i am SO CRAZY busy this week... i have absolutely no time to prepare for my trip next week, nor do i have the time to even train my coworker who will be covering for me. aaaack.

canaan had its annual summer retreat this past weekend - except instead of the usual location of redwood christian park, our church decided to have it at asilomar conference grounds in monterey, which was really nice. the adventure started when bob, summer, richard and i left on friday at around 6:30 pm; but what should have been a 1.5 hour drive to the conference site ended up being 3.5 hours. no... we didn't get stuck in traffic... let's just say we got a little lost and ended up going down 101 past king city before we realized that we were in the middle of nowhere instead of at the beach. oops. we basically missed the 156 junction by, uh, a lot. i think people started getting worried about us since they knew we were going to leave after work and by 10 still had not shown up. we got a couple of calls. hehe.

it's too bad we missed the first plenary session, but the retreat was awesome nonetheless. we invited mako back to the bay area as our speaker - i always loved listening to mako speak. his message on saturday really reminded me of this post i made from a couple years ago. i called a few places back then but since most opportunites were during after school hours on weekdays, i never really followed up on other options. his message really stirred up that desire again to get involved in the community. i think it's time for me to start searching again.

some pics from retreat:

youth counselors get some love:

sherry & brian try the saltine challenge: eat 7 saltines in one minute:

the remnants of the challenge. although neither ate all 7, sherry wins with four. the crumbs everywhere are courtesy of brian.

awwww. cutie pies lucas and sarah happened to dress alike! look at them holding hands. :)

look at my styling wheelchair for the beach:

we tried to watch the sunset, but had to go back to the evening session before it fully set. the question of the night: was that the moon or the sun??

the other pictures i uploaded, including the rest of the retreat pics:

2005 Canaan retreat

cell group & other random pics

it's story time again!

there once was a girl named karen, who suffered from eczema (skin allergies/rashes). one summer, her eczema was especially bad, and would never seem to go away - so periodically at night, before she went to bed, she'd take some atarax, which helps her not scratch at the rashes while sleeping. she can only take it at night becuase the medicine knocks her out completely.

so one night, her itching was especially bad, so she decided to take some atarax, even though it was already past midnight and she knew she'd have to get up early the next morning. so in went the atarax, and off to sleep she went. the next morning, she had set her alarm for 7:30 am, but since she was so drowsy from the medicine, she must have turned off the alarm while sleeping. the next thing she knew, it was 8:35 in the morning. she gasped and jumped out of bed, since she knew she had a dermatologist appointment on Monday at 8:40 am. this was her chance to see the doctor to fix the rashes and itchiness that has been plaguing her for so long! she was afraid that she'd miss the appointment and then wouldn't be able to get another one for another week. so around the house she ran, taking a one-minute shower, and desperately trying to call the dr.'s office to tell them she'd be late, and to make sure they could still see her. she couldn't get through at the doctor's, so she just grabbed her laptop & backpack for work, hopped into her car and took off.

when she almost had reached the doctor's office, she gets a call from her friend george. she then proceeded to have the most confusing conversation ever*.

george: are you on your way already?
karen: (confused, why is george asking me if i'm already on my way to the doctor's on a monday morning? how'd he know i'd be late?) uhhh... yeah.
george: okay, then never mind.
karen: (still perplexed, had to ask more questions). uh... why are you asking?
george: because you're late.
karen: late to what? (still utterly confused at why george is calling her at 9am on a Monday morning).
george: to worship practice.
karen: (now thinking to herself maybe the retreat worship team set up practice at 9am on Monday, and george didn't realize that she isn't on the team for the retreat): why would I go to worship practice?
george: (now utterly confused at the conversation as well): uhhh because. remember. we practiced yesterday afternoon. now it's sunday morning. we have service in 15 minutes.
karen: (totally totally confused) it's not sunday, it's monday!
george: (totally totally confused) what are you talking about? it's sunday!
karen: (light dings above her head) oh CRAP! it's SUNDAY! i thought it was MONDAY! i'm almost at my doctor's office! (speeds off to church)

moral of the story: never take atarax past midnight. you lose a day of your life apparently. sure, i've woken up in the past and have gotten confused on what day it was, but never this badly - to the point where i got up and drove to the wrong place.

*note the conversation with george has been truncated, and since karen apparently was still in a daze, is the best she can remember to her knowledge. the actual conversation took probably 5 minutes or more, with a really really confused karen asking george lots of questions. she shortened the conversation for your benefit.

**btw, i did make it to my appointment this morning, and on time. talking about getting poked by needles so much over the past three months, i got poked again this morning. the doctor gave me a shot of cortizone and a new prescription for stronger cream. hope it works.

dude. i will *never* again mock grandma shoes.

i went to valley fair today in search of comfort shoes for spain since i know we'll be walking around a lot and i already have a bum knee. i already knew i'd probably have to give up some (all?) style for comfort, but i was still in the hunt for something not so... old looking. so i went to clark's, and although they do have cute shoes, i couldn't find anything that wasn't super-ugly but comfortable. so i next hit easy spirit - funny, i didn't see a single shoe in the store that was easy spirit brand. also, i discovered that easy spirit now sells athena alexander shoes! (for anyone who was looking for that brand but discovered that nordstrom only sells really gaudy ones with rhinestones and buckles now, like me). anyway i tried on everything in the store, and either they didn't fit right or just didn't feel comfortable to me. off to the side was this small section of what i deem "old people" or "grandma" shoes that i totally avoided because, well, they're ugly. but just for fun, after i had torn the entire store inside out and managed to mess up every display, i slipped on a pair. and OMG. they are like... butter on my feet! i couldn't believe it. now THAT'S how EVERY pair of shoes should feel like! i couldn't get over myself. they were super ugly, but so, so comfortable. they wouldn't leave my feet. so, to compromise, i bought a slightly less ugly pair that was practically just as comfortable. you can now call me grandma, but i don't care because my feet feel GOOD!

so, moral of the story is, don't make fun of grandmas. there's a reason why we consider older people wise.

also, update on the situtation below, i complained to my HR, who in turn talked to the insurance company for me (since they are in contact with more managerial people there), and managed to get them to pay my anesthesologist another $282. So now i only owe $67! Praise the Lord. Even though I still think I shouldn't have to pay anything, $67 is a lot better than $350. Still waiting on the appeal for more PT sessions, although i found out another coworker is getting PT at the exact same clinic as me and has petitioned for more sessions as well. i think he petitioned earlier than me so we'll see how his turned out. hopefully i have some argument since i had a second surgery. we'll see. otherwise, i can definitely feel my muscles like my quads getting stronger, but the pain in my knee has not improved at ALL. at this rate, i'm going to use up my 20 sessions of PT next year come January! maybe i'll get an extension to my handicap placard though. ;)

auuuuugh. i got a bill from my anesthesologist from the first surgery for $350 and i couldn't understand why. so i called our insurance and apparently, he was an out of network provider. i said that's totally unfair because i do not get to pick my anesthesologist, he's just assigned to me at the hospital, and the person told me that they have some provision where if the doctor and hospital is in network (which i have control over and they both are) they'll cover 100% of the anesthesologist. i was like... but you didn't! and he said, well they only cover 100% of the average cost. i was like what the heck?! i live in california. i'm sure the average cost in the rest of the country is much lower, but this sucks. so i'm liable for the rest. this is only for my first surgery. the claims and bills from my second surgery haven't even rolled in yet. add on top of that the fact that i highly doubt my insurance will grant extra PT sessions since my coworker was denied it, even though my PT told me that every other insurance company usually grants it, and i'm talking $400/week for PT since it's $200/session. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

thanks to my fellow canaan cal fan, jt, i got to watch this short documentary on cal football.

i'm now ready & pumped for the new season. unfortunately, if i go to spain, i'll miss a few games, but it's okay.

anyone want to go to the sc game? let's get tickets!

go bears.

ouch. it's getting more and more painful day-by-day to straighten and bend my knee while i'm standing/walking. i thought it should be the other way around? it's more painful now than before the surgery, although the screw pain is definitely fixed. i have bigger lumps in my knee around my scars after this surgery, which i'm sure is tissue and other nasty inflammatory junk building up in there. how do i get rid of it?? it's super tender to touch but i've been massaging it non stop, which only aggravates my eczema so now my entire knee is rashy. ahhhhh!

i went with o to valley fair on friday. thanks to family day at work, we skipped out at like 3pm :) and before you tell me o's not family, i believe she's the sister of irving, who happens to work at my company. anyway, i could barely make it from nordstrom to the main mall entrance, so we rented (well, borrowed. you don't pay for it) a wheelchair. that was fun! it was the kind i could wheel myself so although o pushed me when we went from store to store, i could wheel myself around inside the stores. and these wheelchairs can basically do a 360 in one spot (so i could turn just one wheel, it doesn't just go straight back and forth), so it wasn't too bad to maneuver. i wish i could rent one of these for spain, but i think they're probably heavy to carry, even if they fold up.

so... i have one month to see how much i can rehab my knee. at first i was like, i'm going to spain no matter what! but i think i have to consider the misery of the people i'm traveling with if they have to deal with a gimp like me. :(

i went to pt for the first time today in a while. it's good to be back.

i told my pt about spain in a month... she seemed very dubious about my ability to go in a month. she kind of flipped when i told her it was for two weeks. i asked her if i had options, like bringing a cane or crutches, and she was like, oh sure you have lots of options, but it just may not be very fun for you. :( anyway, her words were "we'll see how you're doing closer to the date."

i have a long way to go. my flexion has decreased from 115 degrees to about 90. and i still have a lot of pain, albeit in different places. some parts of my knee are very, very sore. like so sore that i wake up in the morning and i just touch the areas without any applying any pressure and it's already tender and hurting. but it's soreness and not pain, so at least that's good. it's only been a week since my scope, so yeah. and my knee is still super-swollen.

i've been taking anti-inflammatory pills, and i don't know if this is a huge concidence, but every time i take them, i start getting sores all over the inside of my mouth. this happened last time, so i stopped taking them. i don't get canker sores that often, so it's a little odd. but i'm still taking them in hope that my knee will reduce in size.

in other news, our quarter ended on sunday, so hopefully work should slow down a little. my boss took us to tanto on lunch saturday since we had to go into the office... from hearing maria & joy talk about it, i thought it'd be super-expensive, but it's priced like most other japanese places. you can get ramen, udon, and various rice bowls for all under $10. maybe it's because they like to try lots of different dishes (the menu is huge) so it adds up. the roasted rice balls are expenseive (2 for like $6.50, and it consists of only rice, with some salmon roe on top), but it's SO GOOD. worth the $3.25 per ball - who knew rice could be so expensive. but you definitely must get it when you go. not any other rice ball, just the roasted. don't be fooled. it's a big difference.