Dear Friends

How often do we wonder what ever happened to someone we knew in high school. I know that is why there are High School reunions. But those come with so much hoopla. One friend I have known since I was pre-school, Luann, and I reconnected this year. Our Mom's were good friends. We took up where we left off. She is an amazing funny lady. Well, she and two other good friends and Lavonne and I got together this month in the Jemez mountains to reconnect and tell old stories that were funnier than I every remembered. Who knew a squirrel pelt meant so much to a foreign exchange student?
Ladies...the laughter was much needed and how wonderful that we all turned into interesting and happy people. We have to do this again!

Deer at Dad's

These beautiful deer have been hanging around Dad's for all of 2010. Now, they are all grown.

update

Radiation going well. I am a bit crispy on one side and that will go away in a few months. My hair is thin and dry but still on my head and I seem to be eating OK. So, all is going well.
Judy and Sharon are back from Maui and the winter icy grip has finally eased. Spring has to be on the way!

Cancer

I have not posted since Fall...what's up with that?
It has been a tough fall but winter really kicked it into high gear. We have been in snow up to our keesters since early December. Right now we have more than 3 feet of snow on the ground. It has morphed out of snow and into a block of ice that will hold a truck. Our fair city did a really poor job of clearing the streets. We went from regular trucks to private contractor. Lavonne claims our snowplow was a Mini Cooper with a blade. It does look like that.
Now, with the nasty weather (7 major snows since Jan.) we had another challenge. I was diagnised with breast cancer in late Fall. I had the biopsy (fun) the full surgery (more fun) and now radiation. I will do Tamoxafin after the radiation. We caught it early and that is all good. So, I go through one radiation treatment each day now and get a little nauseous (maybe some weight loss?) and some exhaustion (I am a good napper). So far so good and we will get through this and count our blessings and kick any of our friends and loved onve who do not get a regular mamogram...be warned.

Fall and Los Alamos

It is Fall in New Mexico and the colors have been beautiful. The large deer has been enjoying a snack in Dad's backyard a couple of times each week.

Big Spiders

Fall in the midwest is always an interesting time. The large garden spiders start spinning these amazing webs and no matter how often someone tells me that these are beautiful creatures...they still creep me out a bit. I do not bug them..I do sometimes move them to a new location...which I am certain makes them angry because they just went to all the work of spinning a web overnight connecting the deck railing to my umbrella. In any case it is time for fall. That always makes me think of family times and the last picnics on the Pecos.

Poetry as a Gift

I just packaged up a book of poems (to send out to family) that was put together by my cousin Deb for her Mom, Betty. Betty wrote the poems and I think used them to deal with grief and the pain of being so far away from family. Still, some of the poems are really funny.
In one she speaks of my Aunt Marge. I called her Gee Gee and she was a lifetime school teacher and a bit prickly on occasion.

Were you a flower (for Marge)
"Were you a flower
You might be
A tender yellow buttercup
With sunny petal holden up
Its face for bee to come and sup
But were reverse
The circumstance
And it should be your mettle
To be a weed I think
Perhaps you'd serve as stinging netle."
Betty Oller

My Aunt Betty cracked me up. In one short poem she summed up my dear Ant Gee Gee. we all loved her but she was a bit prickley.
Betty used to walk and memorize scripture and poems. The great Robert Frost recited his Poem "The Gift Outright" from memory at the innaguration of Kennedy when his notes containing the poem "Dedication"w were blown around.
Lavonne's Mom made kids memorize a few poems and many at her funeral would come up in small groups and start reminiscing and then a poem would break out. What a gift.
Betty knew who the poet Laureate each year and also knew a bit about some of their work.
I think there is wisdom there about the arts and how they help us work through. You can get mad but to relieve stress it helps to hammer out a creation...in wood, stone or words. Betty chose words.