Ouch!

Yes! That is a picture of my foot below!

Can you see the bruising?

I would really like to be picking and posting pix from Jade's Tangled party right now, but instead I am going to explain why I will be putting my foot up.



Party T-30 minutes- I was making one more round around the kitchen table making sure things were just so and my hip, which is apparently bigger than I realize, hit a book off the window sill (we keep our kids devotionals there for after dinner) and it landed smack dab on my foot. The corner of it to right below my fourth toe. Ouch! It really hurt. Like REALLY hurt.

But, the party was going to happen so I went about my business.

Party T-15 minutes - I looked down at it and WHOA. It was popping out like a goose egg. Okay, so maybe more like a hen egg. Let's just go with robin egg. But man it was freaky looking. I showed my mom (nurse) and she said I really needed to do something about it. And when had it happened and why hadn't I done something sooner. Something like that. And then when she started talking about needing to stop the ruptured blood vessel in there I started to get woozy.

Party T-10 minutes - I am laying on our bed with feet up trying to put make-up on while Jerry and my mom are trying to find bandage wraps. Mom applies pressure, oh my, and wraps it real tight. I continue to feel woozy but do manage to get my make-up on (important stuff).

Party time! I answer the door hobbling with the ugliest puffiest ace bandage wrap you have ever seen.

That night the pain was bad. I had a conversation with Jerry at one point in the middle of the night that went something like, OMG...I can't breathe. It's throbbing. I think it is broken. What am I going to do all summer with a broken foot. Jerry!!! How am I going to teach the 2 year olds in the morning?!?

Sunday morning I was less worried about those two year olds than I was finding a church shoe to fit over the swollen foot. I would not be sporting ace bandage. Once a sandal was found then my mind turned toward how was I going to get to the church building. Early!

We go to an urban church and there is basically no close parking. Even senior citizens have to be SEVENTY to park in the lot. For the rest of us, it is a long walk. And sometimes up hill. Jerry was able to drop me off at a somewhat close door and then it was two year old time.

We only had FIVE. PTL! We never only have five. What are the odds of one of them sitting in a rocker and that rocker coming down on my foot? The injured foot?!? I was proud that I didn't cuss nor cry because I felt like doing both.

Then after church the dog, Duke, who is nearing 70 pounds, backed all of his weight right onto me. My foot! The injured foot! Ugh. Let's just say that Lily has asked, "Momma, what does 'damn dog' mean?" since then. Lovely.

But the real icing on the cake was today. We were continuing party clean up and Lily was helping me put bottled waters away. She was handing me two at a time and I was putting them in the fridge. When all of a sudden she decided to toss them to me. Just seeing this in my peripheral vision made me wince. And of course! Where does one land? On my foot! My injured foot!

I cried. Jade cried. And Lily just stared looking bewildered. Poor thing! And my poor foot!

I must go put it up. Promised the girls a blueberry picking trip early in the morning. Hoping my tennis shoe will fit!



Rapunzel pictures soon!

So, does a nose "sprain" hurt worse than a nose break?

It was 5AM. Jerry and I were enjoying, well, maybe not enjoying...but, partaking in our new morning routine. Coffee was brewed. Various charts of Greek were spread on the dining table where Jerry was practicing orthography in preparation for his quiz. I was turning on monitors and printers (yes, plural...two of each!), hoping to get a couple of hours of "at-home work" in before the girls rose.

But then the kittens detected our presence and set in with their craziness. Dive bombing from the backs of high chairs. Chewing on dangling cords. Pouncing on Blackie, who is still not crazy about them...which means a fight ensued.

Wait, you didn't know we had kittens? Oh how this poor blog is neglected. More to come...soon, I hope.

Jerry could not study and I could not work. The kittens had to be locked up.

This great 1960s house once had a patio. Said patio, was long ago enclosed and currently houses our playroom. However, the humongo glass doors are still intact. We have camouflaged them with curtains until we decide if we are going to sheet rock or just install prettier doors.

Jerry locked the kittens in the playroom by sliding the glass doors shut. Problem solved.

We went about our study and work.

Almost two hours later it was time to get Lily up and ready for school. Picture day no less. I was trying to find the longer of her two black uniform ties. I figured they must have stayed in her dance bag after changing last week. The dance bag hangs in the playroom. I was going to quickly retrieve them in the morning rush.

But I was stopped. Dead in my tracks. My nose caught all of the force of my body going forward as it smashed into the glass door.

It was loud. I wasn't even sure what had just happened to me. Jerry wanted to laugh, but my instant tears informed him not to.

The door did not break. It may have been less painful if it had. Had my nose though? No blood or crookedness. I guess not. Shear pain though. Congestion and a bit of swelling...maybe just from my tears?

While I can't wait to see the bruising as the day progresses, my husband just can't wait to laugh.

As he walked out the door to work, he asked, "Can I at least laugh now?"

"No! It still hurts", I replied.

Then he prodded me to at least open the glass door again so I could see the mark my face had made on the glass when I had smacked into it.

Sure enough...I did and then I laughed. But he is still not allowed to.

Tickles, Giggles, and SMACK!

Tickling.

I cannot stand to be tickled. Ah...I hate it. The helpless feeling. Near suffocation from lack of breaths. Possibility of urinating. Whatever. I just do not like it.

My girls though?

They love it. They beg for it!



My apologies for the loud TV in the background...our beloved Mavericks are in the playoffs!

Next, the tickle monster attacks Lily by activating her "collapse button"...and things get a little out of hand...



See? Did you see, and hear, that SMACK at the end? Now I am wearing a busted lip. Just another reason to hate tickling.

He said to beat them, so I did.

I am such a wannabe gardener. Even growing up with the typical small suburban backyard, my mom had quite a nice garden where we grew all sorts of things. It was such a great experience for us to unearth the radishes and green onions from the ground or pick a strawberry and pop it in our mouth straight from the vine.

Although I have tried my hand at a few other things (cucumbers, melons, strawberries, etc), I've recently just stuck to a few varieties of tomatoes and several containers of herbs. This year though I picked up a bell pepper plant to throw in the mix and was excited to see how it would turn out.

Shortly after we planted them, we hit a 90 degree day. Blossoms hadn't even formed yet, and I heard that this was sure doom for the tomato plants...making them bear little or no fruit. Jerry heard a guy on a gardening show say that you have to shock their system to get them to blossom. He recommended beating them with a tennis racket to accomplish this.

I can count how many times on one hand that I've touched a tennis racket since the days that Jerry and I took a class together in college, so I settled for the broom I had handy and went to whacking at them. I gave the bell pepper plant a good beating too, just for good measure.

Alas, it worked. I can't believe that in mid-November I am still picking tomatoes.

I had the girls with me in the backyard the a few weeks back and although Lily doesn't like tomatoes, she picked a small cherry variety from the bush and popped it into her mouth. She picked one for Jade too, who seemed to actually enjoy it. The girl hasn't met a food she doesn't like yet. The pepper plant had been confusing me...there always seemed to be both red and green peppers on it. I had read though that if you left the green ones on, eventually they'd turn into sweet red peppers. So, in keeping with the spirit I plucked a red pepper and bit off a chunk of what I thought would be a delicious sweet treat.

So NOT the case.

Don't beat your peppers, people.

I'm not sure if the beating transformed them into some sort of habanero pepper, or if I just picked up the wrong kind of plant at the store. I didn't realize that yapping on the phone with a friend while doing your vegetable shopping could be so dangerous. If only Lily could have had our Flip recorder in hand to catch the sheer pain that only my mouth experienced but that my entire body displayed...well, I'm sure it would have been at least on honorable mention on the funny home video show.

Being the good mommy that I am, I first told Lily not to touch or eat the peppers and then quickly ran inside to save myself any further neighborhood embarrassment. What to do? I drank water and that just seemed to intensify the pain and carry it further down my esophagus. I then remembered that eating bread or a cracker was supposed to help the situation.

That was a problem. At that point in time I was in the early stage of low-carbing it. Would this stinkin' garden pepper be my diet's demise? The things we do to ensure the continual dropping of pounds. I stuck it out. It took the better part of an hour for the stinging to leave my throat.

Anyone want some peppers? This one bush just keeps on producin'. They don't look like anything I can find on-line, so I'm scared the beating may have morphed them into some weird breed.

I haven't touched them since, but I'd be willing to grab a 10 foot cutting pole and gather some for you if you'd like to sacrifice your mouth for some good hot fun.

Do me a favor though...grab your video camera first...I don't want any of your winnings, I just want to get a glimpse of what I looked like hopping around the backyard that day. Be sure to have a baby on your hip for the full effect.

Because shin splints would be too normal

You'll never hear me claim to be in super good shape. I do make random attempts, in even more random intervals, to get in better shape, but it seems like just when I get in the swing of a routine, something happens. Geez...I hope the comma police don't come after me for that sentence.

We do belong to a gym. It is great. It is close to home. It has three levels of all sorts of equipment. It has nice people. It has other mommy flab syndrome sufferers. It has a smoothie bar. And best of all, it has KidsClub. KidsClub is just a cute way of saying, "We'll take care of the chillins while you go sweat it out." Or while you take an extended rest on the bicycle in front of HGTV. Whatever works. Who said the "cool down" period is only 5 minutes?

Once Jade was old enough, we really did get into the swing of going to the club. Jerry and I viewed our visits as "mini-dates" in a strange way. I could yap his head off while we did cardio next to each other. Soon he discovered Fox News and got headphones though. That's okay. I wasn't offended. Really.

We're too cheap for cable around here, and while news shows aren't my thing, I decided to reconnect with MTV. Wow. No wonder my dad got rid of that channel when we were kids.

Our routine was working perfectly. Something had to throw it off. Sadly that event happened back in late May. So, for the past little while, Lily hasn't been able to go to KidsClub. Our mini dates have stopped. Jerry also changed jobs, became super disciplined, and leaves the house at 5AM to work out every day. Which translates to: Jerry is no longer my workout buddy. Sniff.

Lily has recently been released from the doctor, but before heading back to the club I decided to hit the pavement. Completely out of the blue...random I tell you...I decided last week to grab my cell phone and take a walk in the late evening. I did a fast paced walk three nights in a row. And more importantly, my sister and I got some serious phone time in.

Cell phones equate safety, right? I probably wouldn't have noticed anyone approaching me for all the yapping, but at least Kelly could have reported where I was.

Do you notice a trend here? Apparently I cannot exercise my body without also exercising my mouth. Don't get jealous over my nice jawline.

The morning after the 3rd late night, fast paced, talking storm of a walk, there was a problem. As I descended the stairs on a quick jaunt to make the java before retrieving the chillins, my ankle just didn't work right. It didn't want to stretch, or point, or flex, or whatever else it had to do to make it down the stairs.

Painful. The only way I can describe it is that it feels like a shin splint, but in the ankle. Ankle splint? According to Google that is only something you can buy to wear, not a condition of the ankle. Hello Google, I have the first ankle splint ever. And it hurts.

I guess since my mouth is already warmed up for exercise, I never thought I really needed to warm up my ankles for a stinkin' walk. It's just a walk. Not like I'm training for marathons over here.

Jerry even offered to massage the pain away. It was too painful. I do not turn down foot massages. But I flinched every time he even went near my ankle. I am such a wimp.

Has anyone else experienced this? I need a remedy. Quick.

It is affecting my life in all areas.

Like sleep. I have done the mid-night stretch and point thing a couple of times. Only twice to be exact. Ouch. How my "injury" escaped my mind at 3AM is beyond me.

Then tonight we met for the quick $1.50 hot dog/coke dinner at Costco. We were a mess. Just picture ketchup on faces, Lily riding in the baby stroller (they don't have high chairs so we brought it for Jade...after all she is the BABY, but LILY wanted in it...go figure), Jade wanting to be carried, Jade being carried, and one of us pushing a big honkin' cart around with one lonely box of baby wipes in it.

By the time we got to the van I could tell it wasn't going to be a fun ride home.

Then I remembered. We met there. Jerry's car was there. I had a key to said car. So, I did the only thing that made sense. I let Jerry have some quality bonding time with the girls in the van while I opted to ride home solo in the Honda.

I pretended that Jerry was rolling his eyes at someone else and went to find the car. I hopped in, turned the radio OFF, and got ready to back out. Then I remembered. The clutch. The clutch that required me to extend, point, flex, and move my ankle in ways that it didn't want to be moved.

I thought, briefly thought, about calling Jerry and aborting my plan. But the silence. Oh the silence. I'm a sucker for silence. So, after contemplating driving in second gear all the way home, I painfully got through it.

I'm thinking about creating a Wikipedia page dedicated to ankle splints...the condition...not the product. Do you think I have a case?