Bad coffee and worse weather

I tend to gripe a lot in my blog posts. I suppose it's because this is my "outlet". It makes for uninteresting reading, I know, so I will try to keep it to a minimum. Who wants to sit and listen to someone else complain?

The bone spur/knee sprain hasn't quite gone away yet, which has really put a cramp in the workout regimen. Danielle and I go walk as much as we can, but if I go to long the knee starts popping and aching. I'm hoping that my trip to the doctor next week doesn't yield more bad news, as his plan is to send me to a specialist if the pain/problem doesn't abate soon. I've always associated knee surgery with future problems (Danielle's grandfather's health went downhill quickly after a knee surgery gone bad), so I'm a bit leery of the idea of any kind of arthroscopy or surgery of any type. Hopefully it can be cured with simple R&R. Please pray.

The softball team has dropped to 1-7. I have a very difficult time with this. Baseball/softball have always been my best sports, and I'm ultra-competitive when playing them. Being in a church league definitely doesn't do much to tamp down my competitive (and temperamental) nature, and I have a hard time keeping myself from lashing out at some of the younger players who don't take the games seriously. I pay money and spend my own time to play the game, so I have resources invested. Thus, when I show up, I play to win. Unfortunately, it's just "something fun to do" for a lot of the 18 & under folks, so we tend to lose...a lot. Our only win: 18-17. The score was 18-10 in the bottom of the 7th with us in the field, and the other team managed 7 runs before we finally got lucky with an infield fly. There's been several games where we were winning, but lost it due to fielding errors (our most common, painful problem). C'est la vie...just need to make sure to keep that temper in check with the churchies :)

Alright, time to keep chugging the bad coffee, waiting for the rain, and wishing for 3 PM (i'm leaving early dangit!) to get here. Happy weekend!

And the times, they are a'changin'

During one of our softball team's rare wins (we're 1-6 so far), I was rounding 3rd base heading for home, and as I hit the bag I heard (and felt) a nasty pop in my right knee. I made it home no problem, but the pop merited a trip to the doctor.

The good news: I stepped on the scale and weighed in at 251 lbs. A nice change from 6 months ago, when I was topping the scale at 283. And a BP of 110/70, which I have to say I'm quite proud of.

The bad news: A bone spur on the back of my right knee (which, apparently, I've had for quite some time) and an acute sprain of the right knee. A knee that, until the last couple weeks, I've never had a problem with.

I did something to aggravate the right knee during the P90X Plyometrics workout a couple weeks ago. So, I stopped doing the lower body workouts and walked instead on those days. Then the softball incident.

It made me realize that I'm sure not getting any younger. All I did was step on a plastic, cushioned, bag while running and my knee about gives up on me. It's quite depressing to be honest. I remember when I was 25 years old, 215 lbs, and in the best shape of my life...I was practically invincible. Never would have had this problem at that point.

But it's nothing compared to what my mom's facing right now. She goes under the knife tomorrow for a biopsy of the right breast. Apparently the doctor found a small growth there and is testing to see if there is any cancer in the region. My mom's convinced that it is benign and, being a smart person, have chosen not to argue with her about this. I'm just glad that she caught it early. But if those who read this would keep her in your prayers, I would greatly appreciate it. We're going up to Siloam Springs tomorrow afternoon to be with her and let her know we love her.

And we're making the trip in my new truck! We decided that, after 40k miles of faithfulness (for a total of just over 100k miles on the odometer) from the 2003 Ford Escape XLS, it was time to upgrade. Plus, we'd just paid off the last of our credit card debt...HUZZAH!...and had decided quite some time ago that we would upgrade when the CC debt was gone. So, last Friday, we closed on the sale of a new 2010 Ford F-150 FX4 SuperCrew 4X4 in Electric Flame Blue. I'm loving it. Though I know that I won't love it so much when I go to the gas station to fill up the 36 gallon gas tank. It is nice, though, in that the backseat has gobs of room (3 fully-grown men with plenty of legroom, with both front seats all the way back, could very comfortably fit in back) and it has a lot of fun bells & whistles. My favorite: being able to make and receive calls with voice commands via my stereo system's cell phone interaction feature.

The downside: the $2,200 or so I'll have to pay in sales tax at the end of the month. Thank God for commission checks.