Wordless Wednesday: Purple fountain grass

They don't survive the winter here, but I love having purple fountain grass.
It's so pretty and looks great all summer. I have two plants this year.
Next summer? Four, maybe six!

Hidray-shun

I don't mean to keep bringing up this cancer stuff, but I just gotta complain a little about the hydration requirements of chemo!

Hi-dray-shun. Com-pli-cay-shun!

It seems like if you aren't swigging some kind of liquid all the time, your mouth turns into this dry, parched, sticky, inhospitable place. And worst of all? Coffee ain't on the menu!!!! I have been without a sip of coffee for longer than...I....Ever....Thought....Possible.

I used to be the queen of coffee. Made a pot every morning at work and pretty much drank it myself. On the weekends, I'd make a pot at home and pretty much drink it myself.

But now? I have to find a different beverage to ingest.

Oh, they said I could drink a cup once in awhile, but I'm afraid of what I might do once I get the taste of coffee again. I could turn into a wild coffee bean eating animal.

So, I have decided to try being a good girl and not drinking it. I have tried lemonade, only to find that it gave me acid reflux. I have tried fruit punch, green tea, all kinds of water enhancer flavors, and none of it is NEARLY as satisfying as a good old cup of coffee.

Of course, maybe coffee wouldn't taste as good anymore either, because nothing really tastes like it did before chemo.

If you have a hi-dray-shun rec-o-men-day-shun (that's hydration recommendation) for me, please share.

And I will dream about the day that coffee and I will once again work and play, side-by-side!

Chia me

I can't believe it. The little hair I have left on my head, is growing.

G-R-O-W-I-N-G!

And I still have one more AC (Adriamycin and Cytoxan) treatment to go. I know there are people who don't lose their hair when they get the cancer-killing cocktail, but I had it shaved short because I knew I wasn't going to be one of those people. And about a week after my second treatment, I lost MOST of it. I figured with a few more treatments, it would all be gone. But here I am, with one AC treatment to go and about a fourth of the stubborn little buggers are hanging in there.

And they're getting longer and standing up straight from my head.

Think chia pet.

Seriously.

I'm not quite sure what to do at this point. The other day, my son said, "Mom, you should shave off the rest of your hair and then polish your head so it shines."

Nice, but that sounds like more work than having hair!

I was expecting to be hair-free carefree for several months. But now I'm wondering.... what happens in a couple of months when these little wisps get longer? All that comes to mind is the Crypt Keeper. A few long strands against a skull. Hmmm. Not the look I'm really going for!

And of course, to add even more hair scare, not only is the hair on my head growing, but so is the stuff on my legs. I think I had, officially, two weeks of no leg hair. Not much more than a good "Nairing" would accomplish, really.

Drat!

Now I have to start shaving my legs again.

And maybe my head.

Or embrace the Crypt Keeper look?

Always a mother

Why is it you become acutely aware of how quickly time has passed on the day your kids go back to school? It seems like yesterday that my sweet little bug, who is no longer little, but tall, handsome and 15 years old, was getting on the school bus for the first time. I agonized about his first day, hoping he would know where to go and what to do.

Today, he went off to his first day of high school, and I found myself worrying about the same things. We didn't get a chance to take him to the orientation so I gave him every scrap of paper with room numbers and instructions on it that I could so he wouldn't be lost.

He's 15, and I'm still worrying about the same things I worried about when he was little.

My daughter, who is in fifth grade this year, is usually very excited about going back to school. This year, she was a little less excited. I'm guessing it was because she was able to attend several art camps this summer, and after looking at her school yearbook last night and noting that her favorite "class" last year was "art"....well, let's just say it didn't take rocket science to figure out what subject she really enjoys the most. Maybe that interest in math will come back after she gets her numerators and denominators challenged a little more. I hope so, because she's about over my head in math already, so if she doesn't get back in the math groove, I won't be of much help!

And no matter what their first day of school was like, I think it has been hardest on me. I slept terrible last night, wanting to make sure that I wouldn't oversleep, so they wouldn't oversleep and be late their first day. And it has taken every ounce of my energy not to call them and ask if everything went okay. I'm trying to be laid-back about it all, but truth be told, I'm a bundle of raw nerves.

I can't even begin to imagine what a wreck I will be when they go off to college!

Planet moon

As the daylight hours continue to wane, the beauty of the night sky lingers and I get treated to unexpected nuggets of awesomeness as I get up in the mornings.

Although my little camera doesn't really do the moon and planet justice, (objects in photos always look so much further away than they appear with the naked eye) I am sharing anyway.

I think the first picture is the result of me opening the door and the heat from the house escaping to create a funky fog. Or else it's a ghostly apparition!

In the second picture, the fog had cleared!

I LOVE North Dakota's big skies!

I love volunteers!

Volunteers are the heart and soul of a membership organization like Farm Bureau. When I see the work our volunteers have done over the last year to get signatures on the ballot for a constitutional amendment to safeguard modern farming and ranching practices in North Dakota, I can't help but feel humbled.

These people truly believe in working together toward a goal. I am thankful every day that we have many people who believe so strongly in agriculture and the future of it, that they were willing to put themselves out there to make a difference. Volunteers ROCK!!!!

I also love volunteers in my flower beds. Like this one.

The only flower I planted this year were the purple petunias. The moss roses and marigolds came up on their own and really made this front porch flower bed pop with fun color.

Maybe it just goes to show you that volunteers can pop up when you least expect it, and make something stronger than you ever thought it could be!

Wordless Wednesday: My Two Acres Sunrise

I love mornings like these! It's a good day to be alive!

Samson, in reverse

Ya'll know about the story of Samson. Delilah has a servant shave his locks, he gets weak and gets captured by the Philistines.

My hair was long. And I felt like a victim.

My sister-in-law shaved my head, and suddenly I felt strong. Stronger than I have felt in a long time.

This cancer has created a lot of "firsts" for me. I never had surgery before the mastectomy. I have never shown my boobs to so many people in my life (well, one and a half now). Of course the chemo is a new thing too, as will be the radiation. And I certainly never entertained an idea that I should shave my head. But firsts really can make a difference in the way you look at things.

I mean, who knew that the simple act of shaving your head BEFORE the hair falls out would be so empowering. The day after I got my head shaved, I helped clean up my brother and sister-in-law's yard after a huge storm hit the area. I raked, picked up sticks and branches for well over three hours. I felt like a new person.

And I still feel pretty darn good, even after my second round of chemo. The day of my second round, (yesterday) I decided that I needed to walk. So my husband and I walked and our daughter rode bike about a mile. I was feeling a little nauseous before we went, but that didn't stop me.

I got back, still felt a little yucky and decided to take the extra anti-nausea meds, and it worked like a charm. Today, I'm pink-faced and overly-excited from the steroids, have no nausea and I really crave meat!!! I had to return something at K-mart over the noon hour and even though I had just finished a half a sub sandwich for lunch, I just HAD to swing through the drive-through at McDonalds to get myself a hamburger.

But craving meat is a good thing. Because chemo patients need extra protein.

Rib eyes tonight! I can hardly wait!

See what a good head-shaving can do?

The shaving o' the head

Well, the time has come. Rather than wait for my hair to fall out, I have asked my sister-in-law to shave my head. If all goes well, it will happen when we get to their home, sometime late this evening. I am as ready as I think I can be. In fact, as I was packing for our short trip, I thought, "Self, you don't have to pack shampoo. Or conditioner. Or styling products. Heck, sister, you don't even need a comb."

You don't even need a comb, she says again, for emphasis.

Suddenly, I'm thinking that not worrying about what your hair looks like before you leave home in the morning is going to be pretty awesome. Washing it, blow-drying it, getting the cut and color to hide the gray? I won't have to think about that for a very long time. Just throw on a hat or scarf and rock and roll.

How did hair get to be such an important thing for women to have on our heads, yet not on our legs or in our armpits? Is it some kind of shaving gel conspiracy? I hate shaving, by the way, so I hope I lose my copious amounts of leg and underarm arm. But watch, I'll be the one who loses her eyebrows and eyelashes but manages to keep the leg and pit hair.

The other thing I have realized is that doing chemo is a lot like having a baby. You forget about the nausea, the body aches, all the changes your body goes through -- and did I mention the nausea -- as soon as you start feeling a little better. You think, "Man, that wasn't so bad! I can do this again!" Of course, maybe I won't say the same thing after I have had more than one treatment, but for now, I'm thinking it's the best frame of mind to be in.

And hey, now I'll have something in common with Captain Picard (from Stark Trek the Next Generation.) I actually don't think he would have stuck in my mind as being such a strong, determined character if he had hair.

Hairless is strong, determined and to the point.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!