browser life

People might think that because I cannot work, every day would be a vacation for me. Not really. But Dan has this week off from his job, so this is out of the ordinary.

We cannot afford to leave town, so we are being trendy and doing the "stay-cation". That basically means doing stuff either at home or within a short distance. The advantage of this is that I don't have to rack my brain finding places where it is safe for me to eat, and I get to sleep on my nice Tempur-pedic mattress every night.

Actually, I started the vacation a bit early when a friend, his wife and their niece came for a visit on Friday. As luck would have it, that was the hottest day of the year in Sioux Falls so far. Kinda reminds me of when Dan and I went to visit his uncle in Bismarck when it was 111 degrees, heh heh.

We started off with lunch at Chili's. Hadn't been to the one in Sioux Falls before, but we were fortunate enough to get a waitress who was familiar with their wheat-free menu suggestions, so that wasn't a problem. Turns out their baby back ribs are wheat-free, which surprised me; I had the salmon though.

Then we went to the Sertoma Butterfly House, which has a room where live butterflies flutter all around you. It's very similar to the Butterfly Pavilion in Denver, the difference being that this one is smaller and has only tropical varieties. Easier to establish a habitat that way, I guess, and they are able to maintain a lot of really gorgeous flowers.

I was in my wheelchair, which everyone was nice enough to steer for me. I took a ton of pix, including the two in this entry. It was a challenge, what with the humidity making it harder for the camera to focus and trying to capture shots of certain butterflies that were almost constantly moving, but I think I did all right.

I think we all had a good time, but we did reach a point where the humidity was almost unbearable, so we had to escape to the gift shop. I found this adorable t-shirt with butterflies in the shape of a peace sign! After a trip to Wally-World for travel supplies, we headed back to the house as Dan had gotten off work by then.

Soon everyone was in the mood to grab some supper, so we headed to the Outback. First time in probably four years that I had eaten back to back meals in restaurants. Had steak medallions with grilled pineapple and mushrooms, mashed potatoes, and I shared the world's best gluten free dessert, the Chocolate Thunder from Down Under.

By the time we were done, I was pretty much a zombie, so we called it a day. I watched a DVD of Jeff Dunham the ventriloquist with Dan. After that, I can't remember what I did between then and bedtime.

Unfortunately, on Saturday, Dan woke up with a cold. We had originally planned to go to the zoo, but I was wayyyyyy too wiped out from the day before to leave the house anyway. I don't remember a whole lot except that I had recorded a 12 hour "Monk" marathon and that Dan and I watched some episodes.

Yesterday, we managed to get to church, but I was still fairly zombie-ish, so we headed right home afterward. I rested for awhile, and then for lunch, I tried my hand at adding extra lean ground beef to organic pasta sauce and putting it on brown rice spaghetti, which turned out really well. Dan borrowed a bunch of DVDs from our friends, and we watched "Disturbia" (better than I was expecting) and a few episodes from season 1 of "Californication" (shockingly crude but hilarious).

I'd been having some really horrible muscle cramps over the weekend due to being out in the extreme heat on Friday, so we decided I'd better not miss my usual aquacise class today. It did help even though it does make my fatigue worse. Also today, Dan and I watched two more episodes of "Californication" and two more of "Monk".

As for the rest of this week, we're gonna keep the schedule pretty light and may even skip some stuff if Dan doesn't start feeling better. We're tentatively thinking of the zoo tomorrow, dinner at the Indian restaurant on Wednesday, and going to the cheap theatre Thursday to watch "Forgetting Sarah Marshall".

And if I have time and/or energy, maybe I'll put together an article for But You Don't Look Sick about "stay-cations". After all, by a week from now, I'll be an expert, heh heh.