It's honestly no big deal, I partially broke a bone in my foot. I have so many friends going through worse tragedies, breaks, surgeries, cancers, illnesses, etc and mine was self inflicted too, so one can hardly feel bad.  However, it has made me count my blessings and laugh out loud a LOT, two things I think are very important to keep in mind!

The story: I was climbing the rock wall at J&K's, up near the top, and reached for a hold; however, my right hand missed and flung off backwards and then my right foot left with it and caused me to swing around 180 degrees like a window shutter.  However, my left hand and foot were not as strong as shutter hinges and they too left the wall and due to my momentum, it caused me to fling around out past the crash pad and land with all my weight on my right foot, now rotated 360 degrees, on the concrete.

Laughing: Right after it happened everyone wanted to look at it to see if it was broken or sprained.  I however, did not want anyone to look at it.  Why? Because I hadn't shaved in FOREVER!  I think I let them look once but when I saw the long dark hair and the ashy skin I was horrified!  EW!  Somewhere around this time something else happened and I started laughing outloud... see, life is SOOO funny, I honestly do laugh more than I thought!!!

Blessing: I tried walking on it shortly after it happened, about 10', and it was killing me.  I knew I couldn't get to the car but at the same time didn't want to seem like a wimp, love my pride.  Thankfully my husband loves carrying me and insisted on carrying me to the front door and then giving me a piggy back ride to the car.  The next day I still did not have any bruising or swelling but it hurt like a motha' and Josh was convinced it was broken while I thought it was merely twisted.  We decided to take it slow and keep me off it and had an appointment for the doc the next day.  Josh was very vigilant about keeping me seated, while I would still try and do stuff when he wasn't looking - aren't I terrible!  AND!  A blessing that Alicia had a pair of crutches I could borrow and she delivered them early in the morning!

Laughing: I had all these major projects started around the house and all of them incomplete at the time I hurt my foot, leaving my house in shambles with guests coming over!

Blessing: Josh gave the cuties strict instructions to keep me sitting and to not let me do anything.  They got a big kick out of bossing me to sit down and knowing how stubborn I am, they did it OFTEN!

Laughing: (Out of shear insanity) Then Josh gets sick.  Not only can I not drive, but he is sick.

Blessing: The next morning Rachel, and her 2 cuties, take me, and my 3 cuties, to the foot doctor.

Laughing: The foot doctor is the same one that is the dad of a boy on Zeke's flag football team.  The license plate on his Caddy Escalade says he is the foot doctor.  The waiting room is sooooo small and filled with patients and Rachel is in there watching 5 kiddos! 

Blessing: I went to the doctor.  I honestly did not think I needed to go even though it still hurt like a motha' and I couldn't walk on it but seeing how I still had no bruising or swelling, it didn't make sense to me spending the money.  However, Josh insisted so I went.  I found out I actually did break a bone, sort of.  Imagine cutting down a tree... you cut in 1/2 way on one side then go to the other side and cut a 1/4 of the way, that is what I did to my talus bone, what my friend calls THE foot bone.  The foot doc said it is a classic high fall break and that I should be very thankful for the 1/4 still there as since the break is at an angle, if it would've gone all the way through it would definitely have dislocated and require surgery. 

Laughing: I actually said to the foot doctor, "I thought for sure I was wasting my money coming to you today and you were going to tell me I was smoking something and the pain was all in my head."  Hahahahahaha!

Blessing: Even though I did walk on my foot here and there the previous days, the pain was intense enough that I would avoid it even in my stubbornness.  If I had been a true punk I could've actually broken it the rest of the way just from walking on it for one day.  Plus, having that 1/4 still there not only has kept me out of surgery but has kept me from having to PAY for a surgery.  Again, SO thankful for my husband!

Laughing: I now have this monster removable cast on my leg to remind me to stay off my foot.  I can't walk on it at all for a minimum of 2 weeks, as I still risk breaking it the rest of the way and dislocating the bone.  (Then, they will recheck it and I will know what to do next.)  And now, I am in constant fear of breaking the bone the rest of the way and I am finally convinced of sitting on my bum.

Blessing: My cuties are being big helpers.

Laughing: While our kids do a lot of work around the house, they benefit from their mom having grown up with her parents who were neat freaks and constantly picking up throughout a day.  This habit, means that while they do work, their mom still does a lot of little pick ups, however NOW they are having to do all the pick ups, big and small and cheerfully.  They also benefitted from Mom enjoying working in the kitchen and now she can't cook and clean it as she likes to and has to direct them from a chair to do everything.  Why is this laughing?  Because Josh has been trying to get me forever to sit back and let the kids learn and fail and be ok with things not being 100% perfect, now everything seems to be about 50% and I have no choice but to be ok with it.  Hahahahahaha!

Blessing: While they do not obey me all the time, they are coming to me when they do disobey and we work though it.  A lot of our school work we can do with me sitting on the couch or with my foot up at the table.  I have a laptop, iPhone and wifi, so everything can move with me.  So many little blessings!

Laughing: Josh and I keep saying what a perfect pathetic pair we are with his sickness and my bum foot.  Toooooo funny!

Blessing: We were to go to a couple's conference starting tonight and tonight's line up for our babysitters was very complicated and kept getting more complicated but with Josh sick and my bum foot, we decided to wait until tomorrow AM to leave for the conference.  Sadness for missing out on tonight, but happy for the hopefulness of going tomorrow AM and the clarity of the sitter situation for Saturday.

Phew!  Even in the midst of all this insanity, I am continually thankful for the many, many blessings that we have received along the way, from wisdom of my husband to delicious meals delivered to us (thanks Pyles and Rohlfs!).  I am thankful too for being able to see those blessings and hope they will stick with me throughout the next two weeks, specifically this coming Monday, as I think it is really going to hit me then.

If I was a guest on Seinfeld, one of my (possible) nicknames would be The Non-Laugher, because in most cases, I do not laugh. 

This has been something true of me since I was younger... my family would be sitting around the dining table, cracking jokes, and I would sit there, watching, and definitely not laughing.  Or imagine watching a funny movie with me, say, Meet the Parents?  Yup, nothing.  Or even my beloved TV show Seinfeld, never a full blown laugh.  It also doesn't help that I don't enjoy stand-up comedians, sex jokes, gender demeaning jokes, grosser than gross jokes, etc.

Then there is my husband, who happened to pick up on my lack of laughter over the years, and really enjoys trying to make me genuinely laugh.  It is a tough job, but somehow, he has succeeded at it here and there to the point where I will literally fall out of my chair laughing.  Even with his accomplishments, he continues to marvel when watching a comedy movie/TV show with me and I watch in complete silence.

I got to thinking, maybe it is not that I don't laugh, but it is that I am a laughter snob?  I believe I could almost say, I don't want to give my laugh away to just any joke and so I save my laugh for the true gems.  Oh wo/man, how horrible... I AM a total laughter snob!

But I don't wanna be a laughter snob!

Maybe I need to look at what does make me laugh so that I can try and laugh at more things?

Hmmm... the other day, while climbing at J&K's, I was up "high" and at the end of my limit / our problem when Kari was giving me some directions on where to go next.  In my mind, I was not entirely listening to her (no offense Kari!) as I was physically "done" and just trying to get down in one piece when she shouted at me, "Are you ignoring me or do you not know your right from your left!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!  I was laughing so hard I fell off the wall!  :)!

Or I recently made myself laugh.  I wrote this joke, that was a little risque but at the same time funny on many different levels and when I "told" it to my husband he starting laughing hysterically and I was laughing so hard I strained my abs.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  I crack myself up!

Or our kids.  For some reason, when "things" happen the first time, I don't crack a laugh.  But later when recounting the day's insanities around the dinner table to Josh or writing them out here on this blog, I find myself laughing at the craziness of it all... like I was interviewed about what makes me laugh, when I rarely laugh and then they had to take a picture for the article with my husband and I when my husband hates getting his photo taken or that when we got there for the photo of the 2 of us they wanted to take a picture of the whole family and the kids were dressed in their scrubby play clothes and all of their hairs were standing straight up... HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!  Life cracks me up the second time around!

Or the only shows that makes me laugh outloud, watching The Colbert Report or Britian's IT Crowd... HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Ok, sometimes they are not funny and crude/rude, but I really appreciate Colbert's political humor and the IT Crowd's computer geek humor... Colbert makes me not hate the politics that I wish I could be more politically active in and IT is so much like our company's work... HAHAHA!

Hmmmmm... I can see a pattern here... Life makes me laugh, generally the second time around, but makes me laugh never-the-less.  When I am caught off guard or it is genuine or is not trying, life is simply hilarious. 

Once again, this actually confirms one of my "life verses" adapted from an old song, "I don't want to start an blasphemous rumors, but I think that God's got a good sense of humor*." Ok ok, so that statement is fairly blasphemous, but when you have seen the poop prints on the sidewalk, I honestly think He is laughing with me.

What makes you laugh, outloud?


*It is actually "sick sense of humor," but dear me, I don't want to be completely blasphemous!