June passed......

June of 2014 passed.
It flew by... in my mind.
And I am feeling better
leaving guilt  and hurt behind.

I'm trying not to let my mind go back
and dredge up all the past.
Nor think too far ahead...
but hope long my life will last.

I'm concentrating on today...
and all the beauty it might hold
as though today were all I had
as though today were gold

For time just keeps on ticking,
the seconds fleeting by.
And I cannot retrieve them
of that I can't deny.

Each day that I let pass me
without living to the full...
is a day I can't get back
no matter how hard I pull

Each day I wake up thankful
that my life is so much blessed.
Knowing full well the day
may put me to a test.

It might bring news of sadness
or bring challenges all new..
But it might also bring great joy
And skies a pure clear blue

No time to waste a minute
to have sad thoughts...that just might make me cry
I must make the most of this new day
for soon it will pass by

Pinning is winning??????

I got up this morning determined I was going to write in both of my blogs and I have spent the last
2- 1/2 hours on Pinterest.  Really Peggy!!!

For some reason Pinterest is addictive.  When I'm in it, my mind is like a kid in a gigantic candy store....Fashion, Quotes, Recipes, Hair, Makeup, Writing thoughts and ideas, Books and the list just goes on and on and on.  You read one thing and want to go to the page of the person who pinned it and you read something else there and it takes you to another page and another page and another page.

Geeze think of how much I could get done, if my mind got that excited about cleaning or working out at the gym or writing.

I think I'll work on that thought.  How to convert the thrill you get from Pinterest into other avenues of your life!!!!

PINTEREST is evil :)
OK  I'm going out to plant flowers now....
Because I've wasted so much time this morning, I'm posting this to my FitAt99 blog too. 

Sharing a post from my other blog

 For those of you who don't follow my Fit At 99 blog, I thought I'd share the post I wrote on that blog this morning.  I'm trying to make more time to write and find different things to write about on each of these blogs because they truly were set up for two different types of writing....but in the mean time, please bear with me as I share the posts on both blogs.


May 4, 2014

This morning I woke up with a queasy stomach.  That seems to happen a lot lately (no for heaven's sake...I'm not pregnant!!!) ....queasy stomach, weepy eyes, heavy sighs.  I want to wake up feeling alive, healthy, happy, motivated....I want to find the old me.  The one who lived to exercise, the one who ate healthy, the one who smiled all the time and motivated people.....the one whose daddy still lived 2 hours away....the one who could say confidently....yes I had cancer, but that was 12 years ago.

Part of that person I can't get back....so now I want to accept the decisions people have made for what they are and move on. I want to believe my daddy is in a better place and not hurting anymore.  I want to except the fact that yes I did get cancer again....but I'm still here and that no one can promise me I won't get it again....but I can't worry about that. I want to be healthy again...healthy and fit and happy....and I want to stop all this continuous crying.....I guess I never realized my heart and feelings were so fragile.  Although haven't I been told all my life that I was "thin skinned", that "I take things too seriously", that I am "too soft-hearted for my own good".

So sometimes early in the morning I get up and turn my computer on and key in the word "Pinterest" and all these wonderful motivational, inspiring, "knowing", "understanding" posters come up....that bring me comfort.....knowing that somewhere out there someone feels like I do, or has felt like I do and is trying to help me get through this....this...this...whatever this is.

This morning I found these:

                                                       

then I found this one....and it made me smile....because believe you me...
if this were true....I'd be Twiggy or Kate Moss!                                                                                                                                                                                
    I went to see my oncologist the other day....to tell her how I had been feeling and to see if perhaps
the aromatase inhibitor they have me on to inhibit the production of estrogen in my body needs to be changed.  I knew full well when I started taking them they were going to mess with my hormones....so that in itself if enough to deal with....then along with all the other things going on in my life, it's got me in a real tizzy. One thing she did tell me was something I didn't realize might well me part of my unhappiness right now....part of my feeling lost and confused....and sad......she said it is not uncommon 'at all' for people who have had cancer twice to be scared....even when they've made it through the treatment......to feel like every ache and pain and low feeling might mean that they have cancer somewhere else in their body.....and sometimes when you're in the middle of having those feelings (even if they are buried and you don't realize you are feeling them) and there are lots of other things you are dealing with..... you kind of get to the end of your rope.  Your body can take just so much stress....so much grief....and you literally come to ...as they saying goes...."your wits end".  I guess I hadn't thought of it that way....but when she said it, I actually felt better....like I wasn't going nuts....Then she suggested I talk to someone professional who might help me get on a more even keel for a while until I can once again see the light at the end of the tunnel.   There are lots of  people that have been quoted as saying "When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on"....but I'm also remembering that  "When you reach the end of your rope, you will find the hem of His garment".

I had a rather embarrassing episode of uncontrollable tears in the doctor's office when I found out I could not see that "professional" until July.....and then this morning....lovely Pinterest showed me this:
 
 So I'm working on me and I'm going to try to write more often.  It helps to get my feelings down on paper or screen....it helps me let them go....

So instead of waking up with a queasy stomach, weepy eyes, heavy sighs, I need to do what Pinterest reminds me to do .....and really....what in my heart I know I need to do.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I need to remember to say

And I need to remember what 8 year old Hannah Cheatam says:
                                                                                                    

Because after all.....yes my dad is gone and yes I miss him madley....and yes I've had cancer again and yes decisions have been made in my family that I don't understand (well I guess I understand) but that I've allowed to hurt me and yes I've regained a lot of the weight I'd lost and yes I am having to force myself to go to the gym each day and to eat healthy (when comfort food and sugar keep trying to tell me they are my friends....which they are not!) and yes yes yes....I do feel like I'm finding it harder to be strong and happy.....

What I have to remind myself is I'm the girl who loves a self challenge...I'm the girl who knows how to be strong and persevere....I'm still grieving, I'm still scared, I'm still sad, I'm still worn out from the past year and a half.....but as the wonderful saying goes....TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE....SO..........



A last thought..........some of you who have been following this blog might recall a while back that I mentioned a lady I met at the Radiation Treatment place....Sue.............yesterday I went to have a pedicure and when I got there they told me they had given me the wrong time and could I come back 45 minutes later.......no problem... it would give me a chance to scoot over to the grocery store and get my shopping done that I had planned on doing after the pedicure.  I had not seen or heard from Sue since the middle of January.  To my great pleasure I was pushing my cart and looked up and there she was smiling at me.  (I'm a believer in God's timing and being at certain places at certain times) Maybe I'm a Pollyanna, but I believe that pedicure time got changed for a reason.....because if I had gone after my pedicure I never would have seen her.  She looked happy and healthy and full of life (remember she'd had to do Chemo and Radiation).  Seeing her made my day.  Seeing her renewed my spirit....because I guess whomever said it was right about the 3 true words of life....IT GOES ON.....
And it's way too short to hold on to the past and worry about the future....today is the only day we are promised and actually this hour is the only hour we are promised.....I need to start making the best of this limited time we all have (and I have)

As many of you know I love to write....I've been writing a novel for ages and just never seem to get back to it....but Pinterest did not let me down this morning.....in all my gloom and doom and "poor pitiful me" I found this and it made me laugh and smile.....and by golly I think it is MY SIGN!



I'll get through this (maybe with the help of professionals)...maybe on my own...maybe by running into a "new friend"....maybe by forgiving and letting things go...so I can move on and maybe as Hannah says....I'll paint myself a new color
  .....and take a different view at things...

  Have a great day.....

Sharing a good read....

I've just finished reading a wonderful book .  "My Father's Eyes" by Sheila Allee


It is the touching memoir of finding a uncle she didn't know she had who was limited in his physical and mental abilities and institutionalized.  In finally finding him she learned a lot about him, a lot about her own father and found healing in herself along the way.  It is written with such truth and love that it cannot help but open your eyes to all we take for granted.  If you get the chance read it, you will not be disappointed.


I will be back soon....I promise.  Have a beautiful day.

Where does all the time go.......my selfish fun days...

I am sitting at my desk on this early Monday morning wondering where does all the time go....fleeting by each day?

There are days, many of them, when I feel like I just don't accomplish much at all.  I think it is the one thing I hate about being retired....that I feel no order or normalcy in my days....that on most days I've got no real place to be, no job, no appointments, no one wondering where I am or if I'm going to arrive on time.  I know a lot of people think that is the joy of retirement.  I hear them say over and over again, "I don't know how I had time to work".

I look at the piles of little papers on my desk and wonder why I can't get more organized...me...the one in the office, everyone said was "so organized", "so structured".  I sometimes feel like I've lost that ability. I want to have everything orderly, in one place where I know exactly where it is.  I want to have that planned schedule of a job.  I want to have someone knowing that at a certain time, I will walk in the door and I will give my 110%, that they can depend on me to do my job and do it well, that I am valued in the overall picture of a business or company.  I miss that. I want that.....and yet at the same time....

There are days (like today) when all I want to do is write and maybe read.......and yet I can barely allow myself  those days.  For some strange reason, I feel guilty (I know it's a terrible problem and fault that I have....guilt).  I am told by those who love me that I should not feel guilty...that I worked hard all my life....that I've earned this time.  That it's OK.  That I need to learn to relax!  Whenever they tell me that I am always drawn to the thought of going to get a pedicure or a manicure.  The young beautiful girls from Thailand, Vietnam, China (or where ever they are from) take your hand in their tiny hand and start to massage....and in their broken English, tell you "Relaux...Relaux"....I never realized that I am not relaxed, but they must feel tenseness in my hand.  And so it is when people tell me I need to learn to relax....I know they are so correct.  I can remember my late husband telling someone once, when Peggy takes a vacation, she needs at least two weeks.  She needs one week to relax and unwind so she can enjoy the second week.

So I've decided this morning (hopefully I will  stick to it) to restructure my time....to designate either a time of the day (a few hours), but more hopefully a full day each week when I allow myself time for myself.....to sit and write....to sit and read.....to eat if I want to or not eat if I don't want to.....to paint.....to do cross-stitch.  I used to do all those things when I was working.  I can't imagine how I found the time in my busy day to do those things.  I guess I did them in the evening....no I know I did them in the evening because I was working in the day.

I especially think about this when I think about writing.  I remember reading not too long ago a thought that writers don't talk to other people about their writing, writers don't think about their writing. Writers Write.  I wish I could have found the exact quote...it was awesome.  It was by a writer named Loraine Herring.  And in my search to find it, I spend almost an hour reading other thoughts on writing and finding the blog for Elizabeth Gilbert (author of "Eat, Pray, Live") and the wonderful book I am reading right now called "The Signature of All Things".....

And so that's how my days sometimes go.....I start out doing something...writing or reading things on the internet and jump from one thing to another, to another, to another and before I know it two, three, four hours have past......do you Pinterest.....that can be scary time consuming.....wonderful as you jump from one quote to the next, one idea to the next, one project to the next, exercise ideas, clothes, colors, decorating......it's an endless mind boggling array of things......and then the guilt sets in.....like I've squandered away that time, when I should have been cleaning closets or organizing all these scraps of paper on my desk.........

.......or no wait....maybe this was one of my mornings, one of my days when I just relax and enjoy
the time that 42 years of working....of paying my dues has now allowed me in my retirement years.
By golly, now that I think about it,  I think this could work. I'm not squandering away the time...I'm enjoying myself.......and I know where the time goes..........for a change, it goes to the person, the thing, that deserves it the most.........me. I think I will call them "My Selfish Fun Days".

Come back when you have time.....on my "Selfish Fun Days", I'll do my best to post here....

Life is full of colors.....

I belong to a memoir writing group that meets occasionally to share things we have written.  Although we normally stick to memoir writing, this month's topic choice was 'free form'.  We could write about anything.  Below is what I wrote.  I've also posted it on my fitat99 blog where I am keeping a journal/diary of sorts.....

 

LIFE IS FULL OF COLORS

Taylor Swift is a wildly popular young singer/songwriter who recently wrote a song and an album called “Red”.  When asked how she decided on that name for the song and for the album, she said “This album is about emotions. I wrote this song about the fact that some things are just hard to forget….because the emotions involved with them were so intense and, to me intense emotion— is red.”  “There is nothing beige about being in a tumultuous, crazy, insane, semi-toxic relationship”. “Emotions have color.”   I wrote this piece with that thought in mind…….and I call it LIFE IS FULL OF COLORS

Each of our lives have many happenings....some randomly general and some very personal.  As you think about the things that have happened or are happening, the emotions involved in those happenings take on colors of their own.  When you think about those emotions, let them dance across the shiny saw-dusted golden wood floor of the ballroom of your mind, let them bounce back and forth like a white ping pong ball on the green table from one side of your brain to the other.  The thoughts and emotions start out as a tiny brown seed and can often turn into a time lapse picture and begins to grow, pushing its way through the gray mass developing their petals of violet or blue, sometimes red-- that slowly open and form a flower, then a bouquet and then a green meadow full of flowers. The thoughts from an incident or a time in your life, take on a life of their own-- like a tiny hairless chick that works itself out of the shell of a warm brown spotted egg...that soon becomes covered in fluffy yellow newborn down....and slowly wobbles on fragile unsteady gray-brown feet and opens its pale orange beak and tells the world it's here.

Some of those thoughts or emotions can explode into firework colors and develop into stories and some are just thoughts that pass like a colorless raindrop and never seem to find a full story line.

I've had a year full of happenings, a year full of colors. A lot of thoughts have presented themselves to me as candidates for stories.....asking to be given "a voice" but most don't make it to my own personal blind auditions. They ask to be given color and life...but I just can't seem to get the brush strokes right or the color to dry.

When I thought about what I wanted to write two events jumped to the front of the line, the loss of my Dad on March 1st and the trials and tribulations of my Achilles tendon surgery and recovery.

I'm still caressing the soft fragile black clay of my Dad's passing and as the potter's wheel continues to spin in my mind and my heart, it throws off wet globs of sadness over that event. I know the clay will have to harden a bit more, before I can find all the words, phrases, characters, and emotions to be able to write that story. ......I'm not ready to write about the slate gray cumbersome clouds and the blackness of that day.

And on a daily basis, especially when I spin wildly on a stationary bike, do calf raises, lunges, squats or power walk 5 miles I am reminded that the recovery of my torn and now repaired Achilles tendon is still not complete.....there are red flags telling me that story hasn't come full circle and so needs a successful ending to merit itself as a complete story.

But something happened recently and is still happening in my world that makes me want to write about a little girl's favorite color....the color pink.  It's the color most used in the blanket, booties, cap and first dress of a brand new baby girl. It's what we all grow up hearing ....blue is for boys and pink is for girls.  It's the color of the tiny bow placed on her head if she doesn't have much hair……......

it is all those things……..but today it is a color not associated with the innocence of a little girl, a color that doesn't necessarily speak of softness and femininity.....it is a color that represents to many women, some men, and now twice for me.....the strength and courage to fight and survive a scary monster called BREAST CANCER?

Having a mammogram is far far far from being even remotely pleasant.  But add to that the words ..."um, we'd like to take a couple more films"....or worse yet, "we see something that doesn't look quite right...that wasn't there last year...something that needs to be biopsied."  You don't feel pink and girly when you hear those words. You feel burgundy anger, queasy green, and white-knuckle scared.  First only one word comes to mind when you wonder frantically if you heard right....it's a single word question ....WHAT? Then the second single word question -- WHY?  And then as gray fear covers your thoughts a two word question forms -- WHY ME! You don't actually say these words because the red of your blood has now drained and left you pasty white and nearly incapable of speaking. Only to be outdone by your lack of voice and the sparkle fading from your eyes when they confirm that it is indeed malignant....not only malignant but ..... Not "Ductal INSITU" which would mean it is encapsulated in the duct....no it's malignant and "Ductal INVASIVE" which means it is moving out of the duct. It is news you cry about...or at least I did....and even though you listen to all the terms, decisions and information that take on the oranges, blues and yellows of the bombs going off in your brain, you try to remain calm and you try to appear brave and confident. You get through the surgery... You somehow make it through the jaundice yellow the chemo makes you feel and the beige tiredness that comes with the red beam of radiation.  And the days pass, as do the weeks, the months and the years....for those of us who are lucky enough to win this battle.

But even though several years pass, you still get a pale blue icy feeling each time you get your yearly checkup, until the color of joy comes back to your whole body when you hear the words...."Everything looks good.....see you next year."

And when 11 years have passed, you walk through that door that says "Mammography” confidently, expecting to hear those very words again ..."Everything looks good.....see you next year."

You don't expect to hear the gut wrenching words ...like déjà vu – "We see something that doesn't look quite right...we need to do a biopsy...  I'm so sorry to tell you...it's cancer." 

Again you cry....as silently in your mind your fists beat on the blood red face of the fire breathing dragon monster that has once again invaded your body.... And like the Charlie Brown cartoon when all he hears from the teacher is wha wha wha wha, your mind goes blank to anything said after the word CANCER...and then those two word questions and statements scream silently in your brain....WHY ME?  NOT AGAIN!! 

And this time it's discovered in October....How's that for being "AWARE"!  And you strangely realize that part of the treatment may well fall on the day you become Medicare eligible and part of it will fall on the day you turn 65....as if that might have been a special birthday.

Your world becomes the greens, yellows, and purples of a fading bruise....and for a moment your whole world turns black and gray and blue....your very soul feels battered.

But then you remember you're a girl....and PINK is your color...and you had the courage, determination and positive attitude to fight it and beat it as you did before.  Can you do it again? OH YES YOU CAN!  

I am reminded of a quote by Dr. Seuss:

I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind

Some come from ahead and some come from behind…

But I’ve bought a big bat….I’m all ready you see

Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!

So I shouted bring on the surgery and bring on the treatments....I'll get through this again....you just watch me.... 

Last Friday, I had the surgery and that day was filled with hazy blues and soft faint greens that made up the Lidocaine injections, the stark blackness of the anesthesia and the pale airy colors of a rainbow brought on by nausea and pain medication.

Now I am in a world of emotions that are non-descript white – the world of waiting,,,,, waiting for the pathology reports to be returned; Reports that will bring me the passionate purple predictors of what my treatment or treatments will be….

But someday soon I'll have this all behind me ....again....and once again with a twinkle in my eye....I'll say....

"I'm doing just fine..."

“I’M IN THE PINK!"

Do you ever wonder????

Wrote this a while back and never posted it....thought I'd post it today.

  Did you ever wonder where you might be right now....if you hadn't made the choices you made or took the paths you took...whenever?  Do you ever wonder if you'd be in the same state or with the same person...have the same dreams....have the same regrets..... have had the same joys and moments of inspiration and wonder?

What if you could turn back the hands of time to say....when you were 18 and your slate would be wiped clean and the world would be laying out before you for the taking.  I know lots and lots of people say they wouldn't change a thing because all the things they chose, all the places they went, all the people they chose to be associated with (regardless of how those relationships turned out) made them who they are today....and a really really big part of me agrees wholeheartedly (no wait...I guess it can't be wholeheartedly if it's only a really really big part).....anyway, you get the drift.

I guess I have to admit that I am one of those people that some people loathe...when I say "if it's meant to happen it will happen", "I am exactly where I am suppose to be", "everything happens for a reason".  But I'm also a person who believes that "God helps those who help themselves", "your true love doesn't just walk in your door, sometimes you have to turn the knob and walk out the door to see what/who's out there".  I'm also a "reach for the moon, cause even if you don't make it you'll be among the stars" kind of gal. OK OK those of you who know me well, know that I can also be a "oh poor pitiful me, why did that have to happen to me"....guilty as charged.

I will be the first person to admit I've made some pretty strange and not always wise choices in my life......and yes it's true....some of them didn't turn out so well and when that happened I had  "light bulb" moments about how wise my folks were when they said "are you sure you want to do that....might want to think that one through a little longer"...........but when you're young....and in love....or you think you are...(oh pleeeese...you know it happens when those hormones are new and going wild) parents ideas and speeches sometimes go in one ear and out the other as your eyes roll.....and you plunge on ahead.

If you've been lucky enough to have found that one special person and stuck it out and worked on your relationship and the years have passed and you not only are still in love...you still like each other, then count your blessings.  If not and you parted ways...even after years and years....do you ever wonder what life would be like right now, where you'd be living, what you'd be dong, if you'd stuck it out, if you hadn't made the choice to leave.  Going through that thought process may give you a queasy stomach or it may make you do back flips of joy at the decision you made....but wouldn't it be interesting if you had a magic video that could take you back to the day you made the decision and reverse that decision and move you forward over the years and allow you to see you life with another choice. (This is how I feel about past choices today)
                                            

Or on the other hand what if you were in a situation where you chose to stay, even though you knew you should leave....it's all in those choices we make.  Where would you be, what would you be doing, who else might you have met, if you'd listened to your small voice in your head that said "you need to let this go", "your time here is done"...."learn from this and move on".  Take the time to just sit and wonder....what if you'd chosen to walk away.  Yes it's in the past (or maybe for you it's your present)....no body died from wondering and thinking........and perhaps dreaming.

And likewise.....what if someone or some opportunity came along that seemed pretty interesting and you didn't give them/it more than a passing fancy....do you ever wonder where that person is, what they're doing, what might have happened if you'd taken the chance to get to know them.....where that job might have taken you, what doors it might have opened...if you'd been brave enough to take a chance.


Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you never had children, always wanted children, but life circumstances and the choices you made never brought children into your life? That's one I think about a lot.  I've learned to let it go, but I guess deep down it will always be one of the biggest regrets in my life.  I have three step-children that I adore.  But I never had the joy of a tiny baby soft and tender and so dependent on me lay in my arms and look up at me with pure trust and unconditional love.  My physical therapist said, in a discussion we were having yesterday morning about the children lost in the Moore, Oklahoma tornado, that he couldn't imagine the pain and sadness of losing a child.  He has a 9 month old baby boy and he said "it wasn't until I held him in my arms right after he was born, that I realized and understood, this is someone I would take a bullet for--no questions asked".  I won't ever know that feeling....and I wonder sometimes what that would have been like.  I had a miscarriage when I was about 22 and for one reason or another I never got pregnant again.  But that's one of those things that even though you might wonder what it would have been like....when you're 64 you just have to let go because I know without a shadow of a doubt that will never happen. (except maybe through the grace of God and a huge huge miracle only in His power!)


Did you ever wonder how long your hair would be if you'd quit getting it cut or what you might look like if you bravely cut your long locks really short. Or if you really could make a difference in the way you look and feel...not to mention the improvement to your health, if you started exercising and eating healthy (uuuh note to self...good topic for my next post on fitat99 blog).  I think by nature, we stick to what is comfortable, what we are used to....but oh how I wonder and often take action on following through with that wonder about changing up the way I look.........and oh the miracles of modern technology and makeup.  You can go from short to long with hair weaves, you can go from long to short with wigs (or a buzz cut if you're brave) and I'm here to tell you mere walking everyday does wonders for how you look and feel.  Having gone through breast cancer and being bald as a jaybird (where'd that expression come from?)....I'm pretty open to all kinds of looks.  I'm even finding in my ever evolving maturity that I am more open to and accepting of strange look (that in truth aren't always strange or bad...just not in my world of comfort).  You know "different strokes for different folks".  I don't understand the whole tattoo/ body piercing thing, but I have to confess, I occasionally see a tattoo pinned on Pinterest and find myself "shockingly" thinking hmmmm...if I was into tattoos that might be a nice one...



                                              
                                                                                                       
We all make choices every single day.....I always love the Mary Engelbriet picture that says

" There is a choice you have to make, 
   In everything you do.  
  And you must always keep in mind,
  the choice you make, makes you."

So when you think about the choices you've made,
Do you ever wonder......?