My first cast

In my last post I talked about how I had sprained my ankle. I went back to the doctor on Tuesday because the swelling in my foot had goren worse instead of better.  I left the doctor that day still under the impression that I had a severe spain. Wednesday I got a call after another radiologist and an orthopedic surgeon looked at my x-rays and they determined that I actually fractured my anterior calcaneous...in other words, I fractured my heel bone toward the middle of my foot. Apparently I slide into the base hard! 

I get to wear my beautiful cast for six weeks accompanied by my crutches.  Thank god for my loving husband who has been waiting on me hand and foot and of course my temporary handicap parking pass :)

Free time

Since I've been pretty horrible at keeping up with our blog the past few months I think it's a safe statement that I haven't had a lot of free time.  The last few weeks we've been busy with kickball on Mondays, co-ed softball on Tuesday and men's softball on Thursdays.  Busy?  I think so.

In addition to that, I took my 7th CPCU test a couple of weeks ago so I'd been studying for that a lot as well. I only have one left and I'll be taking that within the next couple of months!  I remember thinking I'd be done with studying after graduating from college but that wasn't the case.  The end is in sight and it's going to be an amazing thing after studying for the past 3 years of my career! 

Since I didn't post at all during the month of September, I'll give a quick run down of what we did.  Labor Day weekend we went to the cabin but the weather was a little bit to be desired.  On a positive note, I went back to EC to watch the Ski Sprites and spend some time with Lindsey!  We got poured on a little bit but the show still went on.

The second weekend in September Jeremy's cousin Meghan got married so we went back to Eau Claire for the weekend.  That Sunday Jeremy and his dad went down to their hunting land to get ready for opening bow hunting the following weekend. 

Jeremy went hunting and I had a little bit of a girls weekend!  Rose and Lindsey came to visit and on Saturday I had a Tastefully Simple and Thirty One party.  We had some some good food and looked at very cute bags.  All of the Tastefully Simple stuff came this week and now our pantry is full of very yummy food!  I made some pumpkin cookies tonight with the pumpkin mix and they are delicious!  Rose and I had a movie marathon Saturday night watching three movies and a Grey's Anatomy marathon on Sunday before she headed home.

Last weekend we went to my mom's house and took my little brother Matthew to Six Flags.  Mom and Eric have a foreign exchange student this year from Denmark and her name is Sarah.  She was also going to join us on our trip but unfortunately she was sick and didn't get to join in on the fun.  We got an awesome deal because Rose works for Kohl's and they do a friends and family day so we got discounted tickets, free parking and way shorter lines!  We went on many many rides and I finally had to call it quits before I lost my lunch :)  This girl can only handle so many rides in one day!

The title of my post is slightly ironic because the life I have become so accustomed to with no free time will now be full of free time.  Tuesday night at softball I had a terrible slide into third base which resulted in a severely sprained left ankle and a trip to the ER.  It happened so fast and I heard a horrible pop but I didn't really realize what happened until I tried to get up.  No such luck.  First time ever injuring myself playing a sport and the first time I've been carried of the field.  The good news is I don't need surgery but the bad news is that the ligaments pulled off the bone causing pieces of my bone to break off.  So although it's a severe sprain, there is technically a break as well.  I've been keeping it elevated all day and night and icing it numerous times a day but it is continuously swelling...all the way to my toes.  I think if it swells anymore it might explode! 

The worst part of this whole thing is the crutches.  For never being on them before I can honestly say they stink.  Not to be a complainer but my hands are killing me!  The doc said one to two weeks on the crutches but since I can't even stand on my foot I'm leaning towards it being more like two or more weeks.  After that I guess we'll wait and see.  I have an air cast that I'm supposed to wear for about 6 weeks so I guess I'll have to figure out how to make that work with a shoe unless they decide to have me wear a boot or something.  Guess I'll have to wait and see!

Free time is going to become a normality for me over the next few weeks.  No running, no zumba or kickboxing classes, no sports.  Sad :(  I'm going to try to be as patient with this recovery as I can so I can get back at it as soon as possible.  Volleyball is starting this upcoming week and I'm so bummed about not being able to play!  I'm hopeful that I'll be able to play yet this season but before I can play the doctor wants me to be able to hop on my leg without it causing pain in my ankle. 

So here I am sitting on the couch with my ankle up on pillows watching old seasons of Grey's Anatomy...here's to hoping for a fast recovery so I can get back to all of the things that make it impossible for me to have free time :)

Road Trip to Bristol

We finished up our summer with a road trip down to Bristol, TN for the Nascar race.  We took off on a Wednesday night and met up with Jessica and Tony at my mom's house before the long drive that was ahead of us!  It was shortly after 10pm when we left my mom's and we drove straight through the night!  I'm a pretty good sleeper so I took full advantage of that and slept from pretty much 11pm-6am when I took over and drove the last leg of the way.  I can't remember exactly but I think we got to the resort sometime around 11am and we didn't waste any time.  We carried our stuff inside and took off for the Smokey Mountains!

View of the Smokey Mountains from the start of our hike.

The gang starting to hike up the mountain!



Jeremy and I at the top of Clingman's Dome.



The trail we took to the dome.



Hike number two...Grotto Falls!



Crazy roots along the trail.



Jeremy taking a short cut.



We made it to the falls!

Jeremy and I at the falls.

Picture break on our way back down the trail.



Jeremy jumping out of the tree!



Hanging out in the tree!

So we spent the whole first day hiking up the mountains and between that and the drive down, we were all pretty tired.  The next two days of our trip were spent in Bristol at the Nascar races.  Friday morning we got up bright and early to make the drive over to the track and we spent the day walking around the grounds, looking at the drivers trailers, playing games and getting free stuff!  Friday night was the Nationwide race and it had a pretty exciting ending in which Jessica's favorite driver Kyle Busch won.

View of the track on Friday night during the Nationwide race.



Jeremy before the Cup race - way more people than the night before!

At my first Cup race!

For my first Nascar race, it was pretty fun!  Surprisingly, I wasn't bored and actually paid pretty close attention.  The couple days at the track also made for very good people watching :)

We started driving home on Sunday and made it back to my mom's sometime around midnight.  Jess and Tony drove the rest of the way back to EC but with another four hours for us to get home from my mom's, we crashed there instead! 

After many many hours in the car, it was nice to finally make it home, but we had a fun end of the summer vacation!