trying to fit it all in....

Winter came back yesterday!



The snow was light and fluffy, so it wasn't a problem to shovel the driveway, and I reasoned it was a fair trade for not going on my walk. Today's excuse for no walk is the temperature: 10 degrees.(-12c) Nope. Just nope.

This fine morning though, the sun is shining, until the afternoon when more snow comes. I need to get to the grocery store, as we are almost out of eggs and half and half and and and. If I go during the day, I have to get back in a hurry because Sonja has physical therapy for her knee at 2:30. I am picking up the three high school girls and taking them with me to the physical therapy, and if I go to grocery store after, I have to go in the snow. And I don't like driving in snow.

Poor me, ha, First World Probs.

Yesterday I made almond bread and banana almond bread, yum. I like to slice it up and freeze it, so I have something good to eat when I want bread. I also made a batch of snickerdoodle cookies after dinner last night. Snickerdoodles are cookies rolled in cinnamon and sugar. They are tantalizingly yummy, and I was careful: I sliced off one little taste, agreed they were good, then avoided them like the plague, even as I baked them all. The recipe I used called for butter instead of shortening, and oh dear they are good. The girls brought lots of them to school to share with their friends, and a lot of them got eaten after dinner last night, so phew, they are almost gone.

I have to get a mammogram before the end of the month, as I am going to visit the breast cancer specialists, blah. I don't want to for a few reasons:

1. Our insurance stinks out loud. I don't like to say "it sucks", but it does. We have a $7,500 deductible, which means that is what we pay out of pocket, before being able to pay only %20 of everything, which is also very costly. This place is pricey, and they want me in every six months with my huge risk factors, which include my maternal grandmother dying at a young age of breast cancer, her sister dying of breast cancer, my mother having breast cancer in both breasts, and my sister having breast cancer. I settled on once a year, which still costs us a small fortune.

2. I don't want to live my life as a "patient" when I am not even sick.

3. The anxiety and worry about results takes years off my life, ha.

4. I don't like going to the doctor, don't like being pawed at, don't like the questions...and when that nice breast cancer doctor found out how many kids I have, she was shocked, I grew antlers and turned into a Crazy Lady. Seriously. You can see the change in the way you are viewed, it goes from just a normal fat suburban housewife, to a weirdo who is obviously not too smart.

5. Ain't nobody got time for that. I watch little Anne three days a week, so I have Mondays and Fridays to do things like field trips and going to the pool and appointments. She is a good little girl, very happy, most of the time, so it's not a huge deal to bring her to things, but not to a mammogram, so that has to be on a Monday or a Friday.

But, at the end of the day, I know I am lucky and blessed to live in a country where we at least have good healthcare, albeit expensive healthcare. My mother's breast cancer had spread to her lymph nodes, and she had some major surgery, but she lived like 25 years after her original diagnosis, and that was way back when.

Each day is indeed a gift.

And I am squandering this gift, by sitting here blabbing, ha.

I have washed dishes and swept floors and am trying to teach Sunny that she has no business barking at the neighbors when they're out in their own yard, which consists of me telling her to be quiet, which she totally ignores, to me getting up and telling her, which she also ignores, to me making her Get Down from the couch, and telling her to Lie Down on the floor, which she does, clunking her head down her paws with a huge sigh, then making her way slowly back to the couch into her Looking Out The Window spot by the time I am sitting back in my chair. It's like having a two year old.

Ah well. Off I go, to learn to be thankful, to learn to be patient, to rejoice and be glad in this day the Lord has given us....