Good Morning and Happy New Year

I hope you all had a blessed holiday season. Thank you for all the well wishes and prayers and powerful thoughts of positive energy.

Living with teachers it was very nice to have a solid 2 weeks of vacation, no alarms, no bedtimes, lots of visiting and time. But now we are back at it. Mike and Maggie off early this morning and here I am back at it as well.

Many of you know that I celebrated my birthday a few days ago, January 1. The holidays can be stressful and difficult under any conditions, birthdays can be the same…It was definitely tricky this year getting through that day which also happened to be the 6th month anniversary of my diagnosis.

New Year’s Eve was fabulous but exhausting. We decided to fire up the pizza oven, it’s so hard to resist! Maggie, Michael, Eva and Betty were all here, we invited Mike and Gillian and Conor over to join us. We had an assembly line in the kitchen with delicious ingredients and the boys were outside keeping the oven hot and keeping the pizzas moving in and out. Betty made two birthday cakes this year and New Year’s Eve we had the first one; olive oil, polenta, cherry cake. It truly was a delightful and delicious evening…but absolutely exhausting! The kids cleaned up and then headed out on their own.  About 11:30 I realized I could not make it  to midnight, physically or emotionally,  and fairly abruptly called the party to an end. I was completely pooped out and emotionally I just knew I would loose it at midnight celebrating the new year and my birthday with a cancer cloud over my head. I was too exhausted to try to fake it. I  wanted to go to bed and cover my head…and so I called the party and did just that. I made it to bed and under my pillow before midnight. I am quite happy to see the end of 2014 but that does not mean I’m not worried about what 2015 will bring. 

Typically on my birthday we go to the movies. I try to pick a movie I think everyone would like, which has always been tricky. This year I was a little selfish and picked a movie that Mike and Michael would attend under no other circumstances…I needed both my birthday and cancer to pull this one off! I gave them the option of seeing a different movie at the same theater, but they were troopers and stayed with the group and off we went to see Into the Woods. I loved it! Eva had been in the musical when she was in 3rd grade, she enjoyed it. Betty enjoyed it. Mike liked it more than he thought he would. Michael took a little nap and woke up with a feeling he'd been napping for hours and wondered how in the world everyone could still be watching this movie!! Too funny! But, me, the birthday girl… I loved it! Granted, it was a little long…but I’d see it again.

We came home from the movie and ate left over pizza and Betty’s second cake, a nearly flourless chocolate cake. Then there were the gifts. This is when I really lost it. It was too much, I was overwhelmed, I was toast.  I cried all through cake and presents. I was so tired, so full of gratitude for all the people and love coming my way this year. So grateful for my family and the love  at the table and so worried about them dealing with my cancer, and I lost it. I really cannot think about it without crying, but that’s okay. I cry…a lot.

Once we all recovered Michael and Eva headed back to Portland. Maggie left the next day to join them and head up to Timberline with a big group of friends for a snowboarding weekend. It was a quiet weekend around here filled with football and taking down and putting Christmas away.

Tomorrow I have chemo #8. I’m planning on having a very quiet week following chemo. Last month I know I fought it, tried too hard, too soon to get back into the ball game. This time I’m just going to chill. No holidays to shop or get ready for, no stress, just relax and heal. I’m going to binge a little on last year’s Downton Abbey and then watch the new one. I’m just into The Goldfinch and finding it compelling and difficult to put down, so I plan on reading quite a bit. I have a couple of visitors lined up and that is the extent of my plans for this week, and perhaps next week as well.

I wish you all well as you start the New Year. I’m thinking of all my teacher friends and I know what you are up against today as everyone tries to gear up to get back in the groove.

love to you all

janet