I laugh whenever my 25 month old says that.

“It hurts!”

“Well where does it hurt, son?”, I ask.

“It hurts!”

Nothing is really bothering him. He does that when he needs attention. He’ll say it hurts although he hasn’t thought through his feigning attempts by failing to plan out his next move. It just hurts but he doesn’t know where.

“Got ya!” Oh the mind of a 2 year old. Gotta love him.

I hope I haven’t been neglecting him too much with all my studying. I still play with him when I come home from work, but just not as long as I used to. I’m really focused on my studying and I try to limit my distractions by keeping a schedule. Usually 6:30pm to 8:30pm is family time. But sometimes I get careless and the NBA playoffs takes precedence over my family. When 8:30 rolls along, it’s my time to study, until I get tired – usually until 11:30pm.

I love my family, and if this studying thing becomes too much for them, that’s when I need to re-shift my priorities. I just appreciate my wife’s support in all this as she understands how important it is for me personally and for my goals for our family. And to have my wife’s support is important as I’ve seen it again and again from the testimonies of others who have been in this journey that having a spouse that supports you makes all these nightly and weekly readings and labbing that much less stressing.

It Hurts!

Well, shifting gears, I am hurt too. All over my body, my muscles are aching and joints unbending. Last night it was hard for me to sit still and read because my neck/shoulder muscles were very sore. It is even worse today.

What happened? I played basketball no Sunday night.

Gone are the college days when I could play basketball for 4 straight hours and still have the energy to drive to Vegas at midnight  (a 4-hour trip from where I was, one way) with my buddies, have a $2.99 steak meal and come back home before the morning sun comes up.  

Maybe that’s just the thing. I don’t play basketball much anymore. So when I do, I am miserable the next day.

I’m hoping it gets easier in the coming weeks. Our basketball league games just started again last week and we are to play every Sunday nights for the next two or three months – depending on whether we make the palyoffs or not. I used to play with these same group of friends form Church for several years and we’ve made a pretty good run in several leagues. But I havent’ played with them for a couple of years and thought it would be good exercise for me to start playing again. It’s the only aerobic exercise I get so I jumped on the chance. But boy, am I out of shape! And even worse, our center, the guy that anchors our defense, will be out for a couple of weeks (possibly the season) so I’m relegated to the center duties. And anyone that played middle before knows that that’s where all the pushing, shoving, banging, and fighting for positions happen. Needless to say, I am beat!

Oh well! Hopefully it won’t affect my studying too much this week as I’m finding myself getting tired at night faster. It should help that I’m quite enjoying the topics on Frame Relay that I’m working on this week.