Coffee and Conversation, Blogger Style

Although I don’t consider myself a social animal, I’ve never had too much difficulty making friends. I can usually suss out a peer group pretty quickly, and because of my quiet good nature it’s fairly easy to find someone sympatico in any crowd. It doesn’t hurt that I enjoy listening to other people's stories. Almost everyone likes to talk about themselves, to share their personal stories of triumph and tragedy, and I’m truly interested in hearing them. That’s probably one reason I love the new Conversations Over Coffee series at All Things Girl magazine. It gives me an opportunity to “meet” some fascinating women and hear a little bit of their story.

This morning I’m excited to sharing some virtual coffee and conversation with one of my favorite bloggers, Angie Mizzell, who talks about everything from birthdays to bike rides and tells us how she set herself free from a career that no longer fulfilled her and set out on the path to define her own life.

Pull up a chair, pour a fresh cup of coffee, and join us.

Putting On My Dancing Shoes, Or How Ugly Shoes Are Saving My Life

I’ve barely been able to walk for the past three weeks, and if you thought moving house was difficult, try doing it with a bum foot. In one of those weird twists of fate, about a week before we moved my left foot starting hurting. I first noticed it when I walked the dogs one morning, just a little twinge on the anterior instep. With all the hauling and stair-climbing, it got worse and worse until I finally decided it would be smart to have it professionally evaluated.

“I think you may have a little stress fracture,” the PA at urgent care told me. She provided me with one of those handy-dandy black booties, and sent me on my way with a referral to an ortho.

We moved that weekend (more hauling and lots of stair climbing), and by Monday my foot was absolutely killing me. I was literally crying with pain. I scheduled myself in with the ortho, and was surprised to hear that my problems were not related to a fracture at all.

“Your big toe is malformed,” he told me. “It’s probably because of your flat feet, but you’ve got a lot of arthritis in there and bone spurs all over your foot."

This was all news to me. I didn’t even know I had flat feet.

The medical name for this condition is called Hallux Rigidus, a condition where the big toe (hallux) doesn’t flex properly when you walk, leading to development of arthritis, bone spurs, and pain with walking.

Lots of it.

He injected cortisone into the area (which did absolutely nothing), gave me a prescription for pain pills, pain cream, and advised me to get some shoes specially designed for the condition.

Well, this all coincided with my grandson’s first visit to Michigan, so I was a little pre-occupied. I continued limping along (literally) and suffering, dragging behind everybody everywhere we went with my halting baby-sized steps.

Yesterday I decided it was time to shop for new shoes - especially since I couldn’t even get any of my old shoes on. So I did some internet research and determined which shoes were recommended for this condition. Then I drove out to Hershey Shoes where I spent a weeks wages on two pair of shoes.

I started wearing them. All the time.

And lo, miracle of miracles, the pain and swelling has started to diminish. It still hurts a bit, but as long as I’m wearing those shoes I can walk at almost a normal gait and speed.

The trick is I have to wear the shoes ALL THE TIME. My inner hillbilly -the one who kicks of her shoes the minute she gets inside the house -is not happy.

But the woman who needs to walk her dogs twice a day and go up and down flights of stairs multiple times of day and who would love love love to do a Walk At Home exercise session with Leslie Sansone - well, she’s grudgingly accepted the fact that The Ugly Shoes are a necessary evil.

So, thanks Orthaheel and New Balance for giving me hope that I might walk normally again.

Who knew that a pair of shoes could be such life savers?

Where I’ve Been

I haven’t forgotten this little corner of my world. But this very big corner of my world is SO much more important right now.

I’ll be back soon, promise.

In the meantime, I hope all your life’s corners are happy ones.

Betwixt and Between

So here I am. Sitting at my desk on the second floor at Brookwood Court, watching the leaves fluttering outside the window as dusk settles over the rose colored sky.

We’re slowly getting our bearings in this new space, working out the traffic patterns for getting dressed in the morning, exercising the gray matter every time we need a coffee cup, an aspirin, a pair of socks. (Which cupboard? What drawer?) Not only is our house different, but so is most of our furniture because we used the pieces that were in our home in Florida. And while we’re familiar with them, we didn’t live with them for long periods of time.

There is a difference.

One of the things I was hungry for when I moved was the opportunity to change my routine. I felt stagnant, so mired in the same way of doing things. When you live one place for 37 years, your patterns become like cement. I thought moving would be a good way to shake them up.

Boy, was I right about that. And it’s exciting to have this clean slate to work with.

I won’t kid you - I sometimes long for my other house, my old familiar life. Especially in the evening when darkness starts to fall and I start getting tired. Time to go home, I find myself thinking. Time to put the dogs out in the yard for one last potty stop, time to close the blinds in the living room. Time to pour a glass of wine and curl up in my reading chair. Time to  settle on the couch in the breezeway to watch TV.

It will take time before this really feels like home. I know that. Clearly I am still betwixt and between, my body learning to live in and love Brookwood Court, my heart still yearning a little for the familiarity of MacArthur Street and all the memories there.

So I shed a few tears and move on. Take the dogs for a walk around the block. Climb the stairs to my writing desk between the two corner windows. Retract the awning over the deck and lock up the doorwall. Pour a glass of wine and settle on the couch in the den to watch TV.

These are the things I do over and over until one day it will be home.

On the Reading Playground

I’m over at The Estella Society today, the new reading playground for book bloggers that Andi and Heather just built, where I ponder age, literary heroines and their relationships, and sex. Come over and check it out.