Steampunk Coffe Table

Here is the latest Steampunk inspired project.  We had an old pine coffee table that we brought seconded hand almost eight years ago.  It no longer fitted into our décor and the choices where get rid of it or Steampunk it, easy choice lol.  Well here is the finished product - what do you think?

 

 

 

This is what it started out looking like, I took the pictures after removing the studs.

 

 

Recovery Journey Part 21 - Pace Yourself ...

If you know me, you will know that I am a full on person and my work is no exception. I am passionate about what I do and getting back to it has been both great and a challenge at the same time.  To quote my manager "Pace yourself as you transition back in Matthew" and she could not be more right - ssshh don't tell her I said she was right.

The excitement of returning to work has been tempered by the discovery of friends that have lost there jobs recently due to position elimination.  My thoughts and best wishes go out to all of them during a tough time.

Yesterday was my first trip into the office to meet up with the team and it was a really nice welcome back which was very touching, not to mention a cake that due to my diet I could not eat, but it looked really tasty.  Even here I was thought of as a banana was provided for me, not quite the same as the cake but I'll take it with gratitude and thanks.  It was awesome to start getting caught up and finding out all the great work that has been done.

Yesterday was a pretty full on day with the chiropractor in the morning a trip into the office for a few hours, acupuncture and PT.  I don't mind admitting that when I got home I was done.  Here again however my mind and body were not completely in sync until Sarah grounded me.  I came home with every intention of doing 30 minutes on the bike when Sarah reminded to be sensible.  It was a good job I listened to her as a few hours later I ached something fierce.

The trip to the dentist on Monday seems to have helped and although not the unrealistic remedy I was hoping for, come on you have got to hope right.  The pain has reduced and yesterday and today the pain came on later in the day and ibuprofen nails it completely.  That and a night guard have made for what I would call progress.  I have also noticed that the pain increases not only with temperature and pressure but in line with the amount of talking I do.  So being quiet seems to help and that is something a few people might what to be a permanent fixture I'm sure, but I aim on disappointing them.

Now back to the body, it turns out that sitting at a desk typing is not the best for my recovery or my jaw.  I was reminded by a friend at work yesterday that with my arms forward on the desk typing I would put pressure on my shoulders that puts pressure through my neck and into my jaw.  She is right, huh I seem to be surrounded by smart women, I count myself lucky.  I am listening even if I don't seem to, but it is hard when I really want to motor through everything and get caught up.

Today I paid attention to my body as I continue to work though my email backlog and I realized I need a new strategy.  The first thing I will explore is voice command software (recommended to me yesterday)  and I will let you know how that works out if I can get it installed.

Since today has seen me planted in front of the screen all day I am looking forward to doing my exercises and riding my bike on the trainer I just wish it was not so cold in the room to start with :)

Recovery Journey Part 20 - Back to Work

I will be honest I was concerned going to bed last night given my experiences to date and especially after feeling so crappy yesterday.  It seemed the odds were stacked against me as I had to wait to take the pain killers which meant getting to sleep later than I wanted.  Well the pain killers kicked in and to my surprise I got to sleep and only woke once in the night.  Now I am not saying I woke up feeling fresh, actually fresh is not even close to how I felt.  The pain killers had worn off and it felt like I had been in a bedroom brawl and not the good type.  Still I had more hours than expected and a soak in hot water loosened things off so all in all not the worst start to the day.  A text to my dentist landed an emergency appointment for lunch time to have another go at my teeth.

Body functioning and dental plans made it was time to get to work and let the games begin.  Well there was a little delay to the games beginning since I had not powered up my work laptop for a while there were a few updates and an expired password to sort out.  Ok now the games could begin or maybe not.  Oh boy, after a few minutes my inbox loaded and a few thousand emails stared back at me with open hostility.  It has been a day of sorting through the inbox and clearing out the spam and irrelevant mail with the ability to respond to far fewer than I would have liked.  There really are times when select all and delete would be a magic thing to do just not today.

After a day of sitting at the desk and deleting mail I am now need to do my exercises and I really don't feel like doing them but I know I will get into it once I start.  Oh, on the Teeth front more bite adjustment seems to have helped and so far today I have not needed pain killers.  The real test will be later this evening after dinner.

Ah yes dinner, that is the unfolding drama in the house hold.  After waiting 3 weeks for the dishwasher repair man to arrive things did not go smoothly.  Thankfully Sarah was a star and sorted it all out but I could feel the frustration rolling off of her starting with repeated calls to let her know he would be late and then fumbling the repair, no conclusive answers, an order for parts he does not know will fix the problem and another visit needed weeks out.  I think Sarah was awesome dealing with it and keeping her cool.

Ok I really do have to exercise :0)

Recovery Journy Part 19 - Power Down

At around 8pm last night the power started to flicker in the house.  With the wind blowing and the rain falling we were not expecting the power to go out but out it went plunging the house and street into darkness.  It's funny how a blackout makes you think about your preparedness.  With candles lit we spent the rest of the evening playing a board game by the light of head torches followed by an early night.

I wish I could say that the romance of the evening led to a peaceful night sleep but no such luck.  At 2am in the morning I woke with my teeth and back aching, not what I was hoping for the day before returning to work.  At 2am I had no choice but to read until the pain killers kicked in, and that turned out to be a good 2 hours.

At about 4am'ish I got off to sleep and woke with both my teeth and head throbbing, I could not help thinking "really, really".   Determined not to let the pain control me and with the power still out we decided to take the dogs for a walk.  It was good to get out but unfortunately by the time I got home the headache was firmly in control again. 

Yet again I am blessed to have such a wonderful wife who sorted everything out as I took painkillers and crashed out on the sofa.  Writing this at 10pm the pain is threatening but under control.  It sucks when you start to not want to go to bed because of the thought of the experience to come.  I don't have an answer to that right now other than to trust that this too will pass and tomorrow things will be better.

 

Recovery Journey Part 18 - 9 weeks and Getting Ready to Return to Work

9 weeks seems both an age and like yesterday and now it is time to start to get life back to some form of normality, well as normal as you can be expected with treatment appointment set up almost daily. 

Honestly I was kind of hoping that the last week before returning to work would see me dealing with less intense pain and if not for my teeth a jaw that might have been more the case as the pain in the shoulders has travelled around to the upper back and is now very much like the pain you get after a very intense workout the day after the day you did the workout, if you know what I mean.  The muscles are extremely tight but with all the massage, PT, acupuncture and daily exercises the movement in my neck and head is improving although looking behind me in the car sucks a little.

The bummer has been my teeth, they just don't want to let up and give me a break with almost constant throbbing unless I take painkillers.  Oh and then there is sleeping, I get to wake up approximately 4 hours after getting to bed with aching in the back and shoulders that makes for a restless rest of the night.

Still compared to 2 weeks ago it is a night and day improvement and the successes have been many.  I have been able to start riding on the trainer and I am now up to a 25 minute spin on the bike, can hold a plank for 40 seconds and today was able to hike with Sarah and the girls for an hour.

This week I have tried to prepare myself for the return to work by adjusting sleep patterns and an increase in activity to a full day.  Whilst I am excited and looking forward to getting back to work I am also aware that there is a change of pace coming that my mind might think it can deal with but my body might have something else to say about.  I am resolved to cross that bridge as it comes and be sure to listen to my body.

Steampunk Plane - Kinda

Although not technically Steampunk this project was inspired by Steampunk and quite frankly not being able to find what I wanted.  For sometime now I have been looking for a model silver plane and after scanning the internet, looking in stores and quite literally drawing a blank it dawned on me to repurpose or upcycle an existing model.

It was fun to do, and a nice way to spend a couple of evenings whilst Sarah hit a puzzle.  Here are the before and after pictures. 

After

 

 

Before

Recovery Journey Part 17 - Teeth and Life

You know you have a good dentist when he returns your texts at 12am in the morning, something I was not expecting.  If you have never had tooth related nerve pain then I envy you big time.  If you have you know what I mean when I say you can think of nothing else other than - MAKE THE PAIN STOP.  Well that was my evening last night.

Let me back up a little, if you have been following my recovery you will know that I fell on my head and that once fitted with a collar I experienced a major TMJ flare up.  What you don't know is that two years ago I started on a journey to prevent a major TMJ flare up.  The treatment involved electroshock alignment, braces and a whole lot of memories I am it a hurry to forget.  The upshot was moving my jaw forward by a lot and included crowns on my teeth to create a whole new bite.  Prior to the accident I had ongoing appointments to work on the bite alignment because as you can imagine you just don't get it right the first time, second time, 5th time, need I go on. 

So during the collar days the bite was and jaw joint was enflamed by both collar pressure and bite pressure.  Post collar days the joint and nerves are enflamed by bite pressure points for which the solution so far is to sand down the high points without lowing them.  Lowing them would result is all the teeth needing to be realigned, so a bad thing.

Now forward to the beginning of the week, when I visited the dentist.  We worked on the bite and I left hopeful that we had it nailed.  It takes a least two days to figure out if the bite works so I entered into the teeth cycle.  What am I talking about, well let me share.  In the mornings the teeth feel ok until hit with hot or cold, you know the feeling right.  Then as the day goes on the jaw aches and then culminates in the evening with throbbing pain.  Take pain killers get a few hours sleep and the cycle begins.  As you might have gathered I am an optimist by nature and every morning this week I told myself they are calming down and indeed Thursday night was not that bad.

Back to last night, by 10pm I was bouncing metaphorically off of the walls and after another couple of hours bouncing gave up at 12:34am and texted my dentist, just coz I could.  What followed was a very unexpected text conversation that resulted in an emergency appointment this morning after I manage to get 5 hours sleep with the help of meds.  Today he did a little more grinding, you can imagine how my delicate teeth felt after that.  The good news is more meds and things have settled down, The teeth cycle clock has been reset for another 2 days. 

To take my mind off things and try to get a better nights sleep I picked up a new pillow.  Wow that sounds so mundane but I am sure I am not the only one in the world for whom buying a pillow is a big deal.  Over the years I have taken to even travelling with my pillows as other pillows are either too hard or too soft, yes I know I'm a delicate flower.   So trust me when I tell you it was a big deal and I have my fingers crossed.

Last week I did have some exciting news that I did not share with you as to be quite honest I could not wrap my head around it.  The problems with the engine for our new VW camper have been resolved and the Syncro build is going forward, I even have a schedule.  Today Sarah and I reviewed the 100+ line build sheet and all the choices we still need to make and questions we have.  It definitely took my mind off of things.  The exciting bit is that we might have it ready in December but I am not holding my breath lol.

Well that's it for today, as much as I don't feel like it I have exercises to do and a ride on the trainer to complete.  so I will leave you with the saying that is top of mind for me today - The past has gone, the future is unknown but the now is a gift, that is why it is called "The Present".  I don't recall who's quote this is but I love it - Enjoy the now