Get fresh Squeezed!

This poster just made me Laugh, which is a good thing as I needed one today. It´s available from Cafe Press and I highly suggest all you gals get one and put it up in your bathroom, boudoir or anywhere you´re likely to have your girls out neckid as a reminder to do a quick check!

So 2 days ago I left my doctors office with the news that I had officially been initiated into the Ta-Ta Sisterhood. It appears that not only was the lemon sour, but somehow it was left to ferment a bit too long. My official diagnosis is IDC or Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. So much for it´s just cysts and fibrous tissue! I´ll most likely be slow on the blog front over the next few weeks as I rest and recover from my Mastectomy scheduled for this coming Tuesday.

When I was a young girl my father and I had the chance to ride in a hot-air balloon courtesy of a friend who had won it on a radio program. Along for the ride was a woman and her 80 yr old mother. Now to a kid, 80 is far out there old (sorry...but true) so the fact that she was up there taking a thrill ride made quite an impression. Imagine how gobsmacked I was to hear that she was scheduled to go hang-gliding the following weekend. Holy WOW Grandma you got some big bazoongaz!!! (or at least that´s what went through my head)

I will never forget that day. That day determined the course of my life. On that day, I vowed to be That woman. I didn´t make 10 or 20 yr plans...I didn´t say that I wanted to have a house and a car and a husband by the age of 30. On that day I vowed that by the age of 80 I wanted to be able to say that I had lived life to the fullest, no matter what, the good and the bad, I wanted to experience it, embrace it and Live it! I suppose in retrospect I probably should have added some fine print in there, but such as it is, this is my life...this is part of my experience.

I will face it, I will fight it and when I am 80 I will be able to say...I Lived it!

(And perhaps I´ll inspire some other pimple faced kid to utter under their breath...Holy Wow Granny..you got some big Bazoonga!)

Too Cool Tuesday, Go Green!

Now that has got to be one of the coolest things ever produced from recycled plastic bottles!

Jax is in a bit of an engineering spurt at the moment, she wants to build or help build just about everything (hmmmm, where does she get that from?) So I can imagine she would be nuts over this...not to mention hours of fun for the Fhubby...hmmm...

Fun for Jax + Hours of daddy/daughter time = What? Free time for Mumma?!!! Go On.
Now that justifies the price tag!

Check them out at Sparkability. Recycled and Green (literaly) Too Cool!

Cancer sucks!

Well I just couldn´t think of any other title!
I was hoping for my pathology reports today and unfortunately have to wait until next Tuesday. Apparently they´re running several new tests on the lemon and they´re going to take a little longer. Best be thorough I suppose, but this waiting is driving me crazy. So all I can say really is ¨Cancer Sucks!¨ even without a diagnosis, this process is horrendous.

However...What Really Sucks.... Cancer in children

It breaks my heart and puts my situation into perspective for me. So I wanted to share a story with you today. It´s about Cancer, lemonade and a truly inspirational little girl.

Alexandra "Alex" Scott was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma, a form of childhood cancer, shortly after her first birthday. She was a determined, strong willed toddler who by the age of 4 informed her mother that she wanted to hold a lemonade stand in her front yard. She wasn´t hoping for pocket money to buy some lollies at the shop, or even for new toys, she wanted to give the money to her doctors to help them find a cure.

At the age of 8 in 2004, Alex passed away with the knowledge that she and her supporters had raised over $1 million.

Today, Alex´s legacy lives on in the form of Alex´s Lemonade Stand Foundation, and has raised more than $25 million.

Now that´s making lemonade!

So make yourself a glass, then drop into their site and drop some change (or more) into their donation jar. Because until NO child is suffering from cancer, it will never be enough!

Woodchuck Wednesday

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?? Well I have no idea as I´ve never actually asked a woodchuck. But I have discovered fabulous wood workers who might be able to ask for us!

In my quest to go plastic free I´ve been scouring the globe looking for fantastic, unique, imaginitive toys for Jax. These gorgeous wood sprites are at the top of my wish list!

As a child myself, whenever we went camping, I would spend hours in the woods playing under a tree creating little villages and homes for the fairies and sprites I imagined lived there. How precious if one of these had been hiding under the leaves with a small offering. Ya know...I always believed....and here they are!



Find your own special sprite or fairy at the Syrendell shop and bring home a little magic today!

Too Cool Tuesday!

Okay so all this sitting around recovering is making me bored, bored, bored!

So I thought I´d share with you one of the coolest things we´ve ever found on the web.

Mr. McGroovy´s Box Rivets

Everyone knows that the box is often times favoured over the toy it holds and kids will spend hours turning an ordinary box into the most amazing things. Add Mr. McGroovey´s box rivets and you´ve got some unbelievable possibilities! Check out their customers photo gallery for some incredible ideas.

Need to find boxes? Those of you local probably already know that around 8pm the Sindicat is packed with everyones boxes ready for pick up. Free and recyclable. Alternatively you can always check with your local appliance store as well as I´m sure they´ve got stacks in the back too!

I came across these way back before Jax was even sitting up for herself so of course they weren´t exactly age appropriate at the time. Poor Fhubby has been patiently waiting...and waiting...and waiting... and as she is fast approaching Big Girl status, I think it´s about time we get on to ordering a box or Ten!

Of course this really won´t help my boredom at the moment, but it´s nice to think that I´ll actually be functioning again soon and have some cool projects in the works.

When Life deals you lemons...

Jeeze...cliff hanger, sorry about that!
Kind of left you after scheduling appointments with my new Doctor and forgot to get back and update!
Well, my new doctor is Lovely. She looked over all of my records and tests, arranged to get a copy of my biopsy report, and within 3 days had me scheduled for a lumpectomy to suit my schedule (fhubby home, childcare...all that rabble) We chose to go for a full lumpectomy rather than another biopsy so that we would have 100% certainty when it came to the pathology report.

So here I am, out of surgery, home resting, fhubby cooking, cleaning and child minding, with nothing to do but reflect on this whole experience and wait for my final results.

So I have been thinking a lot about sisterhood.
I distinctly recall the strange sensation of having joined an exclusive and secret group when I was pregnant with Jax. Everywhere I went I received little smiles and nods and out of what seemed like nowhere came the mothers of the world. Wow who knew this existed?! It wasn´t until I had actually given birth that I felt fully initiated into this sisterhood of Mothers.

And now I find myself standing on the edge of the TaTa Sisterhood, Brave and courageous women touched by Breast Cancer, those battling fiercely and those surviving. And just as before I find myself in awe of the strength and power of this sisterhood. I do not want initiation into this group, no one does, but control is not ours. And I am grateful for these sisters for their guidance, their support and their words of knowledge and encouragement.

So today I am making that lemonade....Sour or sweet, you may add sugar as you like. And I raise my glass in honour of women everywhere, Sisters.

ps. Stay tuned for Thursdays results: When I´ll be adding either vodka...or champagne!

What Kind of Net would catch a fickle muse???

Yes I know I have been neglecting my poor infant blog, it´s been a bit hectic around here and I needed some much needed rest. I also needed to paint...I never know when or why that urge hits me but as my muse is fickle I tend to jump up and grab the paintbrush asap before she changes her mind. So I pulled out some wee chipboard letters that we bought for Jax on a trip to Australia and finally decided to do something with them. I think they turned out rather nicely (excuse the shameless patting of my own back!) and I can´t wait to hang them in her room. Of course I´m still waiting for my muse to get up enough gusto to attack her walls but so far she´s being really, Really lazy about that!

Another project I have been neglecting is Jax play kitchen. We decided against the plastic shop bought versions and started looking for really nice wood ones. Well, there´s certainly many to choose from these days but the prices are ridiculous, and I can´t stand ridiculous pricing! Especially on something that is still manufactured. So instead we bought some kids shelving units and after making templates for the doors and counters we passed it along to a local woodworking friend to help us out. (bottles of wine are soooo much better as payment in my book!) So whilst I had the paints out, let the projects commence! I suppose posting about it will be good incentive to get it finished and show you some final results, with luck...before her 3rd Birthday.

Right, now as we´re on the topic of neglect, I suppose I should also update you all on ¨Lemongate¨ After a week of waiting for my biopsy reports I finally broke down and called the doctor and demanded some answers... ¨Well, have you had your MRI yet, you need to have this as soon as possible as you have a malignancy and we need to get you into surgery¨ Nice....don´t try to cushion that news or anything... so I asked what exactly the Biopsy reported...what KIND of cancer where we dealing with???.¨Well I don´t know, I don´t have the results here so call me back in 1 hour and I´ll find out¨ HUH???

So after one of the longest hours of my life I called back only to find out that the results of the 7 samples he took were in fact NEGATIVE but still suspicious, huh?? Well that could be due to the fact that he used my 2007 Mammo´s to get the core samples and was probably just stabbing around at the original mass of nothing.

To top it all he insisted he did not have my new records and that he had given them back to me in the O.R. Well no dingbat...those would be the 2007 ones you gave me. Argggg

So to make a long story short, I proceeded to pick up my new records from His office, undergo the MRI at a New hospital, and find a New doctor whom I will be seeing this Wednesday to go over all results and hopefully...Hopefully...get some straight answers. I´ll keep ya posted!