A 10 out of 10 day!  Got up and did my version of a workout, had breakfast and then we decided it might be a great day for a bike ride.  I tested it out the other day and rode to Geoff’s house without too much difficulty and we have been talking about heading down to the path by the river and doing a ride  It is flat and you can just putz along.  We drove down and parked at Home Road and then rode the bikes all the way past the zoo and to Deerfoot Trail and back again.  My odometer said it was about 23 km.  We stopped at Licks for ice-cream and they had sugar free burgundy cherry.  (I am trying to stay away from sugar as I have read it is one of the worst things I can eat.  Cancer cells apparently thrive on sugar.)  We then rode around and through Point McKay checking out possibilities for Kelli and Mike.  They are moving to Calgary in the fall and need to find a place to rent.  A bit of a challenge as Mike will be working at the Peter Lougheed and the new South Calgary Hospital and Kelli will most likely be at more than one location possibly including the Foothills.  So they are looking for something with good access to roadways so they can get to where they want to be.  I think living down in the Parkdale, Point McKay, Inglewood areas would be ideal!  There are some nice spots down there with great access to the river paths and to Memorial Drive.   If any of you have a line on a place or know of something that fits this description we would really appreciate hearing from you!  Tomorrow is chemo day and then I am meeting the badminton Mom’s for dinner at Earls.  We haven’t had a get together in some time so it will be a great gab fest I’m sure.  We Mom’s spent many hours together at tournaments over the years cheering our kids on!

Here is your visual reminder for Wednesday morning!

Don’t forget your White Rabbits!  It’s hard to believe
that the first of August is fast approaching!  Summer
just seems to fly by!  Figures, as it is my favourite
time of the year!

Oh yes....I almost forgot to give you the answer to yesterdays trivia question:  the top 10 vegetables you should consider including in your diet! How many did you get right???
Beets, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, carrots, dandelion, kale, mushrooms, onions and spinach!!!

Todays trivia question......which fruits do you think get the highest rating and are in the top 10 for nutritional benefits?

Another beautiful summer day!!  Hope this lasts all summer!  Kelli and I headed out to Cross Iron Mills today.  I needed some jeans and found a pair that fit at “Lucky” Jeans.  I’m in to anything lucky these days!  Speaking of luck.....DO NOT FORGET THAT WEDNESDAY IS WHITE RABBIT DAY!!!
I will send you a visual reminder tomorrow!

Dropped in on Geoff and Lindsey.  They are in the midst of a yard fix up with lots of help from Bill.
The people who owned the place before them were definitely not into landscaping.  Bill was digging out some dirt at the side of the house yesterday and moved a buried board only to discover it was sheltering a “bees” nest.  He was swarmed by about 30 bees all quite angry at being disturbed.  It was a miracle he wasn’t stung!!!

We got home around three and I pulled out my latest interest, a book called “The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth.”  It is a really interesting book and identifies the power house foods that we should be eating. The author of the book contacted 16 renowned nutritional experts to ask them to list their “top 10 recommended foods.”  Interestingly of those 16, not one mentioned soy or soy products!  In fact the author of this book totally disputes any health benefits associated with soy.  He then takes each of the various food groups and talks about a wide range of foods and their nutritional benefits and identifies the top 10 in each.  So the challenge today.  Name the top 10 vegetables.  I will give you the answer tomorrow!

Just going to head down with my tea to watch the Olympics.  Really interested to see how Clara Hughes did.  I saw her speak at Teacher’s Convention a couple of years ago and was really impressed by her.  She was a real bad ass teenager and at one point in her life was a two pack a day smoker!  Sport saved her!  Hard to believe with a start like that she as gone on the be a medalist in both winter and summer Olympics.  Once she got her energies channeled in the right direction she went on to be a tremendous success and has grown into a very likeable, inspirational young woman.  I am cheering for her!  In this month’s Chatelaine a number of athletes are quoted on their philosophies.  Clara Hughes’ philosophy is “Don’t underestimate yourself.”  Go Clara, Go!!!

First and foremost....Happy Birthday to my brother Kevin!!!  He is currently touring the maritimes in his camper and loving it!  What a great place to see in birthday #???
And just as a sidebar note of trivia......were you aware that today was also Terry Fox’s birthday!?
As most of you know I have been a huge supporter of the Terry Fox Run for the past 16 years so it is only fitting I would also remember him on this day!  Kevin and Terry were actually born on the same day in 1958!

Today a friend sent me her website called “Dames on the Range.”  I had such a great time looking at all the wonderful pictures and reading comments and stories that people had contributed.  I even poached a few of the quotes which I found very inspirational.

I especially enjoyed this one!
“There are two basic motivating forces:  fear and love.  When we are afraid we pull back from life.  When we are in love we open to all life has to offer with passion, excitement and acceptance.  We need to learn to love ourselves first in all our glory and our imperfections  If we cannot love ourselves we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create.  Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open heated vision of people who embrace life.”
John Lennon

I have been thinking about going bike riding for days now and today finally decided to give it a whirl.  I am constantly trying to find my way back to do the things I love to do and for me many of the these things are physical pursuits.  I decided to do a relatively short ride for my first time out so donned my helmet and biking shoes and headed over to Geoff and Lindsey’s house which is in Citadel.  To my delight I can bike with relative ease.  Came home and decided to try a hill just to see how it would go so rode down to the tennis courts and back home.  The hill, not so easy but I did it which I was very pleased about.  Slowly I am finding things I can do.  Certainly, not to the same level of vigour as before but I am doing things and I am loving it!  With each new thing I find I can do comes a real sense of accomplishment.  I have never understood people who choose not to engage in anything physical at all.  For me exercise and activity have always brought me a true sense of well being which is so critical at this point in my life!  So, to all of you who have stepped up your fitness focus.....good on ya!  Hopefully you will get hooked for life!  When I first started my recovery one of my biggest fears was that I wouldn’t be able to do anything physical.  Happily, I am discovering that this is not the case.....I just have to adjust my expectations and realize that I can’t go as far or as fast but I can still do many of the things that I could do before.  It’s all a matter of giving it a try!

Off to Foothills bright and early for my hydration session and bloodwork.  The place was full of very sick people today.  It is heartbreaking to watch.  My nurse took me to my chair and proceeded to try to start an IV.  She heated up my hand, looked at it, tapped the back of my hand and finally said she wasn’t comfortable trying to start an IV on me.  She would get Ivy!  Oh my God!!!  Ivy is the only one who jabs me several times before she is successful! I have had her two or three times in the past and it is the same story every time.  Nice girl but not good at this part of her job.   And this girl is telling me Ivy was better at starting IV’s than she was.  You would think with a name like “Ivy” you would be deadly starting IV’s!  Not so......Some of the nurses are just awesome but the crew in there today were definitely challenged when it came to starting IV’s.  After several pokes they finally got things going.  My hands are a little black and blue tonight.  All around me I could here nurses muttering to their patients what poor veins they had.  Not a good day to be in the daycare!  Funny, after awhile you get to know who’s good and who’s not.  Unfortunately, you have no say who your nurse will be.....luck of the draw.  Sometimes you draw good....sometimes, not so good.

Finished with the hydration and headed off to the lab for my bloodwork.  Did a double take when I saw a lady I had visited with a couple of weeks ago during treatment.  Two weeks ago she had long blonde hair.....today she was bald and wearing a turban.  On top of this she looked as if she had lost ten pounds and was walking with a cane.  It was shocking to see her deterioration in just a couple of weeks.  I told Kelli tonight if I lose my hair I will not wear one of those turbans!  They just scream “cancer”.  They make you look sick.  I will definitely look for some other options.  I think even a ball cap would look better than those caps.  My hair is still hanging in there.  A couple of weeks ago I was thinking it was coming out and it has definitely thinned but it is still there.  It is scruffy because my cheap side has been saying “why waste money on a haircut if it’s just going to fall out?”  Well, today, I decided it might as well look decent while I have it so I dropped in on my hairdresser and booked an appointment for tomorrow.  Who knows....maybe I won’t lose it at all so it might as well look good.  I have been very careful with it.  I rarely blow it dry, don’t towel it dry to vigorously, avoid brushing it too much, use all sorts of concoctions on it ......  So far, so good, but I had to admit to myself today that it looks pretty rough at the moment!  I reminded myself of the presentation I went to sometime ago....”Look good, feel good...”  Time to step it up a notch!!

Last day in Windermere for this go round.  We squeezed in one more golf game this morning.  Broke a 100 again today!  Yahoo!!!  Changed up the groupings with Dad getting the girls (Lindsey and I) and Bill and Geoff together.  We went ahead of the guys which was probably a mistake.  There must have been four times a ball dropped within feet of us.....guess who?  Geoff!  He was good enough not to hit us but if he had been a stranger we may have done something obnoxious with his ball.  I have learned some pretty good tricks from other golfers over the years as to what you do when you have an aggressive golfer behind you.  The funniest one was probably the guy who drove his cart over the guys ball several times until it looked like an egg in the turf!  Once I played with a woman who promptly turned and hit the ball back at the player behind us.  I think he definitely got the hint.  Then there was one who hit the guys ball into the Columbia River!  In any case we were tolerant of Geoff’s near misses but next time we will put him in front of us and let Lindsey hit!  She absolutely crushes the ball on her drives so she could probably give him a taste of his own medicine!

We had such a nice break up there!  Windermere has always been a place where I can recharge.  We are home for a bit but will be back out there in August.  Bill is going to play in the Alberta Police Golf tournament in August and I will just go out and stay with Dad. Kelli is working in Invermere all summer so it is a great opportunity for us to spend some time together!  She is actually taking up golf!  Now that is something I never thought I would see!  If we could put her and Lindsey in a bag and shake it up we would get an awesome golfer.  Lindsey has the drive mastered!  Kelli’s short game is pretty awesome!  All they need is to learn to putt!

Tomorrow a busy day.  Hydration and blood work in the morning.  Then I want to have coffee with Jenifer!  Haven’t seen her in a bit and she is heading off to Shuswap tomorrow!  Most summers we get out there to spend some time with them but it doesn’t look like it’s going to work this year. After that it will be the usual errands that need to be done after being absent for a couple of weeks.....groceries, laundry....all that fun stuff we love to not do when on vacation!