Cancer Survivor, writing about Health and Fitness as you age

Grey Wolf Pet Gear Yes, friends and family, this is what has been keeping me busy these past few months.  As you may or may not know, I have now been on a sabbatical from my other work life for coming up on 2 years. As we have been exploring options, G and I have been toying around with the idea of starting something, like a business. It has been quite the experience learning about how to sell a product, but I am very excited to announce that we now have our first item for sale on Amazon! Here is the link to it:  Grey Wolf Dog Leash And why are we starting with a dog leash? G has been volunteering at Austin Pet's Alive! for some time now, getting his dog fix in since big L is allergic. Let's say that the quality of the leashes that everyone there has to use day in day out, left something to be desired,  so that's where we started. This is what it looks like up close: Grey Wolf Pet Gear - Dog Leash I am hoping that we can grow this, I quite fancy mysel...

Where have I been? Well, to be honest, I've been in a turmoil, that's where I've been. On the one hand, I've been very grateful and inspired by the words and actions of fellow Americans, while at the same time I have been so confused, disappointed and frankly mad at the words and actions of fellow Americans. It's taken me a little time to get back my writing groove, but I am going to give it a try! Where do I start? I still have to do an update of my list of 50, which I will do in my next post most likely, but for now I wanted to give an  update on a bucket list item. Seems simple, but one of my bucket list items was having a vacation with my brother's family and mine. Just us. While the circumstances were sad (our father died), it did give us an opportunity to take that vacation together after all the commitments and ceremonies.  It gave us time to be together as a family and for the cousins to spend time together and share experiences. I also taught m...

This year marks 5-years since my cancer diagnosis and I currently show no evidence of disease. 5 is a big number in cancer years. My husband and I wanted to thank the people who supported us over the years and also to show our friends how much we appreciated them. (I assumed my family already know this!). I talked about the celebrations in my 8-month update. Thank you to all who came and all who donated to the Breast Cancer Resource Center . If you have not donated, please consider doing so now . But on to the invitations! 2 months have passed since the party, but I thought I would share a little bit about what the responses to my  invitation taught me about my friends. 1.  It's a culture thing. I think. First of all, about me. (Isn't is always?) Growing up, if we received an invitation labelled "Mr. X" or "Mrs. Y" , then the invitation was not for anyone else but them. No partner/guest or child unless explicitly stated. If children wer...

I had a bilateral mastectomy.    Pink Shoelaces. See p.s. for the note about them.   It was traumatic. I have not written a whole lot about how emotional the cancer journey has been for me, I tend to keep that kind of thing under wraps. In fact, this is what I wrote 5 years ago Week 21 - Surgery . I don't have any pictures of my scars or the tubes or anything but there are some memories and feelings that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I had steeled myself on the first visit to the oncologist, so even "Stage III" did not make me break down. I took it like a woman. I didn't breakdown when my hair started to fall out or when I stared back at my bald self with no eyebrows nor eyelashes. I didn't collapse under the weight of the chemo and what it did to me, but I'll tell you what broke me: The first time I unwrapped those bandages and looked at myself, and looked at the scars and the hollowed out spaces in my chest and the draini...

My last update was in May , and I thought it would be good to give another update now that it is September, on how I've been doing on my list of 50 . It has been a very rough summer so my plans have been completely derailed (See my Father's Day post.)  Instead of recapping the entire list, I'll just highlight the ones I've done these past few months - Items 6-10. The various celebrations, and these were huge, so I thought I'd share some pictures. I wanted to celebrate my 5-year cancerversary. 5 years is a big number in cancer survivorship years and I am very grateful for these past 5 years that I've had with my family and friends. We had a celebration/thank you dinner for friends I've made through my husband's work. They supported us, but especially him during the rough first year of diagnosis and treatment...and waiting. These are just a few of the food pictures from Buenos Aires Cafe Este @BuenosAiresCafe I was too busy eating and ta...

Designed by Freepik Our older son just started high school and it is a whole new world for us, including the language. I should mention that neither my husband nor myself went to high school in the U.S, so it really is a whole new world for us. Here are excerpts of some of the messages I've received: " All AISD high schools have the same bell schedule and 8 classes: 1,2,3,4 on A days and 2,4,6,8 on B days. A days are M/W and alternating F." "[ SchoolName ] wants to start and end earlier, so we have a 0 period both A and B days (0A and 0B) and we don't have 4th or 8th period." Some days are "late start" days, where the school doesn't start until, well, later and there is a different bus and location for pickup. The school schedule also changes on late start days. Maybe this is to keep the kids on their toes? One message goes on to say that, "The kids have this all figured out." Say whaaa???!! Fabulous if yo...

My just-turned-9 year old son and I had a very earnest conversation about how to guarantee that you get the best cards from Pokémon booster packs. But first, a little background. Before there was Pokémon Go, there was just the Pokémon cards. You can buy individual cards, packs, or sets in tins. You can play the card game or trade. The tins usually have sealed packs with about 10 cards in each packet. My little one has recently had a renewed interest in Pokémon and as a parent, I celebrate any non-digit al engagement. Over the summer, with too much time on his hands and too little supervision, (clearly), the little one started watching Pokémon-related YouTube videos and one genre of these videos are videos fans have made of themselves opening these booster packs and tins. But back to our conversation. My little one is looking up at me with his big brown eyes and explaining to me how he can guarantee he gets the most awesome cards ("pulls") in a booster pack by fo...