Productive weekend so far

I've had a good weekend so far! It's been the first weekend since I moved that I didn't have company or that I didn't have to go anywhere so I was kind of looking forward to it. Thankfully the weather was awesome for sleeping! When the weather is cool and sunny in the morning, I don't sleep in necessarily, but I don't get out of bed until late. It's one of my very favorite things.

So Saturday after I dragged myself out of bed and had a half a pot of coffee, I watched a little tv. I'm finding I don't watch tv except for the news during the week much right now. Maybe that will change once school starts and I need to unwind more after a long day, but we'll see. So I have like 11 episodes of Craig Ferguson to go through and I can't erase them because that would be sacrilegious because he is awesome and makes me laugh like crazy. Then I dragged out a radio, put on some tunes, and tackled my spare bedroom. I had a bunch of laundry to do too, so between those two things, I was pretty busy until about 7pm-ish.

Today I've got some rearranging to do in the living room and some sorting of cd's and stuff. I've got most if not all of my old cassette tapes still from when I was in junior high/high school (is that cool or what! haha) so I've got to figure out what I should do with them...there's a lot of them. I think at one time I had upwards of over 200 of them, plus over 30 singles. That makes for quite a bit of storage conundrums...especially since it's difficult to find storage made for cassette tapes now-a-days! :-) What a dork I am.

Today I should cut my grass, but it's really not that tall yet, so I'm going to just wait until later this week, possibly tuesday or wednesday to cut it. Work starts "for real" tomorrow, so I'm very glad I've been able to get all this stuff done and taken care of so I can just get buried in work.:-)

Toooooo Much Time

I have too much time on my hands. Let me rephrase that. I have too much UNSTRUCTURED time on my hands. My to-do list is hella-long and growing exponentially...but my motivation is somewhere else. Maybe I left it at the Sheraton in Bloomington or maybe I forgot it at the gas station in Menahga this last weekend on my trip down to Perham. Actually, it's probably buried underneath all the boxes and crap in my spare bedroom. That's just really too bad because I kinda need that motivation to CLEAN that room. Irony. Life's sense of humor.

Also, I can tell that I'm either super avoiding stuff (i.e. procrastinating) or am bored because I keep posting stuff and spend FARRRRRR too much time thinking. That's nice and all and very much needed, but I think enough is enough. Time to get buried in work. That's kinda masochistic, huh? I can't wait. :-)

Oh yea, my advisor emailed me this morning and said "time to get your paper completed! submit 4 copies, blah blah blah". Well, he can just wait a little bit and get keep his panties from getting into a bundle cuz I emailed him over a MONTH ago asking for some advising but never got it, so he's on MY time table now. Secretly though, I'm really ready to get back in to that and AM excited to get back into the paper and get stuff revised and ready to resubmit. I think I'm also going to talk to them about doing some presenting at some spring and summer conferences along with submitting drafts to be published in various trade journals/publications. Rock on.

Today I have to go to a district for a meeting on implementing PBIS (positive behavior intervention supports) -which is awesome and to me, completely based on common sense. I'm soooooo excited to be able to be working with a school that's piloting this kind of disciplinary style formally with the state. Research, research, research!!!!! This will be a spectacular year! :-)

Playin Hookey

I'm kinda playing a little hookey today. Not really, but it feels like it. I'm "supposed" to be at a workshop for a math program today all day in town. I went to the morning session, but since I don't teach it, it just seemed like a waste of time to do the afternoon session. I got the concept of the program down very well and understand the philosophy and general process of how it's developmentally designed. It's excellent, actually, and I would HIGHLY recommend it -as well as the reading program workshop I attended all day on Monday.

But anyway, so at lunch break, I decided to make a clean break and come home to get some emails fired off and some other research done on my school districts. Next week I think I'll be taking a trip out to each of my schools and meeting the secretaries there, getting faculty lists, lists of important meetings, etc...kind of a "sneaky" way of gathering info and becoming familiar with districts before the staff workshop on Sept 1st. I'm a firm believer in research and "the more you know" (including "what you don't know CAN hurt you"), so quietly asking around and gathering info is kind of what I do well. Then I'll make sure my "radar" is opened up and running to catch any undercurrents I might want to be aware of at the same time. I learn TONS from impressions, intuition, and observation. That's been pretty true of me since I was a kid and I've only gotten better at it since I've gotten older. I think especially in the past 5 years. In fact, I'm going to go off on a tangent right now. For a while now, I've felt like a different person than who I used to be, though I still feel the same somewhat...but it's difficult to explain. When I reflect on my life, I see myself now as someone different than I used to be on the outside but not completely on the inside, and who I am right now was still me back then, but it was just a glimmer or like a light that was trying to get out from the inside when I was younger. Kinda like I was just living, going through the motions and either not very self-aware, or just not very aware period -or just had so much crap going on inside my head that there just wasn't room for anything else. But there was always that part of the "me now" that was always there then...but could never get out for whatever reason. It's like now I'm more authentic and more "me" -well, I'm definitely confident in that and like myself now -and what I don't like about myself I empower myself to change or allow myself to accept as a "just me" quirk or something, unapologetically. I'm not sure how I figured it out or what combination of things happened...but I suspect it was just a conglomeration of much reflection, decision making, very hard work, stubbornness, perseverance, and a gradual learning to just plain love myself for who I am that did it. So that's cool and all. And probably, if anyone ever asked me what my greatest accomplishment in the world so far was, I would say "I've learned to like myself, love myself and all my faults, understand myself and what I want out of life, am at peace with what I want compared with what other people/society may think is right for me, and I know I make the choice to be happy". But, i probably wouldn't because that kinda sounds pompous, right? -and that's soooo not my intent. But it's the God's honest truth. Yes, I've accomplished a GREAT deal in the last 10 years in my work with troubled, at-risk teenagers and affected so many kids positively and hopefully their lives are better and they feel better about themselves and know they are ok no matter where and what and who they come from...but the absolutely cool and completely unexpected thing I think that's come out of that has been my own personal greatest accomplishment. I only recently pieced that together in my head today reflecting on a conversation I had with a friend late last night.

So with all that heebie jeebie stuff comes trusting my instincts and I have some very good instincts about people. That's been very valuable for my in my work with troubled, at-risk teenagers -and for the most part I can open that up to adults and just "know" stuff. It works for my family and people I'm close to, and I don't like to admit that cuz now I know I've unnerved everyone. Sorry! It's impressions, people. Feelings... and feelings don't always have words or logic, so no harm, no foul. Like I always tried to teach my students, feelings are good and should always be allowed to be felt...it's what we DO with those feelings and how we take care of them that counts (i.e. anger management, self-injurious behavior, addictive tendencies, self-loathing...that's the kind of stuff I dealt with on a daily basis). I think also that's why I need time to decompress at home after long bouts with lots of people. Too much energy buzzing around & that needs to settle or I get VERY crabby. :-)

But anyway, full circle now to the beginning of the post. On my day of playing hookey, I am also planning on getting some stuff in my spare bedroom sorted out and put away. I want to sort out what books, etc I'm taking to my office and what I need to organize for here. My goal is to have everything sorted and settled by the beginning of the school year, Sept 8th. Good luck to me, huh? :-)

To Twitter Or Not To Twitter....That Is The Question

A long time ago, when Twitter was first coming out I though, holy crap, who's got the time for this! Also, how the heck could my life be THAT interesting that I would want to Twitter about it and why would I want to subscribe to someone else's Twitterings????

Now, EVERYONE and EVERYTHING is Twittering. I'm talkin like professional organizations!!! That's INSANE! Damnit. Crap. That's the lure Twitter is using against me to turn me over to the dark side. I feel the pull...the sweet, seductive pull of the power of the dark side.....

I still think it's insane and I'm still undecided....and I'll be undecided until I decide that it will make me more "in the know" and that "more in the know" is directly related to positive career influences and without it I'll be left in the dust by some other go-getter who thinks they know more than I do (HAHAHA!!). Until then...everyone can Twitter away cuz I really don't want to spend the time or energy.

Super Fun Happy Time

This weekend was a long one but a fun one. Just coming off of a long week away, I spent about 15 hours at home (about half of those sleeping)and packed my bags again to spend the weekend in Perham. We decided to surprise my mom and dad for their anniversary with all of us kids coming home for one weekend and then getting a complete family picture taken at the same time. Well, they sure were surprised! They knew Anna and Ben were coming up and that's what we used to keep them from making plans for the weekend -and Tony did some calling around to make sure Dad didn't do any stuff at the funeral home on the weekend either because the boys were planning on going golf -and it was a surprise that Andy would show up for it.

Well, the weather sucked out for golf for the boys, but that actually worked out very well cuz we just grilled some burgers and threw some stuff together for an early supper. Then mom and dad had planned on attending a class reunion thing that Saturday evening, so they went to that and us kids played Apples to Apples. I had some Jameson whiskey with my brother in law Ben and before we knew it, the full bottle was almost gone. That was a good time, but I think everyone else had more fun watching the two of us drunk fools. I should know better too because I've become somewhat of a light weight, especially when it comes to whiskey -and Ben's like twice the size of me practically, so going toe-to-toe with him was probably NOT a good idea! But good times were had all around by all.

Today, we went to church (it was HOT and stuffy...ick). And after church, we had our family pictures taken by a friend of Tony's. We didn't take a "funny" one...that was too bad, but it was too hot and stuffy and the kids were getting kinda squirrely, so we decided to wrap it up and go. Then we seemed to be sitting around at mom and dad's for a while, visiting, which was fine, while lunch was being cooked. Dad made Tony and Andy cut down a dead tree in the front yard because he had Grandpa make him (or maybe it was Grandpa's idea??) an eagle out of wood. Strange looking thing....if I can say so myself. He anchored it on the stump, facing the "southeast", which means that it's facing the flag he's got flying at the end of the driveway. So that's nice and patriotic I guess. How interesting that the neighbors had carved an eagle out of an entire tree stump with a chain saw a year or so ago and have that in their yard now...and now dad has this weird-ish looking one sitting on a tree stump in his yard. Funny.

I am glad to be home tonight and glad I have no where to really go for the next two weeks. Visiting is nice, but I'm a huge homebody, so being home is one of my favorite things -especially where I'm living now. The views are nice and even the air smells great. I took a nap this afternoon too -it ended up being a 3 hour one!! It was the best nap I've ever taken I think!!! When I woke up, there were no clouds and the sun was just starting to get low in the sky, so the shadows were getting longer and the sunlight coming through the trees and off the lake was golden, soft and warm.

So this week I kinda start working. It's more like "easing into" it. I hit the job hardcore next week. Then it's for real. I've got LOTS and LOTS of reviewing and prepping to do this week and this weekend. Busy, busy, busy.

No Title

Heh, I just realized I did not title my last post...but who cares. Anyway, I just wanted to say that my grass is KINDA long, but not long enough to mow tonight or tomorrow so I just MIGHT leave it until Sunday or Monday...I think Monday sounds like a good day for that!! haha. And thankfully, I do not have to go down to MPLS for another workshop next week. I was kind of concerned about that because I would have been missing 2 days of stuff up here that I was going to stick my nose into and I'd much rather learn about the stuff HERE (like the staff, the "hidden curriculum" i.e. culture, the procedures, etc) than go down for 2 days to learn how to observe early childhood teachers. YEa, that's useful and blah blah blah...but that won't tell me which curriculum Greenway is using for their remedial math program or which supplementary materials Deer River is using for reading recovery. PLUS, Deer River is piloting PBIS (positive behavior intervention and supports) for the next two years with state support, and one of their organizational meetings is being held on the day I would have been gone. I am ALLLLLLL about the PBIS. That stuff is where it's at for treating students with dignity, respect, and still clearly defining limits, rules, and doling out consequences when needed. Perfect.

So, I'm very write-ey tonight. I had a long week!!!! I did no blogging or writing other than a few facebook status updates, maybe responded to some stuff, and writing only for my seminar. And the texting I may have done does not count cuz I have FARRR too much to say most of the time than can fit into my text field. Ever have that problem? I do ALLLLLLLLLL the time. Anyway, it's gonna rain like crazy here soon, so I've got to make sure my windows are all closed up nice & tight.

This was a long week. I was in Bloomington, MN all week long for a training for work since Monday afternoon. It was a week packed with LOSER Twins games, reconnections, visits with family, and learnin. On Monday, I met an old friend I hadn't seen in close to 10 years for supper and it was very good to catch up. We ate at Don Pablo's and that was pretty good. I can't remember if I've ever eaten at one of those before, but it was ok. Kinda "chainey", but just fine.

Tuesday my seminar/training began and it was on non-violent crisis intervention. We learned verbal/nonverbal de-escalation and also some physical intervention (non-violent/non-invasive of course) techniques -defensive moves, control positions (they aren't called "restraints" in this program), transport positions, etc. Actually, we just learned the defensive moves and all the "lecture" stuff on Tuesday. Then I went to the Twins game with my aunt Chris, uncle Darrel, my aunt Bev, my cousin Jesse from Bemidji, and my uncle Greg. We all met at the Mall of America and rode the light rail up to the Metrodome. That was the best idea ever. How cheap and easy. At least that was great. The Twins SUCKED and I don't even want to talk about it. We had "all you can eat" seats. I can't really eat that much anymore with all the eating habit changes I've been doing for the past 8 months now, so that wasn't too exciting (and that kind of food gives me a tummy ache anyway most of the time), but I could have all the bottled water I wanted, so I took FULL advantage of that!! It was a late night and we left in the 8th inning.

On Wednesday, there was more learnin goin on during the day at my seminar. We learned all the physical restraint stuff and a little more of the lecture component stuff, starting to move into the "train the trainer" portion of the seminar, which was my reason for doing this since I'm going to have to be my cooperative's trainer this year. Then in the evening I met up with another old friend I haven't talked to or seen in practically 20 years I think. That was really nice to reconnect and it was like old times practically -weird but in a very good way. We went to the Redstone Grill (I think that's the name?) in Minnetonka (I think...close to that, wherever Ridgedale is...maybe Wayzata)-which was awesome because every other single time I've been down there and wanted to go to this particular restaurant it's been PACKED. Then did some sight seeing downtown at the stone arch bridge -I haven't been down there for AGES. Totally freakin awesome.

Then Thursday, seminar again. This time we were given our "assignments" for our presentations we were to do on Friday. Kinda stress inducing, but still a little ok. And I did use my time wisely between my visiting and reconnecting to get my "homework" done. Then that evening I went up to St. Paul and met my cousin Jodi and her husband Tom for supper at a Champs up there and had a very nice time with them. They are expecting their first child any day now, so I was glad I was able to spend a little bit of time with them before their lives were consumed by that change! Both of them are so awesomely good humored and the nicest people you'll ever meet, so that put together makes for a very comfortable but HILARIOUS time!! It's weird how when you grow up you just don't spend that much time with people but certain circumstances here and there with life create different connections that in turn create other similarities and, well, bam. There you are, forging new relationships or strengthening already present bonds that had been just dormant for a while.

Anyway. So then today, Friday, I did my presentation for my seminar (which I rocked, by the way. All of those graduate degrees are good for something I guess -especially since my programs were all competency and field-practice based) and took the test and was out of there by 1:05 at the latest. However......I did not get home until about 6. Riddle me that, now, would you? Well...let me tell you a story...

So I thought I'd take Hwy 35W out of the cities and up towards Duluth, because 169 was alright, but I wanted to see how this route went, right? Well, WRONG IDEA. They are redoing stretches of I35 after Forest Lake and traffic was SOOOOOO BAD and congested that it took literally (and I'm not kidding or exaggerating) 2 hours to go 45 miles. I never went over 25mph, mostly it was a 5mph crawl. It was insane and completely ridiculous. I mean, REALLY, COMPLETELY ridiculous. So yea. Instead of taking 3 or so hours, it took me 5.

I was really glad to be home though. I needed some decompression time, especially after that drive!!! -and the week was stressful too. Lots of visiting, LOTS of learning and even more performing and DOING for the training. And since this place here is still so new to me...I just wanted to be in my "house" and chill out...recharge my batteries and get on with the next thing.

Another Weekend Closer To the End

This weekend was pretty fun. I was in Hillsboro on Thursday at a co-worker from ASEC's house for a Lia Sophia party and stayed the night there. It was nice catching up with her. Another co-worker is a Lia Sophia sales consultant who did the party, so it was fun catching up with her as well. Then on Friday I made my way to Perham where I stopped in Detroit Lakes to get an oil change and some other stuff done to my car that Pontiac had recalled. I needed some stuff reprogrammed or something. My "change oil" light hadn't come on yet...and it had been over 9,000 miles since my last oil change, so I thought I had better get my butt in there! Turns out I was ok...the service guys at Norseman's just shrugged when I asked them why it let me go that long without saying I needed it changed and said "you're just a really good driver". Haha. That's great. Of course, about 80% of those 9000 miles were long trip highway miles so that makes an incredible difference as well.

Then I went to Perham to visit my family and stayed the night. Nothing eventful there, kinda boring actually but it was nice to visit.

On Saturday I went to my cousin Jodi's baby shower which was very nice, by the way, and then to Ada for my "going away bbq". That was really very much fun. A lot of friends stopped by and most stayed late to hang out and play cards and other board games. Jami had made a "picture board" of me, which was sort of un-nerving...and weird, but very fun after I took the time to look at them because they really were really great memories! Wow did I have some good times there! LOL Mostly really silly goofy stuff. That's probably the best kind of fun to have though! :-)

I stayed there last night and this morning after breakfast and more visiting, I made my way back home. It was so nice to get home! I really do love it here. I'm doing laundry and getting ready for my week of trainings and more visiting with old friends and relatives. I'm excited to reconnect with some old friends (one of which I haven't seen or talked to in over 20 years!!) and also to spend some time with family. That will make a week of training bearable!!

I'm finding that this job is going to be a busy one. If I'm not being pulled in every which way and direction HERE, I'm running here and there (most often down to the cities) for meetings and workshops. I have another 2-day-er next week down there too. No rest for the wicked I guess. And I'm not complaining...I love this and it's what I've been working towards for a very long time. But it's always nice to come home and do nothing afterwards!

My grass is going to be CRAZY long when I get back next week. Fun, fun. Hopefully it won't be raining that weekend so I can get it mowed and looking nice again.

Well I'll Be Darned...

It did not rain today. I repeat that. It did not rain today. Not even a sprinkle. At least as far as I knew.

So my derma bond job fell off this afternoon. I must wash my hands too much or something. I've even been wearing a bandage on it mostly to make sure I wasn't getting it caught on things as it was getting a bit frayed around the edges. So, it fell off and it looks worse to me than it did before. But I left all the bandaids and dressings off of it for a couple hours tonight and in a couple hours, i could see that the tissue just below the skin has already repaired itself and it's just waiting for the skin to close fully. That will happen in time I guess. Right now it burns every now and then, pulls a little, and itches sometimes too. The itchy part makes me nervous because I sure don't want it to get infected. I'll be very busy for the next 10-14 days...so it's not something I'd like to have happen!! I cleaned it, neosporin-ed it and dressed it tonight for bed because I still feel like I'll move the wrong way and it will catch on something and everything will rip open again. Ugh. What a pain in my ass. That'll learn me!! :-)

This evening I mowed my lawn. I sure like how it looks when I mow! I like to wait until the grass is pretty high, or I have a hard time seeing where I've already mowed -especially in front of the house because it's sandy and hilly with very little sun exposure so there's quite a bit of moss and "weedy" grass. Tomorrow is garbage day so I have to remember to get my garbage out bright and early. I should have done it tonight already but forgot and now it's just WAYYYY too dark to do that! Plus my driveway is way to long to drag the garbage can out to the curb...the sound will echo through the whole neighborhood! :-)

I'm glad to get a massage tomorrow. I need one. I pre-bought some massages for myself earlier this summer anticipating the need for them after my move. Good foresight, I say!

You know what I noticed today? There either isn't ever anything on TV, or I'm just not in the mood to watch much of anything anymore. I hardly ever have the TV on. In fact, from Saturday through Tuesday, the first time I turned the TV on was Monday night at 10pm to watch the news and yesterday I turned it on at 6pm to watch the news, but then turned it off right away. That is weird for me because in Ada I was a TV junkie I think. I could watch ANYTHING. Now I get really really bored. But that's good, right? :-)

derma-bond to the rescue!

Guess what happened today?

Yep! You guessed it!! It rained a little! I am going INSANE!!!!!!!!!! How can this be??????

Anyway. Here's my real story for the day. So I went in to work for a bit today to get some things sorted out/settled. I had to make sure I had my professional organizations registrations in so I can start getting their calendars of workshops and whatever. I've got places to go and things to see...er...I mean, learn. That went well. I even learned a few new things about pdf documents and powerpoint presentations. Good, great, fine. So then I came home and decided I'd better do some first aid to my hand/knuckle. I had redressed it after my shower this morning, but after washing hands and just normal "living", the bandages were coming off again. I still just wasn't satisfied with how it looked. So...I called the Grand Itasca Clinic & Hospital and made myself an appointment.

Nice place. Easy registration-VERY easy, and I was seen RIGHT away at my 2pm appointment time. The doctor was very, very personable (as were ALL the staff from the front receptionists to the doc's nurse) and thought putting some of that super glue stuff -the derma bond stuff- would do the trick, but we'd have to leave a little part of it open so that there would be a spot for it to drain or whatever in case it would get infected. Since I had waited SOOOO long, there was a huge chance there was quite a bit of bacteria down inside the wound already (which is totally normal), but closing up the would completely would be very bad because there would be nowhere for the bacteria to go but there...and that could possibly eat away my hand. YUCK! So anyway, he put the stuff on it. I was out of there by 2:15.

Then I went to the post office because I had to drop some stuff off in the mail, but needed a delivery confirmation thing, so I was grabbing my purse with my right hand, and felt it pull a bit and it hurt. I thought, "OWWW, geez, it still stings" (cuz it stung a little when he put the stuff on it) and made my way out of the car up the stairs. I looked down at my hand as I was opening the door and found that the cut had popped open and blood was welling up on the wound ready to roll off my hand all over the place. -and I'm talking a lot of blood. So, I ran back to my car to get a kleenex and called the clinic back.

After a bit they called me back and I went back to get some more of the stuff put on it. This time I did have to wait for a little bit longer, since I didn't really have an appointment, but it only took the guy about 5 mn to do, which was good. He put TONSSSS on. The stuff has a purple tint in the small tube it's in, and you can't see that when you put it on, but he put it on sooooo thick that you could totally see that it had a purple tint to it.

Now tonight I'm very glad he put at least half the tube on my knuckle. A lot seeped into the cut area and though it's not concave where the cut is, it is very level now where earlier it was like a hill of dermabond on top of the cut. Thank God. My only hope now is that it doesn't get infected. That would just piss me off. A LOT.

But anyway...that was pretty much my day. Other than being completely amazed that it rained sort of again. That can't be normal. BUT, I guess it could, now that I think about it considering all the lakes and water around here... There's probably quite a bit of convection and evaporation and other meteorological and scientific stuff that goes on daily in the summer. Well, now, that makes me feel better. :-) Science. It solves everything.

Blah Blah Blah and First Aid Extravaganza!!

Does it ALWAYS rain up here??? I swear to God, every day it seems like it has rained. It's like a tropical rain forest. Some days it can be clear as a bell and then WHAM...clouds swoop over and it downpours for like 10mns, then it's clear skies once again. I really am not complaining -and it's kinda cool really, but geez! A girl can't plan anything!

This weekend my friend Cindy came up. We did virtually nothing. We didn't hang out downtown taking part in any of the Tall Timber Days festivities....we did drive by and take a look-see, but it just looked dead or looked dumb OR it looked like it was gonna rain (and we were right about that one!), so we just did whatever. Which was go to a Chinese buffet and sit there for two hours talking up a storm, driving around and talking up a storm, sitting at home and talking up a storm into the wee hours of the night and then today going to Zorbaz for three hours this time and talking up a storm. That was good though. Sometimes I don't think people talk to each other enough...not with modern "communication conveniences" like texting and other social networking websites. Cindy's the kind of friend that where you fall right into where ever you left off the last time you saw them -and you can be as sarcastic and "mean" as you want and she KNOWS it's all in fun -and she GIVES it right back. SOOO much more worse too, so you've got to have a good sense of humor cuz if you dish it out, you'd better be able to take it! That's the beauty of our friendship I think. And that's cool. Everyone needs a friend like that.

I can't believe it's 7:30pm already. I have so many good intentions every day of getting this place more in order, but every day I decide to just "take a break". Now I'm starting to wonder what exactly I'm needing a break from??? LOL!!!

Well, I DO have an issue right now. Yesterday afternoon I was doing dishes and was washing one of my glasses and happened to break it as my hand was inside with the washcloth cleaning it. It cut my right index knuckle pretty good. After a very, very good swear, I dried off, wadded up a paper towel & put pressure on it, went to my broom closet, got out my first aid kid (the first thing I actually bought for my house here...good foresight, huh??) and got down to business. It looked bad and I was bleeding alllllll over the place. By this time I was getting kinda woozey and couldn't really find what I was looking for in the first aid kit (butterfly closures)...or really, at that point I wasn't sure WHAT I was looking for to fix it. Then Cindy called me to let me know she was on her way (finally!!). So here's me telling her this saying, no, it's not bad, no I don't need stitches, don't worry, I'm fine, but I just need to sit down for a minute first before I put a bandaid on it (which I wasn't sure I could actually do at that time)...so I sat down before I passed out while on the phone. After I got off the phone with her, I looked at it again and REALLY looked at it. It was a nice deep cut right on the right side of the right index knuckle, before the finger starts, still on the hand. The skin wasn't flappy and it looked like it could be butterflied together ok, so then I thought, like hell I'm going into the ER! I've got company coming!!! So I rested and put pressure on the hand with my arm up, hand laying above my head until I felt like I was ok, and then proceeded to fix it up. Let me tell you, those Johnson & Johnson Butterfly Closures are NOT meant to be opened one handed or with one hand and the two lamest fingers on the other hand (ring finger & pinky). It took me SOOO long to open them, I had to take ANOTHER break or I was gonna pass out AGAIN! I am a WIMP. But I got the knuckle to close up with three of them criss-crossed and put two of those flexible knuckle shaped bandaids over them. I changed the bandages and butterfies around 9pm and also taped on a tongue depressor cut to size for a splint so I quit flexing my finger & knuckle cuz everytime I did or made a fist, i felt it opening up a bit.

So today it's ok, but seriously?? I should have gone in and got some stitches. Seriously. It's ok and it looks like it'll be fine, but still, it could be much, much better and it was probably bad enough to have warranted a visit to the ER. They probably just would have butterflied me as well, but even superglue would have been better. Lesson learned I guess. Now it's too late to go in because it's been more than 24 hrs and healing has already begun...so I now will have a wicked scar across my knuckle. So don't mess with me and my badass scar. Haha. I guess if I wasn't such a competent chick in taking care of myself I wouldn't be in that boat though, huh? haha. -actually, it probably has more to do with stubborness than competence!!

First aid is fun, but holy crap am I getting soft in my old age. When cleaning it and redressing it last night I got dizzy again and had to drag a chair into the kitchen to sit for a while. What is up with that??!!?? I bought more butterflies at Walmart today so I should be good now for a couple more days. Today it didn't bleed..really...well, just kinda dotted at the seam when it got pulled apart kinda when I took the old butterflies off & flexed it around a bunch (stupid Angela). Nothing major and it looked clean and not crusty or puffy or red or anything.

So...I've got that goin for me.

Which is nice.