Jon and Amber

I’ve been interested in roasting vegetables this week, because last week I roasted some kale and made crispy, delicious chips. I had heard people talk about making kale chips, and I’d seen the recipes, and they all said the chips were crispy, which I doubted heartily. I thought they’d be fibrous or weird, but I was so wrong – they really were crispy! (And rather addictive… the salt and olive oil certainly didn’t hurt!)

So on Sunday, I diced up half a dozen beets, tossed them with olive oil, sprinkled a little of our unrefined (gray) sea salt on them, and roasted them up. They were tasty, and everyone had a big helping at supper. This was the first time Jon had ever tried beets, and Jeremy called them candy! Monday, I tossed asparagus with olive oil and lemon juice and roasted them. I also made some mock-hollandaise sauce for myself, but Jon just ate them plain with a little salt.  This was the first time he’d ever tasted asparagus, too! (Jeremy tried a bite or two but then said, “I don’t like that one.” It’s ok, I don’t expect him to like anything until he’s tried it 10 times.) Yesterday I roasted broccoli! This time I sprinkled garlic salt on it (after the olive oil of course), and then after it was done in the oven, I put a bunch of Parmesan cheese on top. And then I ate way too much of it because it was the tastiest way I have ever had broccoli, I’m not even kidding.

I’m not sure what to try next… I think Brussels sprouts might be good!

I brought home a huge stack of library books recently, most of them books of knitting patterns. I don’t like to buy a lot of knitting books because I don’t think it’s worth buying a whole book just to get one or two patterns that I actually like or would want to make. But does that mean I should never make those patterns? It takes (me) a long time to knit a sweater and I have to return library books within a couple weeks, so of course this is when I’d go ahead and copy/scan the pattern I liked before returning the book… but this week I sat down with my whole stack of library books to page through each one and find the patterns that appealed to me. Then I started copying them. And then I started to feel guilty.

I know it’s not legal to distribute copies of someone else’s knitting patterns, even if they are free patterns to begin with, and you are just giving them away. And it’s also not legal to make copies of a pattern you paid for to give away to your friends. So does that mean what I’m doing is not right? I would not sell these copies, and I would not give them to anyone else – they are for my own use only, because I would not be able to keep the library books checked out long enough to complete the patterns.

I was copying no more than one or maybe two patterns out of each book, which felt pretty reasonable for such an ethical grey area, but then I got to the last book, Classic Knits by Erika Knight, and I realized that I had marked 7 of the 15 patterns in the book – WHOA. I couldn’t bring myself to copy them. It felt like I would be crossing a line if I did. One pattern from a whole book seems to feel OK, but half the book?! I might as well just buy it!

Or, maybe Santa reads this blog…

We had Thanksgiving with Jon’s family this year and it was a wonderful, relaxed day with tons of delicious food and great company. Jeremy was pretty shy at first but eventually warmed up and had fun playing with Jon’s cousins, who helped him build some super impressive block towers, and Jon’s aunt, who had fun racing around on the floor with Jeremy! After we got home at the end of the night, I shared a slice of pumpkin pie with him, which he enjoyed a lot (as you can see at about 3:07 in the video below – sorry it’s so dark!)

Jon just called and said that the doctor is now saying he won’t be discharged until tomorrow morning – not this afternoon as we had been told before. Bummer. He’s getting a little bored, and the pain medicine makes it hard for him to browse the web or read anything on his laptop since he’s so tired and groggy. At least it won’t be much longer.

He used a walker for a bit this morning, and this afternoon he got some practice on the crutches. He said it was a little hard at first, but then he got the hang of it pretty quickly. It’s amazing that he can be up and moving about again, when just yesterday morning he was in such excruciating pain! The resiliency of the human body is an amazing thing.

Jon’s broken hip – I don’t know if we’ll get an X-Ray picture of it now that he has screws installed, but here’s how it looked before the surgery:

OUCH!

He’s in his hospital room, doing as well as can be expected, feeling pretty OK considering the circumstances. A little practice on crutches tomorrow and then he can come home

Surgery is done, went pretty well. Three screws were put in his hip. I should be able to see him in his room soon. They say he can still go home tomorrow. He’s going to be on crutches for 6 to 12 weeks. I guess I get to keep taking out the garbage and cleaning the litterbox (usually Jon’s chores) for a bit longer!

Jon got home last night at 8pm. It was great to see him! Jeremy was a little shy and quiet but visibly happy to see Dada again. I went to bed before Jon since I had work in the morning and he wanted to do some unpacking, plus he was over-caffeinated from the drive home. When he finally came to bed he had trouble sleeping soundly, and at 2am he started sleepwalking, looking for a bathroom. He was pretty disoriented being in his own room for the first time in almost 2 weeks, and seemed a little lost. I had to tell him to NOT go in Jeremy’s room, and when I told him the bathroom was behind him, he walked right past it and fell down the stairs! He landed square on his hip and was in a lot of pain. I called the nurse hotline and they told me to call 911 for an ambulance. The paramedics came and took him to the hospital in the town just north of us, and I stayed home with the still-sleeping baby. I slept a little and called the hospital at 6am. Jon was still in emergency, and told me that he had badly broken his hip and would be sent to the U of M for surgery to have pins put in.

I took Jeremy to daycare and met with Jon at the U, and he was taken in to surgery at 11:30. They said it should be a couple hours, so I’m still in the family surgery waiting room right now. If things go smoothly, he should be discharged tomorrow afternoon with crutches. I will try to update here when I get more info. And when Jon is u
able, he said he’d try to post a little about his trip to Burning Man last week.

Jon was at Burning Man all last week, and sent home this “postcard” which didn’t arrive until yesterday.

Here is the “front” of the postcard. It’s a chunk of cardboard from a Mountain Dew case, with duct tape for the address labels. Way to improvise, Jon!

The Burning Man logo on the postmark – cool!

It’s hard to see, bu the started writing the message in black ink, ran out, used red ink for a sentence, ran out again, and then switched to pencil, LOL!

The message says:
Amber: I hope all is well at home. I have tried calling a few times and though there was cell service before, it could never complete a call. And now there is jus tno service at all. Everything is great here. It is only Wednesday, but I have had 2 flat tires. Glad I have spares! My neighbors are awesome, and there is NO "keep you awake" party anywhere near so far. Give Jeremy hugs & kisses for me. My plan is to leave late on Monday. I will call when I get to i80. Love, Jon

He’s still on the road home today, but should be back by about 8:00pm tonight. Thank goodness! Jeremy and I miss him a lot!