It's Been Too Long, I'm Glad To Be Back! Nancy's 2018 Summer Blogging Challenge

Sooooo, it's technically not even summer anymore, but I can't not participate in Nancy's Summer Blogging Challenge. I think I've participated every year since it started in 2015 when the challenge was to share stuff about yourself. So my 2015 post and the 2016 post were so fun because we all learned interesting and random things about our blogging friends. Last year I wasn't as late and I am this time.

As many of y'all know, we've been in a bit of a transition for just over a year and have been moving and trying to get set up in our new home for the last little while. Like, O and I have moved 4 times in the last 3 years. Three of those 4 moves were cross country. I'm hoping that I really can get back to blogging, at least more than I have been the last couple of years, now that we will be able to stay put.

Yes, I continue to be always SO late to the party. But better late than never, right? 

2018 Summer Blogging Challenge Questions! 

1.  How long have you been blogging (or reading blogs)?

I started blogging in August 2008. It was not a cancer blog at that time. And in 2009 that changed. 

2.  How has your blog changed?

Well, it appears to have gone dormant. It started off really as a CarePage, to keep friends and family up to date on my treatment, and then I decided to chronicle my hair loss and regrowth journey and just other random things that happen in life, like how it seems O and I can't ever seem to get food after a late or hard day.

3.  What is your biggest blogging challenge/frustration?

Time to write and what to write about. 

4.  What is your favorite post that you’ve written (or read)?

The Hair Regrowth Timeline post of course. I love to get the comments from readers who say it has helped them with the whole losing your hair from chemo thing. It's not a vanity thing to be so upset about the hair loss. This post gets clicked on daily from people all over the world. 

5.  What are your goals for your blog? (Why do you read blogs?)

Lately it would be to just get one written! Like, I have over 50 incomplete posts in a draft folder. Wonder if I'll ever get back to blogging regularly. I really hope so. It was really like therapy for me and I've made SO many friends in the cancer blog community from blogging. I used to try to get a post out each week. Lately, have just had no time to write or even be online much, with being in such a transitional phase and all. 

6.   How many blogs do you read on a regular basis?

I'm not sure.... I'm sad to have to admit that I haven't been able to read my favorites for a few months now, and hope that will change. But go check out my Blogs I Like tab at the top of my page.

7.   How do you determine what to share and what not to share; in other words, do you have blog boundaries? (or comment boundaries)

Sometimes...I try to respect privacy and I don't use full names in my posts. Some personal subjects I just don't blog about. And lately, pretty much don't blog at all, so there's that lol!

8.  When things get hard, what keeps you blogging (or reading blogs)?

Umm...........yeah.

9.  What is your biggest Cancer Land pet peeve today, right now, this minute?

The cancer warrior language. In particular, when people say that someone "lost their battle with cancer". OMG I HATE that so much. Nobody loses! I think this will always be my biggest cancer land pet peeve.

10.  What one piece of advice would you offer to a new blogger?

Be honest, be yourself and just do it! And don't look to me to be any sort of role model. I'm SO not. 

11.  Share something most people do not know about you. A secret sort of thing.

I like to make people laugh. Not that I could ever do stand up or anything, but, like, when hanging out and chatting....if I can get some laughs when I'm trying to be humorous, I love that. And sometimes I think I'm being funny and I'm so not. And I have been told more than once that I do tell some pretty corny jokes. Wow, that's not a very juicy secret, is it? There's not much about me that most people don't know... Guess I'm kind of an open book...

12.  What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

Eating good food. OMG I sure do love to eat. And cook. O and I enjoy cooking together. We love to share our food with family and YES, I am that person who takes photos of our food and posts them on social media. Yep. 

And with that, I hope this to be the beginning of the end of my blogging hiatus. 

September 2018

Just A Fading Memory....

So.....2017 has been really, REALLY weird. Not just for me and in my life, but just in general. In the world. Hasn't it? Is it just me?

First...we've lost way too many of our breast cancer blogging friends and advocates. Like, the tab at the top of this blog, "Blogs I Like"....So many of these beautiful people are gone now. It hurts. It's a punch in the gut & the punches just keep on coming. More really does need to be done in the arena of research and monies for stage iv. And that is all I have to say about that.  

Also, the stupid political climate. Just...OMG....It's true, I don't usually speak of politics here, but c'mon now! What's happening in our politics, with our President in particular, is NOT NORMAL! 

What else....Kneeling, #MeToo, the revolving door of staff in the White House .... "covfefe" .... Ok, seriously .... after everything that's happened .... how do we STILL have this Cheeto-In-Chief who can't keep his tiny hands off his Tweety Button?!!!! GAWD!!!

Normal? Ummmm, no.

2017 was wrought with so much dissension... so much divisiveness, protests and violence at rallies and in the streets broadcast live across all modes of media. 

2017 has been not only weird, but also very difficult. So much loss, change, ups and downs..... 

So, most of my regular readers (Ha ha ha!!! Like I write regularly!!) and Facebook followers know that O and I did the whole Texas to Georgia relocation thing. Again. A little different this time. Ok, well, a LOT different this time. 

First, right off the bat, I learned of the passing of my biological father, from whom I have been estranged....And that story is a whole other can o'worms that I am still not sure how to feel about. 

Then the sudden, unexpected loss of a very close family member in January, was not how any of us expected 2017 to start. O and I had been back in Texas since October 2015, and had pretty much successfully pushed a "Reset" button on our life, and then it happened. 

We flew on airplanes about every six weeks to Georgia and back, starting with attending the funeral...and if you know me, you know how terrifying that is for me and how absolutely dreadful it was for O to have to deal with me in flight.  And then we just moved in June.

We got here just in time to ride out Hurricane Irma. Which was awful. We were going to evacuate to northwest Georgia, and therefore didn't stockpile any supplies, until, at the VERY last minute, Irma decided to turn and go straight up to where we were going to go. So we stayed. O's first hurricane. We didn't have any damage. We were lucky. Three major hurricanes....Harvey, Irma and Maria.... So close together. What is happening to our planet??

October brought a cancer scare for me. A 3D mammogram, my first, showed a suspicious area. Ultrasound and needle biopsy later, it was nothing. And I'm pretty sure I would not have gone through this at my regular mammogram place in Texas....November brought a similar scare to my mother....also nothing. Thankfully.

Life is just different. Different good and different not so good. But that's life, eh?

We have reconnected with family, some damaged relationships have been restored, some estrangements have been reconnected. These are the best things that happened for us in 2017.

Sunset At The Beach - December 2017

Ah, 2017....when I reflect on it, it just seems so....so.....noisy. If that makes sense. Thus my inability to get blogs out. And I'm not so sure I'm at all enamored with how this post reads either.


2017 is over. Gone. I'm glad. 

Goodbye 2017.