Good News

Hi There!

Just a quick picture-free post to let you know that I went to the Dr. today.

The good news?

They got all of the cancer the first time.

So they sutured my ear today.

And they did a skin graft.

From my head right "behind" my ear.

But I'm so glad.

Because the cancer is gone from my ear.

I pretty much wear sunscreen and a sunhat to bed now.

24/7.

Oh, and the dimensions of what they cut out:  1.3 cm long by 1 cm wide, and perhaps .5 cm deep.  

Anyway.

I thought those of you interested might like to know.

The cancer is gone.

And Julian of Norwich spaketh the truth. :)

Let the Homeschooling Begin!

Leif builds his first "pink tower!"

We began homeschooling yesterday. 

Yesterday, I introduced him to knobbed cylinders (not shown) and today I introduced him to the Pink Tower.  It's pretty cool what can be learned from these innocuous little blocks.  Actually, they're not little, either, as you can see.

Here he is again.  He looks so old in this picture.  Waah.

Here, he's working on his continents puzzle.  Before we started, we went through what continents are, the names of the continents, etc.  Then I demonstrated, then he did the puzzle.  He loves puzzles, so he did this quickly. 

 

With the finished continents puzzle.

This picture is out of order, but he's just putting the finishing touches on the pink tower.

So far (it's only Day 2) he is really taking to the Montessori materials. 

We only do a little bit per day so he doesn't become bored with it. 

I need to keep his interest in it!

Anyway, that's Day 2 of Leify's School!

Off to the Dr. to get my ear sutured!

Happy days!

Weak-kneed Momma and other Fun Stories

Rattlesnake Pole Beans growing up the trellis.

Ah, my garden. Always calming and grounding after a hectic day.

And yesterday was hectic.

Yesterday, we changed the bandage on my ear, from where the melanoma had been removed on Monday.

It had been bandaged since the surgery, so I hadn't really seen it at all (it is on the back of my ear - kinda hard for me to see!)

So, I had my poor husband help me.

I prepped everything, sterilizing the scissors, cutting the bandage and tape, and opening the antibiotic.

We were all ready, so Jason took some "before" pictures of the bandage the nurse had applied after the surgery.

Then he began to peel back the bandaging.

I tried not to fret, but I did.

The tape was stuck to my ear like superglue and he had to tug hard to get it off.

I had visions of chunks of my poor ear coming with it.

I'm silly, I know.

But finally, with the help of some tweezers, he was able to remove the entire bandage.

He saw the crater in my ear.

But he's good like that.

He also watched Leif being born via C-section without flinching.

So, he took pictures of it.

Then I looked at the pictures to make sure they were in focus.

That probably wasn't a good idea.

He started to put the bandage on my ear.

No easy task, that.

But he did it.

And I started to feel a little funny.

I tried breathing exercises.

That helped a little.

But the funniness kept coming.

When he had secured the first part of the bandage on, I told him I felt faint and needed to sit down.

So I stumbled to the Dining Room and plopped into a chair.

He started to put more tape on the bandage to secure it.

I felt worse.

I looked at the sweet tea on the table, thinking I needed some.

I said, "I think I'm going to faint"

and that is the last thing I remember.

I came to a little later, laying on my back on the floor.

Dizzy. Disoriented. Hurting.

According to Jason, my head had fallen to my chest.

I slumped in the chair.

He thought that was the extent of it.

But then my body spasmed.

Or convulsed.

Whatever you want to call it.

My back arched.

My body flipped out of the chair.

Over the wooden armrests.

On to the floor.

As I was flipping out of the chair, my foot flipped over, too.

All of my weight for a brief moment was on the top of my foot and my ankle.

I let out a low moan as I fell.

I lay on the floor around 15 seconds.

Jason rushed to get me a wet towel.

But he was a few steps away when I started coming 'round.

Still foggy and disoriented, I could hear myself screaming (or at least it sounded like screaming to me):

"Jason, what's happening? Jason! Jason! What's happening?"

And then I saw him standing over me.

And slowly, the blackness melted away, and I could see him clearly.

My body hurt.

I couldn't move.

I was sobbing.

After a bit, I came to my senses more, and he helped me to the bed.

Still sobbing, I lay on my back in bed, hurting.

After a while, I was okay.

I got up and put the final piece of tape over my ear to close the bandage.

I had a little ice cream to soothe my throat, which hurt terribly either from the low moan as I fell, or the screaming coming to.

I went to bed early, exhausted.

I woke up this morning, still exhausted, but to a lesser extent.

My back still hurts.

The top of my foot and my ankle still hurt.

My throat feels a little funny now and then, but doesn't hurt too much.

All that, for changing a bandage on my ear.

Rather bizarre.

I mean, who faints over a bandage being changed?

Clearly, I am no Florence Nightingale.

Not cut out for the medical field.

Glad I didn't make that my career.

Reminds me of the time that I went with my friend in college to give blood.

Or to be more accurate, I tagged along while she went to give blood.

I sat and watched as the blood pumped out of her and filled up a bag.

She was fine.

But they had to give me cookies and orange juice.

Tomorrow, I'll be back at the Dr.'s office, and they'll either take more out, or they'll suture it up.

I'm hoping they don't have to take more out.

For many reasons.

One of which is because Monday, when they took out the main chunk, they numbed my ear.

So I couldn't feel any of it, which was great.

But it was on my ear.

So I could hear every little sound magnified.

Slice. Slice. Slice.

Scissor sounds: Snip snip snip. Snip snip.

You know my constitution well enough now to know how that must've made my stomach turn.

The whole time I was thinking,

'That's what I do to my herbs...

and they're doing that on my ear."

I made it through that okay.

But not changing the bandage.

Tomorrow, I'll be bringing along an earplug.

If they're stitching it up, I don't want to be thinking,

"I do that to fabric...

and they're doing that to my ear."

I don't want to hear any sound of it.

So, anyway.

On to other things.

Leif climbed up with pencil and paper and started drawing circles.

Then he told me he was drawing circles.

Then he noticed my camera and climbed down, deserting his circles.

He's been very much into songs lately.

Everything is a song.

Often the same line repeated over and over:

"Mommy, can I have a glass of milk, please?"

he'll sing.

Over and over and over.

No mundane task is above singing.

He sings all day.

So, we're working on the alphabet song.

Which we really hadn't done much of before.

He knows all of his letters.

And the sounds they make.

But the alphabet song is new to him.

And now he loves it.

So he is learning that.

He's very in to learning lots of things lately.

I can tell this is a sensitive period for him.

Good thing, we received our first order of Montessori Homeschooling items yesterday.

So perhaps today, we'll begin.

I unboxed most everything yesterday.

And I'll introduce him to one thing a day.

Slowly.

There aren't any books or worksheets in this curriculum.

It is all hands-on learning.

Learning by doing.

Which I think will be good for Leif.

I'll take more pictures of him homeschooling as we get more in to it.

Today may be our first day.

Or tomorrow.

He's also been very excited about his new clothes, which is a first.

He has a new leather belt, to help hold up his pants.

He has new leather sandal shoes, so his toes don't stick out the sides anymore.

He has new "Sunday Pants" since he shot up in height, leaving his newish pants hovering around his ankles.

He's very happy to get dressed every day now.

His favorite shorts are the plaid ones from Oma Ru.

He wears it with a new red t-shirt I bought him.

And then he spends a long time getting his belt through all of the belt loops.

And then he carefully puts on his shoes.

When he's all dressed, he beams at us, very proud.

He loves to have a belt like his Daddy.

And get all dressed up like his Daddy.

He looks in the mirror and declares himself handsome.

I can't help but agree.

This morning in the garden I found a friend in one of the birdhouses on the front of the house.

I thought it was a bird, naturally, since it's a birdhouse.

But it wasn't.

It was this little lizard.

Skinks, we call 'em here.

Rhymes with "stinks."

He was poking his head out of the birdhouse, which had turned a little in the storm we had yesterday.

He's cute.

He eats bugs.

He can stay.

So, I left him and went poking about the rest of the garden.

The squash are suffering from powdery mildew.

The white bush scallop squash have it the most.

I tried spraying them with chamomile tea.

Apparently, that didn't work.

I harvested a cucumber yesterday.

The second cuke from the garden this year.

I've noticed that the plants that are in the shade are actually faring better than those in the sun.

I thought it was chancing it, putting plants in the shade.

But it seems to be good for them.

The hot sun doesn't burn them up.

So, next season, I'll be expanding the garden in to the shaded areas more.

And perhaps less in the sunny spots.

Since they are apparently too sunny.

This is the Rattlesnake Pole Bean, twirling itself around the trellis.

I love the little purple flowers.

I'm already looking forward to more beans in next years garden.

But now, I should get to house cleaning and homeschooling.

I'll leave with you with a Leif story from Monday:

As we were driving home from the surgery, Nana gave Leify her cup to have a drink.

He drank nearly all of it then held it out for us to take.

"Thank you!" he said.

"My boiler is full now!"

He sure loves his trains!

Have a good day!

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

There are no pictures with this post.  Sorry. :)

Just thought I'd pop in to let everyone know the latest with my biopsy news, and well, maybe some gardening news, too! :)

I just received word from my Dr's office about my ear biopsy results.

The news is kinda good, kinda bad, and could get ugly.

The mole they biopsied was in a pre-cancerous/cancerous stage. 

Basically, it was pre-cancerous, plus it had already started to turn into Melanoma. 

Which means that I have, on my little ear, Pre-Stage 1/Stage 1 Melanoma skin cancer. (The lady I talked to said it was in an odd stage, and didn't fit clearly into any one category). 

Ick.

The good news is that since it is technically early in the cancerous stage, that means there is a much higher rate of getting rid of it.  They can generally eradicate the cancer in stage 1 and 2, but by the time it gets to stage 3 and 4...well, that's when things get a little hopeless.  But mine is before and in Stage 1, so let's not talk about stages 3 and 4, m'kay?

The bad news is, well, I have cancer on my ear.

The ugly news is that this coming Monday, I am going in for surgery.  They will essentially chop off a portion of my ear - roughly 3-5mm around the biopsy site.  Sure is odd to talk about my ear the same way I might about onions or green peppers - slice, chop, dice, mince ;) 

On Thursday, I'll go back in, with a big gaping hole in my ear, and if they need to take out more, they will.  If the margins are excellent on what they'd already taken, then they will close it up.  They won't stitch it until they are completely satisfied with the margins.

She said that it was only in my ear at this point, far too early for metastasization (glad I never got that word in a spelling bee!) so that is a very very very good thing.

She also said that for the next several years, I'd have to get check ups every 3 months to make sure it wasn't coming back.  For someone who makes annual physicals a once-a-decade occasion, that will certainly be odd.

Word to the Wise: If one family member has Melanoma, the chance of immediate family members getting it skyrockets.  So please keep a watchful eye on yerselves, Brothers, Seesters, Dad, and DaMomma!

In even more exciting news, I harvested some of my first veggies today.  One Yok Kao cucumber (honestly, he wasn't fully ripe, but he still tasted really good!) and several Rattlesnake Beans, which I ate like green beans - fresh off the vine.  They were yummy delish!  I'm supposed to save them to eat as Dry Beans for soup, but they're so good, I might not be able to (they taste like any other fresh green bean, but the fact that I grew them from seed makes them taste light years better - as most anything fresh from the garden does!)

The squash are all growing beautifully, although I noticed a light fungus starting on their big leaves today (the White Bush Scallop Squash).  I brewed some strong chamomile tea today.  Tomorrow, I'll spray it on their leaves to see if that works. 

I also planted a host of things, putting things in the place where the tomatoes were slated to grow.  A while back I'd planted a whole section of the bed with Rainbow Chard, and they're starting to pop up.  Today, I planted:

• Jenny Lind Melon
• More Yok Kao Cukes
• Melon, Old Original
• Long Island Cheese Pumpkin
• Melon Charentais
• Marina di Chioggia Pumpkin
• Jack Be Little Pumpkins
• Jarrahdale Pumpkins
• Queensland Blue Pumpkins
• More Yellow Squash
• More Thai Green Cukes
• More Zucchini
• More White Bush Scallop Squash

I'm a bit late in planting the pumpkins and melons (the latest they are supposed to be planted here is May 1st, so I'm a few weeks behind).  But I thought I'd give it a go.  If they grow, great...but if they don't, no big loss.  If I can get a second crop out of the squash and zucchini and the like, great.  If no, better luck next year!

I also planted a mint plant that I'd bought yesterday.  Mint is my favorite herb and I completely forgot to plant it.  A while back, I bought seeds, but they were all squashed to a powder in the seed packet.  I planted them anyway, but of course, nothing came up.  Now, I have my mint.  I hope it grows prolifically and takes over the whole front yard. :)

I planted Ginger and Horseradish the other day.  Hopefully, they'll grow well where they are.  I marked the spot, so I wouldn't accidentally plant anything else there (I'm somewhat notorious for that!)

Otherwise, everything is growing fine, and I've been getting lots of compliments on it, from strangers, neighbors, clammers... I even had two old ladies whistle at me today...that was kind of strange.  Not as strange as when I was originally planting the garden, and a biker roared up to the stop sign.  He was a big rough ponytailed typical biker dude.  He hollered to me as I was planting seeds in the ground, "You Garden, Girl!" and then roared off. 

That had to be one of the more odd moments of my life.

A lot of people take interest in my garden around here...they slow down as they're driving around the curve and stare. Some people stop completely in the intersection and just stare at it.  It's rather bizarre.  But I can't say I don't understand.  I stalk other people's gardens, too.  They're just so pretty and wonderful and I like to see what's growing.

Speaking of which...since I ate the first bean I have ever grown today, I am now completely bean obsessed.  Enamored.  Crazy for.  Am going on bean-growing-spree next season. 

I've also become a big fan of planting my groceries. 

Dried beans, fruits and veg, spices, you name it...I plant them (or save their seed and plant them).  I'm eyeing those sprouting potatoes in my potato bin right now.  Onions, too. 

Very much reminds me of my ever-constant reply as to what food I'd take to a deserted island - I always said "salad" (with the thought that I could plant the seeds of the veggies in it and grow more food). 

So yes, I was always this strange. 

And no, I don't plan on changing. 

Aside from my ear shape. 

That will be changing.

And then, like Julian of Norwich said,

"All shall be well,

and all shall be well.

And all manner of thing shall be well."

I think she ate immature beans from her garden, too. 

 (Not much else in the world would prompt such optimism as that!)

Two Smiley Faces

Leif beams next to a magnet version of himself.

He made this the other day and showed me how, "There are my eyes, my nose, my mouth, and my cheeks (the orange rectangles!)" and I thought he did look rather like his magnetic self. :)

We often make his food (mainly breakfast) into faces on his plate before he eats it, and that translated well to magnets on the fridge!

I still haven't heard about my biopsy results, but I'll let you know as soon as I do.

Leif and I went to the post office the other day, and he said, "We're both silly, because you're wearing your big hat, and I'm wearing mine." I was wearing a big straw sun hat (securely tightened under my chin) and he was wearing his bike helmet (in the car). I'm sure we looked quite the silly pair! But oh well, we'd just gone for a bike ride, and I practically wear the sunhat to sleep now, so it made sense to us! :)

The garden is doing well. This week I'll be planting more squash, plus horseradish and ginger. We have loads of little squash and cukes popping up under their big leaves, so that is exciting. The beans are producing tiny purple flowers, and climbing the bamboo trellis I made for them. My turmeric that I planted in...March, was it?...has finally sprouted. That makes me far happier than it should.

The volunteer tomato is a low, wide, squat, bushy type of mater, so I'll be interested to see what he is. I'm thinking he's a white carbon mater, but we'll see.

The volunteer squash in the compost pile isn't doing so well. Perhaps that is because I keep throwing our food scraps on top of it :)

I ordered the first round of our homeschooling supplies today. So, hopefully, in around 3 weeks, we'll be kicking off our homeschooling fun (which we, and that's a collective We, have decided to call "Leify's School").

So far, Leif is very excited about it. More on that later when we get in the supplies.

My Momma came up last week and helped me do a little cleaning (I'd gotten behind from feeling icky earlier in the week, probably due to some medicine the Doctor gave me!)

She cleaned my kitchen windows - the outsides of which hadn't been cleaned by us EVER. We (Jason and I) couldn't figure out how to remove the screens, so I looked out foggy, dirty, grimey windows every time I was at the kitchen sink (which is a good 70% of my time!)

Now, they're sparkly, clean, and beautiful.

Every day I smile looking out my kitchen windows, because the view is so pretty now - (aside from the clammers who sometimes change clothes next to their truck when they get out of the water - THAT ain't pretty!). But I do love my sparkly clean windows.

She also cleaned my kitchen floor (on her hands and knees!) so that is, as Leif says, "all sparkly and clean" (except he is normally referring to himself after a bath when he says that).

Anyway, this was supposed to be a super short post,

but here I am yammering on and on and on...

Sorry bout that.

Have a good night!

More Kite-age.

Leif showing off the "new" fireplace the day I took all of those pictures a few posts back.

He had just woken up, his hair was growlby, and I just realized he's been wearing those jammies since we lived in Miami, and that was before he turned 1. He's now 3.5. :) We wear things out around here! Anyway, you can more clearly see the grey fireplace insert (and the dirty glass, too!)

A boy & his Kite. Leif (in orange at the bottom of the pic) flies his kite (at the top of the pic) off our dock. Photo by Jason.

Jason took this shot from our neighbor's dock.

Here he is, flying his kite and sporting his orange striped shirt and blue/red patchwork pants.

Gotta love tikes that dress themselves! :) Again, Photo by Jason.

We've been kinda quiet around here of late, filling our days with kite-flying and other adventures, which is wonderful.

We had a nice Mother's Day - went to a family shindig hosted by Jonny and Jenny. The guys did all the work: grilling and prepping the food, watching the kids...so that was nice. They just had a big swimming pool put in, so Jason and Leif spent the day swimmimg. Needless to say, they were both whooped at the end of the day. In fact, we hadn't even pulled out of the driveway before Leif's eyes were closed. By the end of their road, he was snoring soundly. Jason took us home the "long" way, going down roads we had never been down, which gave Leif the chance to sleep. It was a lovely drive for us, too! :)

In gardening news, the garden is doing splendidly - the squash are growing rather prolifically, which is wonderful. Hopefully, we'll have an abundant harvest this year! Everything that can flower - tomatoes, peppers, watermelon, cukes, squash, beans, etc. is flowering, it seems. The only things not flowering are the edible flowers, which are still growing strong, but not full-size yet. The Luffa hasn't flowered, either, but it is growing well.

We have a volunteer squash of some sort growing in our compost pile - if he fruits...well, it might feel kinda like eating out of a trash bin! ;)

Yesterday, I went to the Dr. to see about a mole that had been growing on the back of my ear. He cut it off immediately and sent it out for biopsy (I always think "bibopsy" when I say/write/think biopsy...you know, from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"? - so I sorta start laughing every time I say biopsy - it gets some strange looks, but oh well.)

Anyway, as I was sitting in the room waiting for the Doc to come in, I noticed a poster that had pretty much the exact same mole pictured as the one on my ear - irregular edges, multi-colored, etc. I looked more closely at the poster and found that the picture was of Melanoma, the big bad nasty skin cancer responsible for 75% of all skin cancer deaths.

Greeeeaaaaattt!

Today, I did a little more research on the topic and read about the attributes that normally cause melanoma. Nearly every single cause on the list, I said, "Check" because it fit me exactly.

Fair-skinned, blonde-haired, blue-eyed? Check. Check. Check.
More than 3 blistering sunburns before the age of 18? Check.
Live in a southern state with strong sunlight? Check.

The list went on and on, and so did my "Check....Check...Check" so that was a tad scary.
It was kind of like Bingo with a not-so-fun prize.

So, it could be nothing, or it could be something really not good.

Say some prayers for us, please, that it is nothing.

We'll find out at the end of this week or sometime next week.

Either way, I'll be globbing gallons of sunscreen on my pasty skin, wearing long sleeves and pants in the raging heat, and donning my sun hat at all hours of the day (oh, and drinking lots of lemonade - that has nothing to do with the skin cancer, but it sure does taste good!)

Happy days!

Swimming

Swimming at the Anchor Hole.

Leif has been doing a lot of swimming lately, both at the beach, and right outside of our house (under Jason's supervision, of course.)

He wears his swim trunks, his sandals (to protect his feet from oyster/clam shell cuts), and has a blast, splishing and splashing.

They normally go out while I'm putting the final touches on dinner, which works well for all of us.

We were hoping to have him take swim lessons this summer, and it seems the time is right.

He LOVES being in the water.

Here he is doing "crunchy claw" which is something he does with Daddy. 

Clearly, I need to get him some water shoes, because I can see this becoming a habit.

And an SPF swim shirt, too. 

 He got a little too much sun on his back on the day these pictures were taken.  Waah.

I definitely think that we'll be spending a lot of time at the beach, playing in the water, escaping the heat, this summer. 

I think I need to get a little wicker basket for the bike, so we can bike downtown to the beach with our towels and sunblock.

And maybe a little wading pool for the backyard, too.

Jason has been working on perfecting his cast net throwing.  Hopefully, he'll be able to catch some bait for the crab traps throughout the summer.  And some fish dinners for us. :)

Bring on the sun hats, sweet tea, and clean up the grill!

Summer is coming!

The Big Reveal: The Fireplace

Ta-DA!!!

 

Dirty brick (otherwise I have nothing against brick - I like it) with brassy insert.

 Overall, it was a giant light suck in my library cave.  The fireplace itself blocks all of the light from coming in to the room.  Really, those two large doors that flank the fireplace are the only place it gets light from, so the fireplace itself gets the least of all.

Here's what I did:

• Painted the brick white (actually, it is primer, but I'm too lazy/cheap to paint it the proper color right now).
• Spray painted the brassy fireplace insert (which, while removable, would have only revealed a colossal mess behind it - something that would have taken FAR longer than the measly 10 hours I put into this project!)  While it looks black in photos, it is actually gun metal grey - that lovely dark dark charcoal grey color.  And, judging from the way I spelled "grey" I should have said "grey colour" eh?
• I left the wood mantle natural (obviously). :)
• Spray painted the black vents white (primer, again).

What a huge difference it makes.  While the room is still a cave, it sure does brighten it up having a white fireplace to reflect the light instead of a dirty brick one to absorb it.

Whaddya think?

Let’s go FLY a KITE!

Leif flies his kite at "Small Beach" (we rename everything to suit ourselves!) at low tide while the sun sets.  These photos were all taken by Jason and with the cell phone. 

Jason has been taking Leif out kite-flying pretty much every day.  They're learning the ins and outs of kite flying, while Leif gets lessons in aerodynamics from Jason (how he knows all of this stuff, I may never know, but he does know it!)...I generally stay at home and do my own thing - a much needed break for Momma AND Leify!

Holding the kite while it sails in the wind, far overhead.

Jason has had a lot more time off lately, and has parlayed that into lots of good quality time with Leif, which they'd been unable to do consistently for a long time.  Now, everyone is happy!

 

I love this picture.  Leif was getting cold, so Jason gave him his shirt and hat to help keep him warm enough to keep flying their kite. 

They've been having so much fun with their kiting, that are eagerly stepping in to the next realm of kite-flying: making their own kite.  They've been looking at plans and preparing lists of items to buy so that they can make their own box kite.  They're both giddy at the prospect, which is kinda funny. :)

 

Leify has been loving the extra time with his Daddy, especially with the added bonus of flying his kite!

In other news, I painted the fireplace this weekend.  I'm so excited about it - it really brightens the room up and takes away its cavelike qualities, or at least reduces them.  Unfortunately, I miscalculated (or didn't remember, is more like it!) how much spray primer I had left, so I ran out.  That means I can't totally finish the project until tomorrow at the earliest (hardware store has weird hours on the weekend!) but the main part is done.  I've been kicking back with my iced tea, fans blowing over me, and just admiring my lovely new fireplace.  Am I weird or what? 

As soon as it's finished, I'll post pics (love me some before and after shots!) :)

In gardening news, the majority of my maters have officially kicked the bucket.  My one volunteer tomato is doing splendidly, though.  Go figure.  I'm going to transplant the few that are still living in to one spot on the garden, and plant the rest of the area that I'd saved for all the tomatoes with chard and the like.  We won't be seeing many tomatoes this year, but that's life!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!