So it turns out that one of my favorite muscles has been making me miserable for nearly four decades

Hi! My name is Liz Miller and I have had TMJ for 37 years, ever since I smashed my face into a step in the pool at summer camp and chipped a tooth.

(Hi, Liz!)

In the early years, my mouth would get stuck open, and a chiropractor taught me how to get it back to a position where it would close. But that's all I ever did about it. Through the decades, I've had tension headaches that felt like they started in my neck and wrapped around my head like a big old rubber band of pain, but I never associated them with my jaw.

Various dentists had asked me, "does it cause you pain?" And I'd answer that it only hurt when it would get stuck open (rare) or when it would snap and make me bite myself when I was talking or eating (frequent). And they would mention bite plates and surgery, and I just...never thought it rose to a level of needing to do something about it.

But this year our family has pretty good insurance with a high deductible, and what with one thing and another (including stuff that needs to be done every five or ten years), we seemed like we might go over that deductible, in which case, why not actually do some end of the year medical giving to ourselves? So....I asked my doctor for a referral to an oral surgeon, who told me to get a bite plate (on its way) and some physical therapy.

The physical therapist (who is AWESOME, BTW) measured all sorts of things including how far I could open my mouth without the joint popping out, and how far I could turn my head, and nod my head, and lean my head to each side. And then he had me start doing neck stretches, and shoulder and neck strengthening exercises. "Wait!" I said, "My problem's with my jaw."
"Actually," he replied, "It's with your  sternocleidomastoid" (he also had me do exercises opening and closing my mouth with various levels of resistance).

And I am here to tell you that I hadn't realized how much pain I was living with until I didn't have as much of it anymore. My tension headaches have receded, I have better range of motion, I don't bite myself as often.

It's amazing.

It's polite to be selfish with your germs. Seriously, no need to share!

Here's your annual reminder to think of others and spread the word about keeping ones germs to oneself.

Cough and sneeze into your sleeve, wash your hands with soap and HOT water, and stay at home if you're sick.


Which safe sneezing technique video do you like best?

"The purpose of this video is to make coughing into one's sleeve fashionable, and even patriotic! It's the right thing, the polite thing to do!"


Or the Mythbusters' colorful experiments?

Hold your Dose.

I hab a siduz idfecshud. Id is dod pleazadt. For two dayz, I had a headache thad pushed by eyeballz oud of by head.

By doctor recobbedded irrigading with a Dedi Pod, becoz for wad thig, siduz idfecshud's are usually caused by a viruz, add for adother thig, the illdess I god three yearz ago cad cob back if I use addibiodics.

Dow, I am dot a persod who likes wadder up by dose. Id fact, I really hade id. But id turds oud thad using a Dedi Pod reduces the pressure on your siduzes. Who dew? I ab sdill sduffy, but id izd't az bad az id wuz, add by eyeballs are coddedt to sday where they belogg.

So much for NaBloPoMo

I spent most of yesterday knitting. Less than 50 rows to go on the Fibonacci scarf!

When Brussels Sprouts Attack

The Brussels sprouts didn't appreciate getting little x's cut in their bottoms, and conspired with the knife to stab me in my thumb.

Ouch.

Fortunately, it's not deep.

iPhone vs. Droid: The Views of a Reluctant Adopter, one day later.

So, 11 days ago, I got a Droid X2 to replace my Droid Eris, which died an ignoble death (dropped from a height onto uneven pavement. Smash).

So I went and got the Droid X2, and a serious protector for it.

The Droid X2 has a lot to recommend it. Large screen. Fast everything. On the down-side, it's big and heavy and doesn't easily fit into any pockets I own. But, since I generally carry around a purse anyway, that wasn't a deal breaker. I was really very happy with the Droid X2 - when it was working.

And therein was the rub. Five times in the ten days I owned that phone, it crashed. Needed a hard-reset type of crashed. To perform a hard reset on the Droid X2, you need to remove and replace the battery. Which was covered by the serious protector, that was so serious it was nigh unto impossible to remove. Now maybe you don't think five major crashes in ten days is a lot, but I do. So back to the store I went. And this time I got an iPhone 4. (I had considered getting a different Droid, but I'm starting to have doubts about their quality control).

So let's talk about the iPhone 4. There is a lot I like about it, but I'm having a bit of trouble adjusting to other parts of it. How do you download music from Amazon's cloud onto to it? How do you set your In Case of Emergency numbers? How do you import contacts from, say, Facebook, without sending contacts TO Facebook? Can you set the current weather to be visible at all times on your main screen? How do you teach it to be quicker to suggest words (like your email address) when you're typing?

These things were easy in the Droid.

Things I like better in the iPhone: speed, screen sensitivity, camera, the phone itself. I'm sure that as I learn to do the other things I want to do, I'll stop wishing it would do things like the Droid did, but I hate the learning curve.

First world problems, much? What's new in your life?

Packing, Packing, Packing

I think we may have a little too much stuff

Living Room, three layers deep

My bedroom, as you come in

My bedroom, as you go out

Muffin Man's room

Living Room, different view

And there are more boxes, in the hall, and in MM's play room, and in the kitchen. And we're not done packing (though it's really only the bathroom cabinets that are left. And my desk. And a few things in a closet. And the stuff we're wearing and eating. And three place-settings, two pots, and a pan. And the coffee machine. And this lap-top I'm typing on. Dear God, just how did we accumulate so much stuff?

I went to bed last night totally thinking it was Tuesday

Which meant that at 6:00 AM, when my alarm went off, I totally thought it was Wednesday, and so I snoozed until 6:30...when my phone reported that I was going to be late for dropping MM off at ThursdayEarlyMorningExerciseThing at his school. Which we have only missed twice before.

But today still feels like a Wednesday to me.

So I watched an episode of The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

The Absent-Minded Coterie.

And I utterly failed to realize that the actor playing Eugene Valmont (the main character of that story - top left in this picture), was someone I have seen before. Seen, in fact, many times.

Mr. Spock will never let me live it down.

Lego kit 7662 was discontinued

It was $103.00 in stores three years ago and MM has saved his money until he had enough to buy it. Now that it's discontinued, it sells for over $400 in the collectibles market.

MM is sobbing.

I feel so guilty for not having gotten it for him three years ago. I didn't know they discontinued them.

Dammit.

That tells me

The image is from Pandora. It says,

Why this song?
Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features acoustic rock instrumentation, a twelve-eight time signature, repetitive melodic phrasing, extensive vamping and use of a string ensemble. [emphasis mine]

.
Well...I don't like that Pandora doesn't use a serial comma...so there!

But really, I've been listening all day while I've been working on stuff and there's only been a couple of clunkers. Pandora is way cool.

Six days ago...

Was my five-year blogiversary. And I missed it.

Blogged twice since then, and didn't notice.

However, TODAY is the fifth anniversary of the first time someone linked to this blog. So HAPPY LINKIVERSARY TO ME!!!

Sweater stalled

That Beautiful purple tweed is too slender to ever get gauge on that pattern.

The yarn I have that will achieve gauge is stiff, itchy, and in a color I'm not enamored of. Which leads me to the question: why do I have this crappy yarn in my stash?

I think I may have inherited it from someone.

Why didn't I give it away when we moved?

I didn't know it was quite that itchy.

Boy howdy.

So I have a beautiful purple tweed yarn and no pattern for it, and a beautiful pattern and no suitable yarn.

Methinks I need to make a trip to the yarn store.

Maybe I'll cast on for a vest for myself out of a black tweed silk/wool blend I found in the stash (not enough for that sweater, darn it!) if I can find a vest pattern I like.

MM kicks my tushy on New! Mario Bros! for the Wii!

I keep dying and he just trots along and comes out relatively unscathed.

In unrelated news, guess what he got for his birthday?

Meeting Haiku

Not allowed to knit
during sales meeting. Fingers
bloody by tonight

Gah.

Someone said something to me today and it hit me pretty hard. They said it in anger, and my initial reaction was to get angry and defensive. But I need to accept that my reaction is because part of what they said is true. It is.

So, I will work on that. And I will defend myself against the part that ISN'T true.

Blogging the lost

Has anyone seen the little black zip bag full of Disney and Pixar films? We can't find it.

ETA: Mr. Spock found it! I probably looked at it 20 times!

Knitting a Gryffindor scarf

Before starting it, I hunted high and low for my size six (US) needles. I was totally sure I had at least three sets (of circulars). Where the hell were they?

So I decided to knit it on size eights (US). It's a scarf. Gauge is meaningless in a scarf. Right?

I am half-way done with the pattern on the scarf and it's almost as long as the finished length is supposed to be.

Huh.

This morning I found all three sets of my size sixes. They were in the bag I used for carrying around the sweater I just finished. I used one set to knit the sweater and the other sets as stitch-holders while knitting on the sleeves.

Yeah.

I'm not always the brightest bulb on the marquee.

Can too

Brought my lunch to work today.

In my son's Spider Man lunch bag (he's currently using a red, orange, and black swirly number from Land's End) "Hey!" he said. "You can't take that! You're a girl!"

And I said, "I can too. I love Spider Man."

And he said, "But he's for boys!"

And I said, "I can be a pretty pink princess AND like Spider Man."

The only valid reason to not bring my lunch to work in a Spider Man lunch bag is that I'm not seven. The fact that I'm not packing a salami has no bearing on the matter.

I guess I need to break out the Free to Be You and Me album again.

Sweater knitted.

Now I just need to make up the sleeve seams, block it, sew in the snaps and put on the buttons.

It actually looks very nice. Very cozy. I made several rip-back-worthy errors and several I decided not to rip back for.

The biggest of that latter category is one spot on the back where I messed up the pattern on one row. Super obvious to me. No one else will ever notice.

Happy New Year to you all.