MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Y'all, I fell down the stairs while I was at work the other day.  Why am I so accident prone?  Geez.  Actually, I didn't fall down that far, and by the grace of God (and a call from the pastor's daughter, who needed it for an upcoming vacation) I just so happened to be holding a Styrofoam boogie board when I fell, so I didn't end up killing myself.  I was on the second to the last step when my right foot did something weird.  I still don't know if I twisted my ankle, my shoe fell off, or what, but I went flying off of the step. 

I know the fall was over in less than a second, but I seemed to just sort of hang there in midair for a moment, yelling out a slow motion  "Nooooooooooooooooooooo" in that deep, slurry voice you usually hear when someone jumps in front of a bullet in action movies.  It would have been comical if I hadn't been so sure of my own death at that moment.

Of course, then I crashed to the ground.  I landed hard, left knee first on the boogie board.  That was probably the only thing that kept me from breaking my leg.  If I'd landed without the board, I'd probably still be in the hospital getting a plastic knee cap.  My right leg twisted, but didn't take the brunt of my weight, so even though it hurt, it wasn't too bad.  I know I made a lot of noise, and the people in the office HAD to know that I'd fallen.  I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, so I didn't say anything when I went back in, and they were nice enough to ignore my limping progress across the room.  How embarrassing.

2)  I'm still going to the gym, and I've managed to lose some weight, although not nearly as much as I would have hoped at this stage.  At least people can finally kind of see that I've lost some.  It's funny, though, because when they ask me and I tell them that, yes, I've lost some weight, they always tell me that they can really tell it in my face.

It makes me wonder how fat my face was before!

3) Sara's wedding shower was last week and it went so well!  I was tickled!  Sara and I rode down together, which was great because I would have never found the house on my own. :)  One of her other bridesmaids, Hilary, held the shower at her house in Hoover, (there's some alliteration for you today) and she had it all decorated with New Orleans signs and Mardi Gras masks, and everything was so nice!  Hilary is some kind of super woman.  She just had a baby two weeks before, and she still had enough energy to throw a party!  I jumped in to help her prepare the food, and I sugared beignets, stirred red beans and rice, and made grits for the first time ever!  I also learned the hard way that grits will spit at you.  Not only did I burn the hell out of my finger, but I got splashes of grits all over me.  I was wearing a dark blue dress and by the time we got the shrimp and grits in the serving dish, I looked like Monica Lewenski. 

She had lots of guests and got some really nice gifts, and I met a a few of her sorority sisters!

Don't tell her, but I accidentally knocked her cake off of the stand when I was serving it.  I did pick it up and managed to get it back on the cake stand, but it had a big hand print on top.  I cut it all up to hide that, though.  Sorry, Sara! :)

Oh, and speaking of Hilary's baby...  Most of you know that I don't hold tiny babies because I'm fairly sure I'll break them.  I didn't try and hold this one either, but I did approach her while she was sitting in some kind of carrier on the kitchen table.  She was being very good, and so I reached out and touched her tiny little toes that were sticking out from beneath her blanket and said "Hello, baby!"  Right away I felt her feet shaking.  It was violent and completely unnatural and my first reaction was "Oh, no! She must be freezing!" My second reaction was "AHHHHHHH!  I need an old priest and a young priest!"  It scared me because I know babies don't vibrate when they're cold!  I started to have a mild freak out, but then I realized it was the chair vibrating and not the baby.

Things like that do not help my fear of babies.

4) Last night was Steve's end-of-summer concert, which was blissfully held inside the church where they practice.  They sounded amazing.  It was probably the best I'd ever heard them play, and that's saying something.  I'm usually guilted into going to almost every concert, so I've heard them play a lot!  I'll probably have video soon so you can hear.

Anyways, as usual, I was asked to film the concert, so I found an unobtrusive corner of the church's sanctuary and set up the camera.  The first song they played was The Star Spangled Banner, and everyone stood up, as most Americans are wont to do.  Then a bunch of them turned and started staring in my direction.  It freaked me out because I didn't know what to do!  I thought maybe I was being rude or doing something wrong (I always put my hand over my heart just in case, but I wondered if that wasn't somehow wrong) but it just turned out I'd set the camera up right in front of the American flag without realizing it!  The people who turned my way proceeded to stare in my direction for the entire song and I didn't know what to do with my face or my body and I got very awkward.  I was trapped behind the camera and behind a large piece of equipment used to hold music stands, so I couldn't just move out of the way either.  By the time the song was over, my skin had crawled about as far as it could without getting away from me and I know I had the stupidest look on my face from trying to look nonchalant.  I can only hope that everyone who turned around was looking over my head or something and didn't see me.