Tag: faith

  • Maybe Recliners Aren’t the Be-All-End-All

    I have severe scoliosis. As in– I started wearing a back brace at age six, wore some variation of said brace through age 13 (think hard plastic shells molded from a cast of my whole torso, made every few months as I grew)…..it was not fun times.

    And at age 13 when I had surgery for an 87-degree curve, I really hoped that was the end of it. I grew from five foot six inches to five foot seven and a half inches in 10 hours. True story.

    But….life happened, four pregnancies and three healthy boys happened, and here I am at age 46 with a secondary thoracic curve that has to be at least 45 degrees in addition to the original lumbar curve, which has settled also at 45 degrees or so.

    Suffice it to say between the curves and rotation, my whole skeletal system is a mess.

    For the past six years, we have loved our Kirkland Signature leather electric reclining couch. We now are at Costco all the time, but we actually scored our couch at a local salvage store for $250, brand new apparently. When we bought it I thought we’d be doing well to get six months of use out of it, and here we are six years alter, and it still works.

    I have been in physical therapy now for months, and after last week’s session I decided I might be done with the couch. I’ve known for a long time that it was not good for my back, so I decided to just take the week and sit, when I sit, in this straight back cushioned rocking chair with the pillow, as pictured above.

    And…..something minor-miracle-wise, happened:

    I found myself sitting less. A lot less. I started getting back on my stationary exercise bike daily. I found myself sitting to do what I was going to do and then getting back up to resume household tasks as needed. And my mental health has been better on the whole, as well.

    I did not realize that what one sits on can literally make a change in lifestyle in the span of a week.

    So, the couch is posted on Facebook for giveaway, and we will find a better recliner for my husband, who legitimately does need one since he sleeps out here in our living room occasionally.

    Yes, we are a couple that does not always sleep in the same room, and no, there is nothing wrong with our marriage.

    I suppose that is another post, though.

  • It’s Just a Toe

    On January 21, I had a permanent matrixectomy on my left big toe. And for eight weeks and two days, I completely avoided posting any public pictures of that toe– it was gross.

    But Friday morning, March 20, I woke up and saw when I looked at my feet that there was no 1/2 inch square scab in the bottom left hand corner as had been there the night before, when I went to sleep.

    So, bored on Friday afternoon, I took the above photo with my phone, and captioned it this on Facebook:

    “It took 1 day shy of exactly two months for my gimpy toe to have the 1/2 inch square scab to fall off, apparently in one fell swoop overnight. My toe feels no different, and I didn’t feel it happen, but my big toe looks so weird without a nail or anything there even though I’ve known for 2 months this was the goal.

    To me it looks like I just have pink fingernail polish on that one toe.

    I spared y’all all the photos I took of the gore as it was in progress over the past two months— it was really gross especially about the 2-week mark. But I couldn’t resist this one.”

    And I thought nothing more about it, until I saw on Saturday that the post had 20k something views.

    As of this writing, Monday afternoon March 23, that post has had 73,212 views.

    The lone negative comment was that I needed clean my shoe, which if anybody knows anything about Birkenstocks, that is a nonissue.

    And honesty time: Had I known that that photo was going to go mini-viral: I would have gotten out the good camera. I would have trimmed on that second toe which is not quite straight with its nail, where the right side of the nail skims upwards slightly. I would have gotten the green strap from my physical therapy off the coffee table behind my foot. I would have probably, yes, worn different shoes or better yet, no shoe at all.

    It’s just a toe, people.

    But it is pretty funny that a stadium or two’s worth of people find it fascinating to look at a toe without a toenail.

    I posted the following as part of the comments:

    “Since people seem to like this post, the back story: This toenail had been giving me ingrown problems at that top left corner since I was 13 years old, and had become fungal to the point it had stopped growing over a year ago. It was so thick that I could no longer cut it at all myself. At age 46, I said enough and went to the podiatrist for a matrixectomy. I did try the prescription anti fungal lacquer and Vicks and ketoconazole cream prior to giving up. 

    I am extremely squeamish about people messing with my toes and especially my toenails. I told my doctor about my phobia, and she was very compassionate both with local anesthesia and patient with me. My doctor was great, and the whole procedure after insurance (admittedly, we do have good insurance) cost about $346 out of pocket. 

    I took Tylenol for the first two days but after that needed no pain meds, and I did have to wear flip flops (not these Birks) in the dead of winter (procedure was January 21) for a long time, and in awkward social situations at times. 

    But, for a lifetime of not having to deal with that toenail anymore….100% worth it.”

    Thankfully, most comments have been kind; a few people have shared their own feet or tips for future use as my foot settles.

    But really, people. It’s just a toe.

    Fediverse reactions

  • Hello, Monochrome

    I posted the following on Facebook and Instagram last night:

    “It’s time.

    I set the groundwork for a new portrait photography business last December, and I’ve sat on it since then for a variety of reasons.

    I’ve missed being out with my camera.

    So, it’s time.

    Sessions with me will be slow. I’m working in monochrome for now. I’ll be limiting the number of sessions I accept, and I promise you’ll love the results.

    Just me, my camera, a single lens, lots of fun, and beautiful portraits as the result.

    Custom sessions beginning at $50. Reach out today to schedule your session.

    Hi World. This is Caroline Price Luxe.”


    I’m looking forward to being out with clients again.

  • February 3, 2011

    Detail of a 2011 Blogger template by Skincorner, featuring artwork by Amai, from the header of my blog at the time.

    “I’m determined to salvage the comfortingly wonderful customs from my heritage while, for lack of a better term, “taking out the trash,” so to speak. Example: Karo syrup makes a really good, easy topping for breads when mashed up with butter on a fork. Fantastic taste to that. However, eat too much of it, and I know I’ll have a heart attack. It’s all in the moderation. I have bipolar disorder and PTSD and I struggle with massive doses of anxiety. Generally, though, I am a pretty happy person. Except when I’m not. :) It’s pretty much just like that. And then I feel like the world is caving in. But the good news for you is that if you know me, unless you spend a lot of time and I really let you in, you won’t have to deal with any of it. Because I put on a really good cover and generally don’t let many people close. I’m slow to trust people right now. Otherwise, I’m mommy to two really funny little boys. They keep Jared and me really busy. My living room is overrun with matchbox cars and little boy-sized desks and chairs.”

    This was the “about” box on my very first blog.

    I finally got up the courage to go scouting through archive.org to look at old blog posts that are now defunct. I pulled this “about” quote from my blog as it was on February 3, 2011.

    And I can unpack quite a lot that goes unsaid between the lines now, 15 years later.

    And it is still, indeed true, 15 years later, that despite living what appears to be a fairly transparent existence online, it is true that I let remarkably few people close (pretty much 1 to be exact), especially in person, and I have learned indeed to put on a really, really great cover.

    In that paragraph, I hear the angst in my writing. I hear the quiet despondency and horror of having had my social sphere knocked out from under me just the year prior.

    On February 3, 2011, Porter would have been four and a half and Liam would have been not quite three. We were indeed in the thick of it with two very funny little boys. I was in no way prepared to give them the attention they deserved.

    In 2011, the world was falling apart in just about every way possible.

    And so, in 2011, the boys went to daycare despite me not working.

    Jared kept all of us going, day and night.

    I had visions of a “Mommy Blog,” and was not-so-quietly desperate to get back to some semblance of a professional life.

    And for sure, whatever beginnings of a social life we’d had the year prior was long gone. Church was kind but most people were distant.

    I was taking on the full identity of “sick Caroline.” And, quietly dying, horrified and terror-filled, inside.

    And in that paragraph above, I was trying to not betray that any one bit of that was actually happening.

    Over the next little while, I’m going to revisit some of those old posts, with updated commentary.

    February of 2011 was the quiet beginning of a new sort of lifestyle: a different kind of childhood for my boys than I imagined, a different sort of marriage dynamic than I’d imagined.

    A different kind of life than I’d grown up dreaming about.

    And it’s been beautiful in its own way. Arguably, my boys had a more present mother because of that season of life.

    And if I could go back and tell the girl, who probably drafted that “about” paragraph in between sobbing episodes, anything at all, it would be this:

    Those two little boys that you worry about: they will grow up to be stellarly wonderful men in spite of whatever shortcomings you have. That man you married, that man that you feel growing ever distant with the stress of life right now: this marriage that is being tested is going to find its own comfortable peace and that man is your safe haven. And the career days may very well be done, and that will always hurt. And you, dear girl, your tears are not in vain. There’s a beauty in the growth going on right now. Do not lose hope.

    That is what I would tell my 15 years’ younger self today. Because it is the same thing I can tell myself today, in 2026.

  • The Girl in the Basement Apartment

    25 years ago today, I survived psychological torture and likely real physical danger.

    And the particulars don’t matter anymore; I am safe in February 10, 2026, not February 10, 2001.

    But I have to wonder what my neighbors of the time thought. They had to hear the screams; I screamed for my life that night. No one responded. It was a 55+ community probably not used to domestic violence issues.

    I don’t have to wonder about why it took that precise incident for me to decide to have the boyfriend of the time move out. It took precisely that sequence of events to upend our lives like that.

    And I don’t have to wonder because I know: I reclaimed his old room as my own, and rechristened the energy of that space the very day my Mommy came to clean up the trashed apartment he left in his wake on the last day of February when he moved out. 

    My Mommy brought my baby cat Cricket to live with me that day, and Cricket and I went on to live there a good while longer.

    And that day, that lowest of lows, was a turning point. It was the day I decided no man was worth my safety. No man, no matter how long I’d known him, was worth giving up my self-respect.

    I was done settling after that night.

    Thankfully, mostly good men followed that purging of my life.

    I am so grateful that I got to marry the best one.

    Jared is the one who has tolerated living in the light 24 hours a day for years on end.

    Jared is the one who answers the ghosts that aren’t there when I hear noises in the night.

    And Jared is the one who wants nothing from me other than my happiness. He doesn’t ask me to be anything other than real, he doesn’t ask me to perform for him. 

    He only asks me to accept his love as a gift. And that it is: a gift.

    And 25 years on: I know for a fact karma is real, as sad as that is to say in this particular instance.

    Tonight I will go to bed safe, having worked on a new jute bag for most of the day.

    And I will go to bed grateful for the new lease on life I got in 2001.