Catch up time

Well, the past couple of weeks have been fairly busy, so I've not had time to blog. Actually, that's not quite true...I've had time, I just haven't had much to say or known how to say what I do have to say. But what the heck? Let's see what I can spew forth.

RIP Leslie Nielsen and Elizabeth Edwards. I laughed my ass off at his movies and although I didn't agree with her politics, her fight against breast cancer was valiant.

I hate hearing about women dying of breast cancer because I'm afraid that will be me. Even though my cancer was caught early and had not spread out of the breast, it makes me nervous when I hear about someone whose cancer recurred and now they are terminal or have died. I have way too much left to do in my life. So I try to live each day as though my days were numbered. Which is probably why I never have any clean laundry. I mean, who wants to do laundry on the last day of their life?

DH made it home (finally!) last Friday night. Technically Saturday morning at 12:30. I waited up for him. Well, actually I fell asleep on the couch in my cute little nightgown but I wasn't in bed sound asleep when he got home. Since Monday we've been waiting for the phone call saying he has to come back to work. Even though we'll probably be broke as hell and at each other's throats (that's based on previous experience) I still don't really want him to go back out again until after the holidays. I have a honey-do list for him that's approximately a mile long, mostly bar stuff, and if he leaves again we'll have to start all over getting him rested up and ready to go back to work for free. Well, I don't guess it's free, we do make money off the bar (a little!) but it's not the same as getting an hourly wage. I'm not sure he'd agree that cleaning out the storeroom and putting up more shelves will lead to an increase in beer sales.

Speaking of the bar, I had my first week of being the owner on duty last week. Holy smokes, I was busy!! Between doing the deposit every day, paying the bills, doing the shopping, and ordering stuff, I was busy for minimum of an hour every day! But at the end of the week I felt better about how things were going and I'm glad I'm feeling like getting my nose into what's really going on. Oh how I wish things would just go gangbusters and I could turn managing the bar into a full time job! I wouldn't even mind expanding into the lunch business but I don't want to step on any of my neighbors' toes. So I'll be patient.

I'm feeling pretty good the past 10 days or so. I've started (slowly) working on getting my house back in to fighting shape. It always gets out of control during the days after chemo and this time was no exception. Add to that my general clutter and BabyBoy's ability to mess it up faster than it can be cleaned up and it's quickly descending into SuperFund candidate once again. I'm looking forward to Christmas break when I can be an evil slave driver to my children every day, holding their Christmas presents hostage until they get the house tidy! Actually the worst room in the house is mine! I'm working on it slowly but surely. The problem is I have WAY too much stuff! Too many clothes, too many shoes, too many books, etc. I just need to bite the bullet and get rid of stuff. Easier said than done, because I have to go through it all first. I mean, what if I accidentally gave my Koffin Kats T-shirt to Goodwill? That would be terrible! I've made it my goal to work on my room at least a little each day. So far I've worked on it two days in a row. Well, kind of. I didn't get a whole lot done but I at least got started.

Today BeBe came over for coffee. It's not the usual day but she has school stuff tomorrow so we drank coffee, ate cinnamon rolls, gossiped and made a craft project today. I won't say what the project is yet because it's for the bar and no one has seen it except BeBe, DH and the kids. When I get it up to the bar I'll go public. Don't get too excited...I'm no Martha Stewart.

I talked to one of my nursing school girlfriends Sunday night and she and one of our other friends are coming up to visit me in late January! I'm so excited! When they get here it will have been two years since we've seen each other. They drove over from Lafayette for a day when I was in New Orleans for a meeting in 2009. I can't wait to show them the bar and take them out for sushi and just hang out and catch up.

My dog Buddy (the stray we picked up on our way home from Florida) is quite the little escape artist. I think I should have named him Houdini. Today BeBe and I watched him squeeze through a hole in the fence to get back in the yard. Yes, he escaped and then I guess got bored with the outside world so he came back. He nearly got stuck so I'm anxiously awaiting the day when he finally does. I hope I'm home so I can get him unstuck so he doesn't get hurt. I also hope I have my camera handy. Heck, maybe I'll even charge up the HandyCam so I can get a video of it and let NOS put it on YouTube.

Tank, my mastiff, on the other hand, won't even walk out of the gate if the Dish Network guy forgets to close it. I guess he's just extremely happy to be in our back yard. He likes to go out one last time before bed every night. I don't know if he has a small bladder like me or if he just wants to scan for strange men lurking in my back yard. Either way he will sit and stare at me until I let him go out. He will also go get in bed with BabyBoy if I don't let him sleep in the bedroom with me. I draw the line at letting him sprawl out in my bed though!

The past few months my sleep has just been royally screwed up. I know I have a good reason but it doesn't change the fact that it's screwed up. I've had nights where I've fallen asleep in the recliner with the lights and TV on and not woke up until the sun was coming up. Or nights where I've fallen asleep in the recliner and woke up at like 2 am and gone to bed and then not been able to sleep. It really sucks! I'm not sure if it's because DH is not home with me or it's the hot flashes or the steroids or just general worry. Whatever it is, I'm ready to get back to normal. I have no desire to get hooked on anything, so I'm loathe to take sleeping pills. I have some, and I use them occasionally, but I don't want it to become a habit.

Speaking of hot flashes, who the hell came up with that term? They are not "flashes!" If they were, I'd be able to handle them a lot better. No, they last way longer than the term "flash" implies. Its 15 or 20 minutes of wondering if this will be the time my head shoots off my body because I'm on fire! So far all the remedies that have been suggested to me have not really helped. Damn estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer! I could use a little Premarin to counteract menopause! It is a chemically-induced menopause but the symptoms seem to suck just as bad. Maybe even worse since it's all at once instead of gradual like natural menopause. Oh, well, I'd still prefer hot flashes over dying.

The dryer beeped at me and DH has been in bed for an hour, so I think I probably need to wrap this up and see if I can actually go to sleep. I really ought to do this daily but I'm not that good at planning.