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Injury!
Every year, I go Christmas shopping with my parents. It's a tradition that we all love. Sometimes my niece can go with us, but usually not because for some reason, teenagers have to go to school and their moms won't always let them skip. :) Around Thanksgiving, we start talking about what day we can go. My mom is sort of freaking out about not having her shopping done yet, and so we decided last week to meet on Friday in Lexington... Lexington being an actual city, compared to either of our small towns, and conveniently located between us. My dear sweet child hates to shop, but was appeased by the offer to go spend the night with Granny, in theory. In actuality, I think she was less over her cold/ear infection than I thought she was, because I finally gave her Tylenol when she couldn't stop crying and she was much happier just before we left. I had previously thought she was well. Hmm. Anyway, we finally are ready to walk out the door on Friday morning and I am really, really looking forward to the day. We rarely get much in the way of shopping done, but we always have fun! And I had been stuck at home almost all week with a sick kiddo. And I had even made a special trip to get gas while Evie was at ballet the night before, and I even remembered to bring the stroller so Evie could ride at the mall. (We're not stroller people, much, so when the occasion comes that she should have it, we usually don't have it with us.) I was SET. And then I stepped outside to take the first load of stuff I needed to bring with us to the car, while Evie was getting her shoes on, and.... I don't know what exactly happened, but I stepped down on my right foot and it twisted and went POP in a loud, sickening fashion, and instant searing pain shot up my leg. And that was pretty much the end of my Christmas shopping day.
I didn't go to the doctor but it's pretty clearly sprained. I think I overdid it on Saturday and put the healing several steps back because when I got out of bed on Saturday morning, it was almost fine.. but then walking on it all morning didn't seem to help it. My whole foot swelled up like... well, like nothing more than that said foot was about nine months pregnant. Some of the swelling has gone down today, but it's still stiff and sore. I'm guessing that it's going to give me trouble throughout the remainder of time left before Christmas. Excellent!
I should add that my parents did a couple of errands in Lexington and came on down to my house after I couldn't come. After a couple of hours, we headed out for a little bit of shopping in town, where I found myself wheelchairs. You know, riding one of those electric carts at Walmart when one looks like a perfectly healthy, relatively young, woman? Kind of embarrassing.
Then, Evie went home with them and has been there ever since. We had some stuff to do on Saturday and they volunteered to come get her for that reason, and also so she could go to one of her cousin's birthday parties. The original plan was for me to come up to pick her up today and spend the day helping Mom clean or wrap presents or whatever she wanted me to do. (My idea, because I am nice that way.) Alas, not feeling so helpful with a bum ankle and sort of afraid to drive three hours with it. (There and back.) So.. I called yesterday afternoon and said that we would come get either then, or Mom could bring her down here on Tuesday, since she's planning on coming then anyway. (Parent night at ballet! Finally get to see her at ballet lessons! Looking forward to it so much.) She said she'd just bring her as long as it was okay with Evie, who probably thought she won the lottery when asked if she wanted to stay an extra day.
So.... I have another day to do whatever I want and I am not even sure what to do with it. It's really weird because it had been months since she stayed the night with my mom before our anniversary weekend last month. Then two weeks later she ended up there on a Thursday night and M and I went to pick her up on Saturday. The next week she's there for three more days. And it's great to be able to get some stuff done, and some time alone, but on Saturday evening I started really missing her and kind of wanted to go pick her up. I was SURE when I called on Sunday that Mom would want us to come on up and get her because the answer to any question of the variety "Should we come up?" is always YES. :) But.. no. hehe. The distance adds an interesting dimension to going to Granny's. It's close enough that I could go up any time. It's far enough that you really strive to avoid making the drive as much as possible.
Spraining an ankle, of course, did nothing to keep me home on Saturday, for that was Sam's day! ($500 shopping spree sponsored by M's boss. I have described this many times. I'm sure you're all sick of it.) I really and truly wish everyone could do this at least once. It's so much fun, much more than just the actual shopping with free money aspect. One of the things that's fun is that they set up a table with breakfast (ham sandwich croissants, fruit, coffee, juice, water, etc) and close down two checkout lanes with a couple of employees dedicated to this. He spends $14,000 there that morning so I'd imagine that they do rather bend over backwards to make him happy. *laugh* Anyway, one of the things that makes it fun is that the employees who are working those lines? They're almost as excited as we are. This year, we bought a massage seat, a blu-ray player--hello, it's 2011 and we didn't have blu-ray...and the only reason we have it now is because of the netflix feature--and a bunch of assorted household stuff. Dishwashing detergent, toilet paper, some groceries, etc. I wish we would bring everything in and take pictures of it because I'd like to look back at them and see what we bought other years. Anyway, our total ended up at $500.17. We paid $.17 for everything. I think we WON, cause it's not likely that anyone else would get closer than that. I am, however, horrified that we got that close. We might have lost money! We thought we were several dollars over so apparently our math skills are as bad as everyone else. I know I was making fun of the people who end up giving money on the gift cards back to the boss. :) Another common mistake is to forget the consider that 6% tax on $500 is $30 in itself. I think we did that the first year. ;)
And now... it's time to get started on the day. I slept late and have been lazing around all morning. Time for a shower! And after that, my biggest goal for the day is to cut something out of the vinyl I bought for my digital cutter. I don't even care what it is that I cut. ;) Should be a nice relaxing day.
I didn't go to the doctor but it's pretty clearly sprained. I think I overdid it on Saturday and put the healing several steps back because when I got out of bed on Saturday morning, it was almost fine.. but then walking on it all morning didn't seem to help it. My whole foot swelled up like... well, like nothing more than that said foot was about nine months pregnant. Some of the swelling has gone down today, but it's still stiff and sore. I'm guessing that it's going to give me trouble throughout the remainder of time left before Christmas. Excellent!
I should add that my parents did a couple of errands in Lexington and came on down to my house after I couldn't come. After a couple of hours, we headed out for a little bit of shopping in town, where I found myself wheelchairs. You know, riding one of those electric carts at Walmart when one looks like a perfectly healthy, relatively young, woman? Kind of embarrassing.
Then, Evie went home with them and has been there ever since. We had some stuff to do on Saturday and they volunteered to come get her for that reason, and also so she could go to one of her cousin's birthday parties. The original plan was for me to come up to pick her up today and spend the day helping Mom clean or wrap presents or whatever she wanted me to do. (My idea, because I am nice that way.) Alas, not feeling so helpful with a bum ankle and sort of afraid to drive three hours with it. (There and back.) So.. I called yesterday afternoon and said that we would come get either then, or Mom could bring her down here on Tuesday, since she's planning on coming then anyway. (Parent night at ballet! Finally get to see her at ballet lessons! Looking forward to it so much.) She said she'd just bring her as long as it was okay with Evie, who probably thought she won the lottery when asked if she wanted to stay an extra day.
So.... I have another day to do whatever I want and I am not even sure what to do with it. It's really weird because it had been months since she stayed the night with my mom before our anniversary weekend last month. Then two weeks later she ended up there on a Thursday night and M and I went to pick her up on Saturday. The next week she's there for three more days. And it's great to be able to get some stuff done, and some time alone, but on Saturday evening I started really missing her and kind of wanted to go pick her up. I was SURE when I called on Sunday that Mom would want us to come on up and get her because the answer to any question of the variety "Should we come up?" is always YES. :) But.. no. hehe. The distance adds an interesting dimension to going to Granny's. It's close enough that I could go up any time. It's far enough that you really strive to avoid making the drive as much as possible.
Spraining an ankle, of course, did nothing to keep me home on Saturday, for that was Sam's day! ($500 shopping spree sponsored by M's boss. I have described this many times. I'm sure you're all sick of it.) I really and truly wish everyone could do this at least once. It's so much fun, much more than just the actual shopping with free money aspect. One of the things that's fun is that they set up a table with breakfast (ham sandwich croissants, fruit, coffee, juice, water, etc) and close down two checkout lanes with a couple of employees dedicated to this. He spends $14,000 there that morning so I'd imagine that they do rather bend over backwards to make him happy. *laugh* Anyway, one of the things that makes it fun is that the employees who are working those lines? They're almost as excited as we are. This year, we bought a massage seat, a blu-ray player--hello, it's 2011 and we didn't have blu-ray...and the only reason we have it now is because of the netflix feature--and a bunch of assorted household stuff. Dishwashing detergent, toilet paper, some groceries, etc. I wish we would bring everything in and take pictures of it because I'd like to look back at them and see what we bought other years. Anyway, our total ended up at $500.17. We paid $.17 for everything. I think we WON, cause it's not likely that anyone else would get closer than that. I am, however, horrified that we got that close. We might have lost money! We thought we were several dollars over so apparently our math skills are as bad as everyone else. I know I was making fun of the people who end up giving money on the gift cards back to the boss. :) Another common mistake is to forget the consider that 6% tax on $500 is $30 in itself. I think we did that the first year. ;)
And now... it's time to get started on the day. I slept late and have been lazing around all morning. Time for a shower! And after that, my biggest goal for the day is to cut something out of the vinyl I bought for my digital cutter. I don't even care what it is that I cut. ;) Should be a nice relaxing day.