Jana's Foot... DUMB!

Any one who knows me at all knows that I LOVE High Heel Shoes. I would marry them if I could. I love them all: spike heels, wedges, black ones, pink ones, you name it... if they have a heel... I want them.

Well, 2 1/2 years back, I broke my foot at work. To sum up.... I worked on a broken foot for almost 6 weeks and it really messed up my big toe joint. NO MORE HIGH HEELS!!! Nooooooooooooooo....... Two years ago, I had surgery to try and fix the issue. Unfortunatly I did not work. I could wear small heels, but not for long periods of time and my foot hurt constantly.

Anyway.... We decided to give it one more try. I went under the knife again. This time for a expansive joint replacement surgery. Nutz. One little Titanium screw that cost $2400. Crazy! Here is a pic of the x-ray. Can you see that expensive little device?

This is right after surgery... it was still bleeding. Yucky.

The surgery was only supposed to be about an hour but it took almost 2 1/2 hours. There was way more scar tissue and bone spurs and chips floating around than the Doctor thought. That is part of why the healing process is taking so long. The muscles are still damaged from the cleaning.

This is how I got around for almost 1 month. No shower, no bath... GROSS!! Wanna see the scar... I know everyone does...





Before the shower.....

Gross!!!!!

..... After. Yeah!

Well.. I am working hard to keep it moving and get back into those shoes. Wish me luck!!!!

Jana

BBQ

I want to officially go on record that I LOVE Redd's BBQ in Simi.
I am however realizing that while Redd's is quite good..great even, that real barbecue is east. 1442 mile east to be exact. There are so many barbecue's out here it is not funny. The guys have made it a quest to try every one of them..good luck with that! I have tried 4 different one's and surprising find that I love each one. There is not better out here, just different. Everyone does things a little different, has different sides and especially has different sauces. So far Redd's is still my favorite sauce. Out here the sauces are more smokey in flavor and little peppery. The difference here is the meat. They do not have tri-tip per se. The tri-tip cut is part of what is called brisket. The specialties out here are brisket, ribs (beef and pork), and of all things sausage. There is a huge European community out here(Germans). That is why all of the towns have German names. Getting back to the meat. The secret out here is that they cook the meat all day. The flavors and especially the texture is just beyond words. The meat just falls off the bone and melts in your mouth. The brisket is the same. What they do is that they make a certain amount of meat in a day. When they run out.. they run out. This is because the meat needs to slow cook all day. I would have to say my favorite so far is RUDY's..the sign say "Worst BBQ in Texas". Yeah right!! Rudy's is behind a route 66 gas station and is so far what I would say is the best BBQ I have ever had. They have every drink you can imagine in bottle form. You get your meal in a tray(see picture above) and no plates. They give you your meat on butcher paper. What puts this one over the top is their creamed corn. Oh and they give you about a quarter loaf of fresh, soft sliced white bread with every order. The best I have ever had!! Dalton will be so happy with the creamed corn!!!
I cannot wait to take everyone to Rudy's, the Worst BBQ in Texas!!

Tornado

The day after we arrived in our new home here in Hutto my mom and dad went to the store and returned with a housewarming gift. It was a little radio that plugs into the wall that also requires batteries. My dad went on the set up this radio and said it was a severe weather radio that will go off when there is severe weather in the area. I thought OK, everyone out here doesn't seem the think that the weather is a problem so I thought what the heck.
Well, early Monday morning the alarm off at about 3:30 AM and proceeded to alert me that there was severe thunderstorms in the area. Cool!! I love thunderstorms!! 3:45 there is a large and close lightning bolt.. power goes out. seconds later the alarm goes off again. This time it alerts me to a tornado warning in the county. I am a little nervous but I have to get back to sleep as I work in the morning. 3:55 am the alarm goes off again...the county is now under a tornado watch. This is more serious. I get up and get out the lamp. I start to pace the house just looking around when the alarm goes off again.... a tornado has formed 8 miles east, southeast of Georgetown, Texas. I pause...wait a second.. WE are 8 mile east, southeast of Georgetown. Now I panic and start looking out the windows. There is so much lightning that it was like daytime. The alarm continues to go off giving instruction as to what to do. I remember it saying that if you are driving in your car to stop and get out and look for the nearest ditch. If you are in a mobile home to evacuate. and if you are in your home to find the closet and cover yourself with a mattress. I really didn't feel like doing that so I just watched out of the window. after about 10 minutes the alarms stopped and the weather started to calm down. It took me awhile to settle down and get a few minutes of sleep before work. The next morning I was shocked to here how close the tornado came to us. Now let's be clear, this was a smaller end tornado that did little damage. At the time I am thinking a tornado out of the movie Twister. I guess tornado's rarely make it this far south and when they do they are of the smaller variety. I was able to get a couple of pictures off of the local new website:

A trailer that was overturned

Some downed trees

A map of where our house is in relation the the tornado. The little blue circle is where our house is, the red one where the tornado touched down.

Let's hope this was the once in 10 years tornado that they say it was. By the way the next town over received 12 inches of rain in one day. We received a modest 6 inches.