The Official Start of Summer is Here Hodgepodge.

These questions always make me think which is something that really takes time.  Thank you Joyce. 

1. The last place you visited/patronized where you felt like you were given 'the royal treatment'?

This is easy.  Last Sunday Hubby brought home flowers for me.  I'd been grounded for a week and couldn't go to worship.  I love going to worship, and singing with all my "brothers and sisters." The sound is so beautiful.  The sermon is always so meaningful.  I was pretty sad about being stuck in the house with no one but the Littles to hang with.  The flowers really picked me up.

2. The last task you completed that was a 'royal pain'?

WOW this one is hard because there is really nothing that I can think of that is a real 'royal pain' to do.  I guess paying bills.  It's a necessary evil I guess. 

3. How have your strengths helped you succeed? How have your faults hindered you?

Living with cancer can really create times of depression, but I refuse to go there. I keep looking for the things that I can still do and really try to not think about the things that I can no longer do.  

As for my faults, I tend to go to the dark side of things fast.  Example: I have a doctor's appointment Friday with one of my oncologists and my mind wants to think "Oh No! We're out of options and he is going to tell me that I'm out of time?"  See...the dark side!  I really have to yell at myself and say "NO! He's going to me tell me what the new plan is and that it will all be OK.  That I'm strong enough to tackle this."  

4. If you found a remote that could rewind, fast forward, stop and start time, what would you do with it?

Well it sure wouldn't be 'fast forward'!  Time goes by too fast as it is. I'm sure not going to help it along.  I think I would like to rewind and relive some of the great times we had when our kids were little but I wonder if I would still make the same mistakes.  Maybe I'd just toss the remote because I'm not sure you can relive the past without changing it which would change the present. I like the present. 


5. Any special plans for the Memorial Day weekend? Will you in some way honor or recognize the meaning of this day (remembering people who died in service to their country)? Have you ever been to Arlington National Cemetery? Does your town do anything special to mark the day?

 We will most likely lay low.  Nothing special although I would like to go the beach and walk around if the weather is nice.  I've not been to Arlington National Cemetery but it's on my bucket list.  Our town does have a cute parade which is always fun.  Of course there will be tv movies about WWII that we will most likely watch and remember.  My dad was not in the military but my Father-In-Law was. So we will watch and thank all of the military for their sacrifice. 

6.  Insert your own random thought here.

Well my white count came up so thank you all for the many prayers.  I still can't start Chemo however, because in the 3 weeks we waited for the white count to grow, the cancer grew very fast.  So on Friday, we see my oncologist to create a new plan.  Not sure what that plan will be, but we'll talk.  
There is a shingles vaccine that is a dead vaccine and one that my primary care doctor said I can have.  So we are going to talk about that with our oncologist and see if I can get it.  It will mean that I can stop taking the pill that I now take 2x a day to prevent getting the shingles!  That is huge!  I can now stop taking the drug to lower my cholesterol as it is down.  I love not having to take so many drugs.

Happy Memorial Day to you all and Thank you to all those who have served in the past and continue to serve today.  

A SMALL STEP BACKWARD HODGEPODGE

Thank you Joyce for the questions this week.  These are a challenge for me!  

1. What would you say is your biggest day to day challenge?

WOW! This first question really hit me hard.  I would have to say that my biggest challenge is finding "Normal".  There is not really a normal anymore when you live with cancer.  Everything and anything can become hard.  I feel as if I live in a bubble that will pop at any time and I will end up back in the hospital.  Push too hard, do too much, visit too many and I'm stuck in the house with some minor bug or too tired to continue with my chemo.  Not sure what is normal anymore.  


2. May 16th is National Biographers Day. What's a biography you really enjoyed reading? Is this a genre you read regularly?

This is not something that I read regularly so I had to really think about this.  I think it was the Diary of Ann Frank.  Hearing her side of life and knowing the ending was interesting.  

3. How important is keeping a clean house? Do you need to de-clutter your life?

I love a clean house.  Now, not the hospital clean mind you, but the kind that says come on in and kick your shoes off, relax, here is a glass of iced tea.  Since there are only 2 of us here most of the time, it's pretty easy to keep things tidy.  Hubby helps a lot and often finishes what I start when I run out of steam. Examples?  He will do the dishes when I cook.  He will bring up the laundry from the laundry room when I run out of steam and put them away.  He will cook if I can't -good thing I married a man who knows how to cook. As for de-cluttering my life, my life is not cluttered at the moment, it's pretty simple, which I love.  

4. You're the 8th dwarf. What's your name?

Grateful. I have a God who loves me and died for me.   I have a hubby who loves me and takes care of me.  I have friends who love me and pray for me.  I have grandchildren who make me smile and laugh.  I just learned that our oldest grandson is content with his life and wants nothing for his birthday.  If only we all could learn to be content with what we have.  What a great boy he is!!

5. What's surprised you the most about your life or life in general?

How time flies!  Really, you blink and your kids are grown and gone living great lives and being productive members of society.  You look at your husband and realize that soon your 46th wedding anniversary will be in a few months and wonder "when on earth did that happen?"


6. Insert your own random thought here.

Well last week I told you that I needed to grow white cells and so I was grounded.  I'm still grounded, as I didn't grow them, in fact my numbers went in the wrong direction.  My white count went down even more, not up.  I'm stuck home and grounded again.  Can't go out in public at all.  Stuck at home.  We'll try again on Monday.  See, Frustration is my name right now.  

Summertime and the livin' is easy!!

It looks like we, here in the upper right hand corner of the USA, have skipped Spring and have jumped right into Summer.  Our nights are in the 30's and our days are in the high 70's- low 80's!  Oh my!  There is green everywhere and I for one am loving it!  But I must stop what I'm doing and join Joyce in the Hodgepodge this week.  

1. What are your ingredients for a perfect Saturday?

Sleeping in late (for me that would be 7am) then out to brunch with Hubby. Perfect weather to play in the yard and then out to a lake or some body of water with Hubby and  the Littles (the dogs) so that we can sit by the water and the Littles can walk around in the water. Then an easy dinner and then relax the night away.  

2. What skill do you wish more people took the time to learn?
Oh please, learn how to invest your money for the future. Learn life skills like how to sew on a button, or cook a simple meal, balance a check book, and say Please and Thank You!!

3. What's something you ate as a child you can't stand now as an adult?
New England Boiled Dinner! We had this pressure cooked meal in the fall and winter and it may have been easy to prepare, but I really hated it!  I swore to myself that once I was out of the house I would never again make or eat this meal.  I've not had it in almost 46 years since Hubby also dosen't care for it.  

4. Something parenting has taught you? If you're not a parent tell us one important lesson you learned from your own parents.
Just because your children have your genes, they do not necessarily have your personality.  They are truly their own person and you need to let them be themselves!  Don't try to make them into a mini verson of you.  Enjoy the person who God is turning them into.  You will be surprised, pleased, honored, and blessed at the people they become.  

5. Share a favorite quote or saying about mothers or motherhood.

"Every wise woman builds her household, but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands."  Proverbs 14:1  We have so much more power than we realize we have.  This quote is for woman in general, not just those who have children.  I love that. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

As I said above, we have jumped right into Summer so I've been spliting my time between gardening, refinishing our dining room chairs and resting.  I love to garden and I love to refinish wood furniture, but my white cell count was too low this week to begin another chemo cycle, so I have to rest and grow more white cells so that when I have another blood test on Monday I'll have enough white cells to begin another cycle which of course kills my white cells.  What a  strange state of affairs this is! 

So on any given day you will find me Here:

Working on the plants behind the sitting area...

...or the flower boxes...

...or in the containers we have.

Or Here:

The chairs are becoming a nice dark red color.

Or even Here:

Resting/growing white blood cells!

Project Hodgepodge!

Welcome to the Wednesday Hodgepodge. It finally feels like spring up her in the upper right hand corner of the USA and it may feel like summer by the end of the day.  Thank you Joyce for the questions.


1. April showers bring May flowers or so the saying goes. Is there a flower you associate with a particular memory? Explain.

I love Lillies and have planted them in just about every house we have lived in. They start to pop up out of the ground while there is still snow on it and it reminds me that Spring is coming after such a long cold snowy winter and that life does does begin anew.  It makes my spirit glad to see life coming  from such cold and bleakness.


2. Last time you helped someone? Tell us how.
Hubby and I went to a few stores yesterday and so I helped him with putting things into the shopping cart.  That counts right?  These stores were new to us so navigation around the store involved a lot of walking since we would inevitably in the wrong part of the store for what we were looking for. It made for a fun morning of laughing and having fun while we shopped. 

3. It's National Salsa Month (the food, not the dance) so tell us, do you like salsa? Hot, medium, or mild? Homemade, store bought, or from your favorite restaurant only?
No, I'm not a huge fan of Salsa. I guess that is something that I never learned to enjoy in those years when we lived in the southwest. 


4. When I was twelve years old...

I was in the 7th grade at a Catholic grammar school (yes they were called grammar schools back then and not elementary schools)  I didn't like the school.  I rode my bike to and from school as we didn't have a school bus.  We lived 2.5 miles from the school so walking was out of the question. In the winter, when it was too hard to ride my bike the local city bus driver would pick me up at the bus stop and get me as close to school as he could without leaving his designated route.  He didn't charge me as I think he took pity on me. I was tall and skinny which made me the butt of many jokes.  7th grade is a hard time of life for a girl anyways so I think a lot of us feel that we were awkward and trying to find where we belonged in life.  


5. It's the first of May so let's run with it-first things first, don't know the first thing about it, first dibs on something, first impression, first rate, first cousin, first string, first come first served, at first light-which phrase can best be applied to something in your life currently or even recently?
I'm such morning person that At first light suits me perfectly.  I wake up when the sun comes up and I jump out of bed and get going on projects all over the house.  I sleep like a log and so I'm up and ready at 5:30 easily   Don't ask me my name at sun down however because I will be sound asleep on the couch with my bifocals on my face.  I run out of gas and come to a crashing halt fast!!


6. Insert your own random thought here.

I have a new project that I'm working on.  It's these dinning room chairs.  After looking at them for 42 years in dark mahogany stain it's time to freshen them up.  They are all (6 of them) becoming this dark red that I love to bits. Some of the chairs need to be fixed but then they are all getting a coat (or maybe 2) of this wonderful barn red that will just make them pop.  Still deciding what to do with the table but I'll keep you posted.