non-obligatory blogging

. Not sure I even need to add anything to that title -- it applies in so many ways in life. Sometimes it doesn't even feel like there's any real improvement for a while but eventually even discipline can bring rewards. Surgery went well. At least I got by with the arthroscopic surgery instead of the full-blown, open up your knee kind. So now I'm healing from the surgery and I'm still healing from the injury but I can walk without crutches and I've started physical therapy and so despite the continued pain and discomfort, there is definite progress.

. My dwelling place has become our fairly good size living/dining/kitchen great room these days. Jimmy set up a daybed where the sofa used to be with a 2.5' x 4' table next to it where I can keep within arms reach just about anything I might need. (Anything except art supplies, that is) He did this because I am still unable to get in and out of our small bedroom safely and after two weeks on the couch I finally said I couldn't take that anymore. (It's was a month yesterday since the freaky weird dislocation.) Mostly I've been reading or messing with my wacom tablet or getting online or watching movies and such to keep myself occupied but I have had some hints of borderline insanity hit on long days here by myself. After going to the orthopedic specialist (O.S.) last week, and being put in a better brace that allows me to bend my knee a little bit, I was ready to do something other than spend all day, every day on the daybed. Actually, I was ready way before this but

. (photo by Peter Hellebrand -- http://home.planet.nl/~helle004/ ) "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed." Hebrews 12:11-13 (NAS)

I know I should be living in the very present reality of Today but dang!, 2008 has been one hell of a ride and I'm sure hoping 2009 is a bit less dramatic. I can't go into all of it here but thinking about the six (or more) life altering or at the very least, life shaking events in my life or the lives of family members this year has caused me to think about the fact that no one ever really knows what other people are going through, even if they really open up and fill you in on the details. I can't even come close to revealing all the different stuff that happens let alone the many ways that circumstances might be affecting me. Besides the fact that I can't broadcast everything that touches my life because many of those situations involve other people who I want to protect or at least not expose to public scrutiny, the real underlying fact is that I don’t even comprehend how it all factors in and fits together or what I’m actually learning from it all. I talk openly ab