Peeling the walls

So we finally decided on a wall color for the entryway/kitchen/dining room/family room. It will be a nice creamy, buttery yellow. As my mom and I began to prep, a huge problem appeared. They didn't wash the walls before they painted! Also, they left some wallpaper, wallpaper backing, and wallpaper paste in some places on the walls behind the paint!

Cue peeling walls! Horrible.

The white is the color they sprayed the entire house to prepare it for sale, the other colors are old paint. They also obviously had paneling glued to the entryway walls at one point, so there is old glue still stuck on the walls that needs to be cleaned up and sanded down.

The color we chose is very close to Benjamin Moore's Haystack. For some reason that color turned up a bit neon on our walls, so we had them mix it a bit warmer, closer to Hawthorne Yellow.

Here are some of our test swatches (sorry for the bad pictures!)

So that is our final color on the far left. I put the custom color in stripes below the two colors we wanted to combine, just to show the differences. You can see how the Haystack sample, third to the right, is a lot lighter than we thought it would be. The other color, Copacabana, is second from the left, just read too green in the kitchen. Plus, there was no way I was picking a color with that name, I had the song stuck in my head for days after painting the swatches!

So that's all the progress so far, hopefully this process won't take forever and I will have before and after pictures for you soon!

The scar

Here is a picture of my scar. Pretty impressive, no? Excuse the poor photography, I had to use my iPad to take the picture.

Impressive Pain Tolerance

Not much sleep was had that night. The next morning I still couldn't walk, so the guys carried me to the truck. Luckily they are big dudes, because I am not what you would call a petite lady!

As we drove the 45 minutes back to our house, I was trying to convince my husband (I really gotta come up with a name for him to use on this blog!) that I should take a shower before going to the emergency room. He was not supportive of this idea. At. All. And as we got closer to town, my knee began to ache a bit more, so I acquiesced. We did head to my parent's house first, to pick up the communal crutches used by anyone in the family that requires them. They were impressed by how swollen my knee was, and wished us luck at the ER.

My leg seemed to hurt more and more as time went on, I think because of the way I had to sit in the truck. When we got to the ER, they brought out a strange wheelchair, kind of narrow and tall, with small wheels on the bottom. I did the paperwork and was put in a waiting room to await an X-ray. While we were waiting, my knee was getting very achy, so I propped it up on a chair in the room. This was a mistake.

The X-ray technician came to the door of the waiting room and told me I would need to transfer to a gurney so he could get pictures of my knee. The gurney was around the corner, due to the crowding in the ER, so he went to wheel me over there and that was when my mistake became clear. My knee/muscles had kind of locked into the straight ahead position. I could not bend my knee at all without major pain, and there was no leg extension on the wheelchair to support my leg in that position. Massive pain! First tears of this whole ordeal! My wonderful husband grabbed the leg of my sweatpants to support my leg and ran along side the wheelchair as the X-ray tech rushed me over to the gurney.

The X-rays were pretty fast. The technician was a little Filipino man and he was very nice, but I think he was worried I might slug him if he touched my leg, so he had my husband position my leg for each X-ray. It is pretty funny, now that I look back on it, but he may have been wise not to touch me at that point. I was decidedly uncomfortable and officially in pain.

They parked me in front of the nurses desk in the ER. Once the X-rays were developed, a doctor came over to my gurney to read them.

Doctor: what would you say your pain level is at right now?
Me: Um, I guess a 4 or 5?
Doctor: Wow, you have some impressive pain tolerance. The X-rays show that you shattered the top of your leg, your tibia bone. Basically, you broke the bottom part of your knee.
Me: Crap.

They put me in an immobilizer brace and sent me home, with instructions take my pain pills and  to go to an orthopedist in the morning. I was not super comfortable on the crutches going up our front steps, so I had to turn around and sit on my butt to scoot backward into my house. I spent the night in the recliner in the den because I usually sleep on my side and I was afraid I would turn in the middle of the night and screw up my leg even more.

The funny thing was, my mom had broken her knee just two years before I did, so once I passed on the news to the family, the troops mobilized. By the next afternoon, I had a wheelchair with a leg extension, a cryocuff ice machine (lifesaver!), a portable potty chair, a walker and a stool for the shower. All owned, gathered from friends, or rented for me. That is why big families are awesome.

My doctor scheduled me for surgery two weeks later. He had to bring in an orthopedic trauma surgeon to assist him. They put a titanium plate and 8 screws into my leg and I have a wicked scar. I was in the hospital for 2 days, then home and confined to a wheelchair for 3 months. I moved on to a walker for 2 months and now have been using a cane to get around for the last couple of weeks. Due to the nature of my 2 part-time jobs, I have been on disability for 6 months. I hope to return to work soon, as I am getting bored of being home so much!

So that is the saga of my knee. Hopefully you found it somewhat entertaining. I'll post some pictures of the X-ray and scar next time.

The Grand Adventure Begins!

I've been sitting at home for months. I am bored out of my head and I decided to start a blog.

Why have I been sitting at home for months, you may ask? It is quite a story, so sit back and relax and absorb the absurdity that is my life...

 Well, back in November 2012, my husband and I decided to take a weekend trip up to the mountains with two other couples. We were just going for one night to stay at some cabins in the woods. Our 7th wedding anniversary was that Monday and we both really love the mountains, so it was an affordable and fun way to celebrate.

We arrive and unload all of the food and general "stuff" we needed for the two day stay. It was misty/foggy as it usually is on the coast of Northern California in the winter, so we decided to take a little hike around the property and show our friends some of the sights while the wood stove warmed up the cabin.

After our hike, we returned back to the cabin to start prepping for dinner and to play one of the board games we brought along. We enjoyed some adult beverages and had a few laughs. After everyone had eaten and cleaned up, we played a few more games. So far, a pretty fun trip, right?

I decided to head out to the deck to get some fresh air before a new round of gaming commenced. We had noticed earlier that the deck was pretty wet from the mist, and there were a few slippery spots, so everyone was being very cautious when walking around. I, being the epitome of gracefulness, proceeded to slip all over that deck. While trying to catch myself, and spare my jeans the slimy moss covered fate that awaited them, I heard a loud "POP! POP!" And immediately fell to the ground. What the heck?!?

Quick self assessment time: "I'm not bruised. I didn't hit my head. My butt is very wet, and getting wetter by the second. Okay, let's get up MissyTallulah...hmm, that's strange, my left knee doesn't seem to be working at all. Crap! I bet I dislocated it or something. Okay, roll over to the deck railing and pull yourself up."

So there I was, leaning against the deck railing, trying to get my knee to function enough to limp on it, covered in mud and a variety of debris. I soon realized that there was no way my leg would be supporting my weight anytime soon, so I started to yell for my husband. He and the other two guys came running out of the cabin, helped me to bed and put an ice pack on my knee. I really thought that I might be relatively okay the next day. My husband wanted to take me to the hospital and I was trying to downplay the whole thing so that the other couples would still be able to have fun and enjoy the weekend.

Wow, this is getting really long, so I'm going to stop here and continue in another post.