What have I been into?

Two exceptionally good hair days and a fabulous day with makeup in the past week, which is very rare for me.  (Thank you, Physician's Formula in buff beige.  This has fixed the steroid blush which has been fucking lingering for three years after chemo so bad that I haven't been able to correct it at all up to this point, so yay for that.) 

Lots of football time.  Lots and lots of it.  

Would like more horse time, but it's been so damn hot, it's unreal.  We had a cloud cover and some rain today, though, so that's okay.  We needed some rain.

Way overdid on the cleaning binge yesterday.  I rearranged the laundry room except the washer and dryer, tidied up the coat closet, (which is small, so I turned that into a linen closet with a cloth shoe closet organizer), managed to wrangle the laundry, clean the bathrooms, and do some other assorted stuff around here. 

There's an outstanding post over here at Cancer Curmudgeon's blog.  She's always incredibly articulate and solidly nails exceptional commentary about the stuff those of us who have been diagnosed have to contend with.  Her fearless sharing makes me feel incredibly pleased to say how awesome she is. 

Today was...interesting.  I wind up doing stuff where I'm around other people.  Consistently, I find that kids of any age have far less of an issue with how I look than adults.  Actually, I'd have to say across the board, kids have zero issue with it.  Adults, well yeah, let's just say that they seem to have problems with it and those who do fail epically at hiding it.  Their fucking problem, though, not mine.  (Although this is why horses are so awesome.  They don't care what I do or don't look like.)

Jeggings people, they're a bad idea.  This so needs to end already.  I don't care what size someone is or isn't, these jegging things should be put on a rocket and launched out past Pluto and forgotten about.

I'm going to take my bitchtastic self in there and make toothpaste now because my toothpaste is so wonderful.

Football and other assorted oddities.

Excellent football movies to watch now that high school and college seasons are over, except for the college bowl games:  When the Game Stands Tall.  Out-fucking-standing movie.  The Blind Side.  The Waterboy.

Speaking of movies, watch Dallas Buyer's Club and insert the word cancer for the word AIDS.  Maybe then you'll better understand my Pinterest board, A Valid Option.

Moving on to the other assorted oddities part of this post, I give you...well, I'm not sure what to call it.

B and I were out and about last week and looking at furniture since we need a new sofa, couch, chesterfield, or davenport, whatever the fuck you want to call it.

We're at a particular furniture store where we'd been looking and discussing and discussing and looking.  Some other customers came in.  The sales lady excused herself to go speak with them and then eventually came back and mentioned to me that this particular couple was really funny and the wife owns a bra store and if I needed any bras, she suggested going to that woman's particular store.

I started laughing and I damn near broke a rib because I was laughing so hard.  I laughed myself silly and when I could finally breathe, I pulled my shirt front out and said "I had a bilateral mastectomy and have nothing but skin over ribs on the entire upper third of my chest, so bras are a non-essential for me, but thanks for the suggestion."

The look on her face was a combination of appalled, horrified, and unsure if she should laugh or not because I was laughing.  She said she hadn't noticed and never would have if I hadn't mentioned it to her.

We discussed breast cancer for a few minutes and then moved on to other topics.

True story, that.

Here's another one.

I used to have the most wonderful cat.  His name was Tigger.  No, I didn't name him that, he was already named that when we got him as a free to a good home ad in the newspaper.  He would like just a tiny drop of milk each morning, loved his Tigger Treats, and he never was much interested in catnip or canned cat food, but he did love drinking tree water each year in December.  He crossed the Rainbow Bridge a year ago in October.  I have his ashes on the speaker by the bedroom door.  In the new house, he will go on top of the mantle, right in the  center.  I still miss him.  He made the move with us from Mississippi to Florida to Alabama to Oklahoma.  He would ride on the console after making sure his humans were in the vehicle.

We acquired another cat from a shelter.  This cat didn't particularly know or care that he was a cat and exhibited minimal behavior of a cat.  Didn't know how to purr, didn't really groom himself, didn't know what treats were, didn't know what the hell milk was, didn't give a rat's ass about canned food and had no interest in treats.  He was litter trained, would eat and drink, and wanted to constantly pounce on anything that moved.  It turned out he was more like a teenager kitty and not an adult kitty.  Since we had drive three and a half hours one way to acquire him in another state, we figured we'd keep him and maybe get him another cat to play with.

Second cat we acquired was from a more local shelter and as an adult.  She has taught the boy cat how to groom himself, although she grooms him more than he grooms himself, and she loves treats.  He will eat one just because he sees her eating one, though.  She loves canned food and if a can is opened, no matter where she is in the house or what she's doing, she comes running to the kitchen and of course, he's learned that behavior, so they turn into floor buzzards when the can opener gets used.

Boy cat does purr on occasion now and does tolerate being held now, which is good.  He wants to be held on his back like a baby, though.  We have no idea what that's about.  He does love to chase girl cat and they are both drinking tree water for fun.

Girl cat is lactose intolerant.  I gave her a drop of milk.  She barfed.  A few days later, I tried again.  She barfed again.  I waited a month.  Tried once more with just a drop of milk, mind you.  Boy cat still doesn't gaf and girl cat barfed, so I have a lactose intolerant cat.  It's like dealing with an addict every time I fix coffee.  She begs for milk because I put milk in my coffee.  Actually, she damn near throws a fit for the milk, but I don't give it to her because she'll barf.

She also loves feet, my boots, and drools while purring.  I guess she never learned how to purr without drooling.  Boy cat doesn't seem to drool, though.

Cats are entertaining, that's for damn sure.

Solidea Medical is having a contest, located here, if anyone is paying attention to anything I post.  They haven't updated their winner list for the past few days, but they probably will tomorrow.  I won, so it's definitely a legit contest; if you're in the market for a out-fucking-standing compression garment and possibly even winning one, you might want to pop over to Solidea Medical and see what they are doing with their contest.

For love of the game.

Yes, that does exist and it's an amazing thing to see.

Football Monkey's high school football team won a state championship earlier this month.  
What's so awesome is that when I pick him up from football practice now, which is actually weight lifting and conditioning stuff, there are guys who are out on the football field playing touch football for nothing more than the love of the game.

They don't have to be out there.  No coaching is going on.  They just love football that much that they want to be out on that field, even if it's in an unstructured, free manner with no thought or planning of who has to be where and when to achieve a goal.  It's just purely fun and free playing because they love it so much.

The beautiful gold ball trophy is gleaming proudly, the celebratory accomplishment still new in the recent ultimate win, hard won and the will to win carried in the hearts and minds of the young men with blood, sweat, and tears.  The shine of that trophy is like a brilliant sunset for any and all to peruse and see the beauty of winning with the upcoming season of 2015 a distant goal of the future; the success still to be determined like the daybreak of tomorrow not quite ready to arrive, but yet it may again be won by these young men with more blood, sweat, and tears.  They love the game, though.

I think a lesson can be learned from this.

How many of us as adults have something structured in our lives, be it a schedule, work, or whatever, and yet find it possible to joyfully jump into that same activity for nothing more than a sheer, absolute and pure love of it?

Where is your passion?  Can you find it again and keep hold of it?

If a bunch of high school boys can unknowingly show me by doing nothing more than being out on that field pursuing their passion of the game of football, then perhaps there is hope for even me to find and pursue something.  I suppose it's possible, even if it's nothing more than doing stuff around the house.

Perhaps it's not even about being great at something as much as it is having a passion to pounce on something, seize it, and accomplish it to the best of what ability there is to at least try.

I'll pounce on and seize the five loads of clean laundry piled on the couch and deposit it in bedrooms.  So, like the young men out on the football field for love of the game, I will be tackling the laundry for the sake of tackling it; I may not be great at it or win a trophy, but I can accomplish it, although it will be tomorrow.

Been busy; busy can be a good thing.

This month, I've been busy.  

Busy with football stuff because Football Monkey is just that busy with football. 

Busy with volunteering at both the school and at a nearby horse farm cleaning stalls and tidying up in the barn.  

Busy learning that it's evidently not too difficult to befriend a sheep and have her follow me around with her nose in my spine at the nearby horse farm when I'm there like she's my new instant BFF.  (Sheep can recognize faces, or so I've read.)  Sheep are really larger than I realized.  Their backs come up almost to my waist.  The one sheep loves it when I talk to her.  The other one stares at me, and the goat just looks at me like I'm deranged when I talk to them.

Busy figuring out I'm afraid of the two chickens.  They have claws.  Chicken claws that want to rip and shred.  Beaks that want to peck at me if I get in a six foot proximity of them.  Put me in front of a 1,300 pound horse and tell me to move it and I'm good.  The barn cat doesn't seem interested in me at all.  (Seriously, about those two chickens, they don't seem rabid, but since my exposure to chickens has been very limited, I am afraid of them.)

Since I made mention of the horses, there's a radio at the barn.  If the rest of the humans wander off, I sing to the horses.  And I dance.  They seemed interested because they watched me and their ears were perked up.  I suppose you could say they were a captive audience since they were in their stalls.  

Busy trying to get the house cleaned up for the holidays.  We all know how well that's going.  (Watching Good Eats just makes me want to go start cooking.)

Busy trying to convince The Fat One (Fuzzy Manatee Cat) that she cannot have a drop of milk because she is lactose intolerant and will barf if she ingests even the tiniest drop of said amazing beverage.  She is pouting pitifully on top of her sun worshipping space.

Busy trying to convince The Smooky One (Little Black Cat That's Not So Little Now) that he doesn't need to climb on top of the kitchen cabinets since College Monkey decided to teach him that he could climb up there because he's a cat and cats like tall places.  (Before Army Monkey went into the Army, he taught The Tigger Cat how to drink out of any glass or cup he could stick his face in.)

The awesome husband did the grocery shopping, so we have a smoked turkey breast and a ham.  He also acquired more of the Foca laundry detergent.  That is some good stuff to do laundry with, under ten dollars and I can get 120 loads out of the big bag.  Woot.

Wearing my Solidea sleeves today since my arms were annoying me last night.  Hello nerve damage, fuck you.  (Because no blog post would be complete without me dropping the F bomb at least once.  Because, you know, I'm just so fucking evil.  Just saying.)

About to hit a milestone on Pinterest.  Will announce that when it happens, if anyone is interested.  Even if nobody is interested, I'll still announce it since this is my blog and it's all about me.  (See what I did there?  I'm clever like that.)

And I wrote a couple of new reviews on Urban Spoon and over here, I added a few new blog links to include Angrivated Mom and Laundry Fairy.