Thursday, August 20, 2009

Welcome Sweet New Angel

FINALLY - some of these preggers are delivering! Eric's baby sister had a baby girl yesterday.
Welcome to the world, Hanna Ingrind Harwood. She was born yesterday evening, 7 1/2 pounds and 20 1/2 inches and full head of dark hair. Everyone is doing great. I can't wait to get my hands on her. We won't get to see her until November, so that is a bummer.

Hanna
Mommy (Sara) & Hanna

Sara and Pat

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

An Old Acquaintance and a New Best friend

I guess you really never know how much you will miss somebody until that somebody is all the sudden not in your life anymore or how you wish you had become better friends with that somebody before they left. The saying is true – you don’t know what you have until it is gone – or however it actually goes. Who I thought to be only an old acquaintance came back into my life this weekend and I realized this person was a long lost friend, someone whom without them with me - left me with a void in my life for so many reasons, so many questions left unanswered, so many feelings left unsaid and a part of me was missing while she was gone. Who is the “someone” I speak so highly of, well, in reality it isn’t an actual person at all, but a part of me – a part of all of us women, something we all take for granted, something we all really love to hate – we all have a common bond to bitch about but without this something in your life, your womanhood is suddenly striped from you and you are left wondering if you will ever be the same again – in so many ways that you never thought of before, because you had it and never remember life without it. MY PERIOD IS BACK!! I cried like a baby Saturday morning when I realized what was happening, I cried for all I thought that was lost, I cried for me feeling whole again, I cried for this part of my journey finally coming to an end.

A new best friend was also found this weekend. I finally put my money where my mouth is and actually scrapbooked! I have talked about wanting to do it, I have all the shit to do it, I organized my room time and time again to do it, I read lots of magazines to figure out how to do it, but I had never sat down and done it. I bite off a lot this weekend, I committed to a scrapbook retreat with my sister and several of her hardcore scrappin’ friends – there I was, a newbie, so to say, to this world and felt I had to prove something to them and to myself. And boy, did I prove it and fall in love with it. This isn’t really like me, but here are all the pages I created this weekend – I am in love with a new best friend.


















Thursday, August 13, 2009

Sweat Therapy

I don’t think I realized how much sweat therapy affects me until I don’t have it in my life. I know I wrote some bullshit about taking it slower with yoga and pilates, and getting to know myself while doing them, but I don’t think me as a whole, is a slow and controlled person so why would I think slow and controlled exercises is my preferred poison – so to say?! Because it isn’t and you can’t teach an old dog new tricks – yes, I realize I am full of puns today for some odd reason.

After deciding to train for the ½ marathon in January, Amanda sent me a training schedule (she is my go-to running expert) and I freaked out. I thought, what in the hell have I gotten myself into? I didn’t know, and really still don’t know how hard it will be, but what I have figured out in the few weeks I have really been back at working out is: I can and am getting strong and fast (for me) again – I don’t really know when I started to try to run again, but we will say the 4th of July. Since then I have gone from running 10 minutes and then needing a walk break to this morning of running FOUR straight miles with no walking breaks. Yes, it was tough, but I told myself if I can sit with my hands AND feet in ice for 4 hours, I can sure the heck run 4 miles and more. I left the gym with such a renewed self-power and awe awareness I think only exercising can give me. I LOVE being sweaty, I love knowing I just accomplished something not a ton of people can actually do and most of all, I love knowing I just did it for me and my sanity.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Bitter sweet

My baby is turning 2 and in so many ways it is bitter sweet for me. I am so blessed to have such a happy, healthy, fun-loving little boy who loves his mommy and daddy so much but I am sad because I don’t know what the future holds for us and more children. And two years old is SO different than one – I mean he is talking up a storm, jumps from anything he can climb onto, tells me NO way too often and just loves life.
And this party was a weird slap in the face. His party last year was the last “normal” thing we did before I found the lump and my life turned upside down. I guess I am just holding my breath to get through this birthday with no big surprises.
*The pictures aren't in order, but blogger is pissing me off and i don't want to jack with it!


Just last week at farmer's market - he is still a toot and I love it! Around 20 months - school pictures

1st Birthday Party - MMM, cake! His first trip to the dark side.

9 Months - he no longer will sit still enough to swing

5 months - oh those cheeks are still so kissable
6 months - he still has that great smile and he still has his belly!

Eating has gotten a little cleaner - somedays!

I held him 90% of his naps while I was home for 3 months. Nothing got done around here, and I didn't care.He loved sleeping on us

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Zeal

Fervor for a person, cause, or object; eager desire or endeavor; enthusiastic diligence; ardor.

This past Sunday at church, the lesson was presented by the YOU – Youth of Unity and it truly amazed me how well put together this group of teenagers were and it more surprised me the message they delivered – which really struck a chord in me and got me thinking. The whole service was based on zeal, what it is that makes you happy, and if you don’t know what your zeal is, you need to find it. They also talked about how many of us have so many small flames within us and if we were to just find the one under laying fire to all those small flames and combine them all into one big flame, our fire inside would be so bright and brilliant, we would shine from the inside out.

So, I left service Sunday with a lot on mind and decided I really needed to pray and mediate on my zeal to find how all these little projects I have within me can come together into one big flame and shine. Once I figured it out, it seemed so simple and I almost (almost because I am learning to be easy on myself) beat myself up for not noticing this earlier – I want to enrich the lives of others with creativity – both teaching it and presenting it and I want to give them an avenue to share their emotions and feelings with others. I have always wanted to leave a footprint here on earth when my time is up and I have truly figured out how. Nope, it won’t make me a million dollars – hell, I would be happy if it would make me a few thousand dollars, but if I am able to see true joy from someone after what I teach them or give them, that is enough for me.

I had to figure this out for several reasons. I have been having this fierce battle within my heart and head and my happiness was getting lost and beat down. It was hard for me to admit to myself that I needed help, but I did and I started seeing someone to talk with and she said a lot…she explained I was still going through my grieving process of cancer. When I explained to her, while I was going through chemo, surgery and radiation, I was able to keep that f*cking smile plastered on my face and tell everyone I was fine, and it wasn’t that bad – and now that it is bad in a totally different way, I don’t feel like I have the right to bitch about it because I got over the “hard” part - all while having few breakdowns. And now that I have my hair back, everyone assumes, I should be back to normal, not tired and surely not pissed off – that I still have to have the smile on my face. I want a smile on my face but not because I have to have it for others – for others to feel okay with my situation. Yes, I could have died and yes, everyday of chemo and radiation sucked, and yes, me losing all my muscle tone sucks, and yes having no period is horrible, and yes, I have zero sex drive and yes, I try to cover my emotions with food, and yes, I just want to be back to normal, and yes, I can’t do everything I want to do and yes, cancer f*cking sucks, and yes, I have anxiety attacks, and yes, I am still depressed even though from the outside looking in, I have nothing to be depressed about, and yes, I will be okay – one day.

But with all the turmoil within me, I had no choice to go deeper within and find something good from all the shit…and I did, I found my zeal. Now, I just have to remember to remind myself of it daily when I don’t want to be social, when I feel completely overwhelmed, when I want to accomplish so much in a day and yet, don’t accomplish half of it. I guess no one ever said it would be easy, but I never thought it would be this hard.

This is a very zig-zaggy story I am telling here and I am not sure what the final point is – maybe that should be my point – there is no final point to this and I will continue along this zig-ziggy path? I guess, as long as the general slope is headed up, that will be enough for me right now.