it's hot here!

let's see ... what's been going on since april? not a whole lot. it's summer and we live in the desert. it's hot. thank god for air conditioning and swimming pools! here are some random tid-bits:

i cut off my waist-length hair (up to my shoulders) and coloured out the gray. i donated the cut part to locks of love (they make wigs for children with cancer). ds has grown back all his hair which he'd lost during chemo.

dd is having several hundreds of dollars worth of dental work done. so far, she's been a champ. dh is still not working and is having a minor stroke about the cost.

both kidlets will start kindergarten in a couple weeks. they alternate between excited and nervous. they had a full-blown graduation ceremony for preschool with caps and gowns and little diplomas. good grief!

the major event has now been rescheduled (for about the sixth time!) for mid october. i've about given up on it ever really happening. it's been three years.

my little sister got married in july and i was able to travel to california to attend the wedding. you could've knocked me over with a feather when i found out i was going to be able to go! it was utterly fantastic to see all my family and friends! and we spent a day at the beach. i really miss the beach. i'm homesick again.

did i mention i adopted a sweet little pitbull ("pimple" according to dd, lol!) last november? i also have my mom's dog and a cat i rescued a year and a half ago. they all went with to so cal. i drove the kids and critters in the ark and dh drove in sanity alone. the cat travels incredibly well! she really likes being in the car.

so that's the low-down skinny from here. i hope life is treating you all well! until next time ...
xoxoxo
:) M

p.s.
i still have a handfull of xmas cards i haven't gotten mailed from last year, so don't be surprised if one shows up in your post. i wrote them in march, i think.

no, i haven't died

i never promised to keep up with my blog, remember? so here's an update in a nutshell: kids got LOADS of gifts for xmas, new years was uneventful, kids had valentine's day parties at school, major event that was scheduled for march was delayed AGAIN (insert major swearing), darling son is officially cancer free!!!, darling daughter had a really fun b-day party with the most amazing cake, and we are all still alive.

well, it did all work out. the surgery went very well and the surgeon was able to remove the entire tumor. recovery is progressing and my little guy may be able to come home tonight. yay! my little girl had a special breakfast out with her daddy this morning to get a little quality time by herself. she's still very upset about not being allowed to sleep at the hospital. and the dog spent four days living in my car. she'll be the most happy of all when we all go home! she only chewed up her leash and my husband's xm radio - insert lots of swearing by husband.

i am so stressed out. my little boy is having surgery tommorow and i can't get everything else to fall into place. i don't have anyone to watch my dog and she will chew the entire house down if she's left alone. the doctor changed us to a hospital way across town and the drive is going to be really expensive with two cars going back and forth every day for a week. my little daughter is getting lost in the shuffle. she wants to be with us, but isn't allowed to sleep at the hospital. my cat can stay alone, but she'll be really mad and pee everywhere.

but it will all be fine. the dog will simply come with me and stay in the car. the gas will go on a credit card. the daughter will stay with a friend and cry a lot. and the cat will pee everywhere and i'll eventually clean it all up. yep, it'll all be fine. is it too late to start drinking?

making olives

i've been wanting to make olives for a couple years now, but i kept missing the picking season. well, the picking season is now and i went on an olive picking walk through the neighborhood. i found a few recipies online and started a batch of brine-cured olives last wednesday. they should take four to six weeks to cure.

while i was out running errands yesterday i saw a woman and her two children picking olives. i flipped a u turn and got out to ask the woman how she processes her olives. she turned out to be from albania and, with a little help in the translation from her young daughter, told me that where she comes from people use lots and lots of olives, but the olives she's used to are expensive here. so she was out picking olives that were going to waste - same thing i'm doing! she, however, has lots of experience with this and told me how easy it is. here's her process:

pick and wash the olives.

crush each olive to break it open. you can pit them at this stage or not.

soak the crushed olives in plain water for five days. change the water each day.

on day six, rinse the olives and put them on a baking pan. cover them liberally with salt and place them outside in the sun for a day.

when the olives have had their day in the sun, rinse them really well and place them in clean jars. cover them with heavily salted water (another recipe suggested 1/4 cup salt to 1 qt water).

the woman said the olives should be sweet with no bitterness and keep in the fridge or in the cupboard for a year. i started a batch today. i took pictures and i'll post a step-by-step with pix soon.

Harder than I thought

my little boy was diagnosed with cancer about six weeks ago. he has a wilms tumor which is a mutated kidney cell tumor. he was probably born with it. the good news is that it is very treatable. the the not-so-good news is that the 25 weeks of chemo are turning out to be a lot harder on all of us than i thought they would be. five weeks down, twenty to go. he'll also have a second surgery in the first week of december to remove the shrunken tumor and the kidney. we have a wonderful oncologist and a great surgeon, so i know it will all be fine in the end.

my cat

my cat eats the strangest things. sometimes i think she must be part dog! today, it was orange juice. she always wants to know what i'm drinking (she loves bottled water) so i usually let her sniff my glass just so she'll go away. i thought she surely would have no interest in orange juice, but i was wrong. she tried to lick my glass (yuk!) so i poured a tiny bit of juice in my hand just to show her she wouldn't like it. well, i was wrong; she loved it. she lapped it up and asked for more! i did this three times before she was satisfied. it's a good thing i didn't bet on this because i would've lost big money! i really shouldn't be surprised at anything she eats or drinks at this point because she has already flabbergasted me multiple times. here are some of the weird things she likes: eggplant, tomato sauce, minty toothpaste, watermellon, onion rings, mint tea, and now orange juice. who'd've thunk?!