and the moral of the story is...don't take the trash out at 4:00 a.m.

These first three weeks of teaching 6th grade have had an interesting side effect.
I keep waking up at 4:00 in the morning.
Even though I am crazy tired.
My brain is saying, "Right now, in the pitch black of early morning, why not think about grammar?"
And then I think, Maybe I should get up and take advantage of this time...even though I am running on about 5.7 hours of sleep, my eyes feel like sand and I feel like crying a little.
Then my body responds to my brain by saying,
"Stay where you are. Don't move. Don't get up. Nothing good can come of it."

So I have been lying in bed, for another hour and a half, tossing and turning,
worrying, running through weird classroom scenarios and questioning my lesson plans
until I rise, thoroughly exhausted, at 5:30.

Super fun.

All that to say...Scott, Jack and Will were away on high school retreat this week
and Thursday morning, I woke up at, you guessed it, 4:00 a.m.
Just in time to realize that I was hearing the garbage truck barreling down the street.
And just in time to realize that Addie and I had forgotten to drag our trash and recycling to the curb.

So I thought, "I am going to go put it out now."

I got up and threw on Addie's shoes next to the front door.
(They are just a smidge too big for me...like clown shoes).

Then I proceeded to carefully drag our giant trashcan to the curb.
Our next door neighbor is the sweetest older lady
and the rumble of the trash can on our cobbled path is a terrifying noise to wake up to.

So when I saw that we had very little recycling I thought,
"I will just pick up this ginormous can and carry it."

In hindsight, this is the moment that was screaming, "SUE, GO GET BACK IN BED!"

I made it about 5 steps down our path, misjudged my footing,
(half of my foot was on the path and half was in the planting area filled with lavender),
and rolled my ankle.

Badly.

One second I was tiptoeing to the street holding a huge can in my arms...
the next I was laying in our wood chips gazing up at the stars.

As my Grandma Blakeley would say, "Mercy Days!"

I just laid there and thought, "This was a bad idea."

a. Because of 4 a.m.
b. Because walks in foggy moonlight never end well
b. Because of carrying a garbage can the size of Rhode Island
c. Because of clown shoes
d. Because no one was going to get cholera if I didn't take the trash out
e. Because it is super uncomfortable to lay in wood chips...so pokey
f. Because Addie told me that our cat uses this area as his private potty

It was so very clear as I lay there in the lavender with a throbbing ankle,
trash can flung to the curb,
that maybe my pre-dawn decision making skills are not the best.

I also had the split second thought that if we had a surveillance camera, I would really like to have seen what that all looked like going down. Because I have never hit the ground that fast before.

So I hobbled back into the house, iced my ankle and then crawled back into bed until 5:30.
I made it through the school day with ibuprofen and an ace bandage left over from Will's last injury.
When I finally made it to the doctor later that afternoon,
she listened to my story with very highly raised eyebrows.

"What time in the morning did this happen?"
"4:00 a.m."
"Because you were...."
"Taking out the trash..."
"Hmmmm." (I think that sound meant, "I feel bad for you...for lots of reasons.")

So.
Now I have crutches.
This is the best.
Because you know how awesome I am with crutches.
And an ankle brace.
She said sprains are tricky and can take 6-8 weeks to heal.
Mercy Days.

So this is my 4:00 a.m. advice to you.
STAY IN BED, PEOPLE.
1 out of 4 doctors does not want to hear about how you pitched headlong into your herb garden.
(The other 3 enjoy a good laugh.)
The truth is...you need to rest.
Your body parts need to be kept safe and whole.
And crutches are Satan's unwieldy tools of discouragement and upper body torture.
I believe this is a sound word from the Holy Spirit.
May Jesus keep you and your ankles safe in the coming weeks!