The Blog: Spellbound by our own imperfect lives...

Woody looked a little worn out after all the guests left yesterday. We had a very busy Thanksgiving weekend. Actually, it started about two weeks ago with my typical over-booking of social events all of which involved much cleaning, cooking, and stashing big piles of stuff in odd places. I will never find it all again. My sink is full of dirty dishes and the refrigerator is full of food that needs to be dealt with in some way. We had left-overs last night (yeah, that waffle thing was only moderately successful) but that might be enough turkey for a while. I'm subbing for two days this week so I can take it for lunch. The rest might go into soup. The two tables in the kitchen are both full of clean dishes that have to go back into the cupboards and closets. Sigh. I think I learn this lesson every year. I overdo it for Thanksgiving, then take it easier for Christmas. I am going to start by not scheduling so much. No to the Nutcracker. No to Small Business Saturday. No...

I have had to leave the house before 8 am more often than not in the last two weeks. I don't know who makes such a mess in our house when we're gone...troops of gnomes with bad intentions?...but they do. Today I spent a lot of time sorting and putting away. I cleaned the back porch so we can use it for Thanksgiving. It is such a good place to put stuff. I organized my clothes closet. I took the fan and my rain boots to the basement. I put away all the Halloween stuff. I painted the edge of the new front door that got dinged up with installation. I filled all the bird feeders. And...as long as I had the paint out...I painted the back porch. You don't know what a big deal this is. It is a job that needed doing since we moved into this house in 1997. It's one of those multi-step project at which I suck. It needed to involve finding a curtain rod. (check) It needed to involve finding curtain hardware. (check) It involved moving a lot of stuff out of that room. (check) I...

I mentioned to Regis last night that the anniversary of my cancer diagnosis had gone unnoticed, a good sign, I thought. This morning, lying in bed looking at my iPad, it popped up as a Facebook memory. A link to my blog. I'll go back and read it again later but reading it gives me chills. It was such a dark time and I really don't know how I made it through. I spent a lot of time sleeping, not from physical pain or physical fatigue I don't think, but to escape. I tell friends that I spent a lot of time in my blanket fort. I know there are worse things and I know many people go through exactly what I did with far more penache and aplomb. They didn't sit around weeping into their wine glass until 5 am. But it's hard to be prepared for shit like that...you don't sit down and think rationally about how you are feeling and behaving. At least I didn't... I remember swinging wildly from a super hero sort of take on it (think Rocky) to planning my own funeral. ...