I hurt my knee. It was swelling and beginning to hurt to walk. When I tried to straighten it, there was a disturbing noise. Grrrrinnnd and then pop. Although this was kind of on the painful side, I of course had to try it again. After all, maybe the "pop" was the sound of it fixing itself. Grrrrinnnnd, pop. Nope, not fixed.

At this point you must understand that I will do anything to avoid going to the doctor. Not only is it way to expensive but, medicine is not an exact science. Most of the time doctors are only guessing and always in a hurry to get to their next patient so they can keep on schedule. Yes, I will give doctors their due. Their guess is a least an educated one. So anyway, I decide to wait for 24 hours to see if it would get better.

No such luck.

Next morning my knee was more swollen but, everything else was about the same. So my awesome husband took me to the doc.

So the doc pokes here and there asking, "Does it hurt here? How about here?" I had to tell her about the grinding and popping. So she checks it out and then says that I need to go to physical therapy. Then she was gone. I guess she didn't think I would want to know what exactly was the problem.

Of course, I must have answers. And after doing a bunch of research of the internet this is what I came up with:

Symptoms:

• A history of trauma or twisting of the knee. check
• Pain on the inner surface of the knee joint. check
• Swelling of the knee within 48 hours of the injury. check
• Inability to bend knee fully - this maybe associated with pain or clicking noise. check
• A positive sign (pain and/or clicking noise) during a McMurray's test. I looked up a youtube video to see how this was done. Doctor didn't do it. It just makes a squishing sound during every revolution.
• Pain when rotating or pressing down on the knee in prone position, Apley's test. Doctor didn't do this one either. I can't do this one by myself but, after watching the video I am sure it would make me cry. (I did try my best at this one and rotating it was painful without having someone press down on it.)
• Locking or giving way of the knee. check
• Inability to weight bear on the affected side. It was difficult and painful for awhile but that gradually went away.

So my conclusion is that it is a Medial Cartilage Meniscus Injury. It is a guess but, it is all I have.

As I was eatting my cream of wheat and reading Sunny's blog, Sunshine on a cloudy day, I happened to notice that her link to my blog said that I had a posting named "Fonts". How odd!

I once created a post named fonts. It was only for a brief moment. After seeing on Talia's blog, Millers Moments, the cool font that she was using. I was envious. Yes, I know that it is wrong to envy. I must work on that.

So anyway, I was playing with the fonts that it lists on my blog maker thingy. I made a mock blog to test them out. Turns out that no matter what they name the font, they all look the same. Just a boring typerwriter type. *sigh*

Now I am making this new explanatory blog to delete the "fonts" blog link and....well really for no other reason.

Well, back to my cold cream of wheat.

Last night at church I learned something new. Worry is a sin.

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let

your requests be made known unto God.

Phillippians 4:6

Let's face it, if they were handing out crowns for worry, mine would be really BIG.

Last night I wanted to go to the alter and ask God for forgiveness for my sin. Since I must plan out everything in my mind ahead of time, (rolling my eyes at myself), I went over a prayer in my head. Knowing that it will be quite a challenge to overcome my obsessive worrying, I decided that I was going to need to ask God for help.

Then I worried about what kind of help that would be. Would it be a difficult and painful lesson to learn. I didn't go to the alter to pray last night.

No worries! I decided to put my faith in God. I spent some time in prayer with Him this morning.

"Back in the Day" people knew how to live of the land, for real. They would wake up with the sun and start their day. Seldom would one hear those dreadful words, "I'm bored" that have become such a common utterance in our world today. Between too many episodes of "Little House on the Prairie", the ever increasing worries about the economy, growing concerns about the ingredients in the products available at the local grocery store, the increased use of pharmaceuticals, and my own boredom, my mind has set off on a rabbit trail...


So, today I clarified bacon fat for soap. It is the first step in my process of learning how to make soap. I want to learn how to make it with ingredients that I would not have to purchase. After all, If I could go to the store to buy the ingredients, then why wouldn't I just buy a bar of soap. The idea here is to live off the land.

Well anyway, looks like the drippings from one pound of bacon produce enough clarified fat for about one bar of soap. I put the drippings in a plastic container in the fridge where it hardened into a nice clean BACON smelling chunk of fat. I am a little worried that my soap will smell like bacon.

I have done some reading and have been lead to believe that handcrafted soap is better for our skin. My son has eczema and this would be very nice for him. However, just because it is written, does not make it so. I will have to maintain my wait and see attitude.

There is much to learn about making soap from scratch. Not only is there Clarifying fat, but apparently I should try Rendering fat. Then there is the scarey process of making Lye or Sodium/Potassium Hydroxide or even NaOH if you prefer. It's all the same stuff and it is supposedly required in all soap. Mix a little fat together with some lye, throw in some rain water and there you go...soap.

Without adding some sort of fragrance, I do wonder what this soap will smell like. I want my soap to smell like...soap. I wonder if they have essential oil that smells like soap or does the lye take away the bacon smell and turn it into that classic soap smell. I was looking on the internet for different recipes and I ran across a picture of some soap shaped and colored like bacon. I didn't feel very encouraged about my soap losing that bacon smell after that.

Well that's all I have to say about soap for now.

I was recently reflecting about the past year. There has been many trials and tribulations that we have had to endure, but God has seen us through them and even blessed us along the way.

Blessings:

* Started going to Heritage Baptist Church again. God broke down the walls that I had put up, opening the door for us to return to HBC. There we learn so much from the bible and can feel ourselves growing closer to God.

*Made new friends. We have met so many wonderful people at HBC and beyond, it is not enough to call them friends. They are family!

* Refinanced our house making it possible for us to continue making our house payment in spite of our financial losses.

* New, free clothing. My mother-in-law sent me some new shirts. She didn't even know that I was in need of them.

I know this year will bring it's own set of trials and they will try to bring me down, succeeding for a time. But in the end, it won't matter because I am his and He is mine.

Thank you God for sending your only begotten son down to this earth to endure much suffering and to die upon the cross, only to rise again 3 days later, so that I may be forgiven and enter into heaven to spend eternity with you.

What a crazy day this last Friday was.

It had been two weeks since our last bible study and my house was messy. There had been so much activity in those past two weeks that I had just let the house tend to itself. The house doesn't do such a good job of keeping itself clean.

Someone had come up with the idea that for the woman's Christmas party we should all make homemade gifts. (I know who that person is and I will get my revenge.) Anyway, I had the added mess from my efforts at making this gift.

Plus, since the before mentioned Christmas party is to be held at my home I wanted to have it decorated in time. So with the help of some special little helpers, there has been some lugging up boxes full of decorations, sorting through those boxes, deciding which decorations to use and which not to, popcorn stringing, a holiday village to set up, and of course hot chocolate drinking. (I'm exhausted just remembering.)

The Blizzard added to our pile of activities and chores. Shoveling, shoveling, and yes, more shoveling. Wet soggy boots line up at the door while gloves and coats seem to find any chair or spot on the floor to rest.

My son attends bible study at the Pastor's house. Earlier in the week he was informed that there would be a potluck on Friday. Bible study starts at 6:30 pm. At 3:30 my precious son whom I love dearly, informs me that he is taking salmon rolls and wants to know if I will help him make them. Knowing that there are none of the ingredients in the house and that he must go out and look for them, I sigh, then agree.

Two hours later, half an hour before people start showing up at our house for bible study, that precious son of mine calls to tell me that he can not find any Leftsa. So he heads home with tortilla shells and I make the salmon rolls while he cleans up the downstairs. And I wonder, Why did I pick today to change and wash all the bedding?

Friday was a crazy day for me, but how many more times will my son ask for my help? How many more days until the day comes when he moves out, into his own life? How many more, until there are no mores?

Friday was a wonderful day, my son asked me for help and I was able to.

I do not like to take a shower or bath when I am home alone.
I feel vunerable.
So I try to avoid it.


Sometimes I do manage to overcome my fear. But the problem is...

The dog must feel vunerable too because he will bark at the slightest noise, real or imaginary. Then he will barge into the bathroom barking at me as if he is alerting me to an impending danger. Then he turns as if he is going to leave me to my solitude. But... oh no, he makes it clear that I MUST follow him to secure the perimeter.

Coward!

Today the UPS guy came and dropped a package at the front door. BOOM!

I guess I'll finish my shower and wash my now wet dredlocked hair after Aaron gets home from school.