Walk like a Flamingo

Of all the dumb luck, I managed to break my foot a couple of weeks ago. (Oh, the evils of cute shoes--I twisted my left foot and sustained a Jones fracture.) Here's the xray image taken on June 27--It's such a tiny little line, you can barely see it (you may have to click on the image to enlarge it). It's hard to imagine this tiny crack could cause so much trouble.

For 6 weeks (hopefully not more), I get to experience life on crutches. I have new respect for Didi, the one-legged girl on My Name is Earl, as I try to hop around the house. Actually, I tend to wheel around more than hop--inside the house, I've found that wheeling around on a desk chair is so much easier than maneuvering with crutches.

On the plus side, I have an easy time picking myself out in the drawings my girls make of our family. Usually their drawings are a group of people in crowns--4 wearing dresses (us) and one in pants with glasses (James). Now one of the princess crown people wearing dresses has ski poles and a leg sticking out sideways.

The other day, my daughters all agreed that I "walk like a flamingo", and they demonstrated by standing on one leg and hopping about. They have customized my pink cast with their artwork, and love demonstrating how hard it is to their friends by thumping on it. We get out ace bandages and wrap them up, so they can practice having a broken limb and use my crutches to thump around the house.

The biggest downside to this broken foot is that we're selling our house, so we can move to Carbondale, IL where James starts his new job at SIUC in just 4 weeks. I get phone calls with as little as thirty minutes' notice that someone is coming by to show our house to a potential buyer. Tasks like vacuuming, sweeping, and mopping are pretty near impossible on crutches and very slow on a wheeled chair.