Well, we got the move accomplished. It was an adventure, no doubt about it. We moved last Friday, and you couldn't have asked for better weather...on Saturday. Friday the weather was just shy of typhoon status. All the people who came and helped were soaked to the bone, I felt terrible about it. How wonderful it is to have such friends who would plow through those obstacles with us though.

We had a few mishaps. Riley got into a head-butting contest with the top of a garage door and lost. I set my shoulder back by a few weeks...at least according to the therapist. I'm supposed to take it easy...but they don't give directions for that. What set my shoulder back really wasn't the move though...it was an incident that happened Thursday night before the move.

I had gone into the attic to bring down all the stuff that we store up there for reasons I still can't fathom. If it's so unimportant that it can remain for years unnoticed in the attic, why do we need it at all? But this is stuff that just isn't questioned, and I have learned my lessons over the years. There are some things that are inexplicable, yet immutable, so you just move along without questioning.
Anyway, I had gone up my mom's old ladder that we still had; an ancient, wooden, eight foot ladder that dated back to the McCarthy era, I think. I had just hoisted a box into my good arm, and was beginning my descent, when I heard an unnerving cracking sound. The McCarthy ladder was beginning to buckle. Seeing as how my good arm was holding a box of glass mason jars (we never can anything by the way...but don't question the box...just hold it), I had no choice but to grab the edge of the attic opening with my bad arm, and hang helplessly as the McCarthy ladder sort of slowly collapsed underneath me.

Two of my teenage children were just on the other side of the wall from me...I in the garage, they in the front room. I shouted and yelled for help, but there was no rescue coming. Finally, I just had to let go and drop down on the remains of the ladder and hope I didn't drop the mason jars in the process.

I stood there amid the wreckage of my climb, still clutching tightly the precious jars (you never can tell when the urge to can will overwhelm you). Suddenly, the garage door flew open and my daughter stood there looking at me. I think she was coming out to ask me to keep it down so they could hear the T.V....but I was yelling too loudly to actually hear her explanation of things.

So...really, that's what set my shoulder back a little. There's something about hanging from the ceiling whilst hoisting mason jars that doesn't set too well with shoulder muscles. I'll have to look into why.