The Forgotten Finger

For a better part of the weekend Brandon and I worked on our flower beds. Having only done a few things here and there for my mom over the years I never imagined the amount of work and effort that would go into gardening. It was fun for about 30 minutes but after that my knees hurt, my back ached, my fingers stung, and I'm pretty sure I bent a nail or two in the process.

We had to clear the leaves, pull out all the weeds and grass, irrigate the ground, dig holes, mix in top soil, plant the flowers, mulch, edge, and water. Why or how people find this hobby fun is beyond me but I can speak for both Brandon and I when I say once a year is enough for us! It didn't help that the entire flower bed was clay; who knew KY was so clay ridden ??

After a full days work on Saturday all we had left to do on Sunday was mulch and edge around the tree. I took on the job of edging and was doing quite well until I whacked my left pinky with the mallet. It wasn't a full on blow, just the edge, but it still hurt. I could feel that it wasn't broken or dislocated so I didn't feel a need to worry or fuss about it. I shook it off as best I could and went about my day thinking nothing of it. After cleaning the bathroom about 2 hours later I looked down and noticed a hot dog sized pinky on my left hand. (Although a hot dog may not sound very big remember that I have skinny fingers to begin with. My pinky swelling to the width of a hot dog is about twice the size of my finger!) I had obviously hit my pinky harder than I originally thought. Don't get me wrong, it had been hurting all day but I had brushed it aside in hopes of getting stuff done and pushed threw the pain. When I saw how swollen it was the pain REALLY kicked in and I almost screamed in surprise and sudden realization. I spent the rest of the day icing my little finger and soon learned how ridiculous it was that I was unable to do so many tasks with out it. :-P

My lessons:
1. Don't hit your pinky with a mallet.
2. If you do hit your pinky with a mallet pay more attention to the swelling.
3. Pinkys are used in a lot more tasks than you would think and thus should be appreciated more than they are.