Some Girls Prefer Carnations: May 2015

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Heather's big climb redoux

I don't know how this happens, this passage of time between blog posts. I've thought of about a hundred things to write about, but I haven't taken the time to write any of them. The main reason is that my primary blogging time occurs after the kids are in bed, but lately I've been stealing that time for exercising. I think it's a worthy substitute under any circumstance, but particularly since I'm training for something.

I'm pretty sure that this is the first physical goal that I've ever had in my entire life, and it's a good one if I do say so myself. At the end of June, the spouse and I are taking a trip WITHOUT THE KIDS (they'll be at grandpa and grandma's, so don't feel too badly for them) for the first time ever to go and do this: Hike the enchanted valley in Olympic National Park!

http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/enchanted-valley

I am so freaking excited! I've been craving a mountainous adventure ever since my brother's friend made me this last summer:

So I'm doing it! I'm going on a big ol' hike in the Olympic Mountains!!

I asked my brother how to train for such a thing, and his response was one word: Stairs. I said how many, he said just do a lot. I said how often, he said whenever you can. So, I've been walking around this flat town a couple times a week, wearing a backpack filled with old textbooks, and incorporating at least a few minutes of stairs down into the floodplain that is a city park. It'll do, it'll do.

I've been up to other adventures, too, but I think that they are worthy of their own posts eventually. Some have been quite poignant and moving for me. I'll find the time to write them up, I swear. One quick point I can make is that it is clear that my hemoglobin is at long last in the normal range for a healthy human being. PSA: Please don't take for granted how fabulous you feel. Thank your hemoglobin. It was not until I started feeling so fabulous that I realized how tired I had been for so long. Every day I feel more and more fabulous. Fabulous.

In other news, I'm pretty sure that I forgot to post the news that my PET scan last month was TOTALLY CLEAR again. That's two clear ones in a row, huzzah!!!! Not sure yet if I get a longer leash in terms of extending the time between PET scans. Dr. Oncologist would prefer to have a longer leash and therefore fewer PET scans, but I need to consult with Dr. Medical Oncologist (Her2 expert) and get her opinion. I'll have that appointment in July or so.

In the meantime, happy hiking, everyone!

Books I've read recently

TRUTH AND BEAUTY by Ann Patchett "'Grief isn't something to "be gotten through." It has no life of its own like that, it's just plain and simply there.'" and "History is strangely incomprehensible when you're standing in the middle of it."
THE PATRON SAINT OF LIARS by Ann Patchett "I wanted to be able to stop hoping that she would turn into something else."
MY OWN COUNTRY by Abraham Verghese "I remember the acts of human kindness that illumine our world."
IN THE COMPANY OF CHEERFUL LADIES: No. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY NOVEL #6 by Alexander McCall Smith
CEREMONY by Leslie Marmon Silko
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG by Muriel Barbery "There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature..."
A WALK IN THE WOODS by Bill Bryson
THE LACUNA by Barbara Kingsolver "'Soli, let me tell you. The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know.'"
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE by Lucy Grealy "Sooner or later we all have to learn the words with which to name our own private losses..." and "Part of the job of being human is to consistently underestimate our effect on other people..." and "Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them."
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sarah Gruen "Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse."
THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett "'I have decided not to die.'" and "Oh, I just break down then. It's like two years a doing and trying and hoping all come out at once."
THE TENNIS PARTNER by Abraham Verghese "Would that I had the chance in my sons' lifetime and my own to one day explain to them all the forces that moved me."
THE BLUEST EYE by Toni Morrison "And then the tears rushed down his cheeks, to make a bouquet under his chin."
REMARKABLE CREATURES by Tracy Chevalier "My life led up to that moment, then led away again, like the tide making its highest mark on the beach and then retreating."
RAMONA QUIMBY, AGE 8 by Beverly Cleary "Mrs. Quimby smiled and said, 'I can tell you're beginning to get well when you act like a wounded tiger.'"
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived so very much that now I can enjoy everything so well."
THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN by Kate Morton "The happiest folk are those that are busy, for their minds are starved of time to seek out woe." And, speaking of hospitals: "An irony that a place relying so heavily on routine should operate so resolutely outside time's usual rhythms."
THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins "Of course, the odds have not been very dependable of late."
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot "That cancer was a terrible thing."
THE THIEF OF ALWAYS by Clive Barker "Was there some way...to take back the stolen years, and live them here, with the people who loved him, and whom he loved dearly in return?"
CUTTING FOR STONE by Abraham Verghese "The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not." Best book I've read in a year

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Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Heather's big climb redoux

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