Go Predators!

Great time in Nashville Saturday night watching the Predators play the Flyers!

Wikipedia

Wikipedia could be the single greatest invention ever. Besides the light bulb....or penicillin....or air conditioning....or airplanes...or cars....or the alphabet....or duct tape......well, at least you can read about all the greatest inventions at Wikipedia.

Top of Wakusei

Ran across this pic and remembering the day Chris and I drove to the top of Wakusei mountain up in Tellico. I can't believe the Chevy Cavalier made it up that road! Nor could I believe what was waiting for us on top of the mountain!!

We chug along in my little car to the top of Wakusei. There is a metal line barrier blocking people from driving onto the lookout. There are clothes on it. I think, "Oh, how cute, someone put clothes on the line to make sure people see it and don't hit the line with their cars." 


We got closer and I thought, there are belts on that line too. Whoa, that's weird.... 


We got out of the car to go to the lookout. Chris went ahead and when he got up there turned around with his hand out and a funny look on his face and he said very quietly "wait a minute Marna". 


I started taking photos of the flowers around but was thinking why is he standing there looking funny, strange. Can't be a bear-he would be getting back to the car. Finally he said "come on". 


I went up slowly and there were three or four tiny tents and five or six men lounging around on sleeping bags scattered over the lookout. UNCOMFORTABLE!!! They were obviously not from East TN and didn't talk to us, just stared. We looked off the side of the mountain and then got outta there. The one guy did tell Chris they hiked 10 miles the day before and 6 that day. They had a weather radio and everything for living in the mountains. Chris told me later that when he told me to wait before coming up the one guy was changing clothes! I'm glad he saw that and had me wait!!! It was a weird situation on top of a mountain where people rarely are. AND no cell phones work if you need help!

Original Propel

35 boxes. 10 per box. 350 packs. I'm counting down the days until I have consumed the last of the original Propel water mixers in the world. :(

Summer Nights....

Summer nights having dinner at a restaurant overlooking the lake as a band plays?  Sounds like a positive experience doesn’t it?  Living in East Tennessee it's a night easily lived.  Just add some lightning bugs, the chirp of frogs and crickets, and summer heat lightning in the distance for the kinda night I love. 

The past couple of summers have put the comfort of those evenings on hold just a tad for me.  The summer of 2010 I was undergoing chemo and wasn’t able to enjoy the outdoors.   The summer of 2011 was spent recovering from the treatments physically and mentally. 

I tried to stay as active as possible, or force myself to, the past couple of years.  But it was hard, hard to be comfortable in public with so much different about myself physically. 

One night Chris wanted to go eat at a local restaurant that had a band in the evenings.  The restaurant was on the lake and we had been once on a Sunday afternoon for lunch.  I really didn’t want to go but thought at the hour we went the crowd would be dwindling down.  It wasn’t.  And the restaurant was closed except for appetizers.  But the band was playing and we were there.  I sullenly walked with Chris through the people, young people, on the dock area to the inside food area which, luckily, was empty.

Chris could tell I wasn’t happy.  I was crabby.  He asked if everything was okay to which I snappily replied “no”.  I was miserable and told him so.  “Imagine what you would feel like walking into a crowd of young women with beautiful hair, clear and tan skin and perfect breasts.  Add to that I’m 20 pounds heavier than I was a year ago and nothing fits right.”  Chris looked like a kicked puppy dog.  He knew how much I loved warm summer nights at the lake and had tried to give me back a taste of it.  I was being pretty irrational about the whole situation and was sinking fast into self-pity.

Within seconds of saying that I got a text message.  A girl I’m mostly text and Face Book buddies with asked “Where are You?”, to which I honestly replied and now ashamed of, “Hell”.   I frantically started texting her about my, at the moment life ending experience, and just where it was happening.  She didn’t text back.  As I pouted around the inside of that restaurant with Chris, luckily again with no one in there, I looked over to the side door.  In popped my texting friend.  With a huge smile on her face waving her phone around. 

My mood immediately lifted!  She came over and gave me a big hug while telling me she had saw us come in.  We laughed and joked and talked this lady and I.  Someone I’d never really spoken to in person—other than a few words in passing.  But someone who took the time to come in and sit with me for the rest of the night, away from the friends she had came with, to lend a smile and some jokes to lift the spirits of someone who was dreading trying to slink out past the beautiful-young-perfect women at the end of the night.  Chris thanked her for saving him from a wrathful night and I am forever grateful to a moment from a texting buddy that forever will be in my mind.  An effort from someone who barely knew me and could never understand the magnitude of what she did that evening. 

You never know what someone is going through at any given moment.  Nor do you know what an innocent, moments in your eye, act of kindness means to them.

Maynard Family Christmas 2011

More Great Christmas memories!

Hull Family Christmas

Great Christmas memories from 2011!

African Cats

No one wants to watch "The African Lion" with me. I asked Chris to and he said "no way". I asked him who would and he said "no one". :) Which I did myself in on Big Cat week on NATGeo last week. There was one scene that will take some time to recover from. Chris told me to turn it at the end of an episode last week. He said it was going to get sad and he didn't want to watch that. I said no it's not. He said told you so.

A Year in the Life of Hair

My niece Amber shaving my hair.

Hair.  It's a funny thing.  My whole life I've complained about my hair.  Too oily, widow's peak, cowlick at my widow's peak that gets out of control.  In the 80's I couldn't keep it frizzy enough.  In the past 10 years I couldn't keep it straight enough.  Then, well, no hair.  And still I complained.  Mangy dog?  Why couldn't my hair just fall out.  All of it?  No, lol, my hair fell out in patches and I had to keep it shaved throughout chemo. (Which is the norm more than not.)

Chris shaved my long hair 19 days to the first treatment, in our back yard with our horse clippers.  My sister Lynette helped me shave one time and Amber another. The photos show my niece Amber shaving my hair, the last time I needed to before letting it grow at an even pace.  Now?  Well now I still complain about my hair.  Now?  The curls.  I cannot contain or control the curls.  Hair or no hair.  Maybe it's just in my nature to hate it.  

My niece Amber doing me a huge favor.

I've been so lucky in the blessings of my friends and family during my hair loss.  Being bald is a emotionally hard trial.  Everywhere you go there are stares.  Wig or scarf.  At home there is also the fear of being stared at with visitors.  Being afraid of going without covering even though you are in your own home.  


Those around me made being bald easy.  I never thought about it when I was around them.  I felt like I'd always been bald.  When the subject came up it was in fun.  Not in fun that people made light of it or tried to distract me.  Just fun as in it's no big deal fun.  I usually asked those around me if it bothered them for me to take off my scarf while they were visiting or we were driving somewhere.  I knew they would say no they didn't mind.  I just hated the thought of making those around me uncomfortable.  They never were.  And I never was.  It's almost surreal to look back upon those times.  How lucky I was.

GREAT friends Kelley and 
Brittany whether it's sitting on 
the couch watching UFC

or playing with my wigs.

Chris and Rusty having 
a  good time with my wigs.

My niece Amber

My niece Jessie brought me food to chemo.  

Ohhhh the hunger was excruciating!!!

My nephew Tanner

My nephew Jamey

Thanksgiving 2010

   Kelley always willing to share
 lends me a hand with my hair.

My sister Lynette

Cathy, me & Brittany
New Year's Eve 2010

Kelley, Elisha, Me & Brittany
GREAT Friends!

My nieces

                                                                                                                    

The amazing thing in the year of the life of hair was the growth. To the right is the 2010 Christmas photo showing my hair which had just started to grow since Thanksgiving 2010.  

To the left is this year's, 2011, Christmas photo.  I'm very lucky that my hair has always been fast growing.  Thank you God for my hair.  And not letting me down in bringing it back even though I'm still never happy with it.

( I wonder if my niece Jessie will notice that I had "borrowed" her furry vest in the 2010 photo.  She is wearing the vest in the 2011. Ha!)