Taco Bell/Head Painting

For those of you who don't know... Taco Bell is my meal of choice on the night before I start chemo.

Every round, I've had Taco Bell as my final meal before going in to get back on the juice.

So, tonight, it made the most sense to have Taco Bell, chips and ice cream for dinner at the Woods' house. With Kirk's family. And some head painting. ... Because I am, pretty much, the coolest cancer patient around.

Call it a blank slate, a bald pallete. Whatever you want.

We call it a good time. From youngest to oldest:

Kirk

Russell

Hazel

Monson

Maggie and Hazy

Dad's getting in on the action (and Cili's taking up permanent residence... watch for her in, pretty much, every single picture from here on out through the night... girl got seriously addicted to painting my bald head!)

Dad, me, Hazel, Maggie and Sally

Jo and Kirk, taking turns

Jo takes her head painting VERY seriously! 

(Whereas, I, clearly... do not. I got mocked tonight for my need to smile for EVERY picture. Who doesn't smile when they know their picture is being taken, is what I want to know?!)

Roomie, being hilarious. ... Or, uhm... ruling. (Whatever.)

Cili

Mag

Sally

Judy

Brett

Brett and Kirk both having some good times.

Another one of C and me

I can't believe we didn't get a shot of the other side of my head! (Because, I'm telling you, it was pretty sweet. Complete with a bucket of Blue Bell ice cream, courtesy of Russelbear, and other smiley face, since Jo and Kirk were, apparently, painting the exact same thing at the exact same time.)

It was a good night. I'm full of tacos and Sun Chips and rocky road ice cream. I'm so grateful that Jo and Dean totally let me invite my family over to their house whenever I want, and I love that there's an activity that all of the kids (both those who are actually young, and those who are young at heart) can get into.

The painting of the head is something I sort of stumbled across last spring when Hazel (jokingly, or maybe not...) asked if she could paint my head like an Easter Egg. (I love kids and their crazy imaginations.) Whatever it takes to make the kids okay with the baldness... it's the greatest equalizer ever. Cili, in particular, has always had a hard time with my baldness. (Sally, too. But it's hard for C on a different level.) But tonight, she was the one person who could not get enough of painting the fuzzy head. Two words: Worth it.

Whatever I can do to make the cancer, and the baldness, more fun. Not just for me, but for everyone else in my life.

A slideshow of baldy pics

A couple weeks ago, I posted that my hair was falling out. Since then, I've posted pics on social media, but have been a pretty big slacker about putting anything up here. I figure it's time to make it up to my bloggy friends who may or may not also be fb fans and/or Instagram followers.

Enjoy.

Nice Princess Leia buns for Star Wars Day, eh? (Yes, that is my actual hair. Judy had wanted to keep it for a craft, so I'd been putting it into baggies as I pulled it out. The amount of hair that I lost in the afternoon of December 17th is the bun in my right hand. The other bun is all of the hair that I'd lost up to that day, combined.)

On December 19th, I decided to see what "hair do" options I had and do a photo shoot. I would take pics and then send them to my brothers. Ha! (Kirk's been hoping for some male pattern baldness. The evenness in which I have lost my hair has been sort of a bummer to him.)

The combover is still my favorite.

As cute as all those little piggies were, I'm here to tell you... I lost a lot of hair that day, twisting my hair into piggies and then pulling the bobby pins back out.

This was pretty typical hair loss for any one of my piggy dos (and there were A LOT of them). Ha!

That night, Judy and I had Panda Express for dinner, and I had to repurpose my Leia buns into Mrs. Meers. Because it's such a natural progression from Chinese food to Chinese laundry to white slavery...

Shoo show, shoo show.

Also, POOK!

And speaking of things I got "from my mother's side of the family"... check out the similarities here.

I had snapped the pic of myself Christmas Eve morning and sent it off to my cousin Julie with a note that it was funny to me how I could see Uncle John in me, now that I'm old and gray and bald. ... She sent me back a pic of John that night. Uh, yeah. No wonder I thought that wave across my forehead looked like Uncle John's! It... uh... is exactly like his. (Those Ball genes are strong!)

I'm a little grayer than I was last week, and my hair's still getting thinner by the day. I'll give it a few more days to fall out on its own before I cut/shave it off.

What I learned last time is that leaving dead hair in my head makes my scalp itchy and weird, so I'm just letting it come out on its own. It's been wildly different this time, in that it's been almost three weeks since it started coming, and it's still not gone. (Last time, it was roughly 72 hours from start to bald.) It's really funny, because it's so thin and wispy that it mostly just stands straight on end, and it feels more like duck fuzz than human hair. But whatev. It makes me laugh every day, even if it does make me do a double take when I walk past a mirror. Pretty soon, I'll be back to bald little old me. Until then, I'm rocking the toddler bedhead like none other!

Monday

After dinner last night, Katie came home with me and had a sleepover. This morning, we got up and drove over to pick up Brea and Hillary for pedis.

Hillary was sooooo hoping that she'd get to pick my polish and we could be matchy/matchy again, but she had to settle for picking my base polish (red sparkles).

After getting pedicures, we walked down to Nothing Bundt Cake to get some bundletts.

And free samples. Lots and lots of free samples. (Don't judge. It was pumpkin cake.)

After getting our toes done, Katie and I came home so I could rest for a few hours before dinner that night with the gang. We met with Spencer's family and Kirk's family for an AWESOME family dinner at Charleston's. (We love their ribs. So much.)

After dinner, we had bundtletts for dessert.

I cut them into quarters, so everyone could have samples of different flavors, and Hazel and Hillary helped "serve" them to everyone at the table.

After dinner, we moseyed on over to the new Mesa Fiiz to get our caffeine on.

We heart sugar. And caffeine. ... Oh, and each other.

Best. FHE. Ever.

Thanks, Spencer, for bringing your family to see me. It was a totally awesome weekend, capped off with lemon Nothing Bundt cake and a Pepperlada from Fiiz. Life doesn't get much better than this.