Despite those baby steps...

...my feet appear to be firmly planted in college life. My darling Anne summed it up best, "we will live this life until we are 40; then, we will reassess." Yes, there have been many attempts at the $5 game, but shockingly, no one in Chattanooga is willing to play with us; I have no idea why. There have been quite a few mornings spent sleeping through my "I'm going to get up at 7am and be productive" alarm clocks and quite a few afternoons porch-sitting with Jane and company. I continue to procrastinate like I'm still in school as I have done very minimal work on my dissertation manuscripts. Perhaps the best example of my lingering college days would be the incident suffered as a consequence of celebrating my friend Greg's 30th birthday. In late November, we set out on a seemingly innocent birthday celebration involving Taco Mac and Rhythm & Brews. We very responsibly cabbed it back to Big Ridge, raided the fridge, and then I promptly spilled red Gatorade on my beige carpet and skipped 5 steps while running to get stuff to clean up the mess. There was a loud thud followed by Brittany's observation of "I think someone just fell." I sat on the stairs a bit dazed and trying to stand up at which time Jeremy came to investigate said thud. Seeing me sitting upright and seemingly okay, he returned to the group in the living room and reported that I was simply "embarrassed" about the fall. I attempted to stand and realized that was not going to be a possibility, so I did the logical thing--I army crawled back to my room and laid on my bed without calling for help (because I was, in fact, embarrassed). About half an hour passed before Billy came upstairs to return Elvis (God rest his guinea pig soul) to his cage. Billy then reported that I was crying to which Jeremy responded "she's just embarrassed." At this point, the whole posse came to investigate the situation. This involved everyone staring at my very swollen and oddly shaped ankle followed by Jeremy twisting it back and forth and deciding that it was "fine" and the he'd take me to the doctor the next day if it was still swollen. Luckily, everyone else's eyes were working a little better, and I was instructed to go to the ER. The first thing the nurse at the ER said was "wow, you've got a funny-looking ankle." Always a good sign. Long story short, my fibula was broken, my tibia was cracked, and my ligaments were messed up. The ER visit was followed by a trip to the orthopaedic surgeon (the wonderful Mark Freeman), which was followed by surgery that left me with a permanent plate and 8 screws in my leg. Merry Christmas to me--Santa Kev and Jane paid my deductible for my Christmas gift.   After a lot of weeks with casts, a boot, and crutches, I officially regained the use of my left leg (affectionately named "Starvin' Marvin" by Jeremy since it is 1/2 the size of my right leg) in early March.  That'll teach me to have 7 beers at Rhythm & Brews.

PS--Jeremy completely redeemed himself by taking care of my every whiny need after he realized that I wasn't just embarrassed. ;)