Monday, May 16, 2011

At Random

Last night we had the annual spring children's musical at our church. This year there were a few special effects like some fog and black lights. Caboose was a jellyfish, and partiality aside, they were the cutest part of the show.

The jellyfish were carrying umbrellas with some crinkly, clear white streamers hanging from them. This is how they looked in the special lighting. They would move them up and down slowly like jellyfish move. Too cute!

It's been cold here again. It was in the low 40's today. We had to turn the heater back on since the gas fireplace just wasn't enough. It was 65 degrees in the house this morning. The birds are even puffing up to keep warm.

I have my surgery on Wednesday morning. The doctor wanted to wait until this week to let the bruising from the biopsy go down. The surgeon's office is actually open this Saturday, so I'm hopeful that by that day I will have the results on whether the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes.

I've been walking and have made drastic changes to my diet. I'm trying to drink more water and less coffee (insert sad face here). I've pretty much cut out sugar. I've increased my fiber significantly including adding flax seeds to my smoothies. I've also switched from using vanilla yogurt in my smoothies to plain and then adding honey (from a local supply that I already had) and I couldn't tell the difference. When I read labels, I'm amazed how many things have sugar as the second or third ingredient in their list.

I think I've come up with a salad dressing I can live with and I've also been making myself sweet potato fries. I've been cutting up a sweet potato into small fry-sized strips, and then tossing them in a smidge of olive oil, salt, and Mrs. Dash garlic and herb seasoning. I place them on a cookie sheet and bake them for 30 minutes, flipping once at 20 minutes. They're yummy!

Sparky is in Nicaragua this week. She left very early Saturday morning and will return very late this coming Saturday night. Unless something changes, this is the last trip she has planned until she returns to Togo next February.

Buddy is in the middle of baseball now. I think they've had four games. They had to play tonight when it was so cold. There's not much you can do about it when you live in Michigan.

Chatty spent the night with one of her best friends on Saturday night and then all day on Sunday after church. Her friend will be working at horse camp all summer (the one Chatty will go to for about three weeks). They wanted to spend some time together before she left.

Her friend got a new car, about a 2008, after she'd been saving for years. She has an older brother that is very jealous of it. Chatty was telling Hubby how nice it is and that, "It's an LS!" He asked her what kind of LS. She emphasized again that it was an LS. We all had a good laugh about that. She obviously doesn't pay any attention to cars!

We got a new camera a month or so ago. Hubby had been saving for it for over a year. We take tons of pictures of our backyard birds. I've shown you a few but I have tons to share that are just awesome. I just don't want to have every single post be about birds!

Monday, May 9, 2011

The Yuckiest, Stinkiest, Worst, Most Terrible Post I've Had To Write (Yet)

Last week our world as we know it was rocked.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

What I know right now:

It appears to have been caught early. April 29th I felt the lump and called my doctor who verified it and sent me for a mammogram and ultrasound. These were done on May 2nd and indicated the need for a biopsy (and was also done that day). The biopsy tested positive for in situ and invasive ductal breast cancer.

It appears to have been caught early because of the size of the tumor (11mm x 8mm x 6mm).

I am meeting with a surgeon on Monday morning, possibly as you read this, to find out the extent of surgery necessary. There will be lymph nodes removed to see if it has spread that far. Everyone has talked like I will have surgery this week.

I will be having a CAT scan on Tuesday.

I will be taking Tamoxifen for 5 years because the cancer tested estrogen and progesterone positive.

I am 45 years old.

Other things you might want to know and don't:

My mom had breast cancer at 54 and is a survivor. She is currently 66 years old.

She was also on Tamoxifen for 5 years.

My mom did not find her lump herself but it was found by mammogram. Hers was 2.5 cm at it's largest diameter.

I never imagined last year at Christmas when I got this necklace, one charm to honor my husband for his selfless act and one charm to honor my mother, that that charm would soon come to recognize me as well.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Cupcake Toppers — The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This weekend at church our ladies' group was responsible for a baby shower. It's very rare these days (or so it seems) for the expectant couple not to find out whether they are having a boy or a girl, but these soon-to-be parents are not!

The shower theme was based off of the nursery theme, which is The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Now since I am very computer illiterate, and since I am even worse at cutting and pasting and doing all things like that on a computer, but since I am very good at cutting with my scrapbooking supplies once someone gives me exactly what I ask for, I made cupcake toppers after one of the other ladies printed the images.

Hopefully one of these links will work (here or here), but if neither does, there are lots of images on bing if you want to do a similar thing.

Once we knew what images we wanted, I took my cutting templates so she knew how big to make them. I cut corresponding colored scrapbook paper and mounted each image.

I wanted white sticks and couldn't find flat ones, so I used the round Wilton sticks (I'll admit I didn't look that hard). I placed an image on the back and on the front, both mounted on scrapbook paper. Since they had to go around the stick, I had to use my hot glue gun to adhere them to each other around the stick. My scrapbooking adhesive wouldn't work and hold.

Since they had double images and lots of hot glue they were a little heavy. They were tall too, so I made the jumbo cupcakes.

We also had cake so I only made 24. These were as much decorative as they were to eat. They were a hit!

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Spring In A Week

Last Thursday I was out driving and saw the first daffodils.

Friday I saw more daffodils and some forsythia. Our grass started going from brown to green. I also took these pictures of the trees out in front of our house and our neighbor's house.


The leaves on our trees turn red before they turn green. I don't know what kind of trees they are.

I decided to check out the landscaping in front and see if there was anything happening. There was!



Spring literally 'sprung' last week at our house!

I know lots of the country is in full bloom, and some of it has been for a couple of months or more. It's May 1st, and this is the view of the trees out our back door.

Here are a male red-bellied woodpecker and a male downy woodpecker on side-by-side trees, which happen to still be barren.

But on the drive to church today there were hints of green in the tops of some of the early budding trees. Soon we will be in full bloom too.

And then in five months we'll be prepping for winter again.
 
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