Two weeks post-surgery

/ faithsweatandtears / Leave a comment

2 weeks post-surgery!

Look at me go!! 🙂 I went to the Y last night while the kids were at youth church & used some weight machines without weight (2 sets of 15 on about 4 machines), then went to the cardio room & used an awesome machine called a recumbent cross-trainer. It’s basically an elliptical, only sitting down! I made it a whole 10 min!  Woohoo! 🙂

I’m happy to see the swelling diminishing. Each day is a little bit better. (Those two “steri strips” will stay on for another week or so. They’re basically glued-on first aid tape, and the doc said that once they start curling off themselves, then I can remove them. They are just to protect the incisions where my stitches were while the skin heals.)

I did some physical therapy stretches after we got home, then iced it for about 30 min before bed. It was sore this morning, but not terribly so — not really painful, just stiff.

Progress! 🙂

Senioritis?

/ faithsweatandtears / Leave a comment

I think I have the grad school version of senioritis. My course this semester is more self-paced than I expected, which gnaws at the tempting edges of my procrastinating tendencies. I have got to get on the ball!

I have only three courses left before the formal dissertation course next fall, but I’m already making some preliminary steps toward my topic research, especially the literature review and methodology. It’s the methodology that is tripping me up. I know some of the things I want to explore, but trying to narrow them down into numerical hypotheses or even qualitative research questions is proving more difficult than I envisioned.

I think I will go to bed and try to think happy thoughts so I don’t have more nightmares about physical therapy beginning tomorrow morning. At least I get to see some of my favorite ladies for breakfast & prayer at our weekly Life group before my doctor’s appointment, so that will be a nice start to the morning.

Knee update

/ faithsweatandtears / 1 Comment

This afternoon, my stitches (all two of them) are coming out, and tomorrow begins physical therapy. I would appreciate your prayers, because I’m a little nervous about pt. I dreamed the other day that they made me do squats (like in weight training), and I woke myself up terrified with real tears in my eyes! 😦

On a happy note, I am able to bend my knee 90 degrees, and I can support all of my weight on my right leg for a brief time. Yet, certain actions that seem fairly simple (like bending & lifting my leg to dry my feet after a shower) still elude me. I did manage to shave my legs this morning, so I hope my orthopedist appreciates the effort. LOL!

 

Defining our destiny (Prayer Devotional for the week of September 9, 2012)

/ faithsweatandtears / Leave a comment

I used to have grandiose ideas about what I might be destined to accomplish in life, but as I have matured, my thoughts about destiny have also shifted somewhat. Honestly, I’m not sure if the changes are all for the better. There’s something to be said for youthful innocence, vigor and the unwavering belief that you can improve the world. I’d still like to make a difference, but at this point in life, my thinking is more on the micro scale than the macro scale.

Maybe destiny isn’t always something we are born to do, like being raised by a royal family as heir to the throne. What if destiny is something we develop along the way?

Perhaps it was destiny that orphaned children have been on my heart ever since I was a little girl. Or, maybe it was destiny that my 6th grade English teacher (doing as good teachers do) spoke words of confidence into my fragile self-esteem and encouraged me to write. Perhaps it is moments like those that create our destiny and mold it over time.

The Right Honourable The Baroness [Margaret] Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and arguably a person of great accomplishment is credited with this remark: “Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny! What we think we become.”

It is natural to lose some of our childish innocence as we grow older, but if we allow our thoughts to guide our words … actions … habits … character and, ultimately, our destiny, then we would be wise to pay attention to the musings of our minds.

Job 8:13-15 warns us: “Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless. What they trust in is fragile; what they rely on is a spider’s web. They lean on the web, but it gives way; they cling to it, but it does not hold” (NIV). Are we focusing our thoughts on God-centered ideals, or are we falling prey to the enemy’s influences?