Love the smell of a wood fire

When I drove Jassmine home on Thursday afternoon it was 39 degrees out. I thought we'd have snow overnight. Yesterday it rained for about five minutes but it really looked like it was going to snow so I went into the yard picking up sticks for kindling to make a fire.

I spent the entire day and part of the evening sitting in front of the fire watching tv. It was 75 in the great room (which is the coldest room in the house unless you count the basement).

I was so warm and toasty. Yum. Phil filled up the stove before he left this morning for hunting at Warriorsmark.

I know you're thinking, okay, you said fire and now stove, what gives? We have a zero clearance woodstove which is flush with the log walls and looks like a regular fireplace. It even has fire bricks inside which really makes it look like the interior of a fireplace. With a blower on the outside it forces hot air into the room and heats the great room area plus the master bedroom upstairs. I'm trying to remember the manufacturer. I think it's Fireplace Extraordinaire.

I decided to cook a beef roast yesterday. Too late in the day to put it in the crock pot for a long, slow cook so I browned it in my electric skillet and then transferred it to a pot and put in the oven. I only added onions and potatoes with rosemary and thyme, salt and pepper plus beef stock. It smelled so good cooking all day. I was literally in heaven sitting in my nice, warm room smelling yummy food cooking. Every time I brought up a bucket of firewood I smelled the aroma of the beef roast. Phil came home and said, "Wow! Something smells good!" It tasted even better than it smelled.

Reminder to call Randy and ask when he is taking steers to be butchered. Time to place our order for another side of beef. It is great to have meat with no antibiotics or hormones and I know our meat was raised on grass and hay.

My pcp's office called yesterday to remind me of an office visit for today. I know it's a repeat visit to check my blood pressure which goes up while on chemo. I didn't think about this yesterday but I need to call and cancel this appointment. It's flu and cold season. I don't have the immunities built up yet to fight an infection. I don't need to be around sick people. I still have two more chemo treatments to do and my bp is fine while I'm taking Lisinopril during chemo.

Thinking inside my head right now as there's no one to talk to in the house and I'm sure all the people inside my head would wonder if I started talking out loud. Anyhoo, I was thinking it's good I have my health and then bam! thinking, wait, even though the oncologist said the cancer appears to be gone, I'm still a cancer patient or should I say cancer survivor for the second time? After a year of being cancer free and then having a bad PET scan and doing chemo again I want to be able to move past talking about cancer and living with cancer. I want to be able to wake up in the morning and not think about cancer. I hope that comes soon.

PET scan results

No evidence of disease! That is the phrase that every cancer patient wants to hear from their doctor and today I heard it from mine.

Two more chemo treatments, which total out to eight this time and then see the doctor on December 15. Repeat PET scan sometime after the holidays; January or February. I couldn't have asked for better news today.

Thank you God!

Halloween

Mom and dad left for home today. It will be quiet here. We had a really good week in spite of having to do chemo.

It was really warm here today. About 70 degrees but it started raining. Kind of strange weather.

Phil went hunting at Hecla this morning. He took Opal and Reno.

I haven't felt too bad this week on chemo. This morning I woke up with a sore throat but that could just be a cold coming on. I really hope it's not the flu (any type). I am not looking forward to seeing Dr. V on Tuesday. Phil is going with me. I'm afraid we may get bad news again. I know, that's not the positive way of thinking that I usually have going on. :(

My nephew Grant has H1N1. Really worried about him and his family! Please keep him in your prayers!

Watching cooking shows tonight. Just relaxing. Had a nice dinner from Foggy Mountain Lodge tonight. I had chicken marsala with rice and vegetables. Phil had a delmonico steak with baked potato and veggies.

No plans for tomorrow.

PET Scan Day

Had an absolutely wonderful day on Sunday at our DAR tea fundraiser. We raised $1300 for our state regent's project (PSSDAR scholarship fund). Amazing! Loads of fun.

Today was a repeat of my PET scan from July. Hopefully this one turns out better. Praying for no spots and nothing at all lit up on the scan!

Tomorrow is chemo day so I probably won't post again for a few days depending on how this one goes. Last time, not so good. But I have to say in the last week I have felt SO much better than the weeks between chemo while on Oxaliplatin so maybe changing to Camptosar was a good thing even if I do have severe nausea the first day or two.

On Sunday Phil and dad went to Warriorsmark so Phil could compete in a bird shoot with Bella. Usually he hits 9 out of 12 shots but not so good this time. They have gone grouse hunting in Clearfield County yesterday and today. They brought back lots of ticks with them yesterday but none today. Yay.

Gave away one of the beagles tonight. A good friend of Joe and Chrystal's took Sukey. She will make a nice hunting dog. She's just a little faster than we can use for brace field trials but no lickety split gun dog. David will need to work her to get where she needs to be but she's a nice dog and he will enjoy her.

Had a terrific evening last night. Mom and I fixed a huge pot of spaghetti sauce and two pots of noodles and Joe and Chrystal and the kids came over. We had an ice cream cake from DQ for dessert. So yummy. It's great to be able to eat and drink cold things again!

6:38 a.m. on Wednesday morning and all's well!

The last few blog notes have sounded pretty daRn depressing. Sorry about that. Need to get an attitude adjustment as my parents used to say to me. Right about then the Hechinger paint stick would come out.

Funny thing about that paint stick and, wondering if my parents still have it, it had mine, my sister's and my brother's names written on it. Like who else would my parents have whipped? Hmmm? Well, I do remember my mom whipping my cousin's bum once but he was a hateful little thing and deserved it copiously.

After watching many reruns of Supernanny, I realize I could have used JoJo to teach me parenting skills. I didn't have a paint stick but I did have wooden spoons. They broke too easily.

I woke up at 2:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. Phil got up at 4:30 and I stayed up. Just checking blogs I follow (knitting, cancer related, funny ones, etc.). Planning to go in to the chapter house today. It's been over a month since I was in and I need to let them know I'm still alive and kicking.

Mom and dad are coming up this weekend. Dad and Phil have plans to drive back and forth to grouse hunt. Sunday mom and I have our DAR tea. Monday is open, maybe a lunch out and some shopping? Tuesday is the dreaded PET scan and Wednesday, gag me, is chemo day then I get disconnected on Friday. Let's hope this chemo treatment goes better than the last one. This will be number six. Hopefully we'll find out on Nov 3 how many more I'll need.

Tuesday of another week

Yes, I'm still in bed 24/7. This staying in bed all the time is exhausting but getting up and trying to actually DO something is more exhausting! I was so looking forward to not having chemo the rest of the month and am really disappointed that I'll be getting chemo during the week my parents are coming to visit.

I feel very discouraged because I haven't any idea of how well the chemo and my body are fighting my cancer. I know my PET scan is scheduled but I'd like to have some inclination of how I'm doing. I see myself from the outside and don't like what I see so I worry about how the inside is doing.

Really looking forward to my DAR tea this weekend! Two of us have worked on this since May or June, I forget. I will be excited to see all the ladies and take photos for the local papers. This tea fundraiser is to help with our state regent's project which is to increase the amount of money we're able to give to scholarship applicants and/or increase the amount of scholarships we can give. I love DAR. I love to feel like something I'm helping with is a worthwhile cause and see the benefits.

Yesterday was Phil's birthday. My hubby turned 49. I was 25 and he was 27 when we met. Wow, the memories! It wasn't the birthday I envisioned for him. We had a beagle club meeting last night and we should have just stayed home. I promised I would make him spaghetti for dinner tonight. I also thought I might be able to feed animals for him but I really don't think I'll be able to manage that. Spaghetti I can do.

The Weekend Report

The weekend went by too quickly, as usual. Phil went to Chestnut Ridge Sporting Clays on Saturday morning while I slept in. When I woke up I got on the computer and also turned on the tv to watching the Food Network. Giada and Ina were cooking up yummy looking eats. Love their shows!

Ralph's 26th birthday was Friday. Let's see, 26 years ago what was I doing? I'll save that for another blog entry.

Phil called at 12:30 to say he was stopping at Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch and what would I like? Jess texted to say they were stopping by so I called Phil back to say buy a bucket of chicken and some fixings cause the kids are coming over.

Phil and the kids got here at the same time. giggle Funny how that happens. We had a nice lunch and exchanged birthday cards with the kids and Phil. Ralph's was the 16th, Jess and Phil's birthday's are the 19th (today). They stayed until about 2:30 then left to enjoy the rest of their birthday weekend together. Newlyweds! Ah! Love it.

About 2:30 Sunday morning we were awakened by some horrible animal sounds coming from near the chicken coop and goat pens. It didn't sound like a fox or a coyote. It sounded like the rabbits were getting eaten. That is a horrible squealing sound. Whatever it was stayed out there making those sounds for a long time. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and Phil went outside to check on the animals. He didn't take a gun or anything to defend himself, course I didn't know that at the time. Bella, Reno and Opal started barking and scared whatever it was away.

All the chickens and goats were accounted for including the ducks. Phil said the baby goats just looked at him like, "stop shining that light on us, we're sleeping." I don't know what it was making those awful sounds but we think it could have been one of the mountain panthers that are around here. Ralph's friend Bill took pictures of one in his backyard with a trail camera. He lives outside of Indian Head almost in Somerset. Lots of rocks and places for those kind of animals to live.

Finally we got back to sleep. I think I slept in until 9:30 or 10. Phil's mom was fixing a birthday dinner for him at her house at 1. He was up since 7:30 to do testing for work. He didn't get off the phone with work until 1:10. I called to let her know we'd be late.

The one thing I've been feeling with this new chemo is extreme exhaustion. I had to really push myself to get my bath then I had to lay down for half an hour. My eyes are watering so much I don't even try to do makeup anymore. I try not to look in the mirror because I feel like I look terrible. My hair looks so thin and I look so pale. Of course I haven't lost any weight because Phil's mom is such a good cook. haha

So, I managed to finally get dressed and out the door we went. Dinner was lovely but I ate too much. Fried pork chops, rice, beets, green beans, pumpkin squares and fresh raspberry jello desserts. I had one serving of each but that was a lot of food.

Phil received two nice dress shirts and Dockers pants from his mom. His brother Dave and wife MaryAnn gave him some really cool gifts. He received a headlamp and also a tripod flashlight/lamp which we could have used in the middle of the night to see what the heck was scaring me half to death outside my bedroom window! Can't wait to try these gadgets out!

Beautiful sunny day here today. Almost all of the leaves in the backyard have fallen but the ones out front are still beautifully painted on the trees. God is good with the things he does to keep me positive and cheerful.