Monday, May 30, 2011

Memorial Day Wreath (and extra chiropractor visits)

Happy Memorial Day everyone!
I'm so thankful to all our veterans and military personel who have served and still serve to help keep our country safe. 
We celebrated by having a WWII veteran (my FIL) over for homemade hamburgers and homemade french fries and homemade cake and homemade ice cream.  Our WWII veteran liked it (especially the cake and ice cream!).

To decorate for this holiday, I put out our flag on the flagpole, lined our sidewalk with flags on sticks (this seems to be popular in our neighborhood so we decided to go with it too), and hung my freshly made patriotic fabric wreath on our front door.
I decided to make a fabric wreath because the tutes I found on the internet all seemed pretty easy plus I couldn't find any patriotic wreaths for sale anywhere locally.  Isn't that weird?  Even Michaels didn't have any.  

All you need to make one is 1 yard of red fabric, blue fabric and white fabric and a metal wreath frame.
You cut the fabric into 6 inch x 1 inch strips and then just tie them onto the metal frame.  The more you tie on, the fuller your wreath will be.  Here are my strip stacks and the metal frame with about 1/4 done.

Great huh?  I love it.  I plan to leave it up through July 4th.

Now here's the down side to making this fabric wreath.  (note:  I'm about to whine about my health problems)
I have nerve pain in my right shoulder that is caused by a cervical spine problem that I have and which I periodically have to see a chiropractor for (because my pain management dr. says he can't help me with it anymore except for giving me drugs).  I usually have to see him 1-3 times per week for 6-8 weeks and then I'm good for a couple of months.
Nerve pain is very different from regular pain.  The nerve pain that I have, feels like someone is stabbing me in the back between my shoulder blade and spine.  It is constant 24/7 and NOTHING will make it stop.  No amount of exercise, stretching, Motrin, or anything else (except seeing my chiropractor) will make it stop.  The pain meds help for maybe 1-2 hours which is not nearly as long as they are suppose to last.  It's miserable and puts me in a really bad mood - every day.  Certain things make the pain worse, like using my laptop (which is why I've been trying to stay off lately), scrubbing anything with my right arm, or basically using my right arm in any way.
Hence, my visits to the chiropractor.
So, I had been seeing my chiropractor this time for about 2 weeks when I decided to make the fabric wreath.  I spent about an hour or more cutting the 3 yards of fabric into strips with my rotary cutter. 
I use my rotary cutter alot but not usually for more that a few minutes.  Well, guess what?  Apparently, using it for long stretches really aggravates that nerve.  Isn't that awesome?!!  So, I'll be spending alot of
my time at my chiropractors office for several more weeks.  YAY! :(

This is one of those examples of when you should just buy a wreath from someone on etsy instead of trying something new and doing it yourself.

1 comment:

  1. The whole day seemed wonderful, except for when you experienced nerve pain. It's a good thing you have a chiro that you can rely on in times like this. At the very least, they can help alleviate the pain, so you can go on doing your normal routine. Take care!

    Tyrone Bryant @ McIver CC

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