Two degrees of separation from an Olympian

Yup, that's right. Here's the story... I finally went to see a sports medicine doctor yesterday after my left foot pain was escalating. It was a very interesting visit, since Dr. V. "teaching" a med student as well - she told me that I must have had a left ankle sprain in the past (missing ligament), that my left leg was really weak compared to my right, and she was surprised by how much stability I still had (soccer will do that to you!). I was relieved to hear her tell the student that I had a good running gait and was a natural runner - so at least my gait didn't have to be corrected. I was complimented on my calf muscles (running 30 miles/wk should do that for anybody) and I will say that I LOVED her scale. It's so nice to be rewarded by a good number after the many months of hard work I've put into exercising.

So who is this famous Olympian? Well, it turns out that I don't have plantar fasciitis after all, although I was told that my feet "aren't happy!" So she prescribed custom orthotics from a place down the street - and that particular person made the orthotics for Michelle Kwan. I couldn't help but be impressed! The orthotics are really expensive but they'll eventually pay for themselves and gosh, I would LOVE to wake up in the morning and and jump out of bed, instead of struggling not to fall over in agony.

Now I'm hoping that once I get the orthotics, perhaps all of my other ligament, leg muscle and back pains will disappear as well. =) Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?

Eleven days ago, my next-door neighbor gave me some starter mix for Amish Friendship bread and some instructions. It's like a chain letter, but of an edible kind. =) I couldn't decide who I should give the starter mixes to or how many I should keep for myself, but once I discovered there were recipes for the AFB starter mix online, I stopped worrying. In fact, I decided that since my brother and his family are coming next week for a week, that I would be better off if I baked two batches of bread, freezing half of it.

Of course, I realized (almost belatedly) that I wasn't sure if I could get away with baking two batches of bread with the available batter. Turns out, though, that the bread batter (what remains after scooping out 3 cups of starter mix) is about equivalent to 3 cups of starter. So... I got my two bread batches (see above! lots and lots of bread!) but I have no starter mix for the next time. But, that is okay... I've baked enough bread for quite awhile.

I wouldn't have worried at all, except that I had to take the girls to meet a bunch of their school friends at the local skating rink. Admission was only $1 (we all have skates) and the girls had a really good time.

Look who we met at our last excursion to Barnes & Noble!

And this little fellow (about 1" long) goobered onto the paper pieces I was cutting for Marika's teacher. What a cutie!

And last but not least, I got a couple of pieces done for Crop Chocolate's crop. I'm not terribly happy with this layout, but I was restricted to having ORANGE as my main color theme, using at least one circle, having some bling and finally, using a rub-on as part of my title. All patterned paper is from Echo Park's Happy Halloween collection pack.

This card was based on a weaving challenge - it was a neat technique. Everything but the bling (Colorbok) is from Echo Park's Sweet Summertime collection.

Tidbits:

1. Free Thanksgiving printables here.

2. Printable Barnes & Noble coupons here and here. These expire 11/14/10.