I realized that I haven't updated you guys on things lately. That's mainly because the kids are out of school and we are making the most of this summer. This will likely happen every summer until my kids are too old to want to hang out with momma.

Now, I want to let you in on a little secret. I'm actually a rather private person. I find social media-ing hard. I find instagram-ing and twitter-ing hard. I find this blog hard. I would much rather live in the moment and enjoy what it is that is happening in front of me when it is happening instead of taking a bunch of pictures or live facebook videos or whatever to show everyone else. I have to force myself to do those things. Do you know how many birthday parties for my kids or family get togethers or friends hangouts that I've attended and forgot to take a single photo or remembered the camera after half of the people had already left? More than I can count. Yeah, I'm pretty terrible and this stuff. So why do want to force myself to do this anyway? Well, to stay relevant. To remain in people's minds and they don't forget about me. I still have something to sell and I don't want them to forget that. Do I want to shove it in people's faces that I am running a little business that sells a few things? No, of course not, but I want them to remember that when they need something I have, they will think of me. That isn't really the ONLY reason, but it is the main one. I have a lot of friends and family that worry about me and wonder how I am doing. It is way easier to update everyone on a single post rather than answering everyone's questions individually.

I have a lot of ambitions with this website. I want to help people. I have a lot of life experiences and mistakes to work off of. That is one of the things I liked about bartending. Sometimes people just needed an ear and I was more than happy to give it. But gosh darn it, it's hard to give advise when no one is asking it. I want to make tutorials and teach people stuff, but first I have to figure out what it is people want to learn. Yeah, this is stuff I need to work on.

OK, if you are still with me, I will give you an update on the cancer stuffs. My last scan was memorial weekend and I know I never gave an update on the results. Well, that is because the results weren't as spectacular as I had hoped. The hot spots are still there. Boo. My next scan is Aug 10th and I'm hoping everything will still be the same...or maybe gone, but I don't want to get my hopes up. I'm honestly not that worried about it. 

I will wrap this up with my advise to you. Live in the moment. There's no need to show off or try to impress others. Live for you and your happiness because whether you like it or not, you are stuck with you for the rest of your life. Why would you not treat yourself like your own best friend? But don't forget to love others as well. Treat them how you want to be treated and let go of those who poison your life and happiness. 

That is all. <3

Radiation

I have completed 18 treatments of radiation and so far so good! I am starting to develop a few minor side effects, but nothing to stop my day. So far the worst of it is the lack of taste. EVERYTHING is so bland now. It makes me not want to eat. I have been trying new things to see if I can get any flavour out of it, but so far nothing is too exciting. On the bright side, my taste for sugar is still somewhat ok, so sweet things are better than anything else. Unfortunately, I have never really had a sweet tooth, unless it chocolate was involved, so I'm not going to force it. Besides the taste, I have a bit of a dry mouth and throat. I can't really stand air conditioning as it just makes me cough. I keep water with me at all times for the dry mouth. I keep drinking it and I keep peeing it back out. Ha!

Flooding

If you follow the news at all (which I really don't) you may have heard something about a ton of rain falling upon Burlington, WI and the Fox River. I don't live in Burlington, but I do live next to the Fox River downstream from Burlington. I can't believe how much rain we got! Eight inches actually. It just kept coming down. Streets, yards, and basements were flooded EVERYWHERE! Luckily I don't have a basement, but I do have a yard and live on a street. Both were flooded. But you see the problem with living off a river is the true flooding doesn't happen until all that water flows into the river. They say it was a 100 - 200 year flood. Luckily for me, I live on high enough ground to not have the flood water reach my house. Unfortunately, I live on a dead end street that connects to a street that follows the river and I don't own a truck. If I were smart I would have moved my car to the street somewhere out of the flood area, but if I would have done that I don't think I would have moved it far enough. The river was up higher that the flood maps showed. I'm glad I just kept it parked. I have a couple of awesome parents that picked me up after I trekked through crawfish and turtle infested waters so I could still make my radiation appointments.

I just wanted to quickly chime in to wish everyone a safe and fun Independence Day! For those of you who use IMVU, log in and receive a free gift that I made!! :D 

Cheers!!

So the type of radiation I am getting is called Tomotherapy. In a lot of ways it is better than traditional radiation because it is a lot more precise. Side effects are lessened and more healthy tissue is left untouched. I did a lot of reading about radiation, as I do with everything, before going in to see what to expect and found that I might need a feeding tube and perhaps have teeth pulled, etc, etc, but my doctor said that I would most likely need none of that. I guess tomotherapy was developed at UW-Madision which makes it the best place to get it me thinks! But on to point, today I had my 9th treatment, and I can say it's going along pretty well. I am starting to get a bit of a sore inside my cheek on the right side, like they said I would, but besides a bit of dulling of my taste buds, I really have nothing to report. They say the side effects don't really start kicking in until after the second week, so I suppose we will see what else will happen. If this is all I have to deal with, besides the drive, bring it on! The lovely Briane joined me for this particular trip as she has a few days off. We spent about 9 days in a car together once and didn't kill each other, so this trip was a piece of cake. We are both on the same level of weirdness. I like that. Here are some pictures from the day.

Me in my mask

All done

Briane on a bea...

Ice cream stop