For your reading pleasure--

I give you not a post on April 1st, because then you might not take anything I posted seriously.

Cancer Bitches has just absolutely taken off like you wouldn't believe; more and more people are joining like crazy.  I guess it's pretty damn obvious that I'm not the only one who was turned into a bitch by cancer and who despises the pink ribbon shit, so that is awesome sauce.

603 Pinterest followers, with 348 of those being on A Valid Option.

#foodporn seems to be my largest amount of retweets, retwits, whatever it's called, so I know where everyone's minds wandered off to.

A few weeks ago, Streak made a lovely herb covered pork roast covered with onion in her slow cooker and was kind enough to share the recipe with me.  She was kind enough to invite me over with my slow cooker and she fixed the same thing in mine, which stayed there to cook and then we ate over there.  She made mashed potatoes, green beans, and lovely honey rosemary carrots.  It was a spectacular meal which I figured up made at least three huge meals to feed multiple people.  I also replicated it a week later.  If I can't find the recipe on pinterest soon, I may put it up here so the rest of you can fix this.  The lovely ladies at our dentist's office all have the recipe, so it is getting circulation in this area.

RedHun recently won a five hundred dollar gift certificate, which I thought was cool.

Military Monkey is no longer Military Monkey.  He received an honorable discharge from the military and will now be referred to as Civvie Monkey until I can come up with an appropriate new name for him.  He'll be going to college, but since I have a College Monkey already, then I can't use that name for him.  He and his adorable wife will be relocating soon to warmer living space.

College Monkey is changing jobs.  He worked at his first job for two years, so this will be new territory for him and I think he'll like it.

Football Monkey has been doing Robotics, along with ROTC and football stuff.  He got his football ring and it's an amazing sight to see.

The husband watching football stuff right now, which is always a good thing when it's not football season.  We miss football season.

My lymphedema is driving me batty on the right side, namely my right upper arm.  Why, you ask?  Because of the storm fronts that keep moving through.  The change in air pressure affects my arm more than I ever thought it could.  I need to acquire more kinesio tape so I can bribe Streak with cookies to tape me for pain control since I'd rather not sleep in my mono-sleeve thingy.

Time to make more toothpaste, which is always fun.

And a big Fuck You to the vile cancer industry and a big cheer for this project, Woman:  Redefined, Dignity, and Breast Cancer.  If only I'd had access to something like this before my surgery, I might have had a slightly different perspective about the vileness of my body and what it would look like with the nasty scars.  I hope these people succeed far beyond what they ever could have imagined at the beginning of this project.

Since I wound up back on the subject of cancer, I try to help other people, you know, with stuff like the Cancer Bitches group.  I keep getting thanked for it.  None are needed, I just want people to have a safe place away from the mindlessly brainwashed masses who have had breast cancer and actually believe the pink ribbon shit does something for them.  Harsh of me, well, fuck yeah, then again, I'm an opinionated bitch and I've been speaking my mind about my opinions regarding the lies of the cancer industry and other assorted shit related to it.  

Cancer Bitches was started to give people a safe place to vent and say they are having a shitty day or week without fucking fake ass shit spewed at them in an insincere and smarmy assed, priggish manner.  (Jesus fucking christ, I'm so happy I just got to use a form of the word prig here!)  There's a need for the bitchtastic bitchitude of the Bitcherhood that is Cancer Bitches and no, we dgaf.  Sometimes people need a virtual hug and not told they aren't doing cancer "right" because they are having a bad day or week. JS

Anyway, I'm modifying the following topic as a warning to you non-cancer community people of what NOT to say to someone who has had cancer.  I've had this happen more than once.  True fact.  (I must warn you now, please go pee because you might wet yourself laughing or you'll be offended as fuck.)

The subject of hair came up.  Those of us who have been bald from chemo and/or radiation know the bizarre-ness of people commenting on the bald and/or touching the fuzz that is hair trying to grow back.  It's rather humiliating, it's a disgusting violation of the Personal Bubble Space, and well, it's as offensive as fuck all, like grabbing for a visibly pregnant stranger's expanding waistline while idiotic comments are being made.

(That said, I don't touch anyone's pregnant belly, but I'll lean down and wave and say "Hey, little person, nice to see you there!" which people find amusing and inoffensive.)

My commentary on Cancer Bitches went something like this.

Just wait until you get one of the stupid dumb ass questions that you aren't anticipating. This happened to me more than once, but now it's not about the hair, it's about the scars and flat chest.  But this is how I deal with it now, but it took me a few times to figure it out.  I might be slow, but I didn't fall off the pumpkin truck last year.  True fact.  

Me:  *standing there minding your own business*

Dumb Ass:  *figures out you've had cancer*  Oh, so you've had cancer!  Your hair is growing back!

Me:  Yes, thank you.

Dumb Ass:  So, your hair fell out?

Me:  Yes.

Dumb Ass:  So ALL of your hair fell out?

Me:  Yes.

Dumb Ass:  So aaaAAALLLlll of your hair fell out?  *at this point I'm given what they think is a "KNOWING" look*  ALL Of It?!

Me:  *not figuring out what they meant until this conversation happened several times, but because I'm so fucking awesome, I now know how to deal with it and am sharing with others, so they can deal with it in an awesomely bitchtastic way*  Oh, if you mean ALL of my hair, as in even the hair on my girly bits, why yes, yes it did ALL fall out.  Any more questions?

Dumb Ass:  *looks appalled that I called them on it*  Oh.

Me:  Any further questions?

Dumb Ass:  No.

Please, for fuck's sake, do not ever ask someone that.  I cannot imagine what the fucking thoughts in someone's head actually prompts them to spout this shit out like it's perfectly acceptable content for acceptable social behavior when conversing with a complete stranger like discussing the weather.

What the ever loving fuck all?

Just please don't do it.

Thank you for your time and attention regarding this manner.  That is your friendly PSA about what not to say to a current or former oncology patient.

You are now returned to your regularly scheduled blog reading, food porn or whatever you're into these days.

Post #50.

Coming to you live, from blogger.com, it's my 50th post with milestones, including an international readership consisting of people in ten different countries, pinterest followers, and being NED.

No more fakebook connected to my blog.  That was pointless, since the majority of my readership comes from pinterest, go figure.

Fifty percent of my readers are reading through various WinDoze devices, all others are utilizing all other operating systems.  Browser info is none of my damn business; use what you want as you want to peruse, read, and surf the internet.

569 Followers on Pinterest.  A Valid Option has 316 and has international followers, from businesses for medicinal use cannabis, medical doctors, people who want to know more, learn more medical information about international studies done on it for various health problems, researchers and collectors of anecdotal information for themselves, family members, or to share with their health care providers, and others like me who believe it should be presented as a legal and valid option for health care.

Never did I ever think when I started collating medical information that I'd wind up with an international following of that particular board that would perhaps help others seeking such information.  I just know what was done to me in the name of "medicine" that was nothing more than legalized torture and abuse, and it was wrong on so many levels, it's not even funny.  I didn't have all options presented to me to be able to choose my own medical care in an informed manner, it was chosen for me, and I do believe cannabis oil should have been presented as a valid and legal option, right along with whatever else is legal, such as big pharma poisons.  If you don't fucking believe this happens with oncology patients having information withheld from them, and the decisions regarding their health care taken from them because that information isn't presented to them, you should probably click the back button because I'm sure some of my content here will offend you, especially when I say it does happen, it's happened to other people who have told me about it, so I know it wasn't just me that had such a thing occur.  JS 

I am currently NED. Diagnosed in 7/2011. I was given one (over) dose of TCH, then four weekly doses of herceptin, three months of weekly doses of taxol and herceptin, bilateral mastectomy done 1/2012, then six months of once every three weeks of CMF and herceptin. 

I was diagnosed at age 44 as grade three, stage three, invasive in ductal HER2+ breast cancer, either 12 or 16 nodes were removed, 4 of which were supposedly positive. I had absolutely no risk factors, other than for having breasts. Non-smoker, non-drinker, no family history of breast cancer, BRCA was negative, no artificial crap hormones like birth control pills for decades, no artificial hormone replacement therapy crap, I breastfed my three baby monkeys (sons) at least a year, wasn't really overweight aside from needing to lose ten or twelve pounds, and was very active.

No radiation, no reconstruction, am concave on my upper chest. Current oncologist says he would consider me "cured" if I can get to five years out from my surgery date. I've made it three years, I have one year and eleven months left.

That is a milestone because now I have less than two years to count down to the five years out from surgery.

And, if you hadn't noticed, I've used my original horsedoovers name, because I am the original and authentic HorseDoovers.  Any other one isn't me.  JS

Barn time; chicken chasing.

No, not me chicken chasing, more like the chicken was chasing me and I don't even like eggs.  I don't eat them.  I don't even really eat chicken.

Tuesday, I was chased into Big T's stall by the chicken.  Trying to explain to him why I was putting the stall door between him and me and the chicken was definitely interesting, especially when the chicken just stood there for a really long time glaring at me.

Now you need to keep in mind, it's never the red chicken, it's always the skinny white one.  It's got really long claw talon-y thingies that I know it wants to use to claw me with.  But the red chicken never even looks at me.  It never glares at me.  It never chases me.  So while I'm not overly fond of chickens in general, at least the red one and I have a mutual avoidance thing going on.  The white chicken, well, that one is my nemesis over there.

Is there a such thing as chicken rabies?  I swear, that white chicken may have some kind of chicken rabies that makes it want to stalk me.  Maybe I should give the chickens names.  Thelma and Louise?  Wilma and Betty?  Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn?

Thursday, it happened again.  The chicken--the white chicken--yes, it chased me again.  This time, it chased me into D's stall.  Then the white chicken and the red chicken flew up several feet off the ground to the window and they both went outside and stayed out.  So yes, Streak is correct about chickens being able to fly short distances and birds are kind of scary, especially these two.

I was decisive about some things during barn time.  I decided who the equids would sound like if they had human voices.

Here goes in no certain order.

Big C:  Matthew McConaughey 
Little C:  Bobcat Goldthwait
Big T:  Owen Wilson
F:  Carolyn Hennesey
A:  Sandra Bullock
W:  Jimmy Stewart
J:  Sam Elliott
D:  Robert DeNiro

Am I creative or what?  If Streak's dog had a voice, he'd sound like Eeyore.  Have I mentioned that?  

If my cats had voices, they would sound like Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady, before her voice coaching--that would be The Fat One.  The Smooky One would sound like Prince if he had a voice.  (I think Tigger, my previous cat, would have sounded like Mr. Rogers or Bob Ross, the painter guy.)

The Cancer Bitches group has attracted the notice of quite a few ladies and there are more and more joining, so obviously, there was and is a need for a group like this.  We aren't afraid to discuss things on there and no topic is disallowed, be it surgery, chemo, or radiation related.

Did I mention the fridge for the new house is kosher?  Evidently, it has a Sabbath Mode Setting.  Since I didn't know what that was, I had to look it up.  There was much work accomplished on the interior of the new house this week, which is awesome.  

Pinterest stats will be updated soon.  There seems to be more interest in my activity on there than anywhere else, which I cannot explain.

We'll see what sort of trouble I can get into during the course of the weekend here, especially since grocery shopping needs to be done.

Milestones. Even I have them.

I'm now up to well over 500 followers on Pinterest, and over 300 on A Valid Option, which is awesome.  

My Cancer Bitches group is at just under 20 people, which is awesome.

I have recipes that will be included in the One Mother to Another Recipes anthology to be released on the 25th of this month.

I'm up to 30 Likes on my fakebook site.

So I guess it looks like I've been published or featured in multiple places.  It's just not the kind of publishing I was aiming for.  Once upon a time, that would have been fiction because that's what I did--I wrote fiction.  Now, I guess that's not anything I'll work on attempting again, so fiction I've written will just collect dust on my hard drive and I guess that's okay.   There's other things I can do to entertain myself.

Safe cleaning products without spending a fortune.

This morning's post will be about cleaning products and such and how to make your own.  I became a convert to the ways of the crumbly after being poisoned for a year with chemo.  If I don't know wtf something is, I'm not sure I want it around my family or myself.  People who go at the crumbly thing hard core are crunchy.

This is one store purchased product I get and use.  I want to say I paid 6.99 USD for the 32 ounce bottle two years ago at a now closed grocery store and STILL have plenty left and I am a clean freak.  Mrs. Meyers Lavender All Purpose Cleaner is eco-friendly, can be used on all kinds of surfaces, indoors and out, and I will give Streak the credit for pointing me in the direction of it.  The list of ingredients on the website explains what's what and why it's used.

I have a spray bottle that I purchased from the dollar store and the spray part is purple.  That means I use it with my diluted lavender cleaning solution, and because it's purple, when I'm grabbing a bottle, I know that's what I'm grabbing to use.   (Spray bottle, 1.00 USD.)

One cap of the concentrate in the spray bottle is about all that's needed and then fill the bottle up with water from the tap.  Instant multi-purpose cleaner for a variety of surfaces, and the smell is clean and not overpowering.  (There are also other scents if lavender isn't your thing.  I'm thinking next time, I'll try the Lemon Verbena.)

Another cleaner I use and do purchase by the gallon--yes, GALLON--is white vinegar.  I use it as fabric softener in my laundry.  (The vinegar smell dissipates.) I also use it on mirrors and other assorted places.  Sometimes I feel like using my lavender cleaner, sometimes I feel like using my vinegar as a cleaner.  Vinegar is a fabulous deodorizer and cuts grease really well, which is another reason why it works great in the laundry, especially with having monkeys who come home with various stinky dirt activities.  (If you don't like the smell and you want to use it as a cleaner, try tossing a drop or two of essential oil in it.  For cleaning off counters after raw meat has been on them, pure white vinegar or lemon juice kills bacteria.  Yes, I still go over that with hot water and soap, but damn, isn't vinegar and/or lemon juice way safer to use than some of those fancy name brand kitchen wipes that even have on the label "Wipe surface with water after use."  How many people don't pay attention to that shit? )  (Price for a gallon?  Less than 3.00 USD.)

One soap I made was by using Kirk's Castile Soap and this is something that can be found at the grocery store.  I got a bar and shredded it and added an appropriate amount of water, then slowly cooked it down into a larger amount of soap.  It does act a little funny with hard water but works well as another multi-purpose cleaning item in the home, laundry, dishes, etc.  (A bar is generally around 1.50 USD, contingent upon what store you're purchasing it at.  I've seen it for as little as 1.19 USD or as much as 2.25 USD.  Price check if you can, or check their website.  A travel sized bar is .99 cents.)

Dr. Bronner's is yet another one.  A small bottle can be 3.99 USD at the store and totally worth it.  It's so multi-purpose, I'm not even sure there's an entirely completed list of all the uses.

(Quick mention of essential oils, I want to tell you that essential oils and fragrance oils are NOT the same thing.  Essential oils are made from natural sources.  Fragrance oils are faux (fake) and man-made.  For someone who is a chemical-phobe, this is an important thing to know.  I also try to be responsible and make certain that essential oils I use are sustainable, fair trade, reasonably grown, etc.)

If I keep going with this, it will be an extremely long post, so I'm going to suggest that you hit Pinterest up for some of your own recipes and such, there are some very useful laundry detergent recipes there, and some I wouldn't use.  That's up to you.  I have discovered Foca laundry detergent out of making my own and have just about decided the Foca is more economical for me.  (Less than 9.00 USD and it does 120 loads when I use 1/2 cup per load in a top loader, lasts me nearly three months, the one I get is eleven pounds in weight.  It's also phosphate free.  It comes in a bag, so I transfer it into an old, washed out to be clean, plastic tub that once had cat litter in it.)  

I don't have a rosemary plant yet, so I haven't made lemon-rosemary cleaner, so I haven't mentioned a recipe for that here.  

You get the idea.  It is entirely possible to find and use great cleaning products that are multi-purpose that aren't harmful to your health without spending a ton of money.

So I'm old and intolerant.

Thanks to Streak, I've developed an appreciation for taking 3mg of melatonin at night.  It helps with the sleep thing so much, except when I can feel the coiled wire in my neck from where the aneurysm was repaired back in October.  Yes, I can feel it.  I don't know if that's normal or not, I just know I can feel it when I lay down at night and I'm still.  It feels strange and once I even felt it shift or move in my neck, but that was within the first few days it was in there.  Of course my brain had to go into spaz mode about it.  Fun thoughts like what if it twists and the end starts poking out of my neck.  Would I bleed to death before I woke up?  Would my husband wake up before I was done bleeding to death out of a hole poked in my neck by the wire put in it to fix the aneurysm?  Why does my brain even think about these things?  Is it because I stared Death in the face for an entire year and I'm still alive, somehow?

(Streak, if you're out there, you need a blog so I can link to it on the side.  You could call it Streak's Corner and it would be awesome sauce!)

Speaking of, if there ever was a song that was fitting as part of a soundtrack to my life, that would be I'm Still Alive by Meatloaf, especially after being poisoned by chemo for an entire year.  That is my anthem.  Yes, I'll be pretentious enough to say that.

Yes, I say poison because that's what chemo is.  It's poison.  Don't believe me?  Look it up.  No, I won't change my mind about that because facts are facts.  It is poison and I will be outspoken about it.

I suppose with any new readers coming in, they will notice they can leave comments, but said comments will be moderated.  Any comments I decide are on the ridiculous side will be quoted from, picked apart, and treated as entertainment, especially comments like "You're mean!" and "You're evil!"  I will be very amused and generally not give a fuck that someone wasted enough time to tell me I'm mean and evil, just so you know, because haters gonna hate and Idgaf if they do.  Or I could just already say I'm a SOB; sassy old bitch.

Moving on to other things besides being mean and evil, I changed the wash for the hair to liquid drained off garbanzo beans with a diluted white vinegar rinse.  We'll see if my hair likes that wash, so far it made it super soft to where I couldn't do much of anything with it. Loading it down with silicone and paraben laden products seemed to make it unmotivated to grow more and faster, so alternative hair care methods have definitely done it a favor. After all, I may be steroid fat and shaped like a pear because I have no breasts, but by damn, I will have decent hair.

And I will have clean laundry, be it from my own laundry soap I make or the rocking awesome Foca laundry soap.

The coffee grinder we have had for a million years, okay, well, maybe not a million, it's just been the one and only coffee grinder we've had finally bit the dust and I had to go get a new one.  That was an interesting experience, let me tell you.  How complicated can coffee grinding be?  I mean there was like eleventy one of them to choose from and they all did multiple of fifty thousand things.  Wtf?

Upcoming celebratory number on Pinterest.  When that happens, I'll announce it on here just because I know you people have inquiring minds and want to know about this sort of thing.

Moving on, I got barn time in.  A couple of the horses looked like they'd thrown mud pies at each other's manes.  I guess I'll be picking dried mud out of their manes for the next three months, but that's okay.  I don't mind because horses are amazing creatures.  I love horses the way a horse-a-holic loves that horse fix because horses, fuck yeah!  

Some people I wind up encountering and/or dealing with on an occasional basis, I just have to fucking wonder about and wonder where Darwin is with his Award for them.
And some people are just fucking interesting as hell.  I accidentally found a blog post by Melissa Gilbert, yes, THAT one.  She called it A Tale of Two Titties and I think it's fucking awesome she shared.  Some of you may read it and say it's TMI and Idgaf if you do.  This stuff needs to be spoken about.  (For those of you interested, check out this awesome photography project, What is a Perfect Woman? and The SCAR Project because I'm a bad ass who figured out how to embed links.)

As I began reading, and continued to read, what I discovered was that I was agreeing with much of what she said, especially about body and self-image stuff.  I was pleasantly surprised she'd breastfed her babies, and amazed to see she has many of the same issues that any other of us females have to contend with.  The relevance to my blog in conjunction with her blog post is that she's having her implants removed.  Breast related, correlationally (I just made a new word, woot!) speaking, it's chest related surgery.

Melissa, if you're out there and tracking your stats on your blog and you see traffic from my blog to yours, you are probably wondering "What the fucking fuck?" to utilize your fun phrase.  Best of luck to you if you ever see this and I hope you recover well and quickly.  (I wore Holly Hobby dresses when I was a kid because they were vintage looking before the vintage look was cool.)

It's time to tackle the four loads of clean laundry piled on the couch because I am an Angrivated Laundry Faerie Housewife Minion.  (See what I did there?  That was clever of me.)

To quote Johan;  Toot, toot.

(No, you're not going to get that unless you're a big fan of coffee.)

Pinterest milstone? Yes, indeed!

I now have hit over 500 followers on Pinterest.  Earlier, I checked and was at 499.  

I just checked again to see if anything exciting was going on and noticed I was at 501 followers.  266 of those are on A Valid Option, thus proving that people are seeking more information of all kinds about cannabis as a valid medical option for a variety of illnesses and diseases.

So, those of you out there who want to tell me I have a bad attitude, I don't have a bad attitude.  I have bitchitude, a bitchy attitude, and I'm putting it to good use.

I'm putting it to good use by speaking up about the vile pink washing of October.  I'm putting it to good use by reminding people that men can be diagnosed with breast cancer, also.  I'm putting it to good use by speaking up about mets and trying to tell people that what they are told about "breast cancer" generically by media is lies because it's not "curable" in the sense that media is lying about it.  They don't talk about those 30% of women who will wind up with mets.  They don't talk about how once diagnosed, the risk of that never truly goes away, be it within months or decades later, regardless of the kind of breast cancer someone was diagnosed with.  They don't talk about the lies about early detection saving lives; it doesn't.  Someone diagnosed at grade 0, stage 0 can still wind up with mets.

I'm putting it to good use by refusing to sugar coat or glitterize anything cancer related.

*I* do talk about those things because someone needs to.  If someone doesn't like it, then fine.  Go somewhere else.  The only fluffy thing around there that will be discussed will be my cats and the sheep who is my new BFF.  Just saying.

Today is--

Today is...making laundry soap and fabric softener day.

Today is...trying to figure out why the ever loving fuck all I have 86 followers on my personal ink folder on pinterest when I created that particular folder less than a week ago.

Today is...trying to get the laundry all caught up for the rest of the week.

Today is...trying to get an answer from someone about rescheduled football games and if I'm going to be working selling tickets for them.

Today is...working on food prep for the rest of the week, unless B decides to do that.

Today is...telling you people I have done the math. 25 years of marriage in December equals 15,600 loads of laundry.

Versatile vinegar and why it's so amazing.

Have you ever wondered why vinegar is so amazingly useful?  Because you can use it for a gajillion things, that's why, or at least I do.

First of all, there are many different kinds of vinegar.  Since I use mostly DWV, distilled white vinegar, and ACV, apple cider vinegar those are what I'll be referring to the most here.  I also have some BV, balsamic vinegar, but I don't use it like I use the DWV.

I use DVW with soap to wipe down counters after I've prepped meat and to clean the stove.

I also use it on tile floors and also to decontaminate bathrooms.

I use it for decontaminating toothbrushes if I can't get right out to get fresh ones if someone has been sick here at home and I need to be home taking care of the sickie and not out purchasing a new toothbrush right at that time.  Why take the chance on someone with re-contamination when it's as simple as soaking a toothbrush in a cup of DWV to make it clean again?  Most mouthwashes contain some very yucky chemicals, which are things we try to avoid in our house.  Don't believe me?  Go read some labels and get back to me on that sometime.

I've used it to clean windows.  I've used it to clean wood.  Weed killer.  Bug killer.

Sometimes recipes call for it in cooking and yet another use is in cough medicine.  Yes, I make my own.

It's great to use diluted in water as a hair rinse.  (I don't find there's a lingering odor with using it as a hair rinse.)

My favorite use?  Laundry.  Yes, laundry.  I use it in place of fabric softener.  It works fabulously well and there's no lingering odor.  (15 loads of laundry a week for 25 years equals 15,600 loads of laundry.  Unfortunately for much of that, I used icky commercial products and didn't know I had alternatives out there to use.)

Speaking of laundry, I got some stuff from the store instead of making my own.  It's called Foca, purchased for 8.59 at The Red Dot Logo Store.  It's got a cute critter on the front and it's excellent stuff.  I rounded the price up to 9.00 and used half a cup for each load and got 100 loads out of the big bag of it.  People, that is .09 cents per load of laundry.  It worked as well as the laundry detergent I make, and yes, I would purchase and use it again.

Anyway, vinegar is versatile.  Don't believe me?  Look on Pinterest.