Pinterest Challenge

Ahhh Pinterest. How I love you. You provide inspiration, relaxation (time wasting) and a place to store ideas. I love perusing pins and pinning. As with all art, sometimes it is all about the process and not the product! Yet, other times I need to remember to stop the pinning and start the doing. Luckily,  Sycamore Stirrings reminded (and inspired) me last week with her Pinterest Challenge.

I've made a few things over the past few months - enough so that I created an "I Made This" board to keep up the doing and to keep me honest. It makes me feel good to move a pin every once in a while to this board! Now, thanks to Sycamore Stirrings, I can move a few more.

Last week I didn't do any crafts but I did try some new recipes. I made these vegan meatballs, this quinoa salad (trying to get more quinoa in our diet but the kid is not having it) and these green cake muffins (Monkey's friend loved them but Monkey not so much). Sometime in the near future I hope to make this homework holder (which I planned to make months ago - but maybe I'll make it before school starts next year!) and this wall art project (I bought the letter for it months ago). I refuse to beat myself up about it - but I hope I will continue chipping away at pins from time to time. I've even thought of hosting a "Pinterest Party" where friends can get together and bring a pin they'd like to start on. We can spread out on the dining table and get to work. If I ever get it off the ground I'll be sure to let you know!

Monkey, spaghetti and "meat" balls

PSA

I long for the days when PSA was just a random, non-threatening string of letters. An acronym that could have stood for anything and certainly had no bearing on my life. But ever since spring 2005 Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) has been anything but non-threatening.

You might be lucky and wondering, "What the heck is PSA?" Well, short story is that it's the stuff that prostates give off - and it's measurable. So if your number is rising it means that prostate cells are growing. And if it's rising they are growing fast. And generally, that means prostate cancer. In addition, if you've had your prostate removed - technically your PSA should be untraceable since you shouldn't have any prostate cells to produce PSA. So if you have a traceable PSA and it goes up over time - you've got prostate cells growing somewhere in your body. Sucks, right? So when you're diagnosed and have had treatment you go in every so often to find out your number. So that's PSA in a nutshell.

So in Mr. Monkey's case it's been rising the past few months (he's had his prostate removed, radiated and been treated with hormones) and so have the hours of my awake time. So I fill that time with other, less threatening acronyms - fb, dvr, sois (staring off into space). Although my favorite pastime is denial and avoidance. After all, it's how I deal with housework and other unwanted things. May as well use the same coping mechanism for cancer. But I did do some vacuuming today - so next week I will begin researching new treatment options for the next phase.

So wish us luck - and hopefully we'll have a new path mapped out soon (as well as a clean kitchen) but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Read This

If you do one thing today - read this post. It's awesome. Just plain awesome. So drop what you're doing and read this. You won't be sorry.

The first foray into the forest - overnight!

I've really wanted to take Monkey camping for a while but last year it just wasn't in the cards (and before that I was not up for the challenge of camping with a toddler or baby). All along my husband has thought that I was insane. So with Mr. Monkey out of the equation, I planned a mom's camp out with an experienced friend (thank God for her!)

We smashed the kids into her car and then shoved in all the gear. We were only going for two nights but I'm pretty sure we could have survived weeks in that car if a disaster had hit. We stayed at Moran State Park which I would highly recommend for kid camping! We were at the North End campground which doesn't afford a lot of privacy but it's very close to the wonderful Cascade Lake day-use area (swimming area, playground and boat rentals) and easy hiking trails. We hiked, explored the campsite, roasted marshmallows for s'mores, swam in the lake and kayaked. We really packed it all in. Monkey LOVED it and was so sad that we had to leave. We will do it again - but maybe in two cars!

Takeaways

1) If you don't have a lot of gear - tag-a-long with a friend who does! My camping guru had a camp stove and everything else I don't have or would have forgotten.

2) Start small (close to home/civilization so you can bail if necessary and not too many nights for your first time). You WILL be exhausted!

3) Bring wipes! A roll of paper towels doesn't hurt either.

4) Pack some of those wipes and some ziplocks on long hikes - let's just say we had a bathroom emergency about two miles away from camp . . .

5) Even if the weather feels like summer (which unfortunately this year it hasn't) bring some warm layers as it's colder in the trees and after the sun goes down. It's tough to sleep when you are freezing.

6) Have fun and get dirty. Realize that your back will probably hurt and you won't get much sleep but it's all worth it!

Right Now - March

Wow, I can't believe it's March already. Monkey will be starting Kindergarten this year and I've been going on school tours. All this rumination on starting school has made me really conscious that time is speeding by (again) so I sat down to think about our Summer plans and such today. I thought I should probably calm the heck down and just live in the present for a bit so here goes:

Right Now . . .

Watching . . . Ponyo (delightful) with the kiddo and Dexter (disturbingly delightful) with the husband after Monkey is asleep

Making . . . lists of activities for the Summer

Smelling . . . freshly popped popcorn (it's movie night tonight and Monkey insists on it)

Reading . . . just finished The Stone Diaries and next up is some pulp fiction (Darkside) the last in my stack of free books

Planning . . . the next book exchange party (this time adding clothing and kid's books to the exchange madness)

Listening . . . to my Pandora Mumford & Sons radio station - LOVE those guys!

Missing . . . lazy days with Monkey and friends in San Diego

Coveting . . . a vacation without Monkey!

and you? Where are you right now? I'm off to watch Ponyo again!

FareStart Rocks

You have a few hours left for 2010 donations and FareStart is a wonderful cause. Check out this video for an overview. And if you're not in a place to donate - do check out the Thursday night guest chef dinners - great food, great price, great cause!

LIVESTRONG Challenge

I haven't been posting much lately (who knows if anyone is even reading this . . .) but I thought I'd let you know about a cause that's pretty important to me and that's the LIVESTRONG foundation.

My husband Mark is an avid cyclist and way back in our pre-marriage days we took a trip to France in 1999. We looked at some castles, drank a lot of wine, met some cool French peeps but mainly we watched cyclists whizzing by. That's right, we were lucky enough to follow the Tour the first year Lance won! It was pretty exciting. We started out in the mountain stages (which frankly were the best to watch because you can watch them coming up the hill for a while and not just whizzing by in a split second). The col du Tourmalet in the French Pyrenees was my absolute favorite. We camped out on a great spot overlooking some switchbacks. We got some good swag pre-race on that stage too. It was a really fun trip and really exciting to see the Lance momentum build as we followed along to Paris.

In 2005 (4 months before our son was born) Mark was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was 44. Two weeks after I gave birth he had surgery to remove his prostate. Needless to say it was a stressful time for all of us. He's been fighting the disease ever since and on June 20th he will ride 100 miles in the LIVESTRONG Challenge (he did it last year too - don't worry, he was insane like that prior to the diagnosis). I will be attempting 45 miles - and if you know me that's a lot!

Last year Logan wore LIVESTRONG bracelets constantly - and insisted on calling them his rings. So this year we formed the team "Logan's Rings". It's not too late to join! If you're in Seattle consider doing the run or walk (no fundraising minimum) or heck, cycle with us ($250 minimum). Join us!