The little "electric shocks" in my palm got worse rather than better last night (mostly during my drive home, but one particularly painful jolt when I was pushing a shopping cart around at the grocery store). Hopefully I just bruised or inflamed a nerve and it will heal up. Permanent carpal tunnel is going to put a serious crimp in photography. I bought a brace at the store that has a little split that protects the palm; I'll wear that while I'm driving for awhile and see if that helps.

Labels: ouch

I did 7-1/2 miles on the elliptical trainer tonight (bringing me just shy of 50 miles since I restarted my gym excursions). Meghan suggested I need to ramp up my workout since I'm usually not sore after it. Good news: I'm sore after this workout. Bad news: It's from falling off the machine and hitting a concrete support column with my arm on the way to the ground (apparently I'm not coordinated enough to reach for a TV remote . . .). I'm not sure soreness specifically in the wrist and shoulder of one arm really qualifies. I also managed to scrape off about four layers of skin in a patch the size of a silver dollar on my wrist just below my palm. It looks like I tried to commit suicide with a dull cheese grater.

Luckily (for my pride, anyway; unluckily, had I hit my head), no one else saw it.

Labels: ouch, work out

Inspired by this site, my own take on chocolate arachnids: chocolate mini-cakes with pureed cherry filling (the "guts"), coated in hard chocolate and adorned with Pocky legs (32 pieces of Pocky individually cut and reglued at an angle), then decorated with eyes (and, for Lane's, fangs and a black widow decoration).

They only took two hours (partly because they have a lot of parts, and partly because I ruined an entire pan of melted chocolate and had to start the coating process over again).

The twins were thrilled (although Alec quizzed me very closely to make sure there weren't any *actual* spider parts in it). Lane about died in delight.

Shortly after that, Kyle thanked me by accidentally clocking me with a toy, leaving a hideous bruise the size of a 50-cent-piece in the middle of my forehead that everyone seems to find funny.

Labels: baking, cooking, fun, funny, ouch, recipes, twins

Just to freak out the squeamish. This is the third problem donation I've had with this arm (following the incident where the tech poked the needle clear through the vein and out the other side and the follow-up where the tech had to "wiggle" the needle in different directions for 30 seconds to get the flow started). I'm sure that just convinced half of my friends never to donate.

Labels: annoyance, ouch