I loved The Judd's from the 80s. A favorite 80s CD of theirs is "Rockin With the Rhythm." "Have Mercy" "Grandpa" "Cry Myself to Sleep." Although it's not on the same CD, I really like "Young Love" by The Judds. Dwight Yoakam...OMG, I used to love Dwight, still do. LOL Some of my favorites from Dwight: Guitars, Cadillacs, etc: "Honky Tonk Man" Hillbilly Deluxe: "Little Ways" "Johnson's Love" "Please, Please Baby" "Always Late" "Little Sister" (a fav of mine)

It's late so I'm just going to respond train-of-thought to your questions..... RE your exercises -- that's a lot of the stuff my last PT had me doing -- I think it's general leg strengthening stuff and probably all very good stuff to do, but the exercises the new PT gave me really get the butt and outside of the hips, which is what I need, apparently, to cure the IT band stuff. And it takes so much less time -- if I hustle, I can do everything in 10 minutes. re: pilates being too boring and slow-paced -- the more advanced winsor workouts are much faster-paced with less explaining. See if you can get a hold of the Maximum Burn series - she goes very fast in that one. There's a 20 minute one and a 45 mninute one. I think they're both out of print, but there are usually plenty of used copies on amazon (cheap!) re: your arches -- I think high arches are big contributors to knee pain. I'm sure you already did this, but make sure you have the right shoes -- high arched feet need neutral/cushioned shoes -- any sort of stability or motion control shoe will just screw you up further. I have Nike Zoom Vomero 4's -- they are the cushiest shoes ever but they don't last long -- my last pair needed replacing after less than 200 miles. You may want to see a different podiatrist for a second opinion on your orthotics -- I've seen a few and each one has a different opinion on what kind orthotics to make me. I have a set of old orthotics from my 20s and sometimes I wear them to run, sometimes I don't. I don't think they make much difference actually. (Part of me thinks podiatry is a hocus-pocus kind of field!.) A good book to read is "Running Injury Free" by Joe Ellis. He is a podiatrist but very knowledgable and I found it fascinating how he took people's weird pains and traced them down to all kinds of crazy causes (one woman had hip pain that he traced to a tiny nail that had penetrated the sole of her running shoe and was very mildly poking her as she ran -- she didn't even realize it was there, but it was throwing off her stride to such an extent that it screwed up her ankle, knee and hip. But anyway, he spends a lot of time talking about how people's arches and foot structure can really cause issues all the way up the leg - it's interesting to read. re: how long I foam roll - I usually foam roll for a few minutes. You are supposed to stay on each painful spot for as long as you can and at least 20-30 seconds. I will roll til I hit all my painful spots (some twice) or until my arms get tired from holding me up (I find that you have to be pretty acrobatic to get yourself in some of these positions, LOL!) If you have painful spots, you need to roll. The first time I did it, my right IT band didn't hurt at all -- not one bit -- when I foam rolled it (and of course, my right knee didn't hurt). My left IT band, on the other hand, was excruciatingly painful the whole way up and down my leg. I rolled for maybe 3-4 minutes total (it hurt so bad I had to stop) and the next morning, I felt so much better. When I rolled again (I was doing it twice a day at first, now just once a day), there were far fewer painful spots, and now I find that if I keep up the rolling regularly, I can roll and not find any painful spots at all (and then I'm done in like 20 seconds!). Basically, if you feel any pain when you roll your IT band, you've found a problem and you just need to park there on the roller and let the roller work the knot out. Seriously -- in just days, with proper rolling, you should be feeling far less pain during the rolling itself and of course, less knee pain during all your activities. re: the fluid in your knee -- the fluid in your knee might never go away but it is probably not causing your pain. I have tons of fluid in both knees (docs think it is from the trauma of the accident) but other than making really loud crackling popping noises all the time (seriously, in my first set of PT, people could hear my knees popping from across the room when I was doing those step-ups and stuff - it was gross!), it never hurt. The pain is caused by the muscles around your knee pulling your kneecap all out of whack. Once you release the tension in your IT band and strengthen the other muscles around the knee to hold your kneecap in place, it won't be getting yanked all over the place and your pain should go away or at least become a lot more managable. Good luck!

I think the gifts that mtn has shared with us are all timeless and classic-- imo, these are perfect gifts from parents or other loved ones. Of course it's getting tougher as the girls grow and develope their own styles.. some of which will carry on into their adulthood and some of which will go to that place where many of our teen and early adulthood styles went. I still adore bright colored bandannas worn "hazel style" but I no longer wear them outside of my own home. A silly analogy but my point is that our style isn't always timeless. The classics will always carry forward.. and I sure wish I had a jewelry box of special pieces given to me through the years. I am grateful to have a few special pieces from my grandmothers and my mother. I am sure they cherish the gifts.. and will continue to for all their years.. and their children's years. As the oldest child, I have received some of the better and more "important" pieces. I have my paternal grandmother's diamond ring (my birthstone) and my maternal grandmother's first, very thin and tiny gold wedding band. I adore them both and wear them regularly. I also had (arggg) the first piece of jewelry my dad gave my mom. I am admitting here, now, for the first time that I lost the necklace. I keep thinking I should have it remade and I think by admitting it here in the open, I will commit to it. It's time I start thinking which of my special pieces I will give to each of my nieces... and when. (I still wish we had a hint, darn it! ;) )

I'll add a few more. Sears and Roebuck catalog Using a Sears and Roebuck catalog for toilet paper (in an outhouse). Corn cobs soaking in kerosene in a can on the back porch used as a fire starter for the kitchen stove. Kitchen matches (The last kitchen match made in the US was about 2 years ago.) Blow torch Bump starting a car engine. (It should have a manual transmission for this. This can be accomplished with a few automatics if the transmission has a rear oil pump. The vehicle has to be pushed fast enough for the oil pump to engage the transmission clutches tight enough to avoid slipping.) Setting the output of a generator on a car engine by moving a control brush. Fountain pen. Dictionary. Marchant calculators. These could extract square roots. This was accomplished by a series of subtractions while keeping count of the number of subtractions. It took several seconds to do this. It was using an oddity of the number system: Adding a series of odd numbers, starting with 1, returns the square of the number of odd numbers. Isn't that neat. 1 1 3 4 [1+3] 5 9 [4+5] 7 16 [7+9] 9 25 [9+16] ************ By the way, the proper lubricant for a slide rule is talcum powder or body powder. The object is to have the static friction as close as possible to dynamic friction to reduce a stick-slip action. When these two frictions are equal, the slide rule action becomes smooth. Slide rules made of bamboo usually do not require lubricants, and in my day, were more expensive. Engineering slide-rules have vertical cursor lines on both sides of the rule. These are adjustable and should be checked for alignment before using the slide-rule. These two cursors must be aligned with each other, in other words, when the cursor on one side lies on its index, the other side must also be on its index line. The index line is at ends of the scale. The reason for this is there are calculations that use both sides of the device and will be in error if the two lines on the cursor glasses are not aligned. A 10 inch slide-rule can only calculate to 3 places. Sometimes, it can do a 4th place if the answer lies between the 1 and 2 on the scale. A 20 inch slide-rule adds one more place. I have seen only one of these in my lifetime. It was a special issued by GM to some of its engineers in the 1950s. ************