SJP and the Pedicure-less Me

I met Sarah Jessica Parker today. And by "met" I mean I wandered into her store and she was there and she welcomed me. And by "wandered" I mean I saw on Instagram that she would be there and walked 20 blocks to check out the situation. Anyway, despite the details, I feel certain we are now best friends. 

Upon meeting her I had decided I was going to prolong the meeting by buying a pair of shoes. Shoes that were going to cost more than my two week stay hotel bill (it's cheap to stay in New York these days), but there was paparazzi outside, I didn't want to let anyone down and I was committed. 

I stalked the store for a pair of affordable (take the word affordable with a grain of salt as it pertains to the story) flats, held them admiringly, thought of my trips to...well I go no where during covid in my small town, but my trips to say Big Lots, where I am possibly already the most fashionably dressed, were looking even better with the addition of the expensive SJP flats bought from her as she was actually waiting on customers. But she was also actually having the customers TRY the shoes on. And this is where things come to a screeching halt.  

I was surrounded by wealthy, possibly famous (no way to say for sure as we are all masked and the paparazzi was shooting everyone going  in and out just in case) New Yorkers who were trying on the shoes. I felt certain these women had access to a little thing called a pedicure. As someone who lives in the central valley of California where the swinging door of "are they open are they closed?" rocks back and forth in a head spinning frenzy, pedicures can be hard to come by. And recently the door swinging has stood in the way of my pedicures. Long gone was the pedicure cherished in a brief opening in early October.

I had only recently scraped off the last remains of the fall like embers hanging on to the middle of my toenails for dear life. The toes were a mess, awful. So while clutching (caressing) the life changing flats while SJP smiled at me, I returned them to their spot and pretended to browse more as if those shoes, were not the shoes for me, but maybe the $2,000 sparkling gold healed boots were, and to be clear they also would have looked stunning at Big Lots. 

But, I couldn't do it. I couldn't try on the shoes with my pedicureless covid toes in front of Sarah Jessica Parker. I just couldn't do it. We had a final laugh together as I left and she knocked over all her display shoes and broke a shoe stand in the front window while the paparazzi clicked away and then I slunk out onto the street where, by now, the paparazzi was onto me and didn't feel, even masked, that I could be somebody worth his time.

I am in New York. Spending time with the college girls. Grateful. Trying to reinvent...well, everything. Yes, trying to just reinvent all of it. Family with adult children, family with college children during a pandemic, family with a married daughter, family with high schooler at home for a year, family with a husband working from home more often than not, family with all the changes. So, yes, just trying to reinvent it all.

Family with a mom who doesn't have a career anymore. The career is just being a mom. It would have been a weird adjustment for me without a pandemic, but the pandemic really highlighted it all. The dream career would be writing, but the pandemic has somewhat clouded that and left me unmotivated.

Anyway, today I am writing. I have been starting and stopping writing things for months. But today I am writing. Today I promised myself I would just write and finish something. And this is it. Written and about to be finished.

I met Sarah Jessica Parker today, we are best friends. I can't wait until she finds out we are!

In the Quiet Time of Covid Chaos

School starts tomorrow. Pushed back a week amidst the Corona virus rumblings between district and teachers. Well, district rumblings, teachers are just trying to survive.  

This  week my facebook memories are flooded with past first day of school pictures. I love first day of school pictures. I always have. The idea of a fresh new year, bright and hopeful ahead of everyone has always made me feel content.

High school Junior will be home for school. Until October the district says. I think that's optimistic. We walked out the door in March, I think we will walk back in the door in March. I am hoping for January, we shall see. 

After I get distance learning up and running here I will head to New York with college Sophomore, where we will quarantine for 14 days before moving her into an apartment. No dorms. The school pulled the plug on them two weeks ago. We pivoted into an apartment. She will join our college Senior (give or take a few units) who just moved herself across town and pivoted to adulthood with no help from us. Well, no physical help, there was some financial help. 

The irony of New York requiring me to quarantine for 14 days, to keep their declining numbers and low positivity rate is not lost on me. I was last there in March and watched them shut the city down. They had little hope. They stayed the course. I remember being grateful to fly out. Six months later I am grateful to fly in. They have plenty of hope now. 

Our oldest finished her summer session for PA school in Florida. All virtually. She has a two week break after non stop studying. I often cannot believe my girls are mine. They have qualities and a strength of character I cannot always find in myself. Watching her tackle school these last three months has been humbling. If you need a doctor in two years, find the one she is a PA for, because she is unreal in her commitment and dedication to this profession.

I have black hair, on any given day my marriage is hanging by a thread, also my marriage is stronger in ways I am beyond grateful for, I miss pedicures, I like ordering my groceries online and just picking them up behind the store, binging all kinds of TV has lost its luster, I haven't made a single decision in 5 months that I haven't second, third and fourth guessed only to have to change it by force anyway...there is a flip flopping between despair and silver linings that happens here at break necking speed. 

I share all this because I know I am not alone. I know that many will read this and nod your heads vigorously and say to yourselves, "yes, yes, me too, me too." 

In this quiet time of Covid Chaos I am trying to sit still and speak to myself. I am trying to  dig deep and find the deeper meaning. I am working hard to let go of things that weren't meant to be and reach for the things that were. It turns out when I sit still, the things I let go of weren't that important and the things I have manged to grab and move to the forefront were really the ones that mattered.

We had some peripheral life and death in our world this week. Several deaths in the lives of friends. One death that had been nearing and one that was sudden. One I had to guide myself through as an adult, and one I had to guide a daughter through. Both seemed surreal and hard and unfair. We also had life. My niece had a baby. There were some complications. All is fine now and mother and daughter are home and well. 

The pictures of mom and baby, with mom masked. The deaths being handled with masks and no opportunity to mourn with others. All happening while my face was breaking out from my minimal mask wearing and I was complaining and thinking,"If only I could have a facial again." Perspective is always handed to me in the most dramatic fashions. I would really like God to know that I am open to a dose of perspective with just a soft whisper, it does not always need to be loud.

My pastor told me today, and by me I mean he said this to everyone in his online sermon, that we can move past the things that bother us, or hurt us, or the things we said that bothered someone or hurt them. I am paraphrasing and he may read this and say, "No, no that wasn't the whole message." But, this is what I heard and this was the message I chose to pivot on and make myself feel better as I head into the fall and school year of 2020.

Tomorrow I will post our first day of school pictures. I hope everyone else does too. It is still a new year, bright and hopeful no matter what perspective had to be handed to you, or what the pivot was to get us here. 

Pivoting like a Mother F@#$*ing Whirling Dervish

My hair is brown. I paid big bucks for blonde hair  before all this went down. I loved it. But the writing is on the wall, my hair stylist isn't coming back to me any time soon, so for the price of $14.99 I now have Corona hair. It is what it is. I don't hate it.

Early on my best friend posted an article about the need to "Pivot" during this time. The need to embrace a new normal and accept what you could. I liked that a lot. I like all the P words...perseverance, perspective, pride, popcorn...you name it I like a P word. So Pivot seemed amazing to add to the list. Only now I am pivoting like a mother fucking whirling dervish right into the ground.

We currently have 8 adults and teens and three dogs living here. We won't get into the fact that I downsized two years ago and sent most of these adults and teens on their way, that was pivoted through a few weeks ago. Six of the eight of us are in some kind of school. I had to make a ZOOM chart for the house and post quiet hours. Trust me when I tell you I was mocking others for this kind of behavior and thought I was past this stage in life and over chart making shenanigans. It turns out I was not.

I'm also long term subbing for first grade. At the beginning of March I walked out the classroom door for a two week spring break like a bad ass who was going to collect easy vacation money for the last quarter of school with all lesson plans done for the year. By March 20th I was trying to get 6 and 7 year olds onto google classroom and do all work digitally from a corner in my bedroom. I'm not sure what people understand a ZOOM lesson with 6 year olds to look like, but whatever you are picturing...add more chaos and disinterest and you still won't be close. Today Steven (the names have been changed to protect the innocent) cried because I didn't "call on him" to share about Mother's Day. Well Steven, you do participate in Zoom in your bed under your covers, but, yes I will try to be better next time with spotting your raised hand under your bedspread.

The politics of it all is ridiculous and could fill a hundred blogs. The common sense that runs deep in my veins screams loud at the hypocrisy of it all. It all being people. But I have learned to pivot past that. Just quietly tending to me and my people. Focused on my own house. It's a lesson many could pivot on.

Some days I find my silver linings and I'm thriving with our big family dinners and watching the kids laugh and spend time together, other days I'm stepping over shoes not put away and wiping down the kitchen counter while muttering bad words under my breath. Some days I thrive on the silver lining of everyone is healthy and employed and functioning, other days I can't get into my first grade Zoom with ease and I am almost crying when I finally start the class. Some days I am in love with wearing joggers and black V neck T-shirts by day and jammies by night (and by "night" I mean 4pm) other days I am buying beauty products from Tori Spelling off of instagram and searching for when my botox lady might be deemed essential. Some days I have real errands to leave the house for like an online  grocery pick up or meat market purchase, other days I leave and the errands are pretend. I have no where to go but McDonald's for a large diet coke and then a quick sit in the homeless park parking lot while I catch up on the podcasts I used to listen to in the car when driving to dance and school for drop off and pick ups. 

Anyway here we are all. My story is your story, we are all pivoting, we are all trying to make it through to the other side...only really no one can see the other side.  Two months ago 38 people were dead from this thing, Today 82,000 and climbing. Projections of 147,00 by August. Irregardless we have opened the country, I mean we really have, we are, without following the guidelines originally laid out for us from CDC and then repeated by our President.. Good, bad or indifferent we are opening. Honestly? I am without an opinion on this. I see all the sides. Again, I can only do my own house, because my own house is a lot all on it's own.

So, pivot how you need to. I know some days it is graceful and other days? Like a mother Fucking whirling dervish into the ground...with your brown Corona hair flying around you.

Cancer Update

I always work on my writing in my head for a long while. I turn it over and over and get a feel for it before I commit myself to the written form. There is always a moment when I know I am ready to take it from my head to the page. I've been wanting to write an update to my cancer and it has been rolling around in my head, but I haven't felt the moment to start writing. So I keep putting it off.  I decided I better start writing because maybe the moment to nudge me wasn't  speaking to me as loudly this time. 

After my mastectomy and recovery in May I had the incredible good news of "no chemo." The relief I felt was so great, I don't think I can do it justice by explaining it. We had a family trip to Europe, planned for a year, that had been on hold in all our minds because  chemo would have prevented me from going. So the news came in early June and we left for our grand adventure in late June. I took off and put cancer "on hold" so to speak.

There is a follow up medication I will take for at least 5 years. The good news was that I am in menopause and was able to take the medicine for women in menopause, otherwise I would have had to have monthly shots to force menopause. The medicine has side effects. It can make me emotional or depressed. So if you are talking to me about, say your new chair for your living room,  and I tear up, ignore me, just the medication. It also makes my bones hurt. For me it is my wrists and ankles. Some days they are fine and some days I feel like my wrists are broken and I am walking like a 90 year old. All of it incredibly small potatoes and I am ridiculously grateful that this is my path.

I will start the journey of getting the expander in my  breast filled and then have reconstruction surgery sometime in the fall. Again, small potatoes compared to what it could have been.

I probably won't update here again.I will return this page to motherhood ramblings and the fuckery that is parenting for all of us!

 One of my best friends  from college had breast cancer this year too. She also shared the infamous "tooth trauma" with me. Once you have breast cancer at middle age, you start to hear about others. We are going to start a facebook community for us and others entitled "tits and teeth." I'll put it out there when we get up and running, hopefully this month and you are welcome to join our community or refer it to women you know who have had cancer. 

We want to have uplifting, but honest conversations about what this feels like. What breast cancer feels like. What it does to your mind and body. The reality is, I do put a nice little bow on mine for my family and everyone else. I tend to make it look effortless, because that is my coping mechanism. And I think a lot of women do that. So the idea would be to have a community where we can be truthful about what it can feel like. 

I love you all and take none of your support for granted. Thank you for everything, everyone did for me. I always pay if forward so know that any gesture or gift you gave me will go out to the next person this touches in my life.

Next blog...vacationing with adult children!

Spilling Into June

Writer's block settled in strong as I navigated the tricky month of May that spills into June, this time with the added layer of breast cancer treatment.

May is a month that is always teaching me life's lessons, even ones I am not particularly interested in learning. Well, especially those I am not interested in learning.

Perspective and perseverance are the words that pulse through my heart and soul and just when I feel I really have them secured in my brain and understand, life hands me something else as if to say, "No, no, no...not yet! Not yet do you understand what is truly  important." So here I am again slipping into June with the many lessons of May mocking and forcing me to learn and appreciate, yet again, what is really important in my life. 

May was the month of Paige, high school graduate and this amazing example of "be patient, all good things come in time." She surprised us in many ways this month. Providing me with the full circle moments I live for as both a mom and a writer. Full circle moments that didn't seem possible three years ago as her freshman year wrapped up. 

All hands were on deck for her graduation. Married older sister and husband flew in, New York girl shockingly home for the summer, and the youngest sister stuck here with us for the next three years to live her new life as "only child." 

We were on time for the ceremony, which really means we were late because on time meant there were no seats. If I had remembered for graduate number three that I needed to bring flowers, we could have had seats, but I did not remember so there was a last minute stop. We stood in the back. But Paige's super power is her ability to be alert and see what the rest of us don't see. And she looked right up and saw us after getting to her seat. 


The details of it all are unimportant, but she gave us a moment at her graduation that I will never forget. A beautiful, perfect surprise moment that let me know I had done my job well in all that she is and will be. There is a subtlety to Paige...in her humor, in her demeanor, in her voice and in her life. A subtlety I can learn from and incorporate into my own life. And will. Life lesson.

The month of Paige was somewhat overshadowed by breast cancer round 2 in our house. A little life curve ball I wasn't interested in, but had to handle, and as it turned out, had to handle in my life lesson learning Month of May.   

May found me having my second mastectomy with recovery spilling into June. The long and short of it is that I had the best possible breast cancer one could have. It was small, my numbers were low, no chemo will be needed, I am in menopause so I get the best possible five year follow up medicine and so on and so on. All the best possible kinds of breast cancer. So I am relieved and blessed and take none of it for granted. 

But I find myself trying to recover in my mind, to move past the emotions of it all. The dark thoughts that creep in and take over when you let your guard down. The idea that once again, for me, life is moving forward, but I am a few steps behind. Graduation happened, but I still need to mail the announcements. A huge family trip is upon us, but I haven't finalized all the details. Dance recital is here, but I feel like it crept up on me.

This year is my 18th dance recital for my girls. Actually just for Showstoppers. If I take a moment to add in the ballet recitals, there would be too many to count. The memories of it all pop every day on Facebook. I am melancholy over it all in a much fiercer way than normal. I will blame cancer and it's new medication for the weepy mess I become when their four baby faces in tutus and buns and high pony tails and y scale poses pop up on my feed. 

Last night I sat and watched the rehearsal happenings, the comings and goings of busy moms (and a few poor dads doing their best). Some were in the middle of the balancing act of handling dance and swim. Stripping off fancy costumes and tutus and slipping the girls into competitive swim suits to rush off to swim meets. I watched this as a Facebook post from years earlier popped up. The post reminded me that for about four years in my life I did back to back weekends of two separate dance recitals, with at least one swim meet thrown into the mix, with four girls. That's a bit of crazy I can't comprehend, and from a time in my life when I was clearly several steps ahead of things. 

June will end and we will all snap into July. July comes and goes quick. It promises to be fun and lazy and to let us relax, but in the end it's a big tease. We will blink and July will be over and the start of school will be here. Sophomore year will commence, college girls will leave, married girl will be knee deep in PA school applications and maybe I will be in step with it all and not lagging behind. But maybe not, maybe I will lag into fall and winter before I can truly catch up. 

I am grateful for my life lessons in May, and those that continue to hit as we have spilled into June. I'm not going to lie, I would very much like to take July and August off from life lessons, but I guess that isn't how perspective and perseverance work. They just keep coming at you. 

On a side note:
*Thank you. Thank you for every blog you read. Thank you for every flower delivery, gift card, mailed card, ice cream cake, surprise Amazon delivery, text, prayer, special thought, offered ride, coffee mug, wine glass and soooo much more. It was appreciated more than I can express in spoken or written words. I appreciate ALL of my people who show up for me.

 I am a somewhat loner gal who puts her parenting out there for the public because I have this strong desire to "tell it like it is." I am thankful for all of you who "get me" and embrace (or at the very least tolerate) me. 

Calm Before The Cancer Storm

I took a weekend off recently. We went away for a late anniversary weekend and then I took a couple of days to myself, a little "calm before the cancer storm" time. The reality in what I have ahead has been catching up to me.

Getting away always has a "careful what you wish for" feel to it. I'm always ready to get away, I need to get away, it's important to get away, but the minute I get away... I feel bad about leaving. I will miss the girls and feel guilty that I have left them (even though there are many teenage assurances that I am not needed in any way.) There is less guilt as the years go by, but there are still small enough doses that hit you at some point in your time away.

Paige had Senior prom while I was gone. I had her all ready to go, left some money, and checked in often. She was fine with my absence. She is responsible, independent and has a nice group of friends who have their feet firmly planted on the ground.  We had done our nails together earlier in the week for prom and life. It was a special afternoon for me. She invited me.  I spent the morning peeling off nail polish that didn't need replacing so that I could have my nails done with her. This was the important time with her. This was the memory she and I will remember and cherish. I know this, but still, you get caught up in the Instagram and Facebookness of it all and lose sight of what's important.  

There was a moment about mid day Saturday when she needed some help. We handled it all on the phone. It was minor, nothing serious, but still, I panicked and flooded myself with guilt. What was wrong with me? Why hadn't I stayed to help her through these 7 minutes in person? Why wasn't I taking pictures by greenery and wine barrels? Why was I such a terrible mother? All this had me crying to my own mother by a fire pit in Tahoe. 

It passed. All was fine, with both her and me. She resumed with prom and I resumed celebrating 25 years of marriage. All the while my husband gambled and really had no idea there was even a prom taking place. The difference between moms and dads.

Last competitive dance weekend for the year has come and gone. I am 17 years and 4 kids into dance and 7 years and 3 kids into the competitive side. I can do a million blogs on what my girls have gleamed from it the experience of it all, but this last weekend I took some time  to think about what it had done for me. I am not a big "engager." Meaning in 17 and 7 years, I had yet to give in to the community of it all for myself. Simply put, I didn't have any dance mom friends. It will take a deeper look and blog to decide what that says about me in a big picture kind of way, but for whatever reason, this year I let lose a little and opened myself up, and I have some people. 

It was good timing on my part, because it turns out I need them. I am grateful they came into my life and that I was mature enough to let a wall down and meet some ladies that are making a difference in my daughter's life and mine. 

People will tell me I am strong or inspirational or give me some positive accolade as I blog through life and now a second round of cancer. And I am a decent person. But the real truth is that if I am even half of what people tell me I am...it is only because I surround myself with really good people. 

I have text "threads," this word makes my girls cringe, or group texts if you will with a few different groupings of people. And every group makes me smile and laugh and think and prioritize what is important and regain perspective and persevere over everything from the fuckery of the mundane (teens) to the fuckery of life (cancer.) 


I have surgery Thursday. The rest of my treatment will follow depending on how the surgery goes. I'm good, with whatever they tell me and with whatever follows. 

Take some time time to laugh a little on Thursday. Take a moment to take a deep breath on Thursday. If you send me texts wait for replies that will make no sense as they will be  loopy and drug induced and without my strong glasses that have recently been lost at dance competitive weekend. A perfect storm of crazy that should have us laughing by the weekend. 

Damn It Rachel Ray

On my way to my follow up mammogram appointment, after a suspicious read the week before, I heard on the news that Rachel Ray was bringing back her show, "30 Minute Meals." Probably most of America was unfazed by this news. To me, on my way to the re-do mammogram appointment, it was like a kick in the gut. Really Rachel Ray? Really? Not nice!

I knew I had breast cancer again before they told me I had breast cancer again. There was a certain deja vu to it all twelve years later. The first time there was this moment in the mammogram room. An instant where it all changed. A sucking of the air that just took everything out of the room. A mood shift, or a shift in conscious, I don't really know. I'm not someone who normally thinks that way, or relies on their senses to figure things out. I am a very black and white, wrong or right concrete thinker. But that day, that day in the mammogram room, I just knew.

It was the same this time as well, a sucking of air out of the room. And there was, of course, the Rachel Ray news. But I put it aside and told myself I was being dramatic. That I would just go to the re-do of the mammogram with an open mind and relax.

I let myself get too relaxed. The re-do turned out to be about 20 re-do's, followed by an ultra sound and then a biopsy and then another mammogram. Four hours of intense breast fuckery, followed by "Go home and wait. We will let you know later this week." Except I already knew. So waiting seemed mean. Waiting meant knowing that I had breast cancer again, but still holding on to the glimmer of hope that they would tell me the 21 mammograms, ultra sound and biopsy  had been wrong, it was just a small pocket of air they were seeing in my breast.

So here I am. Round two of breast cancer. Mad at myself for not taking off this stupid second breast 12 years ago. For not demanding a double mastectomy. But, I couldn't. twelve years ago I was 38 with four kids ages 2-10, working full time and it all just happened so damn fast. I didn't have the ability to stop and think and slow things down. I was just getting by, just trying to get past it all, just trying to survive, and I did, survive...for 12 more years.


I always tell people this about cancer...there is a before, a during and an after. The before makes you wistful. Caught up in the melancholy of, "Oh, I remember when I did this before cancer and now I can't." The during is a blur. You just can't believe what is happening is your actual life. And then there is the after where you are relieved and grateful and a whole different perspective fills your life.

I have had a good 10 years of the after. Really good. And now I sit here, wistful because those 10 years have become my before in the blink of an eye. I'm about to enter the "during." But, the after will come.

I'm at peace with it all, I am. I don't have the chaos of 12 years ago. I have an amazing support system in family and friends. I ripped the band aid fast and told those closest to me, some who were there for the last band aid rip and some who are new to the pull.My life is different now. I have great luxuries. I don't have to work, my children aren't children that need to be protected, they are mostly adults, I even have a son now to join my support team.

So in this house, breast cancer is funny, because for me it has to be. I have great doctors, we are moving fast, and I'm ready for this second journey of breast cancer. I have some funny blogs from round one and I am sure round two will keep us all entertained as well. 

The first time I found cancer it was Rosie O'Donell on The View nagging me every day in October to check my breasts. This time it was Rachel Ray reminding me that I would snuggle with two year old Mary on a chair each night and watch "30 Minute Meals" while resting from surgeries and chemo. 

So, laugh with me. When you read this and worry that you have to do something for me, laugh with me. It's what I want most. Last time I got 12 great years for my after. I will take another 12 after this bump in the road and see what it brings.