Showing posts with label cancer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cancer. Show all posts

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Thursday Thoughts - I gave you no roses, no romance, no candlelight and no slow dance

1. Happy Halloween from these fruit loops.
I can never share just one.
2. I've got my fuzzy pug witch socks ready but I'll be wearing them for the Christmas holiday because it's still much too warm. Ben got a new coat from Treat Lady too and he is here for it.

3. My BFF Kim officially launched Yunizon late last week with her partner. Check them out for your sunglass needs. Kim has been my personal sunglasses guru for many years and I'm beyond proud of her in this new venture. Yunizon is an alternative pronunciation of unison to capture their core valeus of free expression, unity, and belonging. This is from their What We Stand For section and I am freaking here for it: We believe everyone should have the freedom to express themselves without inhibitions or judgment. We aspire for a united world where everyone is accepted for who they are, and tolerance is prevalent. Creating a sense of belonging is fundamental to human satisfaction. I am also here for the sunglasses, obviously, and my first pair are the Festiv style in milky army green. All the sunglasses are gender neutral and available in three sizes for the core ranges. I've got my eye on the libera next. Give them a follow on Instagram too.
4. My family is walking in the Purple Stride walk this Saturday in memory of my grandmother. She lived nine months from her date of diagnosis with pancreatic cancer. I've done many walks for various cancers, and what strikes me at the Purple Stride walk is how very few survivors are present. We'd like to do what we can to change that and that's what the money we raise goes to. Since 2008, the survival rate past five years has increased by 3% from 6% to 9%. Families out there need it to be higher. We are Madeline's Marchers and you can donate to me here if you're so inclined - I am late fundraising this year. Thank you so much for your consideration. It's a cause very close to my heart.
5. Nails - Now Museum, Now You Don't by OPI. This was on my wishlist forever and I found it for cheap in a store. This has been an episode of Happy Nail Tales. 

6. Last night I put when I dip you dip we dip french dip in the crock. Hark! Magic standing meat. Searing on all sides is where it's at. What's for dinner at your house?

7. What are we saying when we blur our features so we're unrecognizable as ourselves?

8. Me, every day under this corrupt AF administration and everyone in government who enables them:

9. Reminder:

10. Ecards. It's not possible, but give it a go if you're ambitious.

Happy 60th birthday to my uncle Perry today and happy birthday to my long time friend Jimmy who doesn't even internet.  

Trick or m'f'n treat, friends.  

What appears after the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts is a song lyric to whatever I'm listening to when I start to write the post. This week is a 1981 classic, Try Again by Champaign...also that video with the sing off fight is sort of hilarious. I had never seen it.

Monday, November 9, 2015

TWTW - the one with all the things

Alternate titles: the one where I ate until I popped like Violet Beauregarde, the one with 47 sugar comas, the one where I spent five minutes at home.

After a work happy hour at Tequila's (ole!) and a late train, MFD and I headed to Collingswood to meet Amanda, Frank, Michelle, and Bob at Bistro di Marino. Food was good, conversation was full of secrets, documentaries, science things, and laughs, and I finally got the chocolate cake I wanted all last week. Sugar coma 1.
Fart noise: the alarm came earlier than a work day alarm on Saturday. But the morning views from the yard were golden. 
After the required stop at DD, MFD and I headed to Parkside, bordering Fairmount Park - full of really beautiful stately old homes mostly fallen into disrepair, but it was nice to see some of them coming back around. Not the one we were parked across from obviously, but others. It makes me sad to see such glorious homes in decay. I hope they all come back. 
We met up with my parents, aunt & uncle, and our Lucy for the PurpleStride walk in memory and celebration of my grandmom. Madeline's Marchers raised $1665. I raised $650. Thank you so much to you awesome donors. 
Thanks to Carol for the first five pics
It was a nice 5k around Fairmount Park. She was showing all of her colors. Last week I was thinking damn I have no foliage photos. And just like that, I do. We took a pit stop to peek in at the Shofosu Japanese House too, it's so cool plopped there in the middle of the park like a hidden treasure waiting to be discovered. 
We got our post walk calories in at Sabrina's at 18th & Callowhill. I love love love how they use mismatched mugs, and Carol got one from Dot's in Ocean City. Signs signs everywhere there's signs. I had Rosemary's Babycakes. I'm not typically a pancake eater, but I had to try them. They were good. Sugar coma numero dos.
I came home and took a rest with the dogs, then went to Target for the 23840384th time in the past three weeks. Debbie and I hit the JOVO Dance bingo fundraiser in support of the daughters of two of my oldest friends. I've known Jen since I was three and Denise since she was born. It was nice to see Jen's mom and some of her family ladies as well as her in-laws and of course my second parents Chuck & Jane. I'm over bingo though, so I ate my way through a sour patch kids bag for sugar coma number three. We went to the Rover for a beer with the Dance Moms and friends but Debbie had a cold and I had old lady syndrome so we UBER'd home before midnight. Check out these freaking cute apple bites the girl across from me made - aren't they adorable? Must try.
Sunday we loaded up MFD's car with furniture that has been accumulating in our living room. I feel like I'm running a freaking warehouse. He had an appointment with a new client in Sea Isle so he dropped them off at the shore house to get them out of ours. This was our only weekend home this month - we're pushing hard to get the shore house as done as it's going to get this year by Thanksgiving weekend. It's been rented for the first weekend in December. Eeee! And yes, for all of you that noticed, that freaking tent is still sitting by the front door nearly a month later. We've had words. 
I shuffled on over to Deptford for Maggie's bridal shower for some laughs with the Ferko ladies and sugar coma number four courtesy of freaking awesome red velvet cake and cookies. 
Do you know what gives me anxiety? IKEA at 3:45 on a Sunday afternoon where kids are sliding across aisles and rolling around in rug piles while their parents lounge on showroom furniture like they are in their own living rooms. I shit you not a man had his hands down his pants Al Bundy style. All that for wall rods to hang coffee mugs on that I had to go up and down the fire stairs to find and two measley bath mats. Balls. 
We rounded out the weekend food frenzy with Sunday dinner at Zahav with MFD's brother Mark and Sarah. It was delicious and the company was as well. 
Weekly food prep is not much. Breakfast is egg muffins, lunch (only needed three days) is Wawa salads, dinner is blackened salmon with wild rice and steamed veggies. Boring week. Since I only made the egg muffins, no photos. And honestly after this weekend I could stand to eat lettuce for 37 days. I don't even want to look at food.

These dogs...they always want to look at food. Apparently a shiatsu massager box is now considered food. Gus is the perpetrator. Gus is 10. Gus is also 100% deaf. I came home Saturday afternoon and he didn't come to the door. I looked all over the house for him and he was sleeping on the living room under a pillow and never even heard me come in or the other dogs going crazy. 

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Don't forget - tomorrow is Show us your books with me and Jana! I want to know what you've been reading. Good, bad, and ugly.

Annnnnnd not to brag or anything, but this morning in a whirlwind of car scraping trunk not opening key fuckery, I left my car keys on the hood of my car and drove off. So they're somewhere in between home and the train station and probably gone for good unless a good Samaritan reads my HELP post on our neighborhood Facebook page. But in reality, they're just gone and I need to accept it. My Dirty Dancing key chain is gone. We've owned the shore house for less than a month and already need replica keys made...that's a record, even for me with my very shitty key record. Edited to add MFD spent his morning retracing my route and found the freaking keys. Amazing!

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Linking up with Biana at B Loved Boston for Weekending

Monday, June 23, 2014

TWTW - Relay For Life Edition

This weekend I got five hours of sleep on Friday night and zero on Saturday, so this is a picture dump of Relay For Life because as I type this I'm on 30 hours without sleep and I'm verging on hangry. For why I relay, see this post. For a little bit more of what it's like there, see Lori's (llf1020) comment below.

Thanks so much to all of my Random Acts of Kindness teammates and our framily who stopped by for 15 minutes, an hour, five hours, to show your support and walk some laps with us and buy some raffles and bring us food and coffee. Thanks also to all of you who donated to me online or via mail. You all rock. I've raised $1,730 so far. Sincerely. Thank you.

Survivors
People, plus AUB who stopped in to walk in the morning and Kimmie, who visited in the dark of night.
Scenes from Relay
Winnings of me & MFD, including the coveted DD basket that's all mine
Skies of Relay
HOPE of Relay
We switched it up this year - new to us Relay (Bensalem), Lori and Perry set stuff up like rockstars on Friday. Lori rocked out as my team co-pilot. I didn't walk my first lap until 3 p.m. and I walked all through the night aside from a visit with Sister Secrets and an hour doing time at the information station for our team. I wised up from last year, saved my energy to make it through the night and never wore flip flops and I'm not in as much pain this year. The last members of our team (me, Lori, and Debbie) punched out at 23 hours - a respectable showing but not the full 24. My feet said absolutely not another lap, my body said you stink, and my mouth said I would like to eat something with a fork instead of your hands. We left Relay at 10 a.m. Sunday.

On Mondays I'm doing a picture linkup with Kelli at Just Beachy. If you'd like to participate, here are the prompts through July. This is my photo for the prompt summer.
This weekend was great, and on the less pain, Hallelujah and Amen, beacuse this week? Kim and Steve's wedding in Salem. Time to trade my Relay shoes for maid of honor shoes.

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Linking up with Kelli for

Monday, June 24, 2013

the weekend that sort of wasn't


Say what? Well what I mean is that I didn't get done what I normally do on a weekend, because I was otherwise engaged most of the time, outside of the house at a 24 hour Relay For Life event.

Relay is really important to me - cancer has negatively impacted my life and the lives of many people close to me, and this is my outlet to give back. This is my way to deal with my anger, frustration, sadness and grief that asshole cancer has caused. Since Relay is 12 or 24 hours with someone walking on the track at all times, you can't do it without a team. My Random Acts of Kindness teammates have been with me for five years. They don't have to come along on this journey with me - the drive is mine - but they do and each year they show up ready to walk and determined to raise what we can. I appreciate them so much. Missed you this year Michelle! My littlest teammate below first came to Relay as a month old baby. We also joined up with another team this year, and had Tara, a new teammate/old friend join our team. Thanks Dyanne's Defenders for a successful joint effort! Thanks also to Martha, Julie and Lauren for introducing me to Relay five years ago.
Relay scenes: a bra decorating fundraiser, two people rocking out their 80s campsite theme, even on Relay night MFD needs to crush that freaking candy, track scenes, Kit Kat D dancing along to the Sign Language Interpretive Songs. Our team raffled off baskets, did a 50/50, sold Debbie Rae Design bracelets, baked goods and some other stuff. We raised over $1,100 at the event, bringing our total team total to about $4,500.
It was hot walking during the day, and I got my typical back of the knee sunburn that I get every blessed year despite major sunblock reapplication. But overall, it was gorgeous and we enjoyed the best Relay weather day we've ever had. We also saw the super moon, which was not actually super until about 5:00 a.m.
The luminaria ceremony is the heart and soul of Relay. If you've never experienced one, you should. We had too many bags lining the track of people we've lost or people we honored who are battling cancer now or have beaten it. These are just a few of ours. My Grandmom died in December of pancreatic cancer. I dedicated my Relay to her this year. I checked her candle at 5:15. Still going. Her candle was one of the only ones still burning at 6:30 in the morning on Sunday - 10 hours after it was lit. So typical of her to persevere. Thanks for the sign Grandmom.
There's nothing like walking part of every hour for 24 hours to come to terms with some things and honor people in your life who've had cancer.
Sunday
I hobbled into my house about 25 hours after I left on Saturday, got one of the top five showers of my life, and enjoyed an awesome lunch a la MFD: a steak, baked potato, and steamed broccoli for lunch. Boom.


Other Sunday things:
-Five hour nap
-Two epsom salt foot soaks
-Lots of ibuprofen
-Blister care
-Foot elevation
-Mexican takeout
-Sweet Home Alabama
-The Killing

Aching feet and body can't compare to what cancer sufferers go through daily.

Weekly food prep happens tonight, as does other normal weekend stuff. Have a great day!

Check back here tomorrow for a Shabby Apple giveaway!









Linking up with Join the Gossip for Monday Morning Gossip
Linking up with Sami's Shenanigans for Weekend Shenanigans
Linking up with Southern Sunflowers & Coffee Beans for Monday Mingle

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