Lazy slacker blogging

I've been missing, yes. Sorry 'bout that. I have at least one more part of my Las Vegas trip report that I could post, but I seem to have trouble getting around to doing it.

See, I injured my back a couple of weeks ago. That seems innocuous enough when you say it like that. "I injured my back." I've never had real back trouble or serious back pain, so I had absolutely no idea what it was like to really hurt your back.

I'm just gonna say -- don't hurt your back. Take care of your back. Be really, really nice to it. Because you just don't know how good you've got it until it's gone.

Seriously.

So for a week and two days, I couldn't move for any length of time, and I couldn't sit, stand, or lie anywhere that didn't hurt.

I think the most upsetting thing about it was realizing how fragile my grasp is on the day-to-day activities of life. The moment I took to the couch with a heating pad, everything around here fell apart. I had just started making great strides in housecleaning (not my strong suit on a great day, much less during a rush for a deadline or something). When I stopped making an ingress on the housecleaning and stopped doing anything -- oh, it got icky here. Rapidly. Dishes piled up in the kitchen until they threatened to scrape the ceiling. The floors became positively grimy as teenagers with dirty bare feet tromped around on them, blithely ignoring my pleas to sweep or mop or at least wipe up that Gatorade spill they carelessly made.

It just overwhelmed me in no time flat.

So when I was able to stand up without crying, I spent all my tremulous energy on trying to just get the house back to normal. Ow. Sweeping really, really hurts when your back is recovering from something like that. I would sweep for a minute and rest for five. Then sweep for another minute and rest for ten.

Don't ask about the dishes.

And no, you can't use my bathroom. You just can't. I don't know when my back will be restored enough for me to scrub anything.

Last weekend was the deadline for a summer cocktail recipe contest at the totally fabulous How Much Do We Love podcast. I totally would've told y'all about it so you could enter, too, but I wasn't spending any time at the computer other than the absolutely necessary minutes that it took to write my usual newsletters. Deadlines wait for no back muscle recovery.

Anyway, my entry was the Over Clover, pictured above. You should have seen me tromping around my neighborhood, trying to find a suitably summery backdrop for my cocktail while the rainclouds above not only blocked out all the light but also threatened to drench me and my camera. The poor scoop of lime sherbet was melting away so fast, I started taking pictures without thinking about composition, just hoping there was enough light to see the shape of a glass.

I seriously doubt I'll win, although I humbly admit that my recipe is pure mixology genius. It's light, refreshing, and slightly tart and sweet, with a fabulous hint of mellow herbs and mint for a counterpoint. Yummy! I'll share the recipe later when the winner is announced.