temptation

makes it so much harder to stick to your guns. sigh. i know what i should do, but it's sooo much harder when more and more things tempt me to do otherwise. i feel like the messages i've been hearing at abundant on top of time i've spent in prayer and various converstaions are clearly telling me what i need to do. and then God decides to test me. ack! it should be good news, and i'm sure people think i'm crazy that i'm complaining about it, but in all honesty, i'm really agonizing over this. maybe i need to let the news digest some and then i won't let it affect me and try to sway me otherwise.

oh, and my PT demoted me back to one crutch. boo. :(

my computer arrived, but windows vista totally confuses the heck out of me. it will take me a while to get used to this. it's nice to finally own a computer again.

good news is that it's the weekend again. cal's got a big game against oregon, but i won't even be able to watch it live since our company's family day is at the same time and i already told people i'd take them to our family day. and hey, if my company moved family day from a friday to a saturday, then EVERYBODY's my family. :)

go bears!

I'M OFF CRUTCHES!

officially! :) though my doctor could kind of tell i haven't been wearing my brace or using my crutches all the time.

he said range of motion wise, i'm much further ahead than everyone at six weeks out (like i have my hyper-extension back) though i still have a lot of pain doing different things, and i still have locking of the knee cap which he said is caused by scar tissue that hopefully will eventually go away. i never want to hear "scar tissue" again for the rest of my life. and... as he's already told me many times before, my first doctor totally messed up my fat pad which is unfixable. so i'll be stuck with pain in certain areas for the rest of my life. :( my doctor had a guy on a sports medicine fellowship with him today, so he was telling the guy about my history and stuff and showing him the incisions on my knee & pics of the inside of my knee and telling him all these things that he should NEVER do. good to know my knee is used to show doctors what not to do.

so, i'm off crutches, limping around, and start PT tomorrow. part 2 of rehab begins.

monday again :(

why do weekends pass so fast?

didn't really have planned events this weekend, which was great after a totally exhausting week at work.

watched cal win another game (despite freaking versus, who froze the screen for a good 30 minutes. we missed two touchdowns, and for the second touchdown, they didn't even have the audio. they just showed commercials for more than 10 minutes straight! argh!!)

learned a new game on saturday and witnessed jean take a hit for the team. :)

another awesome message at abundant life.

and sadly, now, back at work. sigh. :(

but... good news of the day - 1) we got a piano that's now in our house! woohoo! but we need to get it tuned. 2) my bathroom is finally getting redone. no more nasty shower and peeling paint. double woohoo!

and apparently, i'm famous. i referred someone to my current doctor to get his acl done. his surgery is scheduled for wed, so he's been getting lots of calls from the hospital and medical equipment suppliers, etc. so he gave them my name because i'm lending him some of my stuff and they were worried that he didn't have the right equipment. they all recognized my name and then were okay knowing that he had the right stuff. i'm not sure if that's such a good thing...

long week

we had our sales conference this week, and i am wiped out. this year was the first year since i've been working here that the full, entire sales team (plus people from various other groups like marketing) attended the conference, so it was crazy. 400+ people. plus we had three breakout sessions, of which two of them i had to give presentations, as well as crazy 7am meetings (yeah, ask me personally) before the conference, and then we had dinners at night, so, literally, i'm exhausted.

but i came out of it with more free video games (though not as many as last year, sorry), tshirts and hats, so let me know if you want any of it.

next year's sales conference, which will be in march (the conf is usually in march but they pushed it back six months this year), will be in maui. wow.

but the big news of the day...

I FINALLY BOUGHT A COMPUTER! took me two freaking years - i took longer than jenie! i've been using my work laptop as my computer, but given the fact that a week ago, it was giving me the blue screen of death and i couldn't even boot it up (thankfully it works now), it scared me into finally getting my own computer so i don't lose all my personal stuff.

he went to what school?

i'm ashamed to say... cal...

Eric: oiooo
argh
how to spell
me: what's oiooo
Eric: coach
caoch
me: what?
Eric: the thing u sit on
me: what are you talking about?
couch?!
Eric: ooooooo
yeah!

later in the conversation...

Eric: true
but tha'll be more a house coach
me: COUCH!

great weekend

saturday was just what i needed.

much needed alone time with God for the whole morning. working through stuff. listening. worshiping. praying.

saturday afternoon with o & jono, with a detour with o to ride the wheelchair at the mall. i don't like the mall, but any chance to ride a wheelchair, i'm game.

talking about randomness while laying on the futon for an hour, and then corporate worship & prayer.

plus cal won. :)

service at abundant life. awesome message, total confirmation to what i was praying about saturday morning. lunch with jen & jerry, who have moved back from texas.

learning to surrender. at a transition in my life, with possible changes to come.

So do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

-Matthew 6:31-33

will do a protected post soon with some of what's going on, only because it involves work.

btw, it's good to know if something happened to me, people would notice when i don't show up on IM on a work day. we had a field operations sync up meeting at the marriott all day, where our company decided to save some money by not giving us wireless access, which we did not know until we got there. yes, by saving money that means making all of us stay late to do work at the office afterwards. anyway, when i finally got online, i found several emails from people asking me if i was still alive (or something to that effect) as well as several IMs. IM'ing at work CAN do some good! haha.

please don't ask

it's pretty amazing, a common question that i've been getting from various people is, "is this your last surgery?" i know they're just trying to make conversation with me... but what kind of question is that? every surgery was supposed to be my last surgery. you think i want more? i don't even know how to answer it: "no, in fact, i'm going to have another five knee surgeries."

i also hate the "how's your knee?" when people ask me in passing. how do i answer in the two seconds i'm given? i'd rather people not ask me when they're not really looking for an answer. i'm probably just being overly sensitive... don't get me wrong, i appreciate it when people ask and really care for an answer. it's those who just ask it in passing and aren't really looking for an answer that bother me. i've put up with three years of it. just say hi to me next time instead.

i'm already starting to have uneasy feelings about my knee, like how my kneecap is definitely locking like before and various other things. and i'm really, really itching to get off these damn crutches and start walking. honestly, more than a month post-surgery, i thought my knee would be a lot further along than it is, but maybe it's because i've been confined to these metal sticks and haven't started pt yet.

*

i'm ready to find the holy spirit party. this is tougher than i imagined, and i have a long road ahead still. praying for revelation from God. learning how to listen for God speaking to me. lesson learned from tonight. :)

lots of talk about church(es) recently. maybe i need to move out of the bay area for a while... :)

hooray for my car

my car saved me last night from what probably would have been a very painful and likely injury-inducing fall. yay for my tl!

so i put my crutches in the backseat like i always do. because i'm then crutch-less, i usually hop on my left foot to get to the front seat so i can get in. except last night i totally lost my balance as i was trying to hop. it felt like everything was happening in slow motion - i started falling backward and could just see myself re-injuring my knee (and i wasn't wearing my brace because i got sick of wearing the thing around) as i started falling. so i frantically reached out and grabbed whatever i could, which happened to be my front door handle, and since i was falling backward, the door actually opened because the force of me falling backwards pulled the handle out. i still was tumbling, but because the door swung open, i managed to get enough of my arms & body around the opened door to save myself. jean just watched in disbelief because she was already sitting in the passenger seat and was unable to help me as i tipped over. olivia and amy were too far away to help besides hearing me (& jean) scream and ask if i was okay. haha. but, thankfully for my car, i am okay, and my knee is okay.

maybe i should start wearing that brace again, i've had a couple of close calls recently.

by the way, i've realized that i need to put a better picture of myself on facebook. i get the most RANDOM friend requests... from people all over the world. i'm getting real familiar with that "ignore" button. i guess my name is more common than i thought. plus, apparently half of alinna's old students from hillsdale think her first name is karen.

jealousy

i should have gotten my surgery in the winter... weather has been beautiful, but the most i can do is sit outdoors and watch other people romp around. sigh. makes me really jealous. two and half more weeks on crutches, and then i start physical therapy. it'll be winter time by the time i can romp.

it's still too hard to say if this surgery did the trick. what's really worrying me is that when i try to extend me knee (i can extend my knee so that it's flat, but i'm still lacking my hyper-extension), i can already feel like there's clicking/locking again in the knee cap. i am still scared out of my mind that this surgery didn't fix all my problems, and if not, i don't know what i'm going to do. my doctor will tell me he can't do anything more for me, and then i'll be stuck living in pain for the rest of my life.

keeping faith that God has a purpose and plan for all of this is really hard at times. add on top of that my search and lack of consistent fellowship in my life for now, and the rest of the year will be tough. but God is good. i just have to get through this.

for the time being, random pics from things i've been doing.

had tons of visitors while i was stuck on my couch - even got a congratulations cake! our fridge was overflowing with food, thanks to everyone who came by to visit. even got the good stuff like cheeseboard pizza, house of falafel, shin ba la, korea fusion, popeyes, home made stew... the list goes on. seriously all i did after my surgery was spend time with friends, eat, watch the office, and use the torture machine (which is finally GONE!)


ended up going to joseph & lily's wedding after all (unfortunately, didn't get a pic with them because i was quite immobile at the time)


went to a bonfire & prayed - somehow managed to make it on the beach on crutches


went to irving & wendy's wedding. o's dad managed to mention me in his toast. what the heck. i don't think he even mentioned me in his speech at o's wedding.


jono got the children's meal. or more like... he asked for the children's meal, after he ate his own.


found a funny keyboard (check out the keys)


saw a bike get stuck in a tree


joseph & lily's wedding
bonfire
irving & wendy's wedding

testing...

awesome. dwight schrute reads my blog! hahaha. but apparently he's rooting for the wrong team. minus one for dwight.

testing blogger's videos with another clip of topher. he was watching jenny put on hand lotion, and decided he needed some for himself. topher's too cute.

hallelujah!

i went DRIVING! and it felt good. definitely not as dangerous as the last time i started driving (a month after the surgery with two feet).

i'm FREE!

next... 3.5 more weeks until i'm off these crutches and start PT.

though i watched it out of order, finally caught up on all 3 seasons of the office. so freaking hilarious.

and... the cal game was such a relief. so excited for this year - defense has a lot to improve on, but the offense is fast. jackson's punt return - awesome... and best will be a beast. he is super-fast and will be amazing to watch for the next three years. i don't think there was any drop-off from losing lynch. go bears!