How I Got My Fat Lip

Yesterday I ended up with a fat lip.

No, Iven didn't go all Chris Brown on me. Although, admittedly, I'm probably annoying enough sometimes for him to want to. All that nagging about putting his dirty washing IN the basket and not next to. Poking him in the back in the middle of the night when he's obviously sound asleep (well, I'm pretty sure he's asleep judging from the snoring). Forcing him to eat all my baking and give me positive feedback or else I sulk. And these are probably the more charming of my irritating attributes.

And I didn't walk into a pantry door that had been carelessly left open by one of my progeny.

And Toby didn't head-butt me when I finally relented and let him lick out my cereal bowl.

Please sir, I want some more.

No, I managed to give myself the fat lip. By trying on a bikini top.

Can I just say right now that being able to do this requires very special, advanced skills in clumsiness! Throw a bit of motor skill deterioration caused by age (did I mention that I turn 50 REALLY soon?) and you have the perfect recipe to cause significant harm to your own body.

I tried to take a photo of said fat lip for the blog but I had to zoom in so close that all my wrinkles and saggy bits were more noticeable than the lip swelling so you'll have to take my word for how disfiguring this injury was and how grateful I was that I had no clients or co-workers around to gasp and turn away from its grotesqueness. And unfortunately the swelling had gone down by the time Iven got home so there's no one who can actually bear witness to my pain and suffering - except Toby. But he can't talk and he loves me too much to ever turn away.

Did anyone notice that my hair is almost the same colour as Toby's now? It's true about owners starting to look like their pets. I'm thinking that brown contact lenses would really suit me.

So you're all wondering now exactly HOW I managed to smack myself in the mouth. Well, I'm still trying to work it out too. I'd gotten my latest batch of leotards and bikinis back from the machinist and in it was the bikini I'd made for Ali as her prize for the giveaway. I just wanted to see that everything was sitting right before I sewed in the bikini clip at the back. Lycra is very elastic and Ali is smaller than I am so I had to pull it pretty firmly to get it to sit in the right spot. But my grip wasn't tight enough and one of the sides came loose. The other side sprang back bringing my clenched fist with it - right into my bottom lip. Ouch! 

This isn't the first time that I've been injured at work. For all of you who don't know what exactly it is that I do, I run a dress making business specialising in sportswear. Specifically, I make leotards for aerobics, rhythmic gymnastics and dance and costumes for bodybuilding.

You'd think that this would be a pretty sedentary, safe business to be in. And it is for the most part. But apparently add me to the mix and any number of mishaps can occur. And I can't sue the boss because I AM the boss.

Punching myself in the mouth is the latest in a long line of injuries. Pinning myself is a regular occurrence and I don't often notice until I see blood on the piece of fabric I was cutting or sewing. I've managed to sew myself with the sewing machine. You don't know you're alive until you've had a machine thrust a needle into your finger. I've also managed to hand-sew my leg to a hem and that didn't hurt at all. I've snipped the webbing in my hand multiple times. I've nearly swallowed pins when I accidentally dropped them into my cup of tea instead of the pin container. And then there's the times that I've tipped myself off my stool because I couldn't be bothered getting off it to fetch some fabric and decided I should be able to roll all the way across the room with one push. I should never have let Bubbles sleep in the room that day.

I really should charge danger money. 

I must finish here because I've got to get the next leotard started. Wish me luck. I hope I come out of today in one piece!