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.  :)