use real butter

It’s one thing to have an injury because you went yard-saling down a back bowl. It’s another thing to have an injury because you were working on the computer for too long. Overuse, bad ergonomics, poor posture – it happens over and over again. I’ve been working on a computer since I was in high school: data entry, programming, more programming, image processing, data analysis, programming and web design, more image processing. And these days it isn’t enough to just work on the computer – it seems most of my professional and personal communications are mainly through the interwebs.

Sometimes I walk away from the computer so I can feel like a human being again. Sometimes I have to stay away because the muscles get inflamed from fine repetitive motions and lack of range of motion. This past week I was off the computer to let my body heal. I had a lot of time to think about it too. Something needed to change.

my office desk

I have a good desktop setup, but after I got home from Santa Fe the first thing we did was go out and replace my old office chair with a Herman Miller chair. Meanwhile, I was heating, icing, and exercising my back. Sitting always made things worse. I loathed that any computer time required sitting and said (on Facebook) how I wished I could mount my computer onto my treadmill. And the links came in for people who had converted their treadmills to workstations. I read about them and even emailed with a friend’s friend who built his. Jeremy and I discussed design issues and functionality driving home from his parents’ house a couple of days ago. I’m the engineer. I planned it all out.

24 hours later… the exercise room is also an office

The point is not to run a 6 minute mile while cranking out emails to your clients. No, no, no. That’s an even BETTER recipe for hurting yourself. I have always been a firm believer that if you are truly exercising hard – then you can’t be reading a book or typing a letter. However, I can easily walk a mellow pace of 1-2 miles an hour and do a lot of the things I used to do while sitting on my hind quarters: emails, phone calls, scheduling, writing, reading, research, tweeting. Image processing still remains something I’m leaving on my desktop in the main office.

phone, keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers (for the tunes, yo)

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: beer chicken green chile enchiladas

I’ve been absent for a while. It was originally going to be intentional and then it became unintentional. The end of last week started well enough. I got to visit with two of my favorite local gal pals and a certain gentleman who steals my heart every time I see him.

cute funny face

baby blues

And then The Crud snuck into my chest that afternoon. I had hoped it would be done with me by the time Jeremy and I got on the road Saturday, but it was far from done. It was just getting started. Nine hours on the road with Kaweah nervously panting in the backseat. Nine hours on the road with increasing congestion, dizziness, and body aches. Nine hours on the road to the Bisti Badlands.

kaweah was happy to be out of the car

me thinks jeremy was happy too

We were greeted with overcast skies and high winds. So much for the super giant huge enormous full moon spectacular. We explored a bit and after a couple of hours of being relentlessly sand-blasted, I called it. No shoot that night, no camping. I was on a fast decline. I needed meds, hot liquids, and sleep. The next morning it was obvious the light still wasn’t working in my favor. We headed to my IL’s house where I promptly passed out for two days while Kaweah has been having the time of her life.

I’m finally emerging from my brain fog to enjoy some homemade roadrunner pizzas for dinner (roadrunner pizzas have green chiles on them), three doggies begging for scraps, and movie night with the family on their fancy new entertainment center in their lovely Colorado home. Jeremy’s folks live in a different part of Colorado than we do. It is definitely a prettier part of Colorado AND they get a good supply of green chiles to boot, which means that we have a lot of green chiles in our freezer to work through.

chicken, green chiles, beer, limes, garlic, dried new mexican red chiles

pouring beer over the chicken, garlic, and red chiles

I used to get about one or two quart-size bags of roasted green chiles, but this year we have several gallon-size bags of the precious chiles. That’s a comfortable amount, even for a hoarder like me. Comfortable enough to start experimenting. A few weeks ago I was rummaging about in the freezer when a package of frozen organic chicken thighs slid out and smacked me in the foot. I made a mental note to do something with the chicken when my reflexes caught a bag of green chiles that had begun to escape the bottom shelf. Chicken and green chiles go together like beans and cornbread…

add green chiles to the slow-cooked chicken

flash fry some tortillas

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: lime sorbet

By the end of last week, I was a broken woman. My neck and right shoulder were inflamed as was my lower back. My good friend Advil and I worked through it as best we could, but when my aunt dropped me off at the Eldorado in Santa Fe Friday afternoon, I was barely able to walk. She urged me to make an appointment with the spa at the Eldorado to see if I could get some relief before the long car ride home.

I’m not a spa girl. Manis, pedis, facials, saunas, massages, waxing – it’s all foofie stuff to me. I had only had one real massage before… for an injury. Luckily, they had an opening and I winced with pleasure as my muscles crunched under the force of a deep tissue massage. The 7-hour car ride home negated that rather expensive massage by the next morning and I was in pain no matter what I did. After an appointment with a massage therapist (there are a lot of those in Boulder), heat, ice, exercise, stretches, and staying off the computer – I am finally feeling good. There is nothing like being sick or broken to make you appreciate how amazing it is to be normal. Just in time for my next road trip too!

it’s green food week

This week is St. Patrick’s Day. I like the color green. Half of my Patagonia jackets and tops are green (it’s the color that’s always on sale)! I also have a fascination with green food. However, I’m neither Irish nor do I drink beer – so you’re stuck with lime sorbet today.

zesty

**Jump for more butter**