I love this year

Good things just keep coming my way.  I am not saying that last year was bad, but it was a year filled with challenges.  But this year only two weeks into it, I just have to say it has been one memorable event after another.

Thursday Jan, from Monticello and I drove into Tallahassee to get the yarn for the shawl she will make this weekend.  She chose a palette of creams, dusty blue and dusty rosie pink.  Together all the yarns look beautiful.  We are all going to make a scarf or a shawl using the same method, and from just looking at the choices I have seen for the four of us that have bought our yarn together they are all going to look so different.  And we are going to have a wonderful time.  There are nine of us in the class, a lot for that kind of class.  Usually the instructor limits the class to six, but we just overwhelmed her and by the time she realized how many of us she just agreed to let us all attend.  It may be a large group but most of us know each other, and I am sure by the end of the first class we will all be good friends and laughing and helping each other.  I am sure by Sunday night there will be a lot of "Isn't that lovely!", "What a beautiful job you did", "I love how those colors came together" 

I love weaving, I weave ribbons now and I love how the textures feel.  How the colors once weaved together remind me of stained glass with the colors blending and shading together to make patterns and designs.  Weaving all these different types of yarns with the different textures and the space between the yarns, I am sure that it will look even more like stained glass.  Another wonderful experience for this year.  To be with friends, make a few new ones and learn and work with my hands and watch the magic in my fingers as they work across the loom and take open space and fill it with woven colors and textures of yarn and maybe ribbon into something soft and warm.

Jan and I had a lot of fun and looked at wedding things also since our beloved Amanda is having an (un)wedding this month.  All of the older woman, the abuela's from the stage company are coming together to help these to precious people start off their marriage together surrounded by loved ones and good wishes.  Jan and I are pushing in to do things for the event, and will help Amanda to decorate the Woman's club and the gazebo.  It will be a small, lovely and fun event.  Emphasis will be on fun here.  We want them to have lots of happy moments to remember and photos to keep.  Another wonderful time in my life.

Then we drove across town to Office Depot.  Jan wanted to get the posters for the Stage Company's production of Nobody's Perfect.  Jack and Jan are directing, my precious Ms Moon is one of the four characters.  The amazing Jon Taylor will be playing the part of a man half of the time who is dressed like a woman.  Jon is truly a gifted actor.  And he and Mary have played together before.  Most memorably when each of them played like 5 different characters with five different accents and changes of clothes.  Jack and Jan directed them in that play also.  They are both just so very talented.  Shoot, our little stage company has so many talented actors.  Jack and Jan produce almost every show for our little stage company.  That is so much work.  Jan had made these posters and they were bright and simple, had great photos and hopefully will draw the attention of our community.  It will be a great show, and a lot of fun.  George, who has done our radio plays, was in the Curse of Nergal and in our last production, Sin, Sex and the CIA  is also in this play, and rounding out the cast of four is a new young woman in her teens and everyone just brags about her talent.  While we waited for the posters to be laminated Jan said she needed to get a new printer.  She wanted one of those multi taskers, print, copy, scan and fax.  She wanted an ink jet, not a laser printer, so we found the right aisle and started looking at all the choices.  There must have been more then a dozen different brands and then each of the brands had at least two choices.  After comparing price, tasking ability, size and brand she decided on an HP one.  It must be last year's model because it was a great deal, so we each bought one.  I have an adequate printer that I have never been that happy with, and as I am starting to increase my business with Sittin On A Porch soap company, I need to have a reliable printer.  We walked back and forth through the store, over to the laminating area, across to paper, back to printers, across to ink pen refills and so forth.  We talked and laughed walking back and forth.  Jan is such a precious person and I just don't spend enough time with her.  I don't know why, we always enjoy ourselves.

We loaded our bags and printer boxes into the back of the toy, we had driven to Tallahassee with the top down, but once in town the temps were dropping and the sky clouding over, so the top had gone back up.  Now we made our last stop at New Leaf Market.  We walked in and the smell of the buffet wafted out to meet us, making our stomachs grumble.  I needed to pick up some oils to make soap and lip balm and moisturizer.  Jan wanted to pick up a few groceries.  We paid for our new treasures and headed back towards Monticello.  Jan had rehearsal.  We stopped by to see Carolyn on our way home so she could show Jan her yarn and see what Jan had picked up.  Carolyn redid her home last year and she did such a beautiful job.  It really came out lovely.

When I got home I checked my phone messages and there was one from the Director of MAD Co.  It is the Music and Dance stage company at the Opera House.  It is also music and dance classes for people in our little community.  We are hoping to give a scholarship to students in this stage company, from our little stage company.  I gave the Director a call.  She is in the process of casting the Fantasticks.  Yes, the longest running musical on Broadway.  The beautiful lovely Romeo and Juliet type of story done in a very minimal set, with some of the most beautiful songs in the American Song book. I am excited that she is going to produce this show.  We had another director who tried for years to produce this show and was never able to do so, but in his memory we will do it this March.  I am not a singer or a dancer or a gymnast, so what part could I play in this production?  The Wall.  There is one part that can be played as a man or a woman.  There are no lines, just silence.  The part does interact with the other actors, moves props, and plays an active role, but just no talking.  Oh, I am so all over this!  Yep, I thought about it over night, talked to Judy.  She and I are co-directing the Spring Murder Mystery, and I will be tired from doing this play, but I still think I can give my all to both.  Judy supported me.  Ms Moon told me she was excited for me.  Okay, I can do this.  

Then I found out last night that the part for the young woman is going to be played by two woman in MAD Co.  I love these two young ladies.  They are very talented and good friends and they will split the role, each playing 3 performances.  They are so excited to be in the show, and I can not believe I will get to play with them also.  The grandmother getting to spend time with girls I view as grand daughters.  Shoot, I have played the part of a grandmother cat in the production of Hot Dogs, Cool Cats, which many of these young people were in.  Sigh, this is going to be a wonderful experience to get to work with these talented people.

Friday, Judy and I went over to see Ms Moon.  This was the first time I had laid eyes on that precious woman since she got back from Cozumel.  She looked fabulous!  And it was so great to see Ms Judy also, I haven't see that woman for way too long.  She is stage managing Nobody's Perfect so is getting to play with Ms Moon at rehearsals.  Lucky women.  I left these two precious ladies and headed to Thomasville where I did my monthly stab in the chest.  They take my blood samples from my port which is up near my shoulder on my chest.  In my usual dark, sick sense of humor I have grown found of these monthly visits to see the wonderful ladies who work in the lab and draw our blood.  I tease them about stabbing my chest with sharp objections, they laugh and threaten to stab me again if I do not behave.  I asked for copies of my medical records to send to Social Security as I creep closer to obtaining SS disability.  I hate having to apply for disability.  I know I put the money in the system.  I know I am no longer able to work.  I know that this money could make the difference between me surviving within the next few years or whether I get to have an outrageous life.  But I hate the title, disabled.  Giving my blood was again painless and actually a joy as I met a woman and her loving son as they were in the lab.  Such a vivacious 82 year old lady, and her son, so good to her.  And the ladies in the lab are always such a joy to spend those five minutes with.  They got me in as quickly as possible because they knew I had a sonogram following their visit.  I said hello to some of my friends and then headed over to the Ambulatory Center and a very kind young woman did the sonogram and was very patient.  She had warmed that cold gel they put on you to run the machine.  She talked to me about what they look for in a liver.  She did not attempt to read it, and I did not ask her to, but I did ask her to explain what this test does and what they can see from it.  It was quite enlightening.

The only difficulty in dealing with the lab and tests was that I was not able to drink or eat anything from dinner Thursday night until about 2:30 pm on Friday.  So I was hungry.  I grabbed some food on my way home.  First I stopped by the Opera House and did a few things that Lisa asked me to do to get ready for the show, and then on I headed home  I had about half an hour to eat and rest before getting dressed in my white top and black pants and headed up to the Opera House for the Elvis show. 

We had over 100 people for dinner.  Oh yeah!!!  We need the money at the Opera House, so a large crowd was so welcome.  We also had 80 reservations for show only.  The serving group were all young people plus Kevin and I.  We are both on the Board and are just trying to do our part to help keep this Opera House going.  Kevin also has his own stage company and I am on the Board of the Opera House's Stage Company, so we have worked together many times.  Two of the "kids" are the young ladies who will be in the Fantasticks with me.  I had worked with most of the "kids" and have seen them on stage in the various productions.  They have grown up in the Opera House. 

The crowd was happy and jovial.  They drank beer and wine and laughed and talked until the buzz in the room filled all of us with the excitement of the show.  One table had eight woman, two of which were celebrating their birthday.  They were a hoot, and our Mr. George entertained them and took photos for them and they had laes and flags and presents and cards and a chocolate ganache cake.  They had a fabulous time.  We served the salad and by the time we had put all the salads out to the 100+ people some were done and the evening began.  The forward movement took us through the evening, through the three courses and coffee.  All the servers coming out and singing happy birthday to the two ladies at table six.  The whole room sang along.  The meal moved swiftly, the kids were great and knew their tasks and did them as pros.  The audience was happy and full, most cleaned their plates, including the yellow cake with the cream cheese icing.  Then Denise flashed the lights and everyone stood up and started the historic walk up the wide old wooden stair case taking them up into the gorgeous old theater.  Brandon and his mother handled the seating reservations and did a great job making sure to fill the audience front to back and get everyone filed in with the least amount of anxiety.  Downstairs the servers never skipped a beat.  We started breaking down the tables, clearing the napkins and trash and remaining utensils and dishes.  No one told anyone what to do, everyone just started working together to complete the task.  Then Denise, our Chef, called for the volunteers to eat dinner.  We all kept working, finally she and I managed to coach most of them over to eat and sit and talk about the event.  We listened to the concert above our heads and heard and felt the enthusiasm from the audience.  

When everything was done, and the girls were in the kitchen finishing up drying and putting the dishes away.  I was tired after a long day and asked to go, and was sent on my way with hugs and sweet words.

I came home and sat here thinking about all the wonderful things in my life right now.  I will leave for weaving class in a couple of hours.  When I close this post, I will turn on my yoga. 

I spent a lovely day taking care of my health and seeing friends yesterday.  A memorable evening where I spent time with more friends and even was able to sit and have dinner with the lovely sweet little Miss Olivia, my favorite Olivia.  She is growing up so fast and she and her sisters are all beautiful and sweet young ladies and I just adore them.  I have other exciting news, but I want to wait until I have all the information before I discuss it further here.  Right now, I am just marvelling how much I love this year.

A weekend of weaving.  The Denver/Patriot game tonight, and I am a gator, so of course, I am a fan of Tebow.  I loved watching him as a Gator, I still love watching him as a pro.  In so many ways my nephew Nathaniel reminds me of Tebow.  They both are tall handsome blue eyed young men, who are intelligent, funny, kind and generous.  Then Monday is a holiday and it will still be this brutal cold.  Aren't you proud of me that I have not whined until now about how miserably cold it is here?  The sun is shining and the winter blue sky, clear and crystal with the cold air, so it looks beautiful from my chair next to the window.  If I did not have such fun things to do today with some of my most favorite people, believe me I would not be leaving the house. 

Monday, I have a Board Meeting for the Opera House, and it will be a happy one after this show last night.  Tuesday I will get to see Dr. M and then Tuesday night I will attend a meditation with Geeta, Manju, Janak and Baa, there may be a few other friends also, you can never tell.  Thursday I will meet my new financial Advisor and then I have a Board Meeting with the Stage Company.  Saturday I have the greenhouse class and that evening a vegan get together with the sweet and amazing Genevieve.  Yes, another booked week.  But you know, this is who I am.  And after 56 years behind me and only a few ahead of me, why am I trying to fight this strong nature of mine.  I am a totally fast forward, full speed ahead or a totally stopped and not moving kind of person.  No, I am not a moderator person.  I tend to eat, drink and sleep in a pretty healthy moderate way.  Not being excessive on those accounts, but when it comes to living life, nope, full speed ahead, or sitting in my red chair in total stop.  Maybe that is one of the secrets to my success as a cancer patient, is the treatments can be extreme, and then you must rest in the full stop mode.  And as I spend the rest of my days in the heightened sense of a hurricane is coming and I know it will hit, but I am not sure when mode, it helps me to continue to get up each morning, do my yoga, live my life and be happy.  But it does get exhausting ever vigilant watching and waiting for the shoe to drop.  I know the cancer is in me.  I know it is controlled.  I know that the cancer every moment is looking for a way to take over again and do its job by growing and effecting as many cells in my body as it can before I die.  I still choose not to fight this disease.  I still choose not to sit in this red chair and feel sorry for myself and watch life pass me by.  I still choose to learn and live and laugh and all the time I know that somewhere just like on the weather channel, there is a storm a brewing and there will be consequences to pay.  But the best way to be prepared for that final storm is to have lived the life I want now, so when it is time to pay the piper and go I will have a life to leave.  I have been in nursing homes and seen the people stuck there.  People who did not live their lives.  For whatever their story, they do not have a life to leave, so there they sit, stuck in place.  Stuck not ever completely in this world, and unable to move on to the next one. 

No, that will not be me.  I hope to be like my dearest beloved Colin, at the end saying "wow, what a wonderful life, I have no regrets"