Happy New Year!

2015 was a year for the record books, but... it's over.

2015 is over. And I'm still here. 

I'm so glad.

I posted this same meme on January 1, 2015. I'd found it in a search for a new Facebook header pic. I wanted something that reflected my values (yup, I just inferred that "eat the damn chocolate cake" is a value... deal), but wasn't super New Years Resolution-y, and I found this. I loved it then, and I love it now.

And what I love, really truly love, is that I actually did most of this in 2015.

Exceptions:

- Do a cartwheel. (Insert standard broken body disclaimer here.)
- Paint each nail a different color. (But I did let little girls give me manicures, which is sort of the same thing.)
- Take a bubble bath. (If you knew the size of my bathtub, you'd understand.)
- Get on that table and dance. (Again, with the broken body. The last thing I need is to fall from a great height.)
- Pick strawberries. (But I did pick peaches and raspberries and lemons and oranges and grapes, and I think that counts. I'd have picked strawberries, too, if I'd had the option.)
- Tag a jog. (Uhm... I haven't jogged since I figured out that I didn't have to do that to get class credit in 7th grade PE. But I did take a lot of walks.)

Oh, and I didn't learn a new language.

But I ate the damn chocolate cake, and I lived. I crammed as much into this (really challenging, in so many ways) year as I justifiably could, and... and the end of the day (year), I have no regrets, no sorrows, and no disappointments.

I'm grateful for modern medicine (even as it makes me swallow my dinner, for the umpteenth time tonight). I'm grateful for doctors who have hope, for friends and family who bless and enrich my life in a myriad of ways. I'm grateful for chocolate cake, for muddy puddles, for colored pencils, for picnics and for days lived in the sun.

This year has been hard. I mean, bone-jarringly, life changingly, hard. But I am still standing. I may be leaning up against the counter, with a knee braced against the cupboard beneath me to hold me up, but I am still standing.

Here's hoping that I'll still be here, on this day, next year. And that I'll be strong enough to come out from behind the counter and stand on my own steam.

In the meanwhile, know that I love my life, even when it's hard. ( I mean, I really, really, love it. Even when it's really, really, hard.) And that I love you. Forever and always. Happy New Year!

It's Christmas Day

Christmas afternoon, really. 

And I'm sitting in my living room, in my corner of the couch, looking alternately at the lit tree in shadow behind me, and my puffy and swollen legs, bathed in sunlight, in front of me. 

It's Christmas. 

A different kind of Christmas, to be sure. (I don't usually sleep for 11 hours on Christmas Eve night, nor am I generally back in bed for a four hour nap within an hour of getting up.) But, still, it is Christmas. And I'm grateful that I'm here, sitting on my couch instead of lying in my bed, even if I'm just up long enough to eat some eggs and a creamcicle. I'm grateful that Judy is here with me. I'm grateful for all of the sights and sounds of the season, for all of the love that I have in my life. 

I won't lie. I wish I felt better. I wish my neck and feet and legs and arms and fingers and toes  didn't hurt from the swelling caused by Tuesday's treatment. I wish that my mouth could handle tamales, and that I felt good enough to make fudge and sugar cookies, and that I could stay awake long enough to watch a Christmas movie in its entirety.

But, all of that said, I'm feeling better than I thought I would be. And I'm certain it's because Christmas brings joy and peace to my heart, to my soul, in a way that few other things do. 

I love Christmas. I love everything about it. I love the smells and the memories and the abundance of love that is everywhere, if we but look for it. 

My limbs are swollen and sore. It hurts to keep my head up, because the skin on my neck is stretched to maximum capacity. But I'm alive, and I'm praying that the very medicine that's making me miserable today will be what keeps me around for another year.

It's Christmas. It's the day on which we celebrate all that is good in this life. I'm so grateful for this time of the year, for the unification that comes from so many people putting so much love out into the world. I'm grateful for the opportunity to celebrate the birth of my Savior, and for the reminder that He chose to come here, to live and to die, so that we might have eternal life. His was, truly, the greatest gift. 

Merry Christmas, my dears. With love.

Sweet Corn!

Labor Day weekend is also known as the Sweet Corn Festival in Taylor. And this year was pretty epic (and I'm not just saying that because I had a real awesome experience of learning that this new/changed body of mine can no longer digest corn... after eating roughly 20 ears of corn in a 36 hour period). I was home, Kirk and his family was home, Katie was there, our brother Brett's little girl, Natalie, was there. And, of course, Mom and Dad. It was a house FULL of people (Kirk had brought some friends, which added an extra family of six... NBD, right?), and a super good time!

My nieces and I have a hardcore tradition of taking selfies in the car when we're together. This was Haze and me on the way home from church. (I had "found" a bag of chocolate-dipped pretzels in my church bag, so we took the super long way home, eating pretzels and shooting selfies the whole way.)

Sweet Natalie.

Yeah, so.... I bought a truckload of corn for $20. (Not a whole truckload. But still, it was a lot.) Kirk and Kate and I went out for a caffeine break, and ended up picking up a couple dozen tamales and... oh... seven or eight dozen ears of corn in the afternoon. The Saline truck was running a little low, and when I asked David what he was charging, he flippantly answered, "$5 a dozen, or $20 for the rest of the truck". SOLD!

Too bad I'm not physically strong enough to cut the end of the cob of corn off. (Or emotionally strong enough to get past the worms.) So, it fell to... oh, everyone else on the premises to take care of the corn and prep it for freezing. But... it was sort of a party. (Says the girl who didn't do any of the work.)

RussellBear, the most helpful corn shucker in the bunch. For real, the kid jumped in and started helping his dad shuck corn without being asked, and he kept going until the last silky strand was taken from the last ear of corn.

Saturday morning, the parade ran right past Mom and Dad's house (the perks of living on Center). There was candy thrown (and caught). But the best parade favor? Sweet corn, handed out by the Craners. Black Diamond Glass's floats were the very best!

Family. Corn. Good times.

Woot!

Happy New Year!

Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I don't go in for New Year's Resolutions.

Never have. Never will.

But what do I go in for? ... LISTS.

Man alive, I do looooooooove a list. 

And this is a good one.

Even though I'd have to buy a new bathtub to make that bubble bath line come true (at this point in time, I doubt my bathtub could hold ME in all of my glory... let alone, me, several gallons of water, and a bunch of bubbles), I am all over making this list my mantra for 2015.

Starting, of course, with eating the damn chocolate cake. 

Happy New Year, ya'll! 

Much love!

Up on the housetop reindeer pause

This is probably my earliest specific-to-Christmas memory...

We were in Provo for Christmas, visiting my mom's parents. I was upstairs (a rare occurrence, let me tell you!) with Grammy. We were in the front room. She was in her chair (the dark blue swivel rocker, for those of you who'd remember such things) and I was standing in front of her and we were singing Christmas songs.

She asked if I knew Up on the Housetop. I didn't. So, she offered to teach it to me.

She sang it through once so I could hear it before she started to teach me the words.



Two things I remember: she snapped her fingers with the "click, click, click", and I giggled at the thought of reindeer having paws.

When she finished the song, I told her the song was silly, because reindeer have hooves, not paws. She smiled her beautiful, happy, smile and told me that "pause" was a different word than "paws", and that it meant to stand still or wait for a minute.

I think of her every time I hear this song. I see her smile, and I hear her fingers snapping with the clicks, and I am grateful for a memory of singing with my grammy who was smart enough to slow down and take a minute to explain the difference in two words that sounded exactly alike to her precocious (that's the nicest word I can think of to describe myself) granddaughter.

Pictured below, Me. December 25, 1978.

(Don't worry that I had just turned four, two months before this picture was taken, and I'm as tall as the organ I'm standing in front of. ... I did stop growing. Eventually.)

The Christmas I learned that pause and paws are two different words.

I'll be home for Christmas.

I will.

I'll be home.

Today.

Hopefully, by noon.

And, when I get there, I will eat candy until I'm sick and sing until I'm hoarse. And then, tonight, I'll sleep so both my belly and my throat can recover, and then I'll do it all over again tomorrow.

There's nowhere else I'd rather be. (Even if the weather is better here.)

All season, this song's been making me cry. (Who's kidding who? It always does. And when my girl Karen is the one singing it, I'm even more prone to get all sappy and emotional. I so love her!)

When I'd hear this song in early November, I'd have to change the channel, because it was too hard to hear this song that I love talk about doing this thing that I love that I didn't think I was going to get to do this year.

I know, that's so silly. But it's also so true. (Also, holy-run-on-followed-by-fragmented-sentences, Batman!)

I've always loved this song, but this year, I think I love it more than I ever have before. This year, I've felt it in a different way, and I am grateful for that.

I'm so (SO!) incredibly grateful for the time I've been given. It has been such a gift, that I've been able to enjoy the holiday season with my family and my friends, that I get to go home for Christmas this year, where I can eat fudge and sugar cookies and tamales and microwave popcorn and little boxes of sugar cereal and all of the other things that are Christmas to me.

In a world where it can be easy to let the cloud of a dirty scan overshadow all that is good and light in life, getting a 6-8 week reprieve on starting cancer treatments has been the best gift I've ever been given.

I'll be home for Christmas.

Today.

I freaking love my life!

White Christmas

Tonight, I got to see White Christmas on the big screen.

Again.

Last year, I went with some single friends, and it was a good time.

This year, I took Cili with me. And it was... well... perfect.

I so love that kid!

C's such a funny, sassy, musical-loving kid. When I saw that White Christmas was the classic movie for this week, I knew she's who I should see it with this year. And I'm so glad that I did.

She was suitably impressed that I know the movie well enough to talk along with the dialogue...

"When what's left of you gets around to what's left to be gotten, what's left to be gotten won't be worth getting whatever it is you've got left."

And the ever popular,

"Well, I like that. Without so much as a 'kiss my foot!' or 'have an apple!'".

Also, 

"In some ways, you're far superior to my cocker spaniel."

But I digress.

Towards the end of the movie, as I was basking in the glory that is White Christmas (it was the final scene when they do the dinner and everyone's in uniform), I had a memory rush in of the year that Santa brought the VHS tape and a giant bag of Cheetos. (I think I was 15.) After everyone else went back to bed, my mom and I sat down on the brown couch in the family room, with the bag of Cheetos between us, and cried and sang and laughed and cried our way through the movie. (Those dang general scenes make me cry. Both in the beginning and at the end. Every time. For over 25 years.)

We'd been watching White Christmas for years, but only when it was on TV. We didn't own a copy of the movie until that year, and being able to sit down and watch it from beginning to end without commercials, just the two of us, with an unlimited supply of crunchy Cheetos... I remember that Christmas morning better than I remember most of them, because of the trifecta of awesomeness.

That Christmas morning was perfect.

Tonight, I took a 10 year old to see a movie with me. We had a giant tub of buttered popcorn to share (my one true love... even Cheetos have to take a backseat to buttered theater popcorn), more candy than any two girls should ever have access to at one time and two 32 oz Cokes. I quoted the movie, and sang my little heart out (and did a little chair dancing, as I am sometimes wont to do). C sat there next to me, sometimes laughing, sometimes staring straight ahead (I'm pretty sure my wild arm gestures to "Choreography" took her aback), and sometimes singing along (she knew every word to "The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing" - most impressive).

Just before Bing headed to NY to be on the Ed Harrison show, C leaned over and said she was going to fall asleep. (It was after 8:00 and she is a girl after my own heart, with her early bedtimes.) For maybe 5 minutes, she was drowsy... but then I whispered/sang my own special version of "Love", and she perked up.

By the beginning of that final scene, she was wide awake and happily singing along to the "Gee, I Wish I Was Back in The Army" song. We laughed and we sang, and I chair danced a little. And then, while Bing and Rosemary and Danny and Vera Ellen and Cili sang "White Christmas" and they threw the barn door open so everyone could see the snow, I just... sat there. Watching the movie, listening to my little ten year old friend sing along, and I realized... I was having a totally perfect moment.

Watching White Christmas.

Again.

But, this time, I was on the other end of that generational gap. Tonight, I was the grown up who was sharing a movie and some snacks with a kid that meant the world to her.

I love my life.

I do.

I love it.

I may not have children of my own to brainwash, but I do have children in my life. Cili's not my 10 year old, but tonight, I got to have a generational bonding experience with her.

I've always been grateful that Dean and Jo live so close, that I have so much access to them, to their family. 

But tonight, I'm grateful on an entirely different level.

At this point in my life, the reality is that I know that I will never have my own biological children. ... Mind you, I'm not giving up hope that someday I'll marry a fabulous man who'll buy me some babies from an orphanage in a foreign country where they'll never think to check my health history before they release some kids to my care. I am not giving up on the dream of being a mom and raising kids. But the reality is that I live in a body that grows cancer, not babies. That ship has sailed... around the world, actually. Twice. ... But tonight, I had a flash of focus where I could actually see that I had passed on something I love to another generation.

I'm so grateful for that gift, for this sudden awareness that I have given Cili some of the same things that Judy gave me. 

I'm so grateful that the Woods can see beyond all the potential damage I could do to their children, and they let me have an active role in their children's lives.

Tonight, I am grateful; for a movie I love, for the woman who taught me to love it, and for my friend who shares her children with me.

This may not be the circle of life that I expected, but it is the circle that I have... and I am infinitely grateful for what (and whom) I do have.

I'm grateful: For the perfect moments in my life, for movie musicals, and for the people I get to share both of those things with.

We Three Kings

Many, many, moons ago, I was a sweet young thing, living in Provo and attending a BYU Ward.

Okay, fine. I wasn't such a sweet thing, but I was young. (Like I said, it has been many moons.)

I remember, the Sunday before the semester break, we had a musical Sacrament Meeting and three boys in the ward (Arden Anderson, Craig Woll and Terry Anderson, as I recall) sang We Three Kings a capella. ... It was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever heard in my live-long life.

Even now, whenever I hear this song, I hearken back to that Sunday in the Sky Room. I can feel my red velvet seat give beneath me as I lean forward to listen with my whole heart, and I can hear the boys singing a song I'd never truly listened to before that day. It was a beautiful, and life-changing, experience.

It's been almost 20 years since that December Sunday, but I've thought of that musical program every time I've heard this song over the years. I don't know that I'll ever be able to tell those boys what that song did for me back then, but I can tell the original 13 readers of the blog (and anyone else who may have hopped on board for the Christmas song-fest this year).

I love this song. 

I love this song, because the language and the harmonies are beautiful. But I also love this song because it reminds me of three young, but wise, men I knew once upon a time who stood up to sing without accompaniment in front of a room full of people. I literally thank God, every year, for what those men did for my relationship with this song. And for everything else they did that blessed my life - and the lives of countless others - in the mid 90's. (My life has been awesome. I've known so many incredible people, and those three men are some of the cream of the crop.)

The Beach Boys' a Capella version on YouTube is short (one verse), but it's men singing. Without accompaniment behind them, which is how I think this song sounds the best.

A Few of My Favorite Things

I bet I just freaked you out a little bit with that title.

I bet you thought, "Oh, no! Laurie's one of those people who think that's a Christmas song?!"

Well, I'm not.

As much as I do love me some raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, those are NOT Christmas wishes. That is NOT a Christmas song.

Nah, I'm just sitting on my couch, looking around my apartment, and thinking... "Man alive, I love this place. I love this holiday. I love all the memories I have, of Christmases here, and everywhere else I've ever been."

People, I have some sweet (SWEET!) memories.

Some of my favorite memories are here, some are in the blue - and then the pink - house with Julie and the Bens (we named our trees Ben, because they were big and strapping, like Brother #2 in Seven Brides... true story), some are in Taylor, some are in St. George, some are in Provo at my grandparents' house. I mean, really, they're everywhere. Every Christmas has been awesome, in its own way. I so love this time of the year!

I lead a charmed life, every day of the year. But there's something special about being a person who loves Christmas, because I am gifted with some pretty spectacular stuff by people who know and love me.

I know that sounds cheesy and ridiculous, but it's true. One of my favorite things about decorating for Christmas is all the people I think of as I pull ornaments and decorations out of my storage bins. As I look at my tree, and as I look around this tiny little apartment that I call home, I am reminded of so many other Christmases, and it makes my heart happy.

For the fun of it, and because sometimes I like to use my little corner of the www to catalog my most sentimental belongings, I'm gonna go ahead and show you a few of my favorite things around here.

How great is this ornament? It's from my friend Colette. Circa (and I'm guessing here, but I'm pretty sure I'm right) 1996. The ornament is actually a box, and when she gave it to me, it had the sweetest little poem about being a box full of love tucked inside. ... Sadly, the poem's been gone since the last house I lived in when I was in Provo. But the box remains, and it goes on my tree every year. I love it. It reminds me of my noodle-haired friend who sings like Barbara Streisand and has the Midas touch in the kitchen.

I love her. I love the memories I have with/of her. And I love that I have this small, tangible, thing that reminds me of her. Every year.

Ahhhh.... This little beauty is from my friend Christine. If memory serves, she gave me this ornament the Christmas of 2004. (I know it was after she moved to the valley. I was still living in Taylor, and I also know it wasn't the Christmas before I moved down to Mesa.)

I  love it! I love that Ch'chine knows me - has always known me - well enough to gift me with something that's a perfect match to the rest of my decorations. The colors, the shape of the ornament, the gold filigree. I love it, because it's beautiful. But mostly, I love it because of who it came from.

Oh, and these snowflakes. I LOVE THEM.

My friend Jen gave me these ornaments, I think, the second year I was in Taylor for Christmas. So... 2001? Maybe 2002. I love them!

They were the very first snowflake ornaments on my tree. Now, I have silver beaded snowflakes and crocheted snowflakes in the mix, but these are my favorite. I love them. I love them because the glass is clear and the light shines right through them, I love them because they have these gorgeous sheer red or green ribbons tied at the top of the string they hang from. I love them because they're beautiful and classy, and I love them because they remind me of my friend who is one of the most beautiful and classy women I have ever known.

I think of Jennifer every year as I take them out of the little Santa box she gave them to me in, and I think of her throughout December as I look over at my tree and see the proof that she has been part of my life for so many years. Ya might have to dig deep to find the parts of me that are classy and refined, but I like to think that they're in there - and what I know is that the reason they're there is because I have been friends with Jennifer O.

Oh, yeah. And THIS. I LOVE THIS THING!

The first Christmas I lived here, Jo came over with my Christmas present and told me that Rook (her son who is now 13... he was 5 at the time) had seen this in the dollar store and had insisted that they buy it for me.

According to five year old Rook, this hideous little jingle bell snowflake had my name written all over it.

Awh, man. It's such an ugly little ornament. But I love it! I love that it is ALL jingle bells. It's too big for my tree (also, did you notice the purple bells in the center... they wouldn't match a dang thing on the actual tree), so it's been tied to the door knob on my front door every year since 2006. Yup. Tied to the door with that same piece of red yarn. For eight Christmases in a row. (One year, it was there ALL YEAR LONG, because I forgot to take it down and by the time I realized my door was still jingling, it was May. I figured, what was seven months more?)

Anyway, I love it. I'll never know what went through that child's mind when he saw it in the store (let's be real... I don't know that I want to know what he thought about ME, for this to be something that reminded him of me), but I love that he had to buy it for me. I love that it's bright and cheery and jingles every time the door opens or closes.

The star Kirk made me when he was in High School wood shop.

Kirkey made me this star for either Ben #1 (in the blue house) or Ben #2 (in the pink house), I'm not sure. 

What I do remember for sure about Ben #1 was Jule and I got it into our sick little heads that we wanted to have a homemade, old-fashioned, tree, complete with old wooden spools tied with red ribbon and homemade gingerbread men.

Not a wise choice, in a house full of mice. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Okay, no it isn't. Because to not tell the tale of the mice sliding the cookies across the kitchen counter as they cooled and dumping them behind the stove would be a crime. As would not bringing up how they'd chase each other up and down the tree, fighting over cookies and wooden spools, all month long.

For someone who's creeped out BIG TIME by vermin, it's shocking that the mice didn't make me want to move right out of that old house. (Well, sort of, they did. But as long as we had a tree up, they were more amusing than they were horrifying.)

Oh my gosh... and with Ben #2, we somehow angered a van full of angry men (it wasn't me, Julie was driving) and we got chased all the way from the tree lot to Greg and Doug's house. ... Because if you're two irrational women running from something/someone, it makes perfect sense to drive straight to your boy cousins' house and walk right in like you own the place. Am I right?

Anyway... memories. My life is chock full of them. As is this star. It's been on every tree, in every house, for twenty years. I love it!

And while I'm looking up at that picture of the star, I'd like to draw your attention to the Christmas clock on the wall in my kitchen. I love it! ... It sings a different Christmas carol on the hour, every hour. I've had it for, like, twenty years. I think I paid $10 at Smith's in Provo for that thing. When I moved home in 2000, I hung it in my parents' living room and the music made my dad want to scream. Ha!

See the big Santa pic? My friend Lana sketched that. Isn't it awesome? I bought that print from her for $10 in 2005. I've hung it every year since then. A lot of people have commented/complimented me on it over the years. I super duper love it, and not JUST because that's a pretty close mock-up of the Coca Cola Santa.

And the Noel wall hanging. Oh my gosh, I love that thing. My mom made a bunch of those as Christmas gifts for family when I was a little girl. We had that one hanging in our living room my entire childhood. When I came home from St. George, I was so happy to see it that I'm pretty sure I cried. When I moved to Provo 18 months later, I took it with me.

See below. I grew up with this Christmas decoration, both literally and metaphorically. No matter how simple Christmas is/was, this little felt beauty has always been a part of it. I love it!

The year Julie and I lived in the pink house, I couldn't go home for Christmas. Around Thanksgiving, I got a package from my mom. In it was the very last scrap of the red and white checked flannel she'd used to make our stockings, some white flannel to piece a stocking with, her embroidery floss and needle book, and some patterns I could use to make myself my own stocking.

Fun Fact #1: The candy canes are the very first pattern I ever embroidered. When I was in 5th grade, I decided to make everyone in my class a present, and Judy taught me how to embroider. I made candy canes and daffodils. I'm pretty sure they were a disaster... but I have always loved these criss-crossed candy canes, so they were a given for the toe of the stocking. (My brother Brett has them on his stocking that Mom made him when he was a baby.)

Fun Fact #2: I made this stocking with my own bare hands, and never noticed that it hangs the wrong way. It took Jule and me throwing our annual Christmas Festival for our cousins' roommate, Rustin, to see it and ask if I had made it. I was so proud, because I had, indeed, made it. His reply was classic, "I figured. ... Did you realize it hangs backwards?" Uh, no. No, I had NOT realized it was backwards. And I had used all of the flannel my momma had sent me, so there was no redoing it. Awh, well. I love it, anyway. And I sort of love it even more with the toe pointing the wrong way.

I love this little 3 person nativity.

It's from Jo. (Of course it is. She's always wanting me to remember the reason for the season. ... I kid. ... Sort of.) She gave it to me the first year I lived in this apartment (2006), and it's been front and center every year since.

I love the colors, the height, that it's just the three of them, that it's all one piece.

I love that it's from Jo. 

I love that I'm still friends with my best friend since Jr High. It's more than a little mind blowing that we've known each other for almost 30 years, that we've lived 3 miles apart (again) for the last nine of those, that we've had Sunday dinner every week, every year, that we've texted and called and often seen each other during the week outside of Sundays, and we have never run out of things to say.

I'm lucky. We're lucky. Who gets a real, life-long, friendship, besides us? I love her and I'm so grateful that we live close enough that we get to see each other often. No one else would let me screw their kids up the way she does. I'm so glad I have her. She cuts up watermelons for me in the summer and buys me stuff like for Christmas. I'm the luckiest girl in the world!

Ahhhhh... Dorothy's slipper.

AKA: The Wicked Witch of the East's slipper.

Tomato/tomahto.

Kathy U. bought this for me, and shipped it to me, when she was on her honeymoon, as I recall. I love it! It's the sparkliest thing on my tree, so it always goes in the middle of the tree, where the glitter can catch and reflect maximum lightage.

Isn't it lovely?

I've known Kathy the Younger since she was a kid, and she never ceases to surprise and delight me. I love her as much as I love red glitter and all things sparkly. Which is to say: as much as I love life itself.

This is a new one.

My brother Brett made it. Dude blows glass, and this year he thought he'd try his hand at Christmas balls.

Isn't it awesome? Clear green glass with a polka dot pattern. This shot was taken from above the ornament, but I wish you could see how it glitters and throws the lights.

Brett and Karen brought a box of ornaments home with them for Thanksgiving and let Katie and me pick what we wanted, before they hit the market. Kate took the big green ball, and I took the little one. It makes my heart happy that my sister and I have matchy-matchy-green-squared ornaments that our brother made.

My life is rich with memories. (Honestly, I think I have more good memories than my fair share, but man alive... do I love them!) I'm grateful for the people in my life, for the amazing people who have always blessed my life, for the trails they've left in my past and for the trinkets I have to remember them by.

Sitting here, in my little house, surrounded by things that I love brings me joy. I love it here, all the time. But especially at Christmas.

Life is good, peeps. It's good without a flocked tree, but I'm not going to lie... it's even better with one!

Man alive, I love Christmas! I love the sights and the smells and the music and the food. I love it all! But, mostly, I love the people who've helped me enjoy Christmas over the years. Thank you for sharing my life and making me merry, for reading my blog and for keeping up with what's happening in my world. I wouldn't be who I am without you, and I love ya more than I can say.

Happy Christmas! Be Merry!

The best Christmas present ever.

Can you believe it's November 30th?! ... I sure can't.

I'm not sure if it's because I've spent the last several months napping in my spare time, or if it's because the Earth really is rotating faster on its axis (I know, I know... it's probably the naps), but I honestly can't make any sense of where the last six months have gone.

Tomorrow, it's December.

But I feel like Christmas has already come.

I've been a real slacker at updating the blog lately. (See above: I've been napping.) I made every effort to contact people personally, but just in case anyone reads the blog who isn't in my phone or tied to me through the Facebook, I'll say it again...

I had my scan last week. The growth in my side hasn't changed at all, and Leftie has gone from two inches to two and a half inches at her widest point. (My tumors are usually male. But considering this one's on an ovary, I figured it was only right to assign her a female identity, complete with a name ending in "ie".) I know (oh, trust me, I KNOW) that half inch sounds like a lot. It's roughly 20% growth (which, again, I know sounds like a lot), but it turns out that 20% is smack in the middle of the safety zone (5%) and the danger zone (50%), so Dr. H let me decide if I wanted to start chemo now, or wait another scan cycle.

Hello, easiest decision ever. I'm keeping my hair for Christmas! (I decided this after conferring with the good doctor, of course. He assures me that if/when this tumor starts to really grow, I'm going to know it. I feel like it's plenty safe to put off chemo for another scan cycle, because I know what symptoms to be on the lookout for, and I know that I have a direct line (either phone or email) into my beloved doctor if/when I cross that bridge.)

Having had the expectation that chemo would most likely be happening during the holiday season, I can't even tell you what it has meant to me to have that sentence lifted. (Seriously. I can't tell you, because I tear up and lose the ability to speak, every time I stop long enough to actually think about what I've been given for Christmas this year: Time.)

Because I didn't have an outpatient procedure this week to put in a port, I was able to go home for Thanksgiving for the first time since 2008, and it was a glorious, wonderful, fabulous, festive and song-filled weekend. (Judy, Katie and I started caroling Friday morning - it was the day after Thanksgiving, so it was totally okay - and the music didn't stop until bedtime last night.)

It was great to be home with family and visit with friends at home. I'm going back in three weeks for Christmas, and please believe me when I say that I couldn't be happier about that.

I love this time of year. I love it more than I can say!

I'd resigned myself to the thought that I'd be sick and tired for the holidays this year (more tired than usual, and sicker than I've ever been), and I was okay with that, because when it comes to the cancer, rolling with the punches is easier than fighting them, and if chemo is what I have to do next, then chemo, it is. ... So, getting the holidays back, complete with trips home to Taylor to spend time with my family (and friends who are like family) there? It means more to me than I could ever say.

So, tomorrow it's December. And, while I have no idea how that happened, I intend to live every day in December to its fullest. (Even if that means that I fall asleep on the couch at 5:00, Netflixing a cheesy Christmas movie, I'll be living and loving the crap out of this December!)

I don't know that I've ever had a more grateful Thanksgiving, and I'm looking forward to December more than I'm sure I ever have. It's amazing, the perspective that an extra 1/2 inch on a tumor can give a girl.

That 1/2 inch growth really is the best gift I've ever been given, and I'm incredibly, amazingly, humbly, grateful for that gift.

The #1 Mom

Today, I am grateful for the woman who invented me.

Biologically, she gave me:

My curly hairs

My big eyes

My strong nails

My crazy laugh

My crooked teeth

By example, she taught me:

To accept myself as I am

To choose happiness

To love people as they are
To play with children

That's it's okay to laugh OUT LOUD

I see my mom in the way that I hold a newborn baby, and in how I wash dishes and then set them on the stove to dry. I hear her laugh when I laugh, and every once in a while, I'm lucky enough to hear her when I'm singing.

As grateful as I am that Judy is my mom, I'm even more grateful that she's my friend. Every day, I am grateful.

Thanks, Mom. For everything. I love you.

Happy International Day of Happiness!

It's thing. (See? You can look it up here.)

God bless Cousin Katie for knowing such a thing and broadcasting it on the Facebook while I still had enough time in the day to consciously make time to be happy.

Not that I wasn't happy before I read the news, but still... any excuse to seek out the happy in my life is a good one!

To that end, I've whipped up a short little list of the things that are making me happy today:

Raindrops on Roses
Whiskers on Kittens
Bright copper kettles
Warm woolen mittens
Cream color ponies
Crisp apple streudels
Doorbells
Sleigh bells
Schnitzel with noodles...

JUST KIDDING! (You've got to know I cracked myself up with that...)

Here's MY real Happy List:

Books
Banana Popsicles
Banana Creamies (EVEN BETTER!)
Wheat Bagels
Red Petunias
Sam Axe
Good Friends
Laughter
Music
Raspberry Yogurt
Feather Pillows
Cadbury Eggs
Runny Fried Eggs
Airplanes
Kittens
Hugs

The list could go on and on (if you've been here before, you would know that I could make lists all day long), but I really want to sign off so I can get back to two of the top three items on my list. I have a book to finish, and one last banana Creamie in the freezer.

So, I'm going to go and be happy, doing (and eating) what I love best. Please do the same.

Happy New Year!

As much as I am not generally one to make New Year's Resolutions (let's get real... literally, the only goal I had for 2013 was not to have surgery -- mission accomplished!), I will admit that I saw this on the Facebook tonight and fell in love with the sentiments.

I don't know about you all, but I intend to make 2014 a year plumb full of thinking, loving, walking, breathing, laughing, sleeping and singing. I'm thinking that if I can manage a little bit of each of these things every day, the year can't help but be a blessed and happy one.

Happy New Year, people!

God Bless Us, Every One!

I re-read A Christmas Carol on the flight home from Utah on Monday. By the time I got to the final chapter, I wasn't on the plane anymore. Rather, I was in a land all my own, sitting in a bedroom created by Charles Dickens, over a hundred years ago. The first (and last) few sentences in the last chapter say it all. (Italics added for emphasis)

The End of It

Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own, to make amends in!

``I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!'' Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. ``The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!''

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.

``They are not torn down,'' cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms, ``they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here: I am here: the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will!''

His hands were busy with his garments all this time: turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.

``I don't know what to do!'' cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. ``I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!'

Anyone who knows the story knows that after Scrooge got dressed, he went outside and asked a boy what day it was. ("Today? Why, Christmas Day!") And then he sent for the biggest turkey in the shop and had it sent to Bob Cratchit's, and he met with a gentleman collecting for charity and gave a huge donation ("including a great many back payments"), and then he set out for his nephew's house for Christmas dinner. The next day, when Cratchit got to work, Scrooge sat him down and told him that he needed to make amends, that he was going to give Bob a raise and help him with his struggling family.

Scrooge was a changed man.

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him. He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One! May we all be better than our words, have laughing hearts, and know how to keep Christmas well. Not just today, but every day. Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas *Adam!

*Because Adam came before Eve. (Can you tell I've been spending a lot of time this weekend with small children?)

On a more serious note... A few of you have asked if there's anything you can do to help my sweet cousin and her adorable family.

It's a little late to be getting this up, but... I figure it's better late than never, right?

The family has set up a PayPal donation site to help Mark and Rachel with Christmas (and other costs). Click here to go straight to the site. If for some reason the link doesn't work, you can always click on the Cancer Girl Donation Center icon on the blog (upper right corner). Any funds that I receive through until January 1, I'll transfer to Rachel.

Thanks, all, for your thoughts and your prayers on behalf of my cousin. 

Much love (even more than normal, because it's Christmastime!) to each and every one!

'Tis the season

You guys know how much I love Oreos, right? (And, if you don't... SHAME ON YOU for not having paid attention when I had to create a food rule specific to double-stuffed Oreos earlier this year.)

I love them, man.

I love them... A LOT

I mean, so much.

But if there is one thing that I do love more than double-stuffed Oreos, that thing would be... CANDY CANE DOUBLE-STUFFED OREOS:

.

People.

They are SO good!

(Like, so good that I may or may not have eaten half the package since I opened them. Less than 24 hours ago. ... And I spent a good 9 hours out of the house today for work, and I got 8 hours of sleep last night. Do the math. That's a lot of Oreos in not a lot of hours.)

If you are a fellow lover of all things mint-chocolate, get thyself to the store and get a package of these bad boys! (Maybe two.)

Happy Holidays!