Still Polly

It's gonna be a great day. This is becoming my catchphrase, at work and at home. This gets more laughs than the best joke I ever told. I think people don't believe I mean it. But it's not sarcasm, it's true. It's gonna be a great day. One Saturday in early July I was getting a ton done around the house. As Bob likes to say, I was "TCB-ing" -- taking care of business. Vacuuming, dusting, cleaning hard floors, scouring bathrooms. I took the vacuum apart and cleaned it. I even cleaned out the refrigerator, which included liberal use of the garbage disposal. I was on probably my third load of laundry when I heard the scream, "STOP RUNNING WATER! SHUT IT OFF NOW!" My heart jumped out of my chest. I screamed back, "I'M NOT RUNNING WATER!" But then remembered the washing machine was running. I sprinted to the thing and hit the emergency stop button. By the time I got downstairs, Bob was standing under a waterfall. This was not go...

An old friend of mine coined the phrase, "Indecision is the key to flexibility." When I thought I had lots of hair. February. I am circling a decision. I get right up to it, stare it down, then shake my head and move on. It doesn't seem like it should be this difficult. But for some reason it is. Am I ready for my first post-cancer haircut? It's a small decision. There were bigger ones. I don't know how many times during treatment caregivers and others would ask, "So are you working through all this?" I always said yes then asked, "Do I have a choice?" I "decided" to keep working during cancer treatment because since they got all the cancer in surgery everything about treatment was preventative, not curative. That and the bills still need paid, cancer or no. Of course I did take the required 6 weeks off after the mastectomy. So I was on short term disability. They said doctor won't allow a mastectomy pati...

I have been sort of obsessively looking back at the calendar and recording dates. It was Saturday, July 9th last year. It was a hot day and I had been out working on some landscaping. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for using the 4-wheeler's wench to pull some dead bushes up. We had inherited lots of very dead knockout roses (a.k.a "stupid knockout roses"). I dug around the roots to loosen them, then let out the wench, put the cable around the trunk and hooked it, then reeled the cable back in, pulling out the bush. Worked like a charm. Anyway, when I decided to be finished for the day, I was gross and sweaty so I went in to take a shower. My bra was pinching me, which is no big surprise because as we know all bras are useless and uncomfortable, especially when you've actually been moving around and not posing for a VS ad. And I had been doing a lot of moving. I fidgeted with the bra while the water was warming up and realized. It wasn't the bra that wa...