was taken by one of the embassy photographers.
A bunch of photos from that night can be viewed here. I’m not in any of them.
Then this past weekend we had a bunch of fun activities and I can’t believe we fit them all in. Thursday morning our family went on a hike — a difficult one through a rocky wadi. Josh has all the pictures from that and since he left for Saudi this morning, I’ll have to post them later.
Then after a quick shower and clean-up we went and had family pictures taken at a small fort nearby. It was a lot of fun and the kids all were cooperative and behaved themselves so I’m thinking we probably got some good shots. Whenever I get them back from the photographer, I’ll post some here.
Then Josh picked up Lucy to babysit the kids and the two of us went to the Canadian Stampede. All I knew about it was we were supposed to dress in western wear and be prepared for a great time. We kept hearing, “you have to go — it’s so much fun.” They were right.
I guess the Canadians (and others) like it because there is a ton of alcohol, which is a rarity around here, country music fans like it because they can dance to country music all night, and foodies like it because they have actual BBQ. Of course I forgot my camera so all I have are these 2 photos of Josh and I that a friend took. I was too busy enjoying the line dancing anyway.
Yes, line dancing. Didn’t you know about my secret love? I don’t actually like country music, but back in college Josh and I took line dancing one semester as a PE credit because one of our best friends convinced us that it would be fun if we all did it together. She was 100% right.
So at this stampede party they had the DJ from the local radio station playing music and every now and then he’d bring this country line dance instructor up onto the stage and Armond would teach everyone a line dance, step by step, and then play a song and everyone would dance. It was easy to follow him because he was a good instructor and because they had him projected onto big screens so you could see what he was doing even if you were in the back.
Josh was a good sport and agreed to do it with me and the best part was starting out each dance and then looking at each other and smiling as we remembered, “Oh! We’ve done this one before!” So thanks Kathryn Branch, Josh and I were indebted to you all evening long. And it’s good to know that over 15 years later we haven’t forgotten everything from college.
