My special "extra dairy" diet

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not losing weight for fun. Or to "feel better". Or on purpose, on any level.

In fact, I'm intentionally making efforts not to lose much more weight.

I have a fairly limited diet (I can only eat what I can digest, after all), but I am here to tell you that I throw calories and fat at everything I can.

Case in point, would you look at how I basically frosted this burrito with sour cream?

Mmmmmmm.... That would be a smashed black bean & cheese burrito with five packets of Mild Sauce (I may or may not stockpile Taco Bell sauces for my own personal use) and about half a cup of full fat sour cream. Delish!

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.

What happens in Vegas...

Last weekend, Jo and I went on a little roadtrip. To G's. For the weekend.

Lucky for us, the Kirks had gone to Utah via Vegas for Conference, and they ran across this random little wing place (that's also a gas station) in Kingman that... sells Dole Whip. Totally legit Dole Whip.

It may not be a great picture of us, but don't let that discourage you from stopping, should you ever be in Kingman. It was awesome.

We spent the weekend at G's. Mich flew in Friday night, about an hour after Jo and I pulled into the driveway. I didn't take pics at the house, but couldn't help but have our server commemorate the moment when we had lunch at The Grape Street Cafe. 

I seriously LOVE this place.

When I was going to Vegas, the ONLY thing I wanted to do was eat here.

And order this.

It didn't photograph well, but man alive... I'm telling you. Their Hawaiian Ahi Tuna is, like, my favorite meal. On the planet.

And, of course, we had to have a spy-ish photo shoot with Mich once she saw the super cool (bathroom) door at the restaurant.

It was a fabulous weekend, full of downtime. Saturday morning, Jo, Mich and I hung out while G went to a training. That afternoon/evening, the four of us went out to eat, then pillaged a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Shop and had more Dole Whip (because Genevra knows how much I love it, and how hard it is to come by). Sunday morning, Jo and Mich went to church (like the good little Mormons they are) and G and I went to Starbucks (because when I'm on vaca, all religious rules are suspended) and sat and chatted for hours. Sunday night, Jo and Mich made us some sweet chicken tacos for dinner. ... And then, Monday, we drove home. 

It was a quick trip, and a short weekend... but it was awesome to spend hours in a car with Jo, and then a couple days with two of my oldest and dearest friends.

BR2015

This past weekend was the third Ball Girl Baking Retreat.

Cousins and sisters from all over the country (erm... world, actually, since this year we got Beth to come from England) gathered in Orange County, California to bake our little hearts out in Aunt Deb's kitchen.

Left to Right

(rear): Debbie, Becca, Christie, Ginny, Carol, Cindy, Jeannette, Judy

(middle): Me, Rachel, Sabrina, Katie G, Brooke

(front): Lisa, Julie, Shelly, Beth, Kyla

We laughed, we cried, we baked, we ate, we talked, we napped, we told stories and then we ate some more. The Ball girls and the Gardner girls were in a day early, and both families had sister days on Friday. The baking and official cousin bonding commenced Saturday morning and ran through Sunday night. A few stragglers (myself and Judy, included) stayed through Monday (yay for bank holidays!).

Many thanks to Aunt Deb and Cousin Jeannette for splitting the cousins in half and hosting (18 women in attendance meant two households had nine extra people having sleepovers). It was a crazy busy weekend, full of English candy, baked goods, In-N-Out fries, all-I-could-eat Doritos, enchiladas, tacos, family recipes with a twist and beloved recipes that were shared.

I love my family, even more than I love food. (And I loved Becca's Cancer Cake a whole freaking lot, so that's saying something!)

Hospital Food

It's not all bad, kids.

I don't know how much longer I'll be able to eat citrus, but I'm telling you right now, I plan on finding that out the hard way. Esp when said citrus is GRILLED and served on a bed of lettuce with sliced strawberries, blueberries that are as bug as a nickel, grilled chicken, pinions (and saving the best for last), blue ccheese and a raspberry vinaigrette.

Since i had this salad for both lunch and dinner today, I feel like doing a double shout of gtratitude for all the pre-meds they IV'd me with before they started the chemo. While i know the mouth sores are coming, and that they'll stop this kind of shenanigan... IN ITS TRACKS... I'm just so grateful that I can still taste food, esp a medley of berries and one of my favorite cheeses.

Argh

My one, single, solitary gripe about The Sweetest Comeback in the History of Ever...

I can't, for the life of me, find one of these:

It seems that the people of Hostess chose not to bring back the dang blackberry pie when their product was resurrected and put back on the shelves of grocery stores and gas stations across the nation. Argh.

Now, I know this pie is chock full of sugar (and the crust is 100% white flour), so I couldn't really digest it... even if I could find one.

But man alive... what I wouldn't give for two (okay, three) bites of an old school blackberry pie.

Two of a kind

I made soup this weekend.

It was delish.

I mean, I would have rather had Ken and Myra still living around the corner, so My could chop up the veggies and actually make it for me (why does food always taste better when someone else makes it?), but, alas... The Johnsons live in a far off land and I am unable to mooch their food anymore. It's a tragedy. Oh, well. At least I have her recipe. And I will give it to you, because this soup is fabulous. The broth has the most incredible flavor, and the lentils soak up all the savory goodness. To me, this soup screams "IT'S FALL!". And I love foods that scream "FALL!" at me. ... Obviously.

But the reason for this particular post (in addition to sharing the recipe, because I freaking LOVE this soup and think everyone should have the deliciousness that is lentil soup at their disposal) is that my bag of lentils and I are (okay, were) twin souls.

Would you look at that? My little bag o' legumes had a hernia. Right smack in the middle of him.

Just. Like. Me.

Much like the skin around my bellybutton has thinned (so much so that I can hear AND feel the gurgles and pops as my stomach goes through the drama of digesting my late night snack), the plastic in the middle of the bag  had thinned to the point that there were a few little guys that looked like they were about to pop right through.

Like I said, twin souls. ... Poor little bag. I felt your pain, dude. ... Too bad the only cure for you was to tear you open and make soup out of you. (I can only hope my herniated midsection doesn't share that fate. #Gruesome.)

Here's My's recipe. It's fabulous. Also, it makes A TON of soup. (Says the woman who halved the recipe and still has three GIANT tupperwares full of leftovers in her fridge.)

Enjoy!

Myra's Lentil Soup

equal amounts of carrots, celery, and onion chopped fine (I chop about the same amount equaling two large onions each)
1/4 c. - 1/2 c. olive oil
minced garlic (about 3-5 cloves)
Italian sausage (one per person minimum)
1 large can of tomatoes
Lentils (1-2 bags)
Broth cube (or two)
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:

Saute carrots, celery, onion, and garlic in the olive oil in a pan.
Add sausage to mixture (removing skin and cut to small pieces) and cook through
Add the tomatoes to the mixture and simmer on medium-low for about 10 minutes.
Add lentils, broth cube, salt and pepper. I usually also add water near to the top (but that depends how soupish you want the soup).
Let it simmer for 45 minutes on low (I'm guessing here!)

Tomorrow, tomorrow... I love ya, tomorrow. You're only a day away!

Don't mind me channeling Annie there for a minute.

It's because I'm so excited for tomorrow that I can hardly stand myself.

Why, you ask?

Because.... TOMORROW is the day that I fly to California for the Ball Cousin Baking Retreat!

Fourteen women, two little babies and a whole lot of baked goods (all under one roof) = ONE FABULOUS WEEKEND.

Here's a little sneak peek at the shopping list:

Flour - 25 lbs
Sugar - 16 cups
Powdered Sugar - 11 cups
Eggs - 4 dozen
Cocoa - 2 1/2 cups
Heavy Cream - 3 cups
Butter - 5 lbs

That's a heck of a lot of cousin bonding goodness right there, kids.

I'm so excited that I can hardly stand myself! (And now that I've told the www about it, I'm thinking maybe I can muster up the self-control to make myself pack. Wish me luck!)

Too much of a good thing

Do you know what this is?

Yup. Cherries. 20 POUNDS of cherries.

Well, at this point, it's more like 10 lbs of cherries. (Because I've dealt with half the box.) But that's still A LOT of fruit for one person!

This is how this happened: My AWESOME friend Emily orders fruit by the box from the great state of Utah. (And Utah is a great little produce producer. Best cherries and peaches EVER!) The cherries were $30 for a 20 lb box. You heard me, $1.50 a pound. (That's awesome, right?!) So, I ordered a 20 lb box and planned on splitting it with Jo when it came in. Too bad Jo took her own self (and 80% of her cherry-eating young) to Utah last week, and the cherries didn't come in until yesterday.

The good news: Now I have 20 lbs of cherries all to myself.

The bad news: Now I have 20 lbs of cherries all to myself.

I've already frozen two cookie sheets full of them, and given a gallon ziploc-ful away... I have another ziploc in my fridge, you've seen the box on my counter, and this is what's in my sink:

Good thing I like them....

Happy National Donut Day!

Behold, the Key Lime Donut:

Dunkin' Donuts, I'll love you 'til the day I die.

Ya'll go out and get yourselves a donut (or 12) today, you hear?

Kindred Spirits

As many of you know, I am a lover of the written word. I mean, Lover with a capital L. ... One might even go so far as to say, LOVER in all-caps.

I heart words.

I love to write. I love to read. (I've been known to read the dictionary. ... Not kidding. Literally, pick up the dictionary and read a page, just to learn new words. Dictionary.com is one of my favorite sites, because they give sample sentences and etymology for everything.)

I'll read just about anything, but my very favorite genre is (are?) memoirs.

I enjoy both fiction and non-fiction alike. A well-told story is a thing a beauty to me. ... But a memoir? Oh, be still my beating heart! There is NOTHING that I love like the way I love hearing a person's story as told in their own words.

Right now, I am reading - and loving - My Life in France, by Julia Child (with Alex Prud'homme).

I feel it important to note that this book was gifted to me by the lovely Kathy U, the only woman I know who might love food more than I do. That she would send me Julia Child's memoir is so fitting, I have no words. I love Kathy. I love Julia. I love butter - and so do they.

From page 136:

"We experimented with recipes, tools, and ingredients, and made several useful discoveries. In working on piecrusts, for instance, we had tested French versus American ingredients. To our horror, we discovered that French flour has more body than its U.S counterpart, and that the French needed a third less fat to make a nice crumbly crust. Why was this? I wanted to know. We supposed that, in order for U.S. flour to last forever on supermarket shelves, it must have been subjected to chemical processes that removes its fats. The French flour, in contrast, was left is its natural state, although it would go "off" more quickly and become maggoty. In order to make our French recipe work for an American audience, we tested different proportions of flour-to-butter, flour-to-margarine (a substance I abhorred and referred to as "that other spread") and flour-to-Crisco; then we tasted the crusts hot and cold. Based on our experiments, we adjusted our ratios. It was labor-intensive, but a thoroughly satisfying learning process."

Ahhhh... Julia did science experiments with food and abhorred margarine. We're basically twin souls.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this book. Julia Child had an incredible memory for detail, and tells a lovely, lilting story of her life with Paul.

I feel compelled now, more than ever, to buy The Book (her name for the cookbook). ... But first, I must get back to reading. I'm about 50 pages from the end, and I have a good half hour to kill before I must leave the house and be about my daily business.

Bon Appetit!

A peach (or 7.5) a day...

Did you know?

It's PEACH SEASON in the desert!

Seriously. It's the middle of May, and the peaches at Schnepf Farms are glorious!

This was Jo's and my second annual Peach Festival Outing. (To see a pic of me "climbing" an apricot tree last year, click here.) Because Jo's the best friend/chauffeur ever, she picked me up at 6:30 and we hit the McD's drive-thru for our favorite breakfast and then we made the drive to Queen Creek.

My favorite part of the Peach Festival weekend (other than all that quality time with Jo, of course!) is the picking of sun-ripened fruit right off the tree and... CHOWING DOWN, right there in the middle of a peach orchard.

Seriously. Have you ever eaten a ripe peach straight off the tree? It's like heaven!

I totally ate five and a half (only half of one of them was ripe) peaches while I was filling my box. Peach juice dripping off my hand, sliding down my chin, streaking my yellow gingham shirt... Heaven!

Speaking of boxes, behold:

Jo's box is on the left, mine is on the right (with my customary water bottle... I carry those puppies everywhere anymore!)

I looked down at our boxes of peaches and said, "Your peaches are so much bigger than mine!"

Jo's response was, "What can I say? I have a type."

I came back with, "Yeah, big and beefy. Whereas, CLEARLY, I'll take whatever I can get."

True story.

(For those of you who haven't met Jo's husband, you should know that he's a GIANT. ... Whereas my husband is ... well ... MIA. As in, "I'll take anything I can get." ... We crack ourselves up.)

Another thing that's important to note is that my box has more peaches in it than Jo's does. She's the mother of five. I shop for myself, and myself alone.

That's 8.5 lbs of peaches there in my box, kids. (The upside of having taken "whatever I could get" was that some of my peaches were perfectly ripe, some of them were close, and some of them were little peach boulders that have been ripening on my counter since Saturday.)

Years ago, my (favorite) aunt told me that she had experimented and had found that the exact number of peaches one could eat without experiencing *erm* unfortunate side-effects was four. (We're all about science experiments in our family.) I would like to announce to the www that I, too, have been experimenting with peaches and have found that - as long as you counteract the peaches with copious amounts of cheese, yogurt and bananas in your daily diet - a person can get away with eating 7.5 peaches a day. (Don't try 8. That's all I'm going to say.)

And if you'll excuse me now, there are three peaches on my counter that are calling my name. ... And I'm pretty sure I'm hearing a muffled sound coming from the pint of cream that's on the top shelf of my fridge, too.

Starting to feel a little more like me...

It's Cinco de Mayo, people!

Ole!

Do you see those cute little sombrero sugar cookies up there? I made them with my own two hands.

That's right.

I made sugar cookies.

Something I hadn't done (outside of the batch I made for Dr. H last year to make him love me) since December 2010.

It doesn't matter to me that I made the frosting and the cookie dough on different days (I have a hard time standing for very long, esp when part of that standing is going to be spent bent half over), and it also doesn't matter to me that by the time I'm done baking/frosting the cookies, I need to take a nap to recover enough to wipe off the counters and do the dishes.

I don't care how long it took the make, bake and decorate the cookies. I don't care that my counters may or may not have had flour and cookie crust on them for over 24 hours before I got up the gumption to clean them.

I made sugar cookies.

It's been almost a year since my last surgery. I'd love to blame Dr. G for taking my energy out of me (right along with the slew of organs he removed), but the reality is, I never got strong enough after my second surgery (in March 2011) to go back to baking the way I used to.

It's not a double batch of rolls or whole wheat homemade bread (like I used to do on any given weekend), but it's more than opening a box of cereal or boiling a pot of noodles, which is all I've been able to do for months.

I'm nowhere near the cook I used to be. I still get tired, and I have to work in increments, but... it's AWESOME that I'm starting to feel a little more like the old me!

Food Rules

So, remember how I made some food rules in January? Here's how that went:

* I am not allowed to buy candy. (Caveat: I am allowed to eat candy that is already in my house, or anything that people bring in to work.)

-- I actually did this. Shocking, right? Not even when I was on a roadtrip, did I buy candy at the gas station. (Twice, in February.) Impressive, right?

But here's what I learned: It was a HUGE mistake to ban buying candy. It pretty much put me into starvation mode (which I know is ridiculous, but it's true). Like, since I couldn't buy any new candy, I felt compelled to eat my entire stash. Including the mint Kit-Kats that had been in my freezer since July 2010. (That's right. Almost three years. It's okay. "Candy never goes bad", so they were still good.) I'm telling you... I. Ate. It. All.

So, I'll never make that rule again. It's better for me to have candy on hand. I don't eat nearly as much chocolate when I can freely contribute to the stockpile as I do when I think maybe that 2 lb bag of plain M&M's may be the last candy that I ever see, so I'd better get it while the getting's good...

* I must eat two servings of fruits/vegetables a day.

-- I actually did this, too. And you know what? I found out that I liked this rule. Sort of a lot. So, I'm keeping it.

And yeah, I know it's ridiculous that I had to have a rule to MAKE myself eat God-given food. As you may or may not know, my three favorite food groups are: cereal (I could live on Shredded Wheat, I really could), granola bars (who loves Fiber One products more than me?) and microwave popcorn. It was kind of a stretch in the beginning, but I've really enjoyed having an excuse to eat strawberries, oranges and/or avocados every day of my life.

* I am only allowed to eat out for two meals a week.

This rule... didn't really fly. And not because I was a nachos-and-burrito-eating maniac. (I only had Taco Bell once in those two months, actually. Would you take a look at that self-control? Amazing, right?!) More, it didn't work because I am a sucker for going to dinner (or lunch or breakfast or ice cream or whatever) with my girlfriends, and I couldn't cap that at only twice a week. I did enact a rule mid-January that I was only allowed to eat out on my own once, but when I had a friend in emotional distress and there was a need to talk it out over Chinese (or Cafe Rio or CPK... you get the idea), then I could bend the rules and go to lunch.

* No fried chicken.

Okay, fine. I ate fried chicken. ... But it was only ONE time, and I had Jo's kids with me at Chick-Fil-A and there's nothing else to eat there. (You know, besides the fries and the cookies and cream shakes.)

So, the food rules were mostly a win. (Other than the INSANE amount of candy I consumed because I wasn't allowed to buy any new candy. ... Oh, and that I totally re-wrote the eating out rule. But other than that, mostly a win.)

Here are the updated rules, through Memorial Day:

* I can have Paradise Bakery's orange scones once a month.

Sad that I have to make this rule, but listen... they're delicious. And there's a Paradise on my way to work. And I stopped twice last week (two days in a row, actually). Maybe eating buttery and delicious orangey scones every day isn't such a swell idea. ... But I can totally do it once a month.

* I can drive through or pick up takeout once a week. No exceptions.

(Except for a friend in emotional distress who may need some support in grabbing a spicy chicken sandwich at Wendy's. Friends always trump food rules. The End.)

* No more buying Oreos.

I keep buying them to use as an ingredient. (First in a peanut butter/chocolate cake trifle, and then in a frosting recipe that my beloved cousin Becca says is the best thing ever.) But then I just eat them. (It's the double-stuff. I can't help it.)

The caveats are: All bets are off when I'm on vacation, or someone who's on vacation is with me. When it's play time, none of the rules apply. (Which translates directly into: "Julie, you MUST try these orange scones. We'll get them for breakfast one of the days (or maybe three of the days) you're here next week. You'll think you died and went to Baked Goods Heaven!" and "Dad, we're definitely going to need some double-stuffed Oreos when I come home Easter weekend!")

My new food rules

As I may or may not have mentioned... my pants don't fit anymore.

It's both hilarious and tragic to me, really, that not six weeks ago, this pair of pants was BAGGY. Not quite too big, but loose enough that a couple people at work (and my beloved Dr. H) had asked me if I'd been losing weight.

Enter the holiday season and my complete and utter lack of control.

No one's asked me if I've lost weight for some time now.

I mean, no has asked me if I'm gaining weight, either... but I'm pretty sure that has more to do with the manners and general kindness of my friends and family than it has to do with me looking svelte and trim.

I was thinking the other night that I could write my very own Twelve Days of Christmas song - entirely about what I ate in December.

One box of peanut brittle
Two dozen tamales
Three frozen pizzas
Four bags of M&M's
Five dozen gingersnaps...
Six pounds of butter
Seven donuts
Eight kinds of fudge

You get the idea.

No wonder my pants don't fit, right?

So I have some new food rules. Until March. (You know that I'm not the kind of girl who can make a totally open-ended change in my life. New Year's Resolutions? For the birds! I can behave myself for a period of time, but there's no part of me that thinks I can - or will - live like this indefinitely, so I set these rules for myself that I have to keep until March. What'll come after that, I'm not sure, but... until March.).

* I am not allowed to buy candy. (Caveat: I am allowed to eat candy that is already in my house, or anything that people bring in to work.)

* I must eat two servings of fruits/vegetables a day.

* I am only allowed to eat out for two meals a week. (I can't tell you how much it's been bumming me out that I'm not allowed to go through the Taco Bell drive-thru on a whim right now. Sad, but true.)

* No fried chicken. (I know. It pained me just to type that. I'd originally thought about cutting both fried chicken and bacon, but I needed a rule that I could actually keep. Banning bacon? I'm sorry, but I can only cut one farm animal at a time - and for a limited time at that.)

That's it.

Four food rules that I really shouldn't have to make, but I just can't make myself count calories like a normal girl would. (Dieting was never in my DNA, but esp post-cancer... Life is short. It should be enjoyed. Of course, I also understand that my pants shouldn't get to be too tight in a matter of six weeks and it's probably good for me to buy more produce than candy.)

Wish me luck! (Note: If anyone reading this would like to make a date to eat one of my two meals a week out with me, I am most definitely game. It makes it easier for me to forgo Taco Bell when I know for sure that I'm having something good later in the week.)

June 9

So, I went to the store this morning to get some breakfast.

Yeah, that's right. My breakfast plans today were McDonald's Coke (next to the Disneyland mix, theirs is the best!) and a pint of Moo-llennium Crunch. (Yeah, I know. I said I was going to eat one pint. One pint today, and one for tomorrow... just in case.)

I figure that I have 12 more days of being able to drink the Coca Cola. ... When I'm down to one kidney, I'll be on a strictly water diet. For, most likely, the rest of my life. (Insert a deep, greiving sigh here.)

And I know what this surgery does to my ability to process dairy. I will be able to eat ice cream again, but it's taken me 3-4 months in the past to be able to work my way back to ice cream.

So, I went to the WalMart in search of ice cream and Coke. Because, while I'm not planning on dying any time soon... I do definitely prescribe to the "eat, drink and be merry" mentality when I'm in the pre-surgery zone.

And while I was there, I saw a Summertime display of Smore's ingredients. I tell you, they had the graham crackers stacked in a diagonal and the marshmallows were puffy and delicious looking. It was impossible to resist.

Obviously.

Do I have a fire pit over which I can roast these marshmallows? Nope, I sure don't. (I don't even have a gas stove top.) So... I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to make this happen. But once I saw the makings for Smore's, I knew that I had to have them. I figure the graham crackers have some sort of nutritional value. Between my Coke and ice cream breakfast and the Smore's I'm planning for lunch, this is shaping up to be a day full of deliciousness. And maybe a little bit of denial in the way of health and nutrition. But delicious, nonetheless.

The pretzel party

Last Saturday, we had a half-of-the-family party (others were invited, but only 3 of us sibs and the parentals were able to make it).

I'd taken a plate of goodies over to Spence and Brea's at Christmas. Connor (one of the funniest kids I've ever known in my whole life) was enchanted with the carmel/chocolate dipped pretzel rods and asked if I would teach him how to make them. As I am a woman who will never say no to a child who wants to spend quality time with her (also, have I ever been known to turn down the opportunity to dip something in chocolate?), the pretzel party was born.

Timing is interesting. This party was planned the week of Christmas. I'd been thinking that the Saturday before last would be a better fit for me, but last Saturday was better for Brea - and since we were basically crashing her house, what worked best for her was the way to go. Little did I know, when this party was planned, that what I would be wanting (and needing) last Saturday was some good old-fashioned family fun - with plenty of dipping chocolate to go around.

We found out last Thursday that I have a new tumor. Brea texted me on Friday to ask if I was still up for the party. My answer? "ABSOLUTELY!" I wanted to be able to have some fun with the kids. I wanted them to know that even if I do have cancer, I'm still Aunt Laurie and I'm still A Good Time. (Yeah, in caps. Like that's a proper noun.) I needed the energy that I get from spending time with family, the warm fuzzies that only a hug from a child can give me ... and the sugar rush that comes of eating all things chocolate-dipped-and/or-covered for an entire afternoon.

It was a practically perfect day, in every way. We laughed, we cried, we watched the kids chase the rabbit. We talked, we worked, and we played in the kitchen. The kids jumped on the trampoline, climbed the tether ball post and rode bikes. The weather was great, the company was fantastic. It was an amazing day, and exactly what I'd wanted it to be.

Two of my nephews (Kirk and Connor, the 8 and 7 yr olds) huddled up to the table when no one else was around and asked me questions. "Does it hurt to have cancer?" "Are you scared?" "Will you die?" And I was able to answer them. "No, not yet. Right now my tumor is really little so it's not hurting me at all. They'll give me medicine that will make me sick, and that might hurt. And I might have to have another operation, and that will hurt. But right now, no, the cancer doesn't hurt at all." "A little bit, because I don't know what's going to happen to my body - but sometimes we have to do hard or scary things. I'll be okay." "No, I don't think so. I'll be sick, really sick, for a while. But I really don't think I'll die." - We agreed that it would be really sad if I died, because I am super fun and I did teach them how to make chocolate covered pretzels, and I promised to do my best to stay alive. I was really happy that my nephews, who are cousins - not brothers, felt like they could ask me questions about the cancer. I've been the kid who wanted to know if her aunt would die, and I've been grateful my whole life that when she was sick, she would talk to me about what was happening in her body. I love my nieces and nephews. Those sweet kids are the six best things in my life, and I'm so glad we'd already had this party planned before my world tipped on its axis.

Again, timing is an amazing thing. Spending time with family was exactly what I needed last weekend, and it was exactly what I got. In spades, it was what I got. Gosh, I love how things work out sometimes!

Here are some fun pics from the day:

Brea, me and Spencer. (I love how my brothers make me look short. Looooove it!)



We had four bowls of chocolate going at a time. The kids could choose pretzel rods, over-sized sourdough pretzels or the cute little mini's.



We had M&M's, Nerds, crushed candy cane, nuts and no less than ten different kinds of sprinkles to choose from. We worked like crazy, mad, chocolate-dipping fiends for about 10 minutes ... and then sent the kids outside to play while the chocolate hardened so they could eat what they'd made.



Here are Seth, Kirk and Russell, dipping pretzels to their hearts' content.



Hazel, grooving on the pink sprinkles...



Hillary, enjoying a white chocolate pretzel rod she'd made with her own hands.



Connor, who is a candy-loving fool and a bit of a creative genius when it came to seeing how much sugar he could lump onto one pretzel.



My sweet nieces are girls after my own heart. It was just them and me at the table at this point, and when Hillary asked me if she could have a pretzel from the big bowl, I told her she could have as many as she wanted. She looked at me like it was Christmas, and then dug right in. (The way I eat candy with wild abandon? It's genetic.) Check these girls out:



Man, I love my family! (Even more than I love chocolate, which is A LOT.) I love timing. I love how things always seem to work out, even (or especially) when I don't know how they will. I love knowing that my brothers and their families are close by - both literally and metaphorically - and that they're only a phone call away. I'm grateful for parents who'd drive 3 hours for a party and then stay for a sleepover to get in more time with my brothers and me. I'm grateful for family, for chocolate, and for memories. I'm grateful for those Mary Poppins ("practically perfect") days that come along every once in a while, but mostly I'm grateful for the people I get to share them with.