Holiday House Tour

In case you haven't noticed, I love love love Christmas decorations. I love to sit in my living room with only the tree lights on at night. I have a little bit of Christmas in almost every room of the house. 

 Our bedroom

 Downstairs bathroom

 Going up the stairs

My new NCSU tree in Trey's office.

The red lights don't show up well in the picture, it isn't that pink in real life! 

 The wreath I made years ago is still surviving 

My Knee Progress (Caution to Weak Stomachs!)

Now that my knee is pretty much healed, I thought I would compile a series of pictures so that I can look back at how far I have come :)

On the boat, immediately after I cut my knee: August 4th

After getting my stitches, August 5th

Comparing the swelling, August 5th

August 6th

August 7th

August 10th

August 11th (one week later)

August 14th

August 15th, day before my stitches came out!

August 17th, no more stitches!

August 17th

August 21st

August 28th

September 9th

I'm Running Again!

We went to the mountains over labor day weekend (check back on Monday for a post about that!) and I felt that I was finally healed enough to attempt running. It has taken a while for me to be able to completely bend my knee, I am actually still not at 100% bending, but it is much better than it was a couple of weeks ago. So after 4 weeks and 1 day I decided to give it a try in the gorgeous, cool mountain morning.

My knee as of 9/4

Mom & dad bought me awesome new running shoes since I am spending so much time running they wanted me to have nice shoes, so I put those to use for the first time!

It was so peaceful and beautiful running in the mountains and MUCH cooler than back home!

The first day I ran I only got about 1 mile before I was beat and had to walk for a bit, then I ran again. I did a total of about 1.75 miles when I saw my mom & Vegas coming towards Tyson & me. Vegas was not very happy that we left her and was crying to come out, so her super nice grandma brought her out for a walk :)

The next day I was able to run further, so it is coming back (SLOWLY) and ran consistantly until I again ran into Vegas coming to find us... this time her daddy brought her out since she was whinning again! I did about the same distance but at least I ran the whole thing! Now to work my way back up to where I was.... and then some!

Making the Best of Things

I have to keep my knee straight until the stitches come out. I have an appointment to get them out on Thursday the 16th. It is not as easy as it seems it would be to keep your knee straight for that long. And it is incredibly annoying. Marianna is an awesome friend and took me out shopping the other day, when we went into the Food Lion they had electric scooters so I rode one instead of hobbling around the store!! It was pretty funny. 

I'm currently hobbling around New York City visiting Allison with Mariah, so next week I'll have some pictures from that!

Trees and Knees Do Not Mix!

This weekend we went to Lake Norman (I will post about the whole weekend tomorrow!) but in the middle of a fun afternoon, I had a not so fun experience. We took the boat out to Rope-Swing Cove and lounged around for a while. We decided to go give the rope swing a try, kids had been going off of it all day! One of our friends, Jennifer, and I decided to go together. She climbed up the couple of steps to go from up high, and I followed her. It was a pretty intimidating view! Well wet wood and I just don't mix... remember when I fell running? Well this time it was worse... I slipped while I had a poor grip on the rope, but basically had no other option but to go with it... Well since I didn't have a good grip I hung too low and BAM my knee smacked a tree root.

Both of us climbing up

About to go.... see the tree root right above these words?

Splashing in

I landed in the water and swam over to everyone, as I was swimming I realized it was pretty painful. They helped me get back to the boat, iced my knee and gave me a towel to wrap it in and we headed back to the dock. Loyd's neighbors are doctors so a doctor met us at the dock and checked out my knee. He cleaned it a bit but said we needed to go to the ER, he didn't have enough to clean it with and didn't have his sutures to close me up! So Loyd's wonderful mama drove us to the ER and waited there for us for FOUR HOURS! It was a very nice emergency room, and they took us back immediately (Trey stayed with me the whole time). They checked out my knee, took me for x-rays just to double check that I didn't hurt a bone, numbed me, cleaned out the wound and finally stitched me up! 

BORED!

I will spare you the incredibly disgusting pictures (unless of course anyone wants to see them, just ask!) but now I have stitches in my knee cap! I also have to wear a knee immobilizer so that I don't bend it, since the stitches are basically right on my knee cap!

 I have to wear that until I get the stitches out which will be 10-14 days from Saturday, I'm aiming for next Thursday - right before I have to head back to work. 

My stitches, Monday morning

It's not super easy to walk in and difficult at times, but things could be worse I suppose. And we still had a fun weekend! I have just been laying around the house today, which surprisingly is probably the first time I have really done that all summer, so maybe this was nature's way of saying slow down and enjoy the end of summer! Plus I have wonderful friends & hubby who have been taking great care of me :)

Swollen knee!