Silliness and a Splinter.

Time for a lil' shout-out to my husband Nate as he is my champion in blogging. He's always offering me ideas of what to write about, posting thoughtful comments, he is gracious about time I spend blogging/reading other blogs, and encourages me with all my writing pursuits. And most of all, I love when his sweet face looks up at me with pride after reading a new blog post.

And yet the other day when Nate suggested I write about my splinter removal process, I thought he was crazy. "Not gonna do it", I thought. But I write enough about serious things that you might as well know just how silly I am as well. 

Like if you really know me, I'm pretty ridiculous about a lot of things. Making up song jingles. Laughing way too much when I'm with my Mom and Sis. Excited about the smallest of things. Like the Chex Mix sale, BOGO. Constantly commenting about how "this tree or that tree is really beautiful". Always looking for my next pair of silver sparkly shoes. Way too thrilled about free stuff, like the bookcase we found by the apartment trash thing. Forgetting common words like dumpster. Really not understanding much about science. Or logic. Wait are those connected?

So here's my splinter tale. I'm the one who got the splinter before Thanksgiving. I was moving a piece of wood we had in our storage and it got me. Eek, it stung. One of those thin, long pieces embedded in my pointer finger. Nate immediately wanted to use the tweezer. I immediately wanted to ice it in hopes of numbing any pain. You'd think after a pregnancy, 30 some hours of labor and a C-section that I would be stronger in the face of suffering. I'm not. I still put a band-aid on everything. Paper cuts. Slightly burned fingers. Shaving nicks.

After numbing my poor finger, Nate and I gave it a try with the tweezers. Of course, I tried first and pulled too light and broke off the piece sticking out. Then Nate tried and began digging under my skin to reach the splinter. He was gentle and patient, but I soon had enough.

I tried Google next and squealed with delight telling Nate that a potato or some baking soda should do the trick. Next I'm in the kitchen slicing up a potato, putting a piece of potato on my finger and covering it with a band-aid. You should have seen Nate's face when I went to bed with a potato slice on my finger. I don't think either one of us expected it to work, but it was worth a shot. After removing that nasty black piece of potato in the morning, my finger was swollen, but yep the splinter rose more to the surface. Still there though. I tried tweezers and broke off the tip again.

We didn't have any baking soda and were leaving soon so I tried the glue method. A dollop of dried glue on my finger did nothing but irritate my skin more. And I was so hopeful for an easy out before our trip. Then at my in-laws I tried something called Bag Balm. I think it's for cows. No go on that.

Then I got around to the baking soda method (which was recommended as a last ditch effort because of the possibility of skin irritation). The baking soda + water paste actually felt like a spa to my finger after all it had been through. After 2 applications of this paste and more band-aid wearing, I woke up and the splinter was gone! That's my splinter story. Can't wait to see your face on this post Nate!