My first unfortunate mis-hap of the summer...

It used to be that the sound that caused the most ill feeling in me was the sound of a loud alarm clock. You know the feeling...the sinking of your heart, the instant headache, the urge to quickly bury your head under something...but as of yesterday, I definitely have a new least favorite sound. A sound that is likely to cause nightmares and tears for the rest of my life. A sound that I would pay a LOT Of money never to have to hear again. And that sound would be...
The sound of a doctor sawing through my Tiffany engagement ring.
The problem is...I broke my finger the night before last. It was a very typical Jackie accident...I was playing with the dog and somehow managed to bend my finger backwards against the couch. I first thought it was just jammed...but when it continued to swell and turn blue into the next day, I determined that an appropriate course of action would be to see a doctor. For almost two hours, the doctor and his nurses attempted to remove the ring from my finger. But when nothing worked and I was beginning to lose feeling, it was decided that the ring needed to be cut off. So as I cried and cried, the doctor CUT MY RING OFF. It was the most terrible sound I have ever heard...it sounded like...well...a very large knife cutting through a platinum engagement ring, that's what it sounded like. And it made me sad.
The good news is, it looks like the ring is fixable. The bad news is...BOY does my finger hurt. And even if my ring is back in one piece in the near future the only thing I'll be wearing on that hand for the next month is...a very lovely brown and silver splint. Ugh.
I would post pictures of my ring pre-Kansas City trip today...but I am sure the sight of it would bring tears to the eyes of most emotional women. So we'll leave the pictures out for now.

So...I'm not really fishing behind some mountain range...

A few years ago, I developed an interest in the writing of Donald Miller. His books amuse me, intrigue me, and challenge me...he's kind of a modern-day C.S. Lewis, and what's not to love about that? Very few things make me happier than a writer who can dispense amazing wisdom about life, love, faith, and society, all the while making me laugh, smoking cigars, and drinking beer.
The reason that I bring this up is to explain my choice of a blog title. In Miller's book, "Searching for God Knows What", he writes, "When I saw myself in Heaven, I didn't imagine sitting at the right hand of God, as the scripture says, but I pictured myself off behind some mountain range, doing some fishing and writing a good detective novel". Who WOULDN'T want to be off behind some mountain range, fishing and writing a good detective novel? I would love to be there, doing just that for all of eternity. However, such is the situation right now that my writing will NOT be taking place behind any mountain ranges. It will be taking place here...in my house, drinking a rasberry Faygo and watching Seinfeld. It will most likely not be deep. It will most likely challenge very few people...amuse very few people...intrigue very few people. But it will be real, and it will be me. And just maybe, someone can develop an interest in that. "Jackie H-W...a modern day Donald Miller!". And what's not to love about THAT?