J&T-Jenson: January 2011

I decided I should write about my adventures of the last week or so. First I tried to give myself a concussion. Earlier in the day a little over a week ago, I had gotten my long plastic wrapping paper container out from under my bed so I could wrap Tori's birthday presents. I was already late in sending them, but I wanted to at least wrap them before I went to work. Well..........I was in a hurry, so I didn't put the wrapping paper away. That night, when we went to bed, neither one of us turned on the light when we went into the bedroom and didn't notice the long plastic box still sticking out from underneath the bed. Jim got in bed first but wasn't asleep when I came in to go to bed. As I walked towards the head of the bed, I tripped over the plastic box and fell forward, scraping my leg on the box and hitting my head on the wall. I cracked the plastic plate covering the phone jack and dented the wall. It hurt a lot! Jim heard the noise of course and asked if I was all right, but I said, "Noooooo.............I'm not all right." At least I didn't break anything (no body parts anyway, but the next day a bruise began all up and down my shin and one near my hip. I still have both of them, but they are starting to go away.

Well, all of that wasn't good enough I guess because I tried to break something again a few days later. It was last Tuesday, the day I go to my class in Provo and then spend the night in Salt Lake so I can do my six hours of research at the Family History Library. For the last six months or so, the stairs I usually climb to go to class have been closed. They've been redoing them, and I've had to walk a long way around to get up on campus. Well, last Tuesday, I noticed that the barricade at the bottom of the stairs was gone and people were going up, so I followed. Several people were a ways ahead of me and one guy passed me from behind. I didn't really pay any attention to where they went. I was just intent on climbing the 147 steps. When I got to the terrace close to the top, I noticed that the next small staircase up to campus was blocked by a large metal gate that was leaning against the opening, so I retraced my steps a small ways and tried to go up the other set of stairs on the left. However, it was blocked also. I thought it was really dumb that the bottom was open, but the top was closed. I could have gone back down and around the way I usually went while it was closed, but it would have taken me a lot longer, and I was in a hurry to meet with someone about a presentation we had to do. Anyway, I decided that if I moved the metal gate just a little bit, I could squeeze through. Well, I squeezed through all right, but the gate was too heavy and I moved it a little too much. I couldn't keep it from falling, and when it fell, it landed on my foot. I tried to get out of the way, but I just wasn't quick enough. Of course, it made a huge crashing noise and everyone looked to see what was happening. My foot was throbbing! I tried to life the gate up, but it was too heavy,so I just turned around and limped away to my classroom. When I got to the room, I took off my shoe and sock to see what the damage was. Just below my big toe, there was a long dented spot that was all blue! I was envisioning having to have surgery to repair my shattered foot because it was aching so badly. Someone gave me some pain reliever, and another lady got me a baggy full of ice, so I kept the ice on it during the 2 1/2 hours of class. I'm sure those two things helped a lot. At least it was bearable, but then I had to walk a long way to my car! On my drive to Salt Lake, I couldn't step on the brake very hard without it hurting, so I used my left foot. When I arrived at Marilyn's house, I took my shoe and sock off again to see what it looked like by then. It was red and sore and starting to become discolored. Marilyn happened to have a podiatrist in her ward, so she called him and he agreed to look at it. He was really nice, but it definitely hurt when he did certain things. He said he didn't think it was broken, but without an x-ray, it was difficult to tell for sure. He wrapped it for me to give it some stabilization, which did help some, although the next day I couldn't put my shoe on with the wrap because it hurt too much, so I just left it off. By the next morning, it was feeling somewhat better than it had the night before, but I continued to limp for a few days. I'm really surprised that it's not broken! (at least I don't think so) I think if it was really broken, it would hurt a lot worse. Tomorrow will be a week since it happened, and it is still pretty sore and bruised, but I can walk fairly normal now. The podiatrist was worried that I had ruptured a tendon, but he found it in one piece. I hear those take a long time to heal. I'm sure it's going to be another week or two at least before it feels anywhere close to normal, but I'm grateful I'm still in one piece. I guess I bounce better than I thought!

We had lots of fun with the Lotts when they came to visit after Christmas. Thanks for coming to visit! Sorry this blog post is just full of pictures, but I like to look at pictures, so I figure everyone does.

Brooke, Dave, & Sophie ending their stay in Oak City

I love to eat! Celebrating NewYear's Day.

Oh, you want to take my picture? Let me pose for you.

Say cheese!

Sophie playing with Uncle Chris & Aunt Brooke
We spent the night at their new house in Cedar City after helping Tana move and visiting with family.

Tana - Incognito! She never likes to look at the camera.

How! Grandma Lux says hello

Chandler - All wrapped up like a cocoon

The week after Christmas Brooke & Dave & I went to help Tana move. Then we visited with Kathy, Niki, Chandler, and Grandma Lux. I'm not sure what Kathy and Niki were doing in this picture!