Wordless Wednesday ~ Pretty please - with a cherry on top!

This is the perfect time...

...to focus on GRATITUDE.






I have decided to join this community, to commit to show gratitude to the Lord for all of the wonderful blessings He has brought into my life, and to develop a habit of taking time to see the beauty in the moments that grace my life.

I know that I always have overly ambitious ideals... and I am TRYING SO HARD not to let my perfection get the better of me in this exercise. My typical mindset would be to figure out the equation (goal / # of blessings = days needed to complete) or the inverse (goal / days = # of blessings to count each day) but I'm not gonna do that! You hear me, Self?! We are gonna take this easy and simple and ENJOY the journey! That said.... Here's my first list....

1. My faith
2. My children
3. My children's messes
4. Teaching my children to clean up their messes ;-)
5. My mother
6. The knowledge that I too, was "borne of goodly parents"
7. The Gift of the Holy Ghost
8. SNOW!
9. Rock salt (a must have for my snowy steps)
10. Our home full of treasures and love
11. Charities who want to take my extra "treasures"
12. Friends who have kindly offered to open their homes to my family for Thanksgiving.
13. My nephew, who let me get weepy and tell him how much he is loved.... and who helped me put away our lawn tractors - before the snow started falling!
14. My brothers and sisters - I love them for all of their quirks, insights, humorous moments, and endearing *read:annoying* traits! :-P
15. Learning to love others as the Lord loves them
16. Learning to trust the Lord more and my selfish desires less
17. THE PROCESS
18. Cats

 

Lake Spokane Relay For Life 2010

Please come visit my personal page at The American Cancer Society - 2010 Relay For Life of Lake Spokane WA: I will be walking the Survivor lap for the 4th year in a row. I was first diagnosed with Skin Cancer in May of 2005... WOW! It's been 5 years. And I most recently was diagnosed with Melanoma in April of this month. Thankfully, I have an AMAZING Dr. who was completely responsive and aggressive about it. He removed it the very next day and now I'm healing with LOTS and LOTS of stitches!

Here are a few pics.... (WARNING: These are graphic, like, cut flesh graphic.... beware! Scroll down for the rest of post!) ;0)

This is the area of skin the Doc cut out to ensure that he "got" all of the cancerous cells.

It doesn't look too big.... but that's my Dr's thumb for reference.
(It was rather disconcerting to hear his nurse say "I got the biggest one I could find.." when talking about pathology vials....Um.... biggest WHAT?!?! LOL)

These are the pics of my outer stitches.... The Dr. thought it was too morbid to take pics during the procedure.... Wimp! :-D

So.... that was a week ago today and I still have the stitches (until Monday), BUT I got a call from my most fabulous Doc today!!!! AND THE CANCER IS GONE!!!!!! They are pleased with the results, all of the margins came back as Curative Melanoma!!!!! It is a true and blessed relief, my kids all whooped and hollered when I told them!!!!! My mother and I cried, and everyone I know said thankful prayers!!!!! Now.... the only things left to do are: biopsy/remove some smaller but concerning areas; get my kids to submit to mandatory SPF slathering, every day of their rotten precious ever-lovin' lives'; kiss, hug, pamper, and adore my sweet kids (and their unburned, SPF'd faces) as much as stinking possible; and purchase stock in said SPF companies.

Seriously though, cancer is a scary thing.... families are ripped apart by it daily. Don't let your family go through what mine has. We spend hours and hours and tons of money to give our kids "natural" lives.... natural fibers, natural foods, natural consequences? (lol).... what about NATURAL SKIN?! Sun tans are NOT stylish.... beautiful, protected, adored, loved, natural skin is so fantastically in vogue! So please, come visit my page and help me raise money for cancer awareness and research! Thank you so much!