I hope everyone had a good weekend! I was still moving slowly after my big tumble down the stairs on Friday. I'm feeling much better every day. The only visual bruises I have are on my inner right wrist and my right elbow (the latter being particularly large and ugly), but I really only needed ibuprofen the first day and I've been toughing it out since then. Sometimes I forget, plop down on my desk chair, and my butt reminds me that it took the brunt of the fall and will likely continue to hurt for at least several more days. But I am counting my blessings and happy I didn't hurt myself worse. I'm very lucky I didn't break something. Seriously. I think I had a guardian angel or two helping me land in the best way possible to minimize injury. Thanks, Grandma & Granny!

Melissa's husband Bill stopped by yesterday to be my construction/repair sounding board on putting the railing back up. Since it tore huge holes in the drywall, my mom's idea of mounting decorative pieces of wood over the damage, then mounting the railing on the wood pieces met with Bill's approval as well (I wanted someone who knows about such things to look at it and tell me what my options might be... much as I love Mike, he is not one to use power tools... LOL!).

So I got some decorative panels today -- two different options -- and once we decide which ones we'll use, I'll get some paint that is the same color as our trim and paint them to match. Or I may just use a clear sealer on them, since the railing isn't stained either... just natural wood color. And I'll glue as much of the wallpaper back down as I can. And I'm hoping the wood panels (they're not that large, but big enough to cover most of the damage) look nice. I've seen railings mounted that way before, now I know why! We'll also probably install a runner down the upstairs hall and down the stairs to offer some traction on those stairs (which are just plain wood -- and I was walking in socks -- so it kind of makes sense that I slipped. Mike said I need to wear slippers with rubber soles around the house. I think he was more shook up by it all than I was.

Bill said he'd come back to do the installation with me. Which makes me feel so much better because I don't trust myself to do it right. Actually, this will be sturdier with the wood panels behind it, which is good. In case I decide to go flying down my stairs again!

In other news, I've ordered a new laptop because mine has been giving me fits for a few months now. The USB ports are wonky, and whatever is plugged into them disconnects and reconnects randomly, sometimes repeatedly. It's gotten to the point that it's affecting my work, and of course it happened after my computer was off-warranty. The person at the help desk said that if the thing we did to fix it on Saturday didn't work, I'd need a new motherboard and I'd have to reinstall Windows. Made sense at that point just to get a new one. I'm pretty hard on my laptops since I use them SOOOOO much for my day job and my designing. I can't wait to get the new one -- I was able to select a color and I chose spring green! Very stylish! They're building it out to my specifications. Woohoo!