Post Skiing and Post Blood Donating

We had the most awesome time skiing...so crazy and wild. I hadn't been on skiis since my accident and I had the most wonderful time! I crashed and fell, went through the trees, got stuck off the path, slid down the hill on my stomach since one or both of my skiis had flipped off (due to my lack of caution or control), above all...it was absolutely FUN!!! Anne-Marie and I skiied in between each other's legs and landed in a heap, laughing so hard. I skiied past the place where I crashed and got my cracked skull and my crazy brother even videoed it with camera. By now, you can probably guess at how wacky I can be and so I'll let know a little secret (this IS a secret!) of how truly wierd I am. Take note of my beautiful mittens in the above picture. They are actually...SOCKS! My flimsy, pathetic mittens I had brought got soaked withing minutes of being on the slopes, they were holey and thin and the pain of my frozen fingers made me tear up. (Yes! I know, I should've invested in good ones, silly me!) So my caring brother Andrew donated two pairs of his black socks to me. Those are my "mittens"! I assure you, do not try it...BUT it did add to the zany fun of it all, but believe me...they were soaked very soon and it is very hard to hold onto your skii poles without a thumb. My other bro Cameron was an absolute angel and bought me some handwarmers which I kept in my "mittens" all day, those were my lifesavers truly. On the skii lift I swapped gloves with whoever I was with and then put on those long, black, soaking socks again. I allow you the freedom of being totally shocked at my carelessness. Note to self: buy good mittens before I go skiing next.

Now you can see who some of my bros and sisters are. To the left is Andrew and his wife Rebecca. And then there's me. Next is Elizabeth (the camera snatcher) and Anne-Marie and Cameron (his wife Lisa couldn't come skiing, she's too near her due date). I have two other brothers who didn't come skiing.

As for the blood donating...it wasn't as bad as I thought. The needle was absolutely gigantic and of course, they had to keep on adjusting (I have a lovely bump on my arm), but I lived. While A-M and I were lying there, and old man came in for his 100th donation. That was inspiring! I decided that I want to donate as often as I can, as does Anne-Marie...besides they do give you lots of juice afterwards. ;0) At the beginning, when the nurse informed me that they would be taking a 10th of my blood supply, I was feeling rawwwwther nervous. Doesn't that sound like overkill? I mean, really! Overall, it was a mostly good experience and I'm ready to do it all over again. Life is truly the most wonderful journey!