Last Weekend

Since I'm sitting here blogging, I figured I might as well give a brief (maybe) synopsis of last weekend. Jarrett and I drove up to North Carolina to visit our respective families -- Jarrett's in High Point and mine in Charlotte. He did stay the night with me at my parents' house on Friday evening and went out to breakfast with us the next morning, but then headed northward to spend some time with his mom, grandparents, and especially his brother, Stephen. Many of you know that Stephen had an accident on a job site a couple of weeks ago and badly injured his left hand. I won't get into details, but he is a carpenter, and the table saw got the best of him. Thankfully a hand specialist at Duke has said that the worst-case scenario would involve fusing his middle finger at the main joint to where it would be at a slight angle, so he wouldn't have full movement, but it would still probably help him grasp things, etc. This is great news considering how mangled his fingers and joints were. However, this whole situation has still been a real blow to Stephen both physically because he is an awesome rock climber, and mentally because he feels bad that he let it happen in the first place. He's trying to keep a positive attitude, though, which is excellent -- mistakes happen, and he will be back on that climbing wall. He is still facing more surgeries and physical therapy, but he's a strong guy, and we're hoping for a good recovery.

So Jarrett and Stephen had some good, quality brother time together. I spent the weekend hanging out with my parents and my brother, which was nice, and I also helped paint my parents' dining room. They're in the process of doing some renovations to the interior of the house, and it's already looking nice with fresh paint on the walls. My mom and I also went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which I really enjoyed -- probably because I never finished the book, so I wasn't making comparisons through at least the last half. And, of course, we made it to Belk to do a bit of shopping. With Labor Day making for a longer weekend, the drive between North Carolina and Georgia just seemed to be a bit more bearable.