Last post...

This is going to be my last post on this blog. I've been debating for a long time if I should keep up this blog or not. The truth is... my heart just isn't into it anymore. I love blogging but I don't have time right now to keep up with it. It's been such a great outlet for me, but I don't have much desire to come here and blog anymore.

This is where I came when I was going through the hardest time in my life to share my feelings and experiences. But now that life is going on I'm finding that I don't really want to "come here" anymore. Sort of like how I'm writing this post sitting on my living room floor instead of on the couch that I sat on pretty much for a year and a half of my life.... if you know what I mean. I still have a lot of healing and recovery to do, and I just really feel like this would be really good for me, to leave this blog where it is and move on from it now.

I'm still going to write on my other blog, because I do like to blog and I want to still promote my shop and share my creative side of life. So you can find me there if you like knitting and sewing and such ;). I'm glad that I separated my blogs when I did because it gave me a place to just be me and not focus on the hard things going on in my life, but that blog is dwindling and dying also and I feel like I would rather spend my time there than here now.

I just want to say thank you so much to all of you who have been so supportive of me in the most challenging time in my life. So many days the comments and support that I received from so many of you on this blog are what gave me strength, or helped me feel loved. I could never adequately thank all of you who brought joy and hope to this little broken girls heart. Thank you so much.

Love,
Meg

bangs...

I looked in the mirror the other day and I saw someone that I'm starting to recognize...

from March 2009

Me... and my cute bangs. They're finally back.

Welcome back... I've missed you!

Job Description - Baby cuddler...

One of the best things in the world to me is when my boy wakes up from his nap and comes and cuddles with me on the couch. I'm soooo glad that my boy is a cuddler. There is nothing better than a warm little body, fresh from a nap, still a little groggy, coming and squeezing in close on the couch... nothing.

So this picture was taken on a Friday... The boy had just woken up from his nap and came to fulfill his baby duties to cuddle mom on the couch. Love it.

The next day, Saturday, we were visiting our fam... and look what happened after a certain little someones nap...

Yep... she got the memo. She made a beeline for me just after her nap and cuddled with me for a good 30 minutes before getting up and moving on with her baby business. It was great! So I've decided to add this to my list of skills that I am super good at. Baby Cuddler. Even though I guess they aren't really babies anymore, I still consider them my babies. And I will do my duty here for as long as they will let me.

Clean...

I saw my doctor today and got the good news that I was hoping for... my CT scan came back...

CLEAN

I can't even describe the relief that I feel that have another good scan. It's so stressful to do these follow up appointments... knowing what's in store if the scan isn't clean.

My doctor said that my lymph nodes are even smaller than they were at my last scan, which was 5 months ago. So even not being on chemo they are still shrinking. Less that 1 cm which is what we want!

8 months...

Life 8 months out of chemo...

... I think that maybe my hair will start to grow a little faster if I stop cutting it. The top of my hair is finally getting long enough that I think I can start to grow the back out and not have it look too awkward.

... It's really almost been nine months. I'm really slow at getting this picture taken this month. Next week will be my nine month mark and it has gone by pretty fast.

... I realize that I'm also wearing a yellow cardigan in the first picture, but this is a different one. It's my favorite thing in my wardrobe and I've looked for a good year for a decent yellow cardigan (the first one was not as cute as I'd hoped and super itchy...). So oh well if it throws off the whole picture collage, I'm okay with it because I love it.

... I have new glasses that I love. Tru ripped the arm off of my other ones while at the pool over the summer and I got some new ones a few months ago. I love how thick the frames are.

... I really like my job now. I've finally gotten used to it and gotten a lot faster at it and it's going really well. I've also cut down my hours a little to just 3 days a week because I really hate leaving Tru so much. I have a really hard time with it, so less hours it is!

... I'm not really feeling like blogging a lot these days. I think that part of it is that I spent a lot of time blogging and reading blogs when I was going through chemo, and now that I'm not I just don't feel like doing it so much. So sorry if I've sort of disappeared from the internet world here.

... Still thinking about doing a half marathon in March but not sure if I'll be able to pull it off. The farthest I've gone is 3 miles, so 10 more would be quiet a stretch.

... I have more scans coming up in two weeks. I was suppose to have them in December but put them off a month because I didn't want to pay my yearly deductible with my new insurance in the month of December. I'm glad they let me move it till next year. It makes me so nervous though to have these scans. I hope these ones are totally uneventful...

... Once my scans are done I'm going to be doing a detox cleanse. I've never done one before but I've been reading up on it in this awesome book called Clean. It's written by a cardiologist who started doing more integrative medicine. I just feel so different than I did before chemo. I keep getting colds, UTI's, my joints hurt almost all the time, my skin is worse than it was when I was 15 years old. The basic idea behind it is that toxins build up in your body over time and really weight down all of the systems in your body, and the toxicities manifest themselves in things like constant colds, sickness, no energy... etc. I agree with that, but more than that I put poisonous toxins in my body for 6 months to kill cancer, and I think that it's still having affects on my body. So I'm going to do it. It's for 3 weeks, and you drink 2 liquid meals a day (veggie and fruit smoothies) and eat one solid meal a day. I'm nervous, I've never done anything this radical, but I really want to try it to see if it helps me out. I think that I'm going to blog about it on my other blog though, so if you care to follow it, it will be posted over there.

... Most importantly right now, I'm enjoy my time with my boys. They are my best friends and we have so much fun together. I'm so blessed to have my wonderful family.

Christmas Day...

Midnight - We finally crawl into bed after getting everything ready and cleaning up some of the fondue stuff.

3:00 AM - I hear Tru's bedroom door open and hear little footsteps run down the hallway to the living room. By the time I realize what's going on and get out to the living room he has already picked out a present and is sitting on the couch opening it. We didn't put any presents under the tree before tonight because I knew it would just be too much temptation for him... so now he has seen it all and it is way too early for me to even consider letting this happen. So I take Tru back to his room but let him take the one present he opened with him.... then I lock him in there in hopes that he will stay in till we are ready to wake up.

5:00 AM - Tru is pounding on his door, yelling that Santa has come and he needs to get out so that he can open his presents. We ignore him...

6:00 AM - Trent finally gives in and goes and lets Tru out of his room. I get up too because I don't want to miss Tru opening his presents... but have the worst headache of my life! So this is what Christmas with a three year old is like ;).

He loved every second of it!! He opened every present, even the ones for me and Trent. He had so much fun with everything. It was really fun.

Then when everything is opened and the room is covered in paper and presents Tru chooses to play with...

... a box. A cardboard box! Too funny! He did end up playing with all of his stuff later on, I just thought that was too funny. We went a little overboard with the presents this year I think, but it was worth it! It was so fun to see him so excited.

Then Tru and I made some breakfast.

Whole wheat pancakes with whipped cream and Christmas sprinkles...

I think that it's safe to say that his favorite gift was Hungry Hungry Hippos. He just loves it, and we've already played it about 50 times...

Christmas was good for Trent and I too! I'm so glad that we had such a nice holiday as a family this year. Christmas was a big low point for me last year so it was nice to have such a fun one this year.

Love you boys...

Christmas Eve...

We didn't have any real plans for Christmas Eve this year, but we wanted to do our traditional fondue even if it was just the three of us. Then it turned out that our good friend Sean and his brother were going to be in town for Christmas Eve so they came for the fondue party too! It was great! So low key, just the best stuff that we love...

Two kinds of crab...

and a whole lot of veggies, shrimp, chicken and beef!!! (I'm pretty sure I'm the only person out there that puts pictures of raw meat on my blog... but I'm okay with that).

Santa made an appearance...

Tru admiring his new Christmas pajamas.

I'm really sad that all of my pictures turned out super blurry. I could not for the life of me figure out how to take a good picture that night. Time to get a new camera... that's on the list for 2011. Until then, enjoy the blurry pictures... cause they're all I got!

So handsome...

Cuddle bug loves his mama.

Like a lot

Malka and her grandson Oriel came by for a bit. I always feel bad because fondue is so not kosher... at all! But I made some good truffles for Oriel to eat. Malka is not orthodox but her family is. I'm glad that they still come and hang out with us though.

The rest of the gang... Camile, Blake, and Seano. I'm sure they loved that I was taking pictures of them...

It was a great night! After Tru went to bed we stayed up and put Christmas stuff around the tree. Thanks for coming over guys and spending the night with us!