Broken face

Technically, I only broke my nose (I think) and have a nice shiner developing, although it is hard to see the bruising because my eye and nose area is so swollen. I broke my face while playing flag football last night. Now, flag football is a non-contact sport, you may say. True, however, "non-contact" sports usually involve quite a bit of contact in my experience. :)

In this case, I was going for the flag of the other team's quarterback who was a very quick guy and liked to run the ball. He had already gotten by 3 or 4 of my teammates and was being forced to the sideline and coming straight at me. I decided he wasn't going to get by me, so playing some very good defense (if I do say so myself), I went for his flag and kept him from cutting past me. He, being a good player, did a spin move to try and get around me as I was going for his flag. If I had been standing up straight, his elbow would have caught me in the gut or chest, but, as I was bending and reaching for his flags, it caught me smack in the nose and eye. As he was going full speed it hit with some good force behind it and I ended up going down, although I refused to not get his flag and grabbed it as I went to the ground. Poor guy felt terrible and apologized up and down. I was out for the rest of the game with a splitting headache and swelling upper face.

Today the bruising is setting in, however, as my eye is so swollen, it covers much of the bruise and most people only notice the cut above my eye and possibly the fact that my nose is swollen. I will be taking pictures as it progresses, as I think it will end up being very pretty in the next few days. (I have included pictures of the initial stages, just hours after being hit.) I only hope that it will be mostly healed and no longer swollen by Chelsea's wedding. Otherwise, I will have my second round of family event photos in which my face is swollen. (The last time I had had my wisdom teeth pulled and looked like a puffy chipmunk.) I have had more injuries this summer...

One year later

It has been almost a year since I last posted, but I figure I should take advantage of having set up this page and write even though I am not traveling the world at present. A year ago I was on another continent, traveling, having fun, trying and seeing new things, and attempting to understand multiple languages. Now I am still in Denver, searching for jobs (a very tedious and depressing process), and basically living a fairly boring and non-eventful life at present. (I'm hoping that will change soon.) I graduated a month ago and am beginning to become worried that my degree will not get me a job that I want...which stinks. Maybe I should play the lottery...if I won I could then afford to volunteer internationally and get the years of experience international agencies seem to want for employment. :) It's not that bad, but I have to be ready to wait 3-4 months to hear back from places to which I apply. Apparently, that is fairly normal for many of these agencies...yay. In the meantime, I will keep on playing flag football on Wednesdays and babysitting and house-sitting to make some money. Next week I will be in Milwaukee for Chelsea's wedding. That should be fun, as the whole fam (I'm not sure about Matthew, though) will be there...always a good time.