Scattered Thoughts . . .

We've always had a little fleet of boats at the lake house but, this year, we expanded our little fleet by also bringing along two new kid kayaks for Lukey and Kenzie. They are getting too big (heavy) to squeeze into our adult-sized kayaks (total weight capacities are the main problem) so it was time for them to learn to kayak on their own.  Lukey loved the idea... Kenzie hated the idea! For about two weeks, Kenzie consistently insisted that she will only be using Gee's kayak with Gee!  Lukey is more independent when it comes to physical stuff. Kenzie prefers to be dependent when it comes to physical stuff but will slowly ease into it when she sees Lukey is having no problems and even having fun. Truth be told, even though we purposely bought a kayak in Kenzie's favorite (but a bit sickening) color, we expected Kenzie to balk at using her new bright pink kayak. We started them off at our little beach. Kenzie, however, wanted nothing to do with it. Lukey was paddling a

Although the lake house is fairly close to our home (only an hour away), it is still a bit isolated. Being isolated means that we must travel over to New Hampshire to do our food shopping. This is only a half hour away but it is still quite different than our usual five minutes to the market from our home in Waterbury so , whenever we are at the lake house, we plan a trip to Woodsville, NH before and after every weekend so we can refill our pantry and refrigerator.  Woodsville is a nice little town so we actually enjoy making this food run twice a week. Plus, the prices in Woodsville are only 50-60% of the prices in Waterbury where we usually shop and the quality of the produce is far better in Woodsville! So we actually enjoy this little excursion from the lake house. Here is a short two minute video of the kids in the back seat of the car on the way to Woodsville... it is abundantly clear that they really do enjoy this trip to Woodsville... no fighting (okay... there is a little

Back a few months ago, I wrote about the grandchildren playing with bubbles with Gee as they went for a walk. I even recorded some video of that outing and shared the video here on my blog.  The kids were liking the bubbles so much that we decided to go a bit overboard with bubbles while the grandchildren visited us at the lake house this summer.  Below are a few photos from one evening of bubble fun!  The sun was getting low... the temperature was just right... and we were all winding down from a day on the lake. Gee filled a stock pot with some overly slimy bubble mix and placed it on the dock... the kids were like jumping beans filled with boundless energy and excitement but careful not to slip in the soapy water on the dock... I grabbed a camera, leaned over the railing of the deck, and shot a bunch of photos... Kenzie managed to create a bubble Genie... A big bubble beginning to pop after hitting the deck railing... This is what happens when yo

After our followup appointment with the surgeon on Friday, suddenly, we found ourselves with a three day holiday weekend, no plans, and a cleared schedule for a week or two as we wait on further test results.  After a few weeks of hospital visits, surgery, and bad news and even worse news it was nice to have a little breather. As you could probably imagine, under these circumstances, we both wanted to get away for a bit.  Sheila wasn't in much of a mood for socializing so a weekend for us alone was what she really wanted and needed. I think there has been too much focus on conversations of cancer and treatment over the past three weeks and Sheila needed a break... and some rest... and some sleep...  generally speaking, she needed some quiet time and a change of scenery. Friday afternoon, we searched online for a hotel room for the long holiday weekend... as we expected, we had waited too long to book a hotel room on a holiday weekend. We even talked about the option of some t

Friday, we were back at the hospital again for a followup with the surgeon.  Sheila's recovery from her surgery a week prior to this appointment has been relatively uneventful for which we are both very thankful. I definitely want to point out that Sheila's surgeon has done an outstanding job on this partial mastectomy as well as the biopsy and in effectively managing a slightly different and perhaps slightly creative protocol to avoid Sheila's history of problems stemming from anesthesia. In previous surgeries, Sheila has had significant problems with anesthesia and this new surgeon and anesthesiologist really came through in finding a solution to Sheila's rather unique problems.  Additionally,  Sheila's incisions are healing nicely and she is getting more and more comfortable each day. In our appointment on Friday, the surgeon cleared Sheila to begin doing more physically demanding things again as she feels up to it. Naturally, this is good news. 

For the past two or three weeks (it seems like two or three months, actually), Sheila and I have been completely immersed in cancer stuff with little time nor energy for much else.  We've definitely eaten out significantly more often because we simply have had no time to cook on far too many days. All of our attention and all of our energy has been actively and acutely focused on doing everything possible to get beyond Sheila's cancer.  Yesterday morning, Sheila was a bit too emotional for driving to work nevermind working through the day so, instead of driving to work while trying to see through a wall of tears, she called work and arranged to have the day off to regroup. The dreaded thought and knowledge of lymph involvement and metastatizing of her breast cancer was a bit too overwhelming so we called a timeout from everything and we spent the day together doing "normal" things for a change. I took Sheila out to lunch and, for the most part, we talked abou

Yesterday, we spent the day at the hospital running from appointment to appointment and squeezing in a couple of unscheduled stops too.  We had thought it would be a straightforward day with no significant news (which means we expected no stress and no problems) . Not only did we receive some new news but we found that there is such a thing as different levels of bad news. We started at Genetics. Here we discussed new genetic tests that help determine whether there are any known genetic components to Sheila's cancer. If we find that there are any known genetic components, then Sheila's children and grandchildren will be on a completely different and more aggressive preventive medicine schedule than that recommended for the general public.  The purpose of this genetic testing is to rate the risk of cancer being carried genetically through statistics and common cancer genes in order to avoid potential cancer getting out of hand in any children or grandchildren before the r

Liza and Kenzie dropped Lukey off at the house while they went for a wedding dress fitting.  The kids had brought some pizza with them for lunch so Lukey ate lunch with Gee while Liza and Kenzie went on their way.  Lukey and Kenzie had made and brought cards for Gee so that was a nice surprise! It was a nice day so we thought it would be best to find some activities to do outdoors. Besides, our house is a construction zone mess and there is no room indoors for toys at the moment. The deck would have to work. Gee is moving slowly and she cannot lift anything so there wouldn't be any of the usual playing. My condition, physically, is only a bit better than Gee's so Papa wouldn't be running around the backyard either. I decided to pulled the trains and the dollhouse out of the playroom and set them up on the deck instead... I had even built a little tunnel of pavers and rock for the trains... Lukey was exceptionally happy to be run