Christmas Ornaments

This year our one large Christmas tree is filled with lights and ornaments, there is no ribbon, garland or tinsel to be found.  After many years of marriage, the ornaments represent memories through the years including older family ornaments,  hand-made ornaments from our children and grandchildren and ornaments from places we have visited.

My grandson was looking at the tree and asked if this ornament really was a bell. 

 

Yes, inside it is a tiny bead clapper. It makes a sweet sound. Like the bell in Its a Wonderful Life("When a bell rings an Angel gets its wings" fame. That bell ornament hung on my tree when I was growing up. 

Then I pointed to this ornament from my childhood. 

 

It is made from an egg shell that has ribbon, glitter and paper glued on it. My guess is that it is from the mid-1960's.  This is the last of its kind so it hangs high on the tree.

Then he found this ornament, holding a photo of our first pug, Kona. 

He looks a little smaller than my grandson's new black pug puppy who is pictured below waiting for a treat with his brother Walter and cousin Amber.

 

At times, looking at those older Christmas ornaments, decorations and Christmas dishes made me think of loved ones who are no longer here to share these memories with - my sister, dad, Aunt Dora and Nick's mom, dad and brother. Our family traditions -  such as  making my Aunt Dora's Christmas Love Knot cookies and hanging those old ornaments on the tree helps to keep their memories alive for all of us. 

Wishing my readers, JOY this holiday season! Thank you for letting me share my holiday with you.

Dee

Every Day is a Blessing !

Blogs and A Decision

For the past few weeks I have spent most of my time with my children and grandchildren. It was a fun time swimming and exploring new things, drawing and creating things with them. Now that they have headed to their new home, I have time to get back to writing posts for this blog. But I had a problem. What do I write about? Seems that for the past week I have had "bloggers block". 

Then yesterday, in a Facebook group I belong to, I ran across a post by a women with ovarian cancer who shared a link to her latest Cabernet and Carboplatin Blog post "Identity". As I read the post I could relate to how she was feeling and I loved how Carol wrote. I thought to myself that her blog would be a great one to add to the list of ovarian cancer blogs I created on Listly.ly (https://list.ly/list/NRQ-gynecologic-cancer-blogs ). There is a link to the list in the right column of this blog. 

The list I created a few years ago includes blogs written by women diagnosed with ovarian cancer or their loved ones. It does not include single blog posts by patients, survivors or caregivers appearing on other independent, patient or awareness organization websites. It had been so long since I did an update that I had to look up the password to access the list.  I added Cabernet and Carboplatin. Then I "googled" ovarian cancer blogs and found two other blogs that I was not familiar with but liked the posts I read. So I added these blogs written by young women, Finding Cyril - The Musings of a Young Woman Diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer and Let's Kick Ovarian Cancer - A Journey with Ovarian Cancer at Age 26 , to my list.

After making the adds I started going through the list. Afew of my survivor friends, including a few from the UK are still writing.  Then I found a few blogs in a row where new posts haven't been made for over two years. Why did these women choose to stop writing their blog? In one case I am friends with the woman on Facebook so I know she is doing OK. But in many of the other cases the last post related to decisions about hospice and facing death or posts from family members. I was overwhelmed with sadness that after so many years so many women's lives are still  lost to ovarian cancer.

Now I am in a quandary. Do I leave those blogs where women haven't posted in a number of years? Or do I delete those blogs from my list?

Then I thought about my "On this Day"  that showed up this morning on Facebook.

Eleven years ago my friend Courtney had posted:

"Hey Dee... just wanted to say hello and thank you for the cards you've sent my way. They've made me smile :) Hope you're having a good summer! "

She passed away in 2011, yet this morning I read that memory and I smiled and thought how blessed I was to have known this dynamic and amazing young woman. 

So for now I will be leaving those blogs in my list. My way of never forgetting the women whose journey ended but who lives blessed so many of us.

Every Day is a Blessing!

Dee



 

What September Brings

Some days during September I wake up feeling great.  The sky is bright blue and cloudless. Temperatures start out cool and get a bit warmer as the day goes on. The weather here in NJ has been beautiful and I’m here to enjoy it.

Some mornings are just as beautiful but my mood is not as upbeat. With the bright sunny day also come the memories. I mentioned this to my husband yesterday as we took a ride to pick up some treats for our dog. I said I remember when we lived in Edison and I would put a cushion on the chair, wrap a blanket around my legs and sit out on the patio in the sun. I was in the midst of chemotherapy and couldn’t do much more than that. Some days I was so fatigued that I never made it outside but would sit by the window up in my bedroom just to get some sun on my face. I would hear the school bus drop off the kids next door. Life outside my room was normal but inside my room, well that was another story.

Some days I wake up ready to spread awareness. Writing my blog, tweeting, co- moderating a tweet chat, attending events and walking in the Kaleidoscope of Hope walk. September is Gynecologic Cancer Awareness month and women need to know their risks. Some of you might say “Dee you do that every day, not just in September”. You are right but somehow the intensity of awareness is magnified this month.

Then there are the days when my stomach feels a bit odd or my back hurts more than normal. Could that mean my cancer is back? Is it because I talk about the symptoms and risks for ovarian cancer over and over this month? Or maybe I am worried as I close in on CT scan time. “Scanxiety” is rearing its ugly head yet again. After all it was early October 2008 when I had a scan that showed the cancer had returned on my spleen and liver.

After 8 years I know the cycle of ups and downs I go through in September. The good days certainly outnumber the not so good days. And it is the support of family and friends that gets me through it all.

Dee

Every Day is a Blessing!

Making Memories

I love making memories. I am not talking about Kodak moments, special vacations or occasions. I feel that the time I have been given since my diagnosis is precious so making memories for me is simply  spending time with my family and friends.

When my daughter asked me to visit her in Kansas when her husband was busy traveling for work I jumped at the opportunity.  Did I have enough frequent flyer points to make a trip? Earlier this year, American Airlines applied extra points to my frequent flyer account after I experienced 2 delays (totally over 8 hours) in one day. That was a long day and I appreciate that AA gave me the points for my inconvenience. I checked my account and I was thrilled to see that  I had collected enough points over the past few years to book a flight. So off I went last week.

Spending time with my daughter and grandson was wonderful. On Saturday we went to a pumpkin patch outside of Topeka and then visited Wamego for OZfest. Wamego is the home of the Oz Museum. If you love the Wizard of Oz , both the movie and book, this is the place to visit.

The rest of the time we spent at home. That was not a problem for me because I was making memories with my grandson. He loved the rocking horse he got for his first birthday. It played two different tunes depending which ear you pushed. So he sat and rocked and I sang along."Ride'm Ride'm Cowboy....." 

He and I had fun playing with a drum and assorted musical instruments that his dad had when he was a child. He crawled around, stood up and took many steps while holding on to furniture and his pug dogs.  He loved pushing things around. Boxes of food, his box of toys, and  his John Deere rider toy, got pushed from one room to the next.   I was so happy that Terry's schedule required me to babysit on more than one occasion. I loved it.

One day I took my grandson for a long walk around the neighbor hood and saw these beautiful wild sunflowers.

I feel very blessed that I have had the time to make memories. 

Dee

Every Day is a Blessing!

An Old Photo and Roses

Many of my friends on Facebook has been using photo's of their mothers as their profile picture. It is their way of honoring their moms this Mother's Day. My mom passed away when I was very young so I don't have many photographs of the two of us together. When I was looking through old photos for the bulletin boards at Aunt Dora's wake I ran across this photo of my mother and I when I was 2.

I don't even recognize where the photo was taken but I love the expression on my face. Not sure what I was eating but I don't think I liked it very much. I might not remember my mother very well but I know that she is very much a part of who I am.

Today, Nick and I went to the store to get some flowers for the patio. As we were walking around I saw this large display of roses. Flashback once again to when I was little. My father loved roses. He had lined the driveway with mostly red ones. I used to love the smell of them. In all the years we have been married I never even attempted to plant roses. But we have this spot at the back of our home that would be the perfect place for this rosebush.

So this year I'll take a stab at planting the rosebush you see above and hope it grows. I just hope some of my father's rose growing talent rubbed off on me.

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

Dee

Every Day is a Blessing! I am blessed to have been a mother, had a mother and had an Aunt who was like a mother to me.