RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) My ankle is much better, thanks for asking! :)  It's weird how quickly it got better after initially thinking I'd probably really damaged it.  I've sprained my ankle a bunch of times, but it had never hurt like that before.  After taking Jeoff's advice about how to take care of it, and thinking it was just fine, I ended up rolling it again (because of course I did).  It swelled back up, so Steve talked me into going to the Doc-In-The-Box and getting it checked out just in case.  After being in the dreaded clinic for two hours, having 6 X-Rays - three initial and three re-dos, and having the doctor pull and twist my leg into a balloon animal, I was told I was just fine and that I could go back to the gym the next day.  In fact, he gave me the exact same advice that Jeoff gave me to begin with.  He did give me a prescription for some anti-inflammatory pills, and I got a brace with rigid sides to wear the rest of the week, but now my ankle seems back to normal.  Well, sort of.  It feels like the bones in my ankle don't meet up anymore.  I don't think there's anything wrong, because with all the X-Rays, I'm sure they'd have told me if anything was amiss.  So now I just need to watch where I step! :)

2) Oh, and speaking of all of that... I mentioned that I slipped on a puddle at Home Depot in my last post.  I'd assumed at the time that it was water that had leaked from a car that had been parked there, but we had to go back there yesterday and get some stuff, and there was a puddle in the same place!  I guess something must be leaking.  They are so going to get sued.

3) Steve and I are getting our kitchen remodeled! I'm so excited!  Well, I don't know if you would call it getting remodeled, since basically we're just getting some new cabinets and an island, but I'm still excited.  The old cabinets were put in when the house was built in 1949.  None of them are to code, there isn't enough room for our dishes in them, and trying to find hinges or any kind of replacement parts for them has been a nightmare.  Also, we've gone through two counter tops, and while I love the blue tile ones that Steve built for me, it's so hard to keep them clean.  We're getting a local carpenter to build them for us.  We've seen some of his work, and it is beautiful, but the guy looks like he's about 12 years old.  This will be the first major change we've had done on the house since I've lived here, so I'm eager to see how it will look.  The down side to this is that we're going to have to repaint the kitchen walls and ceiling, and I hate painting walls.  Luckily, we're keeping the dark red color, so at least we won't have to spend days and days trying to cover a dark color with a light one.  Woot!

4) I feel so awful!  Last week I volunteered to do a bit of graphics work for a friend of mine.  He needed someone to make a logo for a Facebook page that his group of storm chasers are putting together. Honestly, I wasn't 100% sure what it was he needed, because when he sent me the email about the logo, he said he was drawing a blank and that whatever I could come up with would be fine.  So I worked for a day or two and came up with a few for him to chose from, he picked one out, and we did some tweaking until it was just what he wanted. 

I got another email today saying that he had finally gotten together with the whole group and showed them the logo I created, and they'd vetoed it.  Apparently they thought it would be a bit distasteful to use a logo with a tornado graphic when the Facebook page they were creating was a memorial for some of their friends who'd been killed in the tornadoes that had hit last year!  Oops.  I thought I was creating a logo for the storm chasers themselves that would include mention of their friends, not one specifically for the memorial page.  Eeeesh.  I'm so tacky.   My only saving grace is that my friend, the one who originally picked out the logo, didn't think about that either.  However, all was not lost.  They'd decided what kind of logo they did want and sent me a rough draft and some files, and I managed to get them what they needed.  Still...eeeeeesh.

5)  Butler and Bear tried to kill each other again this weekend.  I have no idea what is wrong with them, because it isn't as if they hate each other!  Seriously, if one of them is away from the other, they have a fit until they are reunited!  But if they are together, they act like a couple of grumpy old men!  It's insane.  The worst part about this fight is that Butler lost yet another tooth!  At least this time it was one of the smaller ones, but jeez.  He either must have the worst teeth in the history of all dogs, or he really bites hard when he and Bear are fighting. Dumb dogs.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING: THE TEMPLE OF DOOM

1)  SIGH.  Do you remember a couple of months ago I told you about having a traumatic experience that involved my dog Butler, his kennel, and some severe gastric distress?  Well, it happened again, only with the other dog.  *SHUDDER*  Don't worry, I'm not going to give you a blow by blow of the situation, mainly because I don't like talking about poo.  However, this time Steve was out of town and I had to deal with it all alone, and believe it or not, I think I handled the situation better this time.  Of course, I already had some experience with this, so how could I not handle it better?  It was still gross and traumatizing, but at least I didn't cry or get rained on this time.

Unfortunately, Bear was really sick, and it wasn't just an adverse reaction to eating too many of the wrong treats.  He was so sick that after wrestling him into and out of the shower (gah...) I had to take him to the vet.  Bless him, he hates going to the vet, and he cowered against the wall most of the time we were there.  We also ended up seeing the vet that usually drives me insane with rage, but since I was worried about the dog, I was able to resist beating her about the head and face with my shoes.  The poor doggy had to have an IV and be poked and prodded in every orifice.  He kept looking at me with his pitiful little face as if I was doing all if this just to be mean, and if you've ever seen a border collie look sad, you know that it broke my heart.   Before the vet came back with any sort of decision on what to do, I kept having this awful worry that Bear could be really sick, as in, maybe he'd have to go live on a "farm" kind of sick, and I'd have to make that decision by myself since Steve was in D.C. and I didn't know if I could handle that.  I was almost in tears.  Luckily, though, the vet came back and said that while it looked bad it probably wasn't anything serious, or at least they couldn't detect anything very serious at the time.  They had to give me special food and pills, and probably the most complicated set of instructions for feeding a dog I've ever heard.  They also told me I'd have to keep watch on him to make sure he wasn't getting depressed or more lethargic (and quite frankly, if he got any more lethargic he'd be dead) because that meant we'd have to bring him back and do x-rays and blood work and all manner of terrible things to him.   Happily, he seems to be doing better, so I guess whatever it was has passed or is in the process of passing.  I'm very glad. 

2) I almost broke my arm in the single lamest way possible last week. Before Steve left on his trip, he asked me to wash and dry a new button up shirt to get rid of the creases (and as an aside...why are mens shirts so complicated? Geez.)  Anyway, I don't normally just wash or dry one thing, but since the shirt was new, I didn't want to run the risk of it getting linty or snagged on anything else, so it was the only thing in the dryer when I went to check on it.

Now, something is wrong with our dryer, in the sense that when you open the door, the tumbling doesn't stop like it is supposed to.  It just keeps going.  I keep forgetting about that problem since I don't normally open the door as it's running.  This time I opened the door, saw the shirt, and decided to grab for it.  I honestly don't know what I was thinking, because had I been thinking clearly, I obviously would have turned the dryer off first. When I stuck my arm in, one of the paddles that help tumble the clothes caught my arm just above the elbow and slammed it into the top of the top of the machine.

You know that moment after you hurt yourself, when the pain hasn't quite gotten there yet and you're basically just standing there clutching the part of you that has been injured?  That's when I stood there in a blind panic, hoping to all that was good and holy that I hadn't broken my humerus or dislocated my elbow while drying a damn shirt.  I'm not sure what hurt worse, my arm, or the idea that I'd have to tell a doctor that I hurt myself because I was too stupid to turn off a piece of machinery before sticking my arm into it.  Of course, then the pain hit and all of that flew out of my head.  I'm glad to tell you that my arm, while bruised and lumpy, did not get broken.  It hurts, of course, but I'm taking that as a reminder from God that I should show more intelligence when operating household machines.

Also, and this is just between you and me, I decided if I did have to go to the hospital about my arm, I was going to lie and say I'd broken it while saving a baby from a rabid mountain goat...or something equally heroic.

3) Steve and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary last Friday!  Yeah, I know...I'm just as shocked as you are.

Anyway, we had a very nice day!  We didn't do anything fancy, and we skipped The Melting Pot this year, but we drove over to Mentone and spent the day rambling through leaves and antique shops.  I've been to Mentone twice before while I as in high school: both times during band camp.  I'd never seen any of the town at all, so this was way more fun than band camp.  Of course, getting my arm caught in the dryer was more fun than band camp...but I digress.  The place is gorgeous this time of year with all the leaves and everything.  None of the pictures I took could do it justice, and I also forgot to take a foot picture, which makes me sad. :(  Steve and I ate at a restaurant called Moonlight Bistro, which was inside an old log cabiny place.  Steve said it used to be a different kind of restaurant, more country cooking than bistro chic, but it was a nice place.  The food was good...so I recommend it!  We also looked through the souvenir shops and a giant antique store (which was housed in an old hotel built in 1910, I think.)  It was awesome and crammed full of all kinds of stuff.  I was in a constant state of fear that I'd break everything, but it was still fun.  I'll be going back to peruse the giant collection of depression glass, I think. 

Since we couldn't find anything made of steel to buy out there (apparently, the gift for year 11 is steel. Weird.) we drove back into Huntsville and got a stainless steel mulling infuser from Williams Sanoma.  I know that sounds random, but the we didn't need utensils or pots, and this seemed to make as much sense as anything else.  I guess this means we will do some mulling of cider or wine this year.  Just got to figure out what that means!  :)

4) Saturday was the Fayetteville, TN Host of Christmas Past event!  Madison Community Band was performing again this year, so I was there to listen to Steve play!  The band sounded great, as usual, and I managed to record one of their songs.  It was my favorite of their whole set, called "Bugler's Holiday."  The sound isn't so great, because I recorded it with my camera, plus there was a giant generator clacking along behind me and that screwed up the sound as well.


They sounded amazing in person, though.  The guys who play the main trumpet part are so good!  I wish you could've heard how it really sounded.  You could hear all of the yellow.

Steve also played in the brass quintet later that night.  There is some kind of reverse caroling thing that goes on in the historic district where music groups play on the porches of some of the homes and people walk around to listen to them.  They also sounded great.  The video doesn't make much sense because there was a camera-man from a local TV station standing in the way, but I only filmed it for the sound anyway.