Nature and Stuff

It's been a while since I've blogged.  What can I say, it's been a busy month!  But that doesn't mean I haven't been enjoying the wildlife around the house. I even actually dusted off the camera to snag a couple of photos.  I was trying to get the pair of chipmunks that have taken up residence in the rock bed around one of the trees, but the bunny and the birds were the only critters cooperating with me.

Bunny Foo Foo

Ready for Take Off!

As for me, I'm doing fantastic.  I finished up my radiation treatment about a month ago and am finally feeling back to my old self again.  Once fall rolls around I plan to start back on my P90X workouts.  Unfortunately with my surgery and treatments, my first two months of hardwork has reverted back to ground zero due to not being able to work out and not sticking to a good diet.  But, I'll get it all straightened out in due time.  For now I'm busy working and spending at least one day a week lounging by the pool and enjoying summer.  The garden is growing, the critters are abundant and the weekends are full of good times with friends.  Life is good!  :)

Stormy Summer Sunset

As three rounds of tornado producing storms were passing through, they sky was beautiful just at sunset!  This is typical for spring to early summer in Kentucky.  Luckily, we didn't have any damage.

The Waggin' Trail

This morning my friend Christina and I walked the Waggin' Trail for the Kentucky Humane Society at E.P. Tom Sawyer. Christina brought Molly, her blue heeler mix, and I brought Giant Dawg.  Both dogs (and humans) thoroughly enjoyed the walk!  There were lots of people and dogs attending, which is great because that means lots of money was raised for the cause.  It was a 3 mile walk, but Giant Dawg got hot and tired out about half-way through.  He is very hairy and it was in the mid-80's. I've never seen him drool so much.  My spare shirt became a slobber rag and was pretty much soaked by the time we were done. This is the first time I've had him out with a large group of people and dogs and he did fantastic.  I look forward to taking him to more of these!

Giant Dawg - all tuckered out:

Ducks and Stuff

I may have mentioned before that we had a wild mallard pair visiting the backyard pond on a daily basis.  Momma Mallard decided the floating duckhouse would be the perfect place to lay her eggs.  Last Wednesday Momma Mallard emerged with 14 ducklings in tow!  A week later they are starting to explore a little on their own, but still sticking really close to Momma.  We can expect them to be here for a couple of months before they grow their wings and fly off to do their own thing.  It's so awesome!  Here is Momma Mallard with 10 of the babies (the other 4 must have been on her other side):

I am now 3 weeks out from surgery and feeling great.  I'm pretty much back to normal aside from some remaining sensitivity, but my oncologist says that should go away within the next couple of weeks.  The pathology report came back good and they think they got everything.  I start radiation treatments next week to zap anything they  may have missed.  It's every weekday for 5 1/2 weeks.  The kicker of it is I drive 45 minutes one way to get a 2 minute treatment - ha!  Luckily there aren't many side effects from radiation, so the only things that might happen is a sunburn like area at the treatment location and possibly some fatigue towards the end of the treatment rounds. I start on Tamoxifin next week as well, which I will be on for 5 years as a preventative to the breast cancer recurring.  All in all, I'm pretty good to go!

I did make a good accomplishment last month regarding my Flickr Photography Scavenger Hunt.  For the first time in the 2 years I've been playing I actually completed a round!  And my challenge photos got the most votes, to boot!  A silly feat, but a fun one.  You can see all of my photos and the scavenger hunt list if you want.  :)

And now that we have our first day of no rain in I don't know how long, I'll try to get some updated duckling photos to post.  :)

I Heart Faces Pets - Let Go of My Badger!

Lois Lane got a stuffless badger for Christmas and instantly went into a game of tug-of-war!  She loves her stuffies. :)

Luna Moth

Another cool find this spring - a Luna Moth!  It appears to be a male and was hiding out in my umbrella that was drying out on the front porch.  Since they don't fly during the day I set him up in one of the hanging flower baskets until dusk, when he then moved to the porch light and then took his leave during the night.  I've never seen one so vibrant before!  

I'm so enjoying watching the new flowers bloom that we never got to see here last year due to moving in mid-July.  And to top it off we have a rabbit living under the back porch and a momma mallard duck sitting on eggs in the dog igloo that is on the floating duck dock on the pond.  So that means baby duckies soon!   It's been a little piece of heaven for both me and Jason. I'm just happy this year we get to enjoy the full summer here rather than moving and unpacking and cleaning up the old house to prep for rentals.  

My surgery is schedule for Thursday morning so I'll likely not have many photos for a while.  But will try to do a recovery update here, if nothing else out of sheer boredom.  ;)  I'm taking a few days totally off work to recover where I intend to do some reading and movie watching so I can get back at it early next week.  Hoping it's just a small dent in the road and I can be back to normal soon and start my P90X back, at least by early fall.  I've been off of the program since my exercise restrictions after my biopsy and didn't see the point in picking it back up until I can do it right, but I do miss it.  So far, so good though, I'm still fitting in my smaller clothes!  :)

Spring is in the Air!

Ahh spring is in the air!  In the last week I've actually been enticed enough to pick up the camera and snap some shots (see below). We had our first good thunderstorm of the year today and the grass is more green than brown again. Jason has been prepping the mower for his 6 acre mowing sprees and the garden is partially tilled.  This is, by far, my favorite time of the year.  New life, fresh smells and porch dwelling becomes the norm over tv watching - bliss!  I even sat on the back porch swing for a couple of hours yesterday reading and got quite a nice sunburn on my arms and face.  And finished a book too - on a windy day in broad day light - have I mentioned how much the Kindle rules?!

To regress a bit, at the end of February, one month after my 35th birthday, I had a routine mammogram.  The results landed me back in the Women's Diagnostic Center to do maginifactions due to microcalcifications that were found.  The next day led me to a breast biopsy.  And then the next day led me to a diagnosis of breast cancer. What?!  Yeah, that was exactly my reaction.  Fast forward two weeks later after an MRI and meeting with my surgeon and it was confirmed. Though I'm very lucky.  Diagnosis of DCIS grade 3 at a size of 3.1cm, which basically means non-invasive and caught at one of the earliest stages possible, much to my relief.  So I'm scheduled for a lumpectomy and sentinal node biopsy on April 14th, out-patient sugery, with 33 days of radiation and 5 years on Tamoxifin as a preventative.  All in all, not bad for what it is.  At this point I'm just waiting for the surgery to be done and recovery to begin.

In the meantime, I'm embracing spring!  We're making our summer plans, deciding what we are going to do with the yard, expanding the back deck and looking forward to our first spring and full summer at the new homestead, which we so love!  We see so much wildlife here it's awesome. And the peace and quite, compared to neighborhood living, is rockin'!

Speaking of wildlife and our awesome new homestead, here are a few photos to get a peak into our world.  :)