Good morning to all of you from the Energy Capital of the US. Please not the sarcasm in my voice.

We finally made it back from Chicago on Friday. We had flights cancelled sunday-Thursday.

Came home to a house with power (we were lucky) but no water, as the pumping station for our water supplier had no power. My daughter and sister were trying to gather snow and use pool water for flushing and boiling. The water came back on Friday but we are still as of last night and today on a boil water notice as our water tests failed yesterday. I was able to finally go to the grocery store and buy some fresh food - limited to a few things of meat, 1 dozen eggs, 1 pack of water, etc. I got 3 avocados....so that was a win.

Again, I feel very lucky - so many people had pipes freeze inside their homes and alot of damage. we lost some pool filter pipes and about a 3rd of our pool water.

2 takeaways:

1. Texas likes to go it alone. This is great until you need your neighbors. A power grid that is on its own just to avoid federal regulation becomes a problem when you need your neighbors during these situations. I don't expect the leaders to change.

2. Investing in infrastructure like winterizing water systems needed for nuclear and natural gas plants is a good idea even when it may only happen once every 30 years. The damage costs from this winter disaster supposedly will be more than any hurricane. I don't expect any change.

Ok off my soapbox.

I tried to speed read through all the posts.

Love the zoom call idea.....hope it went well.

Everyone here has good stuff and struggles....love the support you all give.


For me:
I am hoping to get back on track with tracking macros/cals and trying to get off sourdough and wine again. It was hard being away from home and them coming home to being able to buy plenty of wine but no clean water.

Exercise/physical:
Getting back into a routine. My hip just has gotten progessively more mad at me. Finally went to the Ortho Hip guy - cute young Sanja Gupta lookalike.

His diagnosis after looking at a new xray: Osteoarthritis is causing the pain and I will eventually be getting an new hip. I told him I was confused as to how that related to a year ago when I was told it was a stress fracture. He said they could be related or not....hard to know. He also said my femoral neck on one side is a little malformed....it doesn't dip in like the apple core look on the other side and this is creating more friction with my socket and labrum with my increased exercise routine.

I finally broke down and got the cortisone shot in my hip (right into the flexor area into the joint. Ouchhhhh!!!
It still hurts today but I am hopeful that it will last a long time to get be back to full exercise. I was told that running is really out of the picture if I want to keep going. "it's the worst cardio out there due to impact on spine and joints." He said swimming, cyling are better. I asked if I could walk or jog really slow ( I do anyway) he shrugged and repeated the above. I want to keep moving so I need to heed this advice I suppose. Sigh.

Happy Wednesday Peeps!

Good morning folks!

Glad everyone is home and safe...albeit a bit out of sorts. I lived in Texas in 2009 and we had a cold snap and all our pipes froze then as well, but only for 1/2 a day. We tried to winterize prior, but the way the house was built, we couldn't.

There was another pre-preliminary hearing yesterday, I haven't heard back from the victim liaison yet if the Judge cleared the way to move to preliminary hearings. The DA is still thinking Apr/May timeframe for the actual trial.

Yesterday didn't turn into quite the disaster I thought it would. I was miserable at work, my desk was so uncomfortable and I was so hungry and all my work was so uninspiring. But once I got home and relaxed my appetite calmed down and I think I came in around maintenance. No exercise.

Today's work day is a bit better. I bit of drama with the kids and I am pretty sure one of them thinks I am his personal dream killer b/c I keep stopping him from doing thinks he wants to do (usually without thinking). I am still working on evaluations for folks. I was told I am the only person who just doesn't say "you are doing great" and will actually hold people back from promotion if they do not demonstrate the maturity to lead others. There is a reason why people call me "Iron Maiden". But while I have the folks who hate me, the folks who actually work with me are now up for Air Force level awards and getting promoted fast.

I wasn't that hungry this morning, good thing since my oatmeal exploded in the microwave and so breakfast was popcorn and a banana. I need to make chili tonight for a competition.

3.5 mile run on the books for this afternoon, supposed to be 20mph winds...when did Cali get so windy? I also need to some short upper strength, my shoulders still hurt from my 30 sec of downward dog LOL

Hope everyone is getting some vitamin D and fresh air!

Oh, they replaced the outdoor coil on my heat pump today. Hopefully it's now fixed!

@quilteryoyo yay for heating! Fingers crossed it stays fixed.

@shanaber good luck on the MRI. Make sure you pick some good music.

@bearly63 yay for being home. That type of femur outline is called cam type of femoral acetabular impingement (fai). Its become a bit of a fashionable thing to diagnose. Most people probably have some kind of FAI and don't notice. Athletes often get xrays for it because it can affect their range of motion. Sorry about the oa though, and the steroid injections are no fun.

@bearly63 I’ve been running now 3 years after an ortho told me that people like me shouldn’t run. In fact, like your ortho he said that if it was up to him no one would run. Seriously, get a second opinion from an ortho who is a runner. The idea that osteoarthritis is made worse by running is out of date and the idea that running is bad for joints is completely the opposite of what research has found. Runners don’t “wear out their joints,” they have less joint wear than non-runners.

Incidentally the pro-runner ortho I went to for a second opinion looked at the exact same x-rays and mri and said FFS there’s nothing wrong with your knee cartilage, you have a weird meniscus in the place where it was torn years ago but you don’t even have osteoarthritis, I have no idea what (his colleague) was even talking about.

@rheddmobile I had a cancerous mole taken off 2 years back I guess and when I went to my primary care doctor he told me I should stop running b/c of the sun exposure. I cant tell you how many coworkers I have tell me running is bad for me and then go on to talk about how they "lift heavy" and I ask them...yeah so how is that compressed disk in your back! LOL.

@avidkeo Water weight is so annoying, I feel like that I spend all week trying to lose something big/salty I ate for the weekend.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. Made some solid progress on admin chores. Also got my annual mental health assessment out of the way...You fill out an online questionnaire of the usual questions of feeling down, depressed, stress.... they have someone call you and ask you the exact same questions and there is usually a random question each year based of what they are "targeting" that year...this year was if I had a gambling problem. There are def some careers in the military where the stress is inexcusable and those people have every right to be stressed, sad, depressed...but I also wonder sometimes if the military is the cause of so many of these cases or if this a societal thing. We have so many resources and counselors, some embedded into units, but I find some of my Amn lack resiliency and compartmentalization skills and the basic desire to work on their mental health. They go looking for someone to solve their problems or a pill. There are some cases where a person does have a medical issue and I feel bad they are DQ'd from service, but the military is stressful...not everyone can do it, and that is fine.

I got in a 3.5 mile treadmill run, we had 33 mph gusts yesterday and it was brutal. I haven't run on the treadmill in probably a year, I had to literally brush of the cobwebs. My knees aren't sure what happened, they aren't sore, but stiff probably from the different surface. I sat on the couch and I love youtube runners, and what came up? A Brooks athlete doing mile repeats in 60 mph gusts in Arizona, touche touche

We have a chili cook-off today, I am a 3 time champion so obviously I had to through my pot in the ring. I was tired and not in the mood so I got lazy on measuring and so it came out kinda intense. I got a "mess" from the bowling alley for breakfast, it is 1100 calories of pure comfort. Good thing I don't really like chili and can skip lunch!

No exercise planned but thinking of taking my very old kitty out for a walk in his stroller. He loves it so much but he is so achy I don't take him often.

1 day closer to not waking up to an alarm clock!

@bearly63 - so glad you made it back home and that there was no disaster and no broken pipes! I saw an interesting article the other day that while the Texas system of unregulated energy was supposed to keep costs lower for Texas, most all have been paying way more than the rest of the country. So not only are they unprepared you are paying more for that privilege!
I too am on the 'get a 2nd' opinion wagon. My ex-ortho/rheumatologist told me years ago 'move it or lose it'. He said the worse thing you can do for arthritis is to stop moving. He encourage my running and everything he did was to keep me running. And the new ortho says the same but also to listen to your body. A little achy-ness is ok but pain is not. My knee with the post-traumatic osteoarthritis gets sore and I know I have done to much and rest and ice helps. I will eventually need a knee replacement but hopefully not for a while and they will come out with one I can run with! He actually told me to keep running - just not the long distances.
I can't find the article I saw - I think it was in the NE Journal of Medicine or similar, where they looked at joint (knee specifically) issues related to different sports and found running was one of the least impactful. Cycling was one of the worst. If I remember correctly going up and down stairs multiple times a day, every day, was at the top though.
I hope the steroid shot helps!
@CMorning99 - when I was a manager I had several of my people tell me later that they loved that they knew I was tough but that I was also fair and they knew why I did the things I did. The fact is you want to see them get promoted and be successful, that is why you are in that position even if they think it is only to make their lives miserable!
The winds this year have been worse than I can remember and I hate it. It was SO bad last night it woke me up twice. I keep expecting it to die down and it just seems to get worse. The only good thing is so far, no fires!
@avidkeo - you've got this!
It makes me crazy when people bring up 'bad knees' as a reason for not running or doing any activity. I just want to yell at them that maybe if they moved more their knees wouldn't be so sore. Even people with truly bad knees can do some form of activity if not running.

So I had my MRI this morning... it was, interesting. I couldn't figure out why they wanted me there so early but then they took me in for an xray and I told the tech wait, I am here for an MRI not and xray. Apparently they needed an xray of my pacemaker... to make sure it was there? Then they had the PM tech also there to check the PM and give them all the info on how it works with the MRI. The one I have automatically detects the magnets and turns off the functions that would be impacted but them. The RN though hooked me up with all kinds of electrodes and a pulse ox to monitor my HR as well as a BP cuff. She was dubious that the PM would do what the tech said it would. After the MRI she had me wait until it looked like the PM was back to normal (only takes a minute for it to realize no more magnets). I wasn't prepared mentally for how long the MRI would take so the 40 minutes seemed like an eternity to lay still and my leg was aching. now just to wait until the ortho calls me with the results.
Oh and one interesting thing. The MRI tech asked why my PM had moved? When I said I had no idea and why did he think it had moved, he said based on the previous xray in July, it had rotated by 90 degrees! He thought maybe I had had additional surgery to reposition it or something. I will have to ask the cardiologist about it when I seem him next. I am thinking it must have moved just settling in, maybe?

Nice running @CMorning99 ! I hope you won the chili cookoff again!

@shanaber Glad you got the MRI over with. That IS a long time to lay still. Interesting about the pacemaker moving. You'll have to let us know what the cardiologist says about that.

Good news on my cousin. I talked to the doctor this morning. His CT scan, which they had to sedate him for, yesterday didn't reveal any causes for his confusion. The psychologist changed his medicine yesterday and she said he is 95% better. She isn't convinced that it was the medicine change that made the difference or if it was just a coincidence. Anyway, she said if he stays like he was then, they may discharge him back to the assisted living facility tomorrow! It's all just weird.

I have new pain near one of the chest tube sites. So, I called the surgeons office, to ask about that and to let them know about what happened when I was driving on Monday (almost passed out?). Also, last night I noticed that Garmin said my HR was 48, so I checked it to see and my HR wasn't steady. It was really slow, then skipped a couple of beats, and then was normal. Bottom line is that the pain is normal and told me to take Motrin for it - it hasn't hurt all day, just on and off. They had me make an appointment with my cardiologist to check the irregular heart beat. I see him on Tuesday afternoon. In the meantime, I'll keep good notes so I can tell him what is happening and how often. They expect him to give me a Holter monitor. We'll see.

Oh, I forgot to mention my news! The boil water alert is lifted! So happy for something I always took for granted before.

Also, I saw chickadees at my feeder for the first time since the extreme cold. I was worried they had frozen to death, but they seem to have just gone someplace for a few days.

@rheddmobile - Yay for not having to boil water and chickadees returning! My hummers and finches haven't been around much with the winds we are having. I always wonder where they go so they don't just get blown away.