Writer's Workshop Misc.

It's about time I participate in another Writer's Workshop hosted by Mama Kat:

The Prompts:

1.) Your trip to the ER...spill it.
(inspired by Stephanie from This Blessed Life).

2.) "Why are American's obsessed with weight? Why are we always fighting or complaining about what is natural for our bodies?"
(inspired by Jenn from Jenny Says What?)

3.) Describe one of your 'God Moments'.
(inspired by Jordan from Wide Open Spaces).

4.) List ten things you would say to ten different people in your life...if you had the hutzpah.
(inspired by Cassandra from Cassagram)

5.) Why is your kid in time out?
(inspired by Sera from Laughing Through The Chaos)
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1. November 21, 2007. I'm filling out Christmas cards, sitting in our recliner. I have my left leg pulled up under myself, and I ask Big A to give me something to write on. He tosses me one of those lap desks (see picture). I caught it just before it landed on my legs...but it felt funny. I pick up the desk and notice something sticking out of my sweat pants by my knee. I start to pull up my pant leg to see what it is...as I'm pulling up, it's starting to hurt and I pull more frantically. I start screaming and crying (Big A says it was worse than labor cries...bull). There's this metal thing sticking out of my knee! I don't know what to do really so Big A goes to get his pliers (as we didn't have insurance, a trip to the ER was the last thing we wanted). He tried to pull it out but I don't know if I was too tense or what, but he couldn't get it out. So we call the ER who directs us to call the doctor's office (as it was about 4:30pm), so then we call the doctor's office in town, no answer. We ask our neighbors to watch Moose and the husband helps Big A take me out to our truck as I can't unbend my knee. We pull up to the ER and my husband goes in...the nurses all just sit there until he grabs a wheelchair and says he'll bring me in. A nurse follows him out and doesn't even help get me into the chair. After the initial "how bad is the pain on a scale of 1-10," no one talks to us. They don't even call the doctor for another 40 minutes and it takes him almost an hour after that to get there. And I'm serious, no one checked on us or anything and I'm just sitting there, sobbing in pain. There were no other ER patients until about halfway through and there were about 4 nurses sitting at the desk talking. I was so mad; I know they're probably busy but they could at least ask us if we needed something to drink or just saying "the doctor's coming" - anything. Anyway...the doctor comes and deadens my knee (which HURTS). Anyway, he gets basically a pair of pliers (just the medical kind haha) and pulls the metal thing out. It's a sewing needle stuck with the eye in my knee. I must have stuck it in the lap pillow before Moose was born when I was "nesting." Oops. Yeah that was a fun trip.

2. We're obsessed with weight because someone (fashion designers?? I don't know) decides that "big is not beautiful...thin is in." And it's frustrating. I mean, I know being fat is not healthy and I don't want to be unhealthy. I want to be around for my kids for a LONG time. But it's hard to look on tv, in magazines, on billboards, or at mannequins and be a normal woman. I'm not thin, I've never been "thin" (although looking back, I'd take my high school body in a heartbeat!). I have always been chunky or at the very least, big hipped and shouldered. I was never as small as the girls in my class (although I wasn't as large as some of the others either).
I don't want to be model thin. I mean, I have stretch marks anyway so it's not like I'm going to wear a bikini in public. I do want to be healthy. I know that the weight I'm at is not healthy for my body. I have curves where there aren't supposed to be curves. I want to feel healthy and sexy and beautiful - clothed or naked (not that anyone other than me and Big A will see the latter). But I don't think I have unrealistic goals for myself. I don't have a personal trainer, a liposuctionist, a plastic surgeon like the mommies in Hollywood. Any weight I lose is all me.

3. A God Moment. It's June 2006. We are to be married in December later that year. Big A & I have just gotten back from a wedding of high school friends of mine. It's about 2 or 3 in the morning (we'd been back, talking for awhile) and we're eating Ben & Jerry's ice cream. There's an elephant in the room that we're dancing around and finally we come upon it: we BOTH feel like God wants us to move up our wedding date. We know it'll be hard (my sister was in Guam and we'd already sent out Save the Date cards), but we just can't shake the feeling that that is what God wants. I call my sister and she says (reluctantly) that she will work it out (because if she couldn't be there, I couldn't get married). We talk to the pastor who was marrying us (who I thought would say no no no no no) and he says, "let's do it." And my mom tries to be a road block but eventually says "whatever." And we pull our wedding together on August 5, 2006. It was beautiful and wonderful and perfect. December 31, 2006 is when I realized it was a God moment, though. My town (where we were married) didn't have power and had just gone through a huge ice storm. Our wedding would have been ruined; my sister probably couldn't have gotten there. Thanks, God, for the best wedding day!

4. I don't have the hutzpah! :)

5. Moose should be in timeout right now because he sits on his little Radio Flyer horse and rolls his way until he is inches from our tv. I tell him to get back, he does. He goes back to the tv. I tell him to get back or I'll turn the tv off. He doesn't move. I turn it off. He throws a fit. I tell him that I've told him a few times to get back from the tv and he doesn't, so it has to be turned off. Now he's reading.
He will also go to timeout eventually today for messing with the computer, kicking, and/or throwing a fit for no apparent reason. Guaranteed.

Head on over to Mama Kat's for more Writer's Workshop fun.