First Round of the New Rotation

Waldorff saw a lot of stitching time these first three days of the new rotation. On New Year's Day, I decided to do some laundry. Big mistake. My boot heel caught on the carpet, and I fell down half the stairs. I somehow managed to land on the laundry basket--knocking the wind out of me--and on top of the laundry which made the trip separately. (I don't know what went down, when I started falling I shut my eyes and went along for the ride.) I screamed when I started falling, and I could hear the dude shout from the basement, "Nik, are you okay? Nik!?" I couldn't answer because I couldn't breathe, and also, I didn't know. He made it to the foot of the stairs just about the time my head hit. "Is anything broken?" he asked--he's had a lot of practice in triaging my accidents. "I don't know," I managed to pant. "Well, let's get this picture out of here," he says as he removes this cross-stitched piece (Willow Trees from the stairway gallery) from between my legs (yeah, I have no explanation for that). I look up at my stitching; you can see the point where I took off (missing picture) and from that point down are the rest of the pictures are askew. He takes my right hand to pull me up, but I can't push off my left arm. In fact my whole left side is a mess. It turns out I still have muscle memory from all the skiing I did in my youth--I went down on my side like they always taught us. Anyway... that's how I got out of laundry, cooking, and walking the dog for the next two days, which left lots of time for stitching and television watching. 

I only have one bruise and it's not even that spectacular. I complained about this to the dude last night. "I'm too achy not to be more bruised." "What hurts?" he asked. "Pretty much everything from my shoulder to my knee on my left side." And the sternum. Don't forget that. If I may be so bold as to offer further advice on falling, remember to roll onto the side that you don't sleep on!

Last January when I started (and put it aside) Waldorff looked like this.

I've completed page one of four. I hope next month when this comes up again in the rotation, I do have to take a break to walk the dog!