Adventures With Our Vitamix

In our continued effort to add in more fruits and veggies to the daily eating plan, I have enlisted an ally in our kitchen:  our Vitamix.

It chops up veggies to a very fine consistency, so that they can be added to sauces or soups without noticeable chunkiness that might get detected more easily by picky eaters.  Stealth veg is my secret weapon at the moment. While we continue to work on just eating the veggies outright, I am not content to wait and try to sneak extra veggies into just about everything where I can.

When I have time, anyway -- this week has been so insanely busy that I have been grateful to just get any home-cooked food into all of us at the end of the day.  I hate it when we have that week, and am looking forward to the slow-down that the end of school brings to our house.

But my favorite use for our Vitamix is for smoothies: I just toss some juice or water, assorted frozen fruits, spinach or kale, and some protein powder into the Vitamix and whir it around to make a delicious smoothie that is bursting with antioxidant goodness.  I have found that if you use enough frozen blueberries or cherries in your fruit mix that no one will ever know the spinach or kale is in there once things are well blended.

I swear that you cannot taste the spinach or kale at all, but the healthy goodness is in there for an extra vitamin kick. 

I love that we can get 3 or 4 servings of fruits and veggies in a big glass of milkshake-tasting yumminess.  If I toss in a variety of fruits, which I normally do, we get a whole spectrum of antioxident goodness in a glass.

Get Out of Your Own Way and Find A Way to Laugh: A Few Thoughts on Surviving the Next Wave

As long time readers know, the last few years have meant one wave after another crashing into our little family, pummeling and buffeting us to and fro as life crashed over the lot of us.  Last year's breast cancer diagnosis and its resulting surgery, chemo and radiation were just the tip of the iceberg.

I wish that I were kidding.

But on the back end of all of this, sitting here in our lovely sun room with a nice breeze blowing through the open window screen, birds trilling in the trees outside and sunlight streaming in, I have to tell you that life is really, really good. 

We ought to spend more time savoring the joys and triumphs and a lot less time fretting over the things that annoy or worry us.  Because it is in savoring the journey, the little things each and every day that make us happy, that we find our happiness along the way.

That happiness is everything.

Without question, the thing that has gotten me through every single hurdle, bump in the road, and nasty pothole over the last ten years and counting, is what I am about to share with you.

Get out of your own way and find a way to laugh.

It seems really simple, but the truth is that reminding myself of this when all seemed dismal is what has brought me back from the brink time and time again.

My curse is that I over-analyze everything, and if given the opportunity, I will worry something six ways to Sunday in order to completely and totally break it down and analyze it to death. The result of this, though, is that I get stuck in a repeating loop of awful that spirals down into dismal worry and perpetual gloom if I am not careful.  No one wants to live in that mind-space permanently, believe me.

What we found during the depths of my cancer treatment, though, when the chemo was taking its toll and I was only up and about for maybe 2 or 3 hours in any given day, is this:  if you can find a way to laugh, even if it is just a little bit, the world seems a little brighter and life seems a little more bearable.

If you can string together several days in a row where you find a way to laugh, even on the worst day of the worst week of the worst crisis of your life, then you can get through anything.

Is It Summer Yet?

This year is whizzing by so quickly that I can barely catch my breath.  It is as if I blink and another month has flown by me.

But I am exhausted, and the days are not moving quickly enough toward summer break.

Am spending today getting a number of things done, including a bit of research on recovering strength and energy after cancer treatment.  I'd like my energy back, please.

I have had it with feeling so pooped.  There have to be some pro-active steps that I can take to rebuild my energy levels and feel a little more like my old self instead of like an ancient, staggering zombie.  Please tell me there is something, other than patience and time, that will help.

In the meantime, part of my morning will be spent dreaming of summer, when sleeping in will be a possibility and warmth will return.  (she types hopefully, as it was in the 30s here when I woke up this morning...brrrrrrrr!)


If anyone has suggestions on how to get back to normal, or at least closer to it than I am right now, I'd love to hear them.

Making 2014 The Year Of Health

If I have learned anything from this entire, crazy year, it is this:  our time here is finite, our chances to make an impact are few and we have to seize them when they come along if we are to have any chance to work toward a greater good outside of our own, individual life.   Love and hope can get you through a lot of darkness, but when you get to the other side of it, you need to have a goal to work toward to keep you moving in a positive direction.

Or else you risk falling back into a darkness of your own making.  And that is simply unacceptable.

While you cannot go back and change the past, you can make changes going forward that may hopefully have a positive impact for years to come.  At least, that is my working theory.

As long time readers know, this past year has been quite a challenge for our little family.  Over the course of 2013, I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, had numerous scans and tests, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and am now dealing with the after-effects of all of that and tamoxifen's impact on my already overly-taxed system.

One of the worst things about all of this was how it made me feel so out of control of my own life.  Things were scheduled for me, treatments were fashioned based on the chemistry and reactivity of my tumor area, daily doctor visits have shifted to "as needed" in accordance with treatment protocols, but they still come with a stress and exhaustion factor that isn't exactly nurturing after all of this.  Even though I was a very active participant in every single treatment decision and tweak, there were still things that were so beyond my ability to control, and surrender to the inevitable is not my strong suit.

After weeks and weeks and weeks of nothing but "cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer," suddenly I find myself on the back end of all of this wondering what it all meant and how to best move forward.  What I do not want is to spend the rest of my life holding my breath and waiting for the next shoe to drop in this "what now?!?" parade.

No one wants to be all cancer, alla time.

It isn't as though I asked for this to begin with, right?  But I refuse to allow it to utterly dominate the rest of what I hope will be a long and productive life.

The question isn't so much how to get back to normal any longer, though.  Instead, it is this:

What do I want for my new normal?  Where do I go from here, moving toward something better, some bigger goal, and not just away from cancer?

Very often at this point in the year, I sit down and take stock and come up with all sorts of resolutions that end up falling by the wayside midway through spring, plowed under by our crazy schedule and too many demands on my time and energy levels.  Lists of resolutions and improvements get me nowhere, especially when they are too long and impossible to manage from the get go.

So I am streamlining this year:  healthy choices.  Period.

Cutting The Crapola

The last couple of days, I have been re-reading a lot of my healthier cookbooks, trying to revamp our eating habits to clear out the unhealthy bits and add in more healthy ones.  For the most part, we eat far more healthfully than we did for years, but my recent bout with breast cancer has made eating even more fruits and veggies a priority.

Not just for me, but for The Peanut as well, for obvious reasons.

As I'm trying to plan a menu for all of us for the week, I find myself making excuses and trying to come up with ways to continue serving the same old easy stuff, because we can all agree on it and I know it will be mostly eaten, even by the pickiest among us.  But that is ridiculous, because if the same old, same old was acceptable, I wouldn't be trying to revamp things, now would I?

It's time to cut the crapola when it comes to diet and exercise and be honest with myself:  we can, and must, do better.

Some of the cookbooks I've been perusing are:

-- The Eat-Clean Diet Recharged: Lasting Fat Loss That's Better than Ever!

-- The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook: Great-Tasting Recipes That Keep You Lean

-- Eating for Life: Your Guide to Great Health, Fat Loss and Increased Energy

-- The New Sonoma Cookbook: Simple Recipes for a Healthy, More Delicious Way to Live

-- The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook: 200 Delicious Recipes Ready in 30 Minutes or Less

-- The South Beach Diet Super Quick Cookbook: 200 Easy Solutions for Everyday Meals

For me, though, it really isn't about knowledge.  I know what I ought to be eating and doing.  What I lack is actually DOING things properly, instead of just halfway and hoping it is enough.  It isn't.  And I know it.  Which means it is time to get off my rear end and do something about it.

So, henceforth, the following will apply:

That Pesky Question Of Fitness

Fitness is a painful subject for me just now.

At this stage in all the morass that is cancer treatment, I am not even certain what muscle tone is any longer.  That is how bad things are for me at the moment.

And it plagues me.  A lot.

But with five more radiation treatments to go (woo hoo! only 5 more!), the skin in and around the treatment area is angry, raw and beyond painful, which doesn't exactly lend itself to a fitness frenzy.  Moreover, I have no idea how long it is going to take all of this to heal, because none of the creams or usual skin treatments have done any good the last few weeks.  Because I keep getting irradiated, over and over again, while treatment is ongoing, my skin never really has a chance to heal, and thus stays incredibly angry.

All this to say, being completely unfit is driving me crazy.  But being able to do anything concrete about it is a far off prospect at the moment.

So, what's a girl to do?

The front end planning.  It's the only thing I can do.  Starting with menus for a few weeks of good, clean eating, and shopping lists for each of those weeks.  At least my body will be well fueled as it begins to heal, and I can work on portion sizes as well, right?

It's a start, anyway.

What I'm more uncertain about is how to work fitness back into the mix in a more regular way.  At a point when I can barely stand to wear clothes over my sore spots, the thought of straining with weights or pushing myself to do intervals with my cardio is unbearable right now.

So I'm trying to figure out a more gentle way to begin to tone up again, in a way that allows me to continue to heal but still moves me forward instead of continuing my spiral toward flabby and blah. 

We got an UP Band for me recently, so that I could at least see that I am getting some steps every day.  It turns out that I'm getting a lot more steps than I realized, and that I regularly get close to if not more than 10,000 steps in a busy day. 

That gives me a lot of comfort, even when the scale is telling me I'm not even close to rebounding.  But my still feeling blah and flabby says that I should at least start by working on portion sizes a bit more and cleaning up what I'm eating.  However, that doesn't help with muscle tone, which is desperately in need of help after so many weeks of sleeping and sitting through chemo (and, yes, I'm aware that chemo is really rough and whatever I did was all I could at the time, but that still doesn't fix the fitness conundrum as things stand now). 

Walking is great, but it can't fix everything -- and heaven knows I have a lot that needs fixing right now.

I could use some advice from folks who have been through this.  How did your skin rebound (or did it?) from radiation burning and blistering?  What helped most with this for you?  Were you able to work fitness back into your life without making things worse?  If so, how?

I'm going to ask at my doctor's office today, too, when I go for my next round of radiation.  But I thought throwing this question out into the void might be useful, too.  If you have thoughts or advice, I'd love to hear it.

Feeling A Little More Hole-y

The surgery yesterday went well.  My surgeon was pleased, was able to get what he feels was a healthy margin while not having to do a full mastectomy.  This morning, I am sore and moving slowly, but blessedly able to have a little coffee and sit up with my family.

So now we wait for test results from the tumor and the lymph nodes that were biopsied.

Cancer is a lot of hurry up and wait thus far.  We were at the hospital early yesterday -- a little before 8:00 am -- for pre-op testing, locator needle placement, radioactive tracer injections, and then finally surgery.  We didn't get home until after 5:00 pm, and I went straight up to bed and slept like a bear hibernating from the world.

Which may be my natural state of being for the next few days.  Sleep is good.  Haven't gotten a decent night's sleep since they told me this was breast cancer, and my body has decided to use the surgery as a means to catch up again.

If you need me, I'll be crawling back into bed to sleep some more.

But I'll be doing so very grateful for all of the love and support from friends and family.  So a quick thank you to everyone for all the prayers, good wishes and notes over the last few weeks.

I got a note from a friend that she had used my diagnosis as a reminder to get her mammogram done, as she was overdue.  Please feel free to use this as a catalyst to do the same.  Catching breast cancer early is the best thing you can do.  If breast cancer runs in your family, as it does in mine, or if you have a high risk for any reason, please be sure to get your mammogram!

Disconnected

It is funny how, in your mind's eye, you can still be the vibrant, youthful, energetic person you were twenty years ago.  In my heart of hearts, that is who I am still, and perhaps who I always will be in some respects.

But when push comes to shove, right now?  Exhaustion truly is the word of the day.

It has come on gradually, little bit by little bit, and I'm certain that a lot of this is mental exhaustion brought on by one stress or another over the last few weeks (months...years...who is counting, right?), but it is on my last nerve this morning because I have a host of things to complete before my surgery on Friday, and not one spare ounce of energy to get them done.

Arrrrrgh.

When we are younger, we feel invulnerable, impervious to stress and strain and ready to conquer the world.  At the moment?  I'm feeling withered and worn out and well and truly conquered.

How can I tap back into that younger, more optimistic core?  That's the big question for this week.  The quest for finding the glass half full begins.  Let's just hope there is enough coffee to give me a jump start...

Opportunity Interruptus?

Happy birthday, Peanut!

Yesterday, The Peanut turned 10.  She continues to refuse to stay tiny for me and insists on becoming a young lady.  So unfair, isn't it?  
____________________________________

Due to a longer wait than we'd hoped for tests that are being run, the breast cancer surgery is now postponed for the moment.  On the one hand, more waiting is exhausting.   I feel like I have been holding my breath for a month and am still going...which is just about true, to be perfectly honest.

On the other hand, though?  It may be a blessing in disguise that will allow for some catching up on a number of fronts.  Sitting down with a notepad and writing out a "to do" list became an overwhelming task this morning; there is just so much to do and so little time to get any of it done well.

It feels as though I'm standing in the eye of the hurricane for that brief pause before the storm crashes over me all over again.  But all around me, the winds are howling and waiting to get at me again, and the pressure outside this tiny window of calm is still there, within reach, just waiting to take hold again, ever present and tugging at the edges of my consciousness.

The big question this morning is what to do with this precious and rare moment of calm.

Clearing The First Hurdle

It has been a long last few weeks, but I feel like we've finally cleared the first hurdle.

Yes, I still have breast cancer and will have to undergo a lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy next week.  But the good news is that -- at this point, which is still early and so nothing is set in stone so let me throw that caveat out there right up front -- but at this point it looks as though the spread is contained and not wide.

So a cautious hurrah, pending further lab analysis and a hopeful eye toward clean surgical margins.  Let's just put it that way and keep hoping and praying that is the case.

For the first time in several weeks, I'm allowing myself a hint of optimism.

I don't want to get all cocky or anything -- let's not go crazy here, after all, I still have breast cancer -- but this is the best news I could have gotten at this stage and I am going to savor it for a little while.   IF the tumor is contained AND IF we can get clean margins during the biopsy AND IF there is no lymph node involvement (all huge IFs at this point and all crucial information to confirm), then post-surgery treatment may only be radiation and tamoxifen.

This is how warped my perspective on the world has become, because to me that sounds like amazing news.   Welcome to my world these days.

And Now? We Wait

It feels as though I am sloshing at this point.  Yesterday was the PET scan, and they emphasized several times that drinking a lot of water, and that making sure that I had some fresh fruit -- especially having some lemon or lime in the water on occasion -- was a good way to help flush the radioactive biotracer ick out of my system more quickly.

There is a lot of joy at having the test, at least, behind me.  Along with the most recent biopsy.

However, the wait for results on both?  It is interminable.  But it cannot be helped:  it will be what it will be, and we will face it either way.

I have had so many friends through the years who have stared down the long road of cancer or other health threats with an enormous amount of courage and dignity.  Looking at what they faced and how they reacted to all of the indignities and fear whilst I now do the same makes their personal strength and courage all the more miraculous to me now.

There is no real dignity in yet another scar, in yet another piece of me being lopped off for testing.   Mr. ReddHedd calls them my battle scars.  He's right, in a way, but that doesn't make the current one itch any less while it is healing.  Because each test must be done, it gets done, no matter the short term personal cost.  But I grow weary from having to slog through yet another round of something or other, and my will to summon hope in the face of yet another series of tests grows thin.

However, I refuse to surrender to fear.  I simply refuse.

This is a testing point for me.  How will this hurdle shape my outlook and my choices going forward?  Will I make better ones, moving forward with a clearer purpose and a sharper focus?  Or will things get even more muddied as the constant checks and vigilance wear at my patience around the edges?

The Return Of FrankenMom

As I've gotten older, the cracks in my seemingly strong edifice have begun to show.  A little weakness here, a little less ability there, you can feel things begin to slow down and creak as you move forward, some days more than others.

As much as I hate showing any weakness at all, the reality is that I am stronger for going through all of this, whether I want to admit it to myself this morning or not.

The latest bit of reality is that I had a lump removed from under my breast yesterday morning.  The same breast where a precancerous, rapidly growing, estrogen-feeding dysplasia was removed several years ago when The Peanut was just 3 months old.  This older lump was about the size of a golf ball, and terrifyingly buried deep within the breast tissue itself.  It was something I only found because I was nursing at the time. 

Who thinks they need a mammogram at age 35?  Not me, that's for sure.  That will teach me for not paying attention to my family history.

If you don't know your family history for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer?  You should absolutely ask -- now -- for your own sake as well as for your children's medical histories down the road.

Smoothing Out The Rougher Edges

Putting the whole of life into some sort of perspective can be really useful in terms of figuring out where the pieces may not be working well.  It can also be maddening, trying to rearrange things so that everything falls smoothly into place.

Sometimes, I suppose, there needs to be a little friction in order to smooth out a rough edge or two.  But that doesn't make it easy, does it?

One of the constants in my life of late has been the need to get my act together in terms of the day to day necessities:  better, healthier diet; more regular and productive exercise; daily cleaning maintenance, even on days when I am utterly exhausted.  Doing all of this, even just to a tiny extent, would make a big difference in how things feel and work.  At least I think it would.

But when you are worn out and frazzled and past the point of thinking in the long term, doing even a little bit can certainly feel like you are attempting to summit Mt. Everest in a blizzard.

So how do you keep going in spite of that and do the things that need to be done -- not for others, but for yourself?  That is the question that I need to answer.

Walking The Walk

After spending the weekend running around from this to that and back again, I've realized a couple of things:

1.  I am horribly out of shape and I have no energy.

2.  We need to eat more fruits and veggies, because I feel so much better when my diet is more plant-centric.  So more of that, please.

We've been trying to emphasize a healthier diet for The Peanut, who is a little fruit and veggie adverse, quite frankly, due to some food texture issues.  Things like seeds (pretty much any berries, hello!) or bumpy bits (say hello to broccoli and cauliflower) completely squick her out -- we keep trying, but let's just say the food processor and the VitaMix are my friends here.

But it occurs to me that we haven't been setting the best parental example of late, either. 

Things have been so busy at our house that we have been failing to plan and just scrambling to get any food on the table at all.  That's no good.  For any of us.

So today will be all about assessing what we have in the pantry, fridge and freezer, and then trying to plan healthier menus around that with, perhaps, a trip to the store for fresh produce. 

Quick, Cool Breakfast

It is hot here lately.  Scorching hot.

The kind of hot that makes you want to crawl in the freezer for a coupla hours after the humidity sets in about 7:30 in the morning hawwwwwwwt.

So what's a girl to do for breakfast?

Something cool, that's what.

Lately, I've been having some yogurt (vanilla, key lime, whatever is handy in the fridge) mixed with some cottage cheese and sprinkled with cut up, assorted berries.  I top with a few chopped walnuts or pecans and...voila!  Instant refreshing breakfast!

It's a decent mix of protein and healthy carbs, antioxidants from the berries and some omega-3s when I use walnuts.  All in all, a fairly healthy way to start my day.

If I'm feeling adventurous, I sprinkle in a little ground flaxseed for extra fiber and things seem to move right along for the day, if you know what I mean.

Ideas For Dressing Your Shape And (Changing?) Size

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We have been eating much more healthfully at our house for about a month now. We were eating pretty well before that, but we've consciously eaten only lean proteins and veggies and only whole grains and absolutely no processed crapola (with the exception of a single cupcake each for our nephews birthday).  Thank you cleaner eating!

You can tell it makes a difference by the looseness of the waistband on my jeans.

The great thing about dropping a size is that you feel better -- physically and emotionally in my case, because I was beginning to really loathe how much weight I had gained and was beating myself up for it a little too often.  I'm not after some number on the scale at the moment, but I'm definitely working on getting back to a healthy, happy point wherever that happens to be at my age.

That said, now I'm dealing with a problem I hadn't ever thought would be a problem:  half my clothes are too big and now hang weirdly, especially pants and skirts.  But I'm not remotely close to where I hope I will be in the next few months, either, which makes me question whether it is worth it to get a lot of my clothes tailored now. 

Maegan Tintari has some great tips on how to deal with this sort of thing.  While I'm not ready to go out and pick up a caftan, I really love the boyfriend jeans pictured in her post and am going to have to give those a try, I think.  I could make that work on a short and curvy frame, right?

Because I've lost a little weight -- actually I'm down a size, woo hoo! -- I've been thinking about how to manage the clothing transition a lot, and here are a few ideas that have been working for me of late:

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

There is a part of my brain which is begging me to call first thing in the morning to my surgeon's office and make them read the pathology report out loud to me if it is available.  That's a big "if" given that the intervening Thanksgiving holiday has slowed down everyone including the lab, I'm sure.  And that the folks at the office have better things to do than assuage a stressed out patient over the phone.

Especially when she has her appointment with the doctor to go over said lab report and surgery notes on Tuesday anyway.

Color me impatient for all the answers.

You know what, though?  It's a sort of lesson in zen.  You cannot make the world move to your timetable every single time you wish that it were so.  You can choose to chafe at that, or instead use it as an opportunity to learn patience and find some better thing to do with your time than fretting.

I'm choosing the latter.

Some things I'll be doing this week instead of sitting around and stewing over the three short days left to get my news, in no particular order:

-- Being grateful for my loving family who have taken such good care of me the last few days.  My life is really, really wonderful, and stopping to soak that in fully gives me enormous comfort and joy.

-- Planting an indoor herb garden to get me through the winter months with fresh, antioxidant-rich herbs in the house.  I already have a thriving rosemary plant that will be coming indoors shortly before the frost claims it.  I have another pot that will get filled and planted this week with thyme, oregano, and a few other choice herbs -- not too many because I don't want to overcrowd, but at least some that we'll be able to pick from fresh through the snowy, winter months outside.  Won't that be lovely?

CH-CH-CH-CH-Changes

Right after a cancer diagnosis, everything gets a little garbled in your brain because sentences and thoughts -- even random, wholly unconnected to this in any way thoughts -- often seem to end with "Uh.  Mah.  Gawd.  I.  Have.  Cancer." for at least a few days if not weeks.  At least, that's how it has worked for me thus far, and I'm told by friends who have gone through similar battles that was true for them as well.

For me, though?  When I'm facing any daunting challenge, the thing I crave most is to know every possible thing about the oncoming hurdle so that when I have to face it, I have pinpointed several avenues of weakness and am more prepared than anyone else in the room to discuss my options and possibilities.  This is, not coincidentally, how I approached my legal practice when I had a hearing -- I knew every possible nuance and all the case law, every argument for or against every issue that I could identify as having any possibility of being raised before I ever entered a courtroom for a hearing...and I had figured out a way to crush each and every one of them before I ever stepped forward for an argument.  Exhaustive but highly effective.

All this to say, I have now entered the research phase of my diagnosis with a vengeance.

Some books and websites I've been reading include:

-- The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), which has a fantastic database of recipes available for the searching online.

-- The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen: Nourishing, Big-Flavor Recipes for Cancer Treatment and Recovery by Rebecca Katz

-- One Bite at a Time, Revised: Nourishing Recipes for Cancer Survivors and Their Friends by Rebecca Katz

-- The Anti-Cancer Cookbook by Julia Greer

-- Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips by Kris Carr

Of all of these, the Rebecca Katz books have been a revelation in terms of healthy eating combined with a gourmet sense of taste and flavor -- maximizing both healthy ingredients along with nurturing the pleasure of eating really good food.  And I've also realized this:  all the healthy eating we'd been trying to incorporate from Clean Eating and Eating For Life and South Beach and Sonoma and all the other diet plans that focus on whole foods and lots of fruits and veggies and a reduction of processed crap?

It's all really good and what we ought to be doing, every single meal, every single day.

So it's well past time to pull myself out of my stress eating crapola stupor and to move forward even faster with my "eat better, live better, feel better" plan for the rest of my life.  I'm going to start sharing healthy recipes here more often as I tweak them for my family and find that they work well -- if my veggie-tolerating-but-just-barely-sometimes hubby and my picky eater child can be coaxed into being healthier along with me, then you know yours can be, too.

Here's a thumbnail sketch of what I've found out thus far:

Easy Apple Cider Vinaigrette

Ever since my surgery, I have been craving fresh foods:  fruits, veggies...anything that comes with some liquidy goodness built into the food, frankly.

It's probably partly due to dehydration and healing issues, given that there was that little matter of surgery and all, but I think part of it is just that my body is craving some healthier, better for me fare in the wake of having been diagnosed with cancer.

Quite honestly?  I am more than willing to go along with the "eat healthy, be healthy" mindset right now.  And then some.

So as I've been trying to be good and stay still and heal -- not easy for a fidgety, ever-busy woman who has things to straighten and do but is forcing herself not to do them, let me tell you -- I've poked back through a number of healthy recipes that I've written out on 3x5 cards through the years in the hopes of finding some healthy, tasty forgotten gems hiding out in my recipe box.

And lo!  I did!

How I forgot about this vinaigrette recipe, I have no idea, but it is fabulous on Fall and Winter salads.  And really versatile, it works with veggies, meats, slaws, you name it.

For Thanksgiving, I'm planning on using it to dress a mesclun salad topped with chopped, fresh apple, dried cranberries, toasted pecans and crumbled goat cheese.  But it would be equally yummy on a turkey leftovers salad with sharp cheddar and toasted walnuts.

Or any number of other combinations which I plan to try out over the next few weeks, including as a dressing for a crunchy apple and shredded cabbage slaw -- doesn't that sound nummy?  I wonder how it would taste warm with apples and red cabbage barely sauteed as a side for some baked chicken?  Oooh...you have to love a vinaigrette that comes with lots of options, don't you?

So, here goes.  A delicious and versatile Apple Cider Vinaigrette:

Let The Preparations Begin

It's time to rearrange the sunroom so we can squeeze the ginormous Christmas tree in front of the windows.

Usually, we wait until after Thanksgiving for this.  But this year I have a wee bit of surgery to get past,  and I'm afraid it might put a bit of a crimp in my giddy-up.  I'm worried about having enough ooomph to get Thanksgiving dinner on the table, although I have plans and a willing husband who can't cook like a gourmet, but he can follow directions like a pro, so we'll be fine.

But I'm beginning the tree and decor preparations earlier to make sure we get the Christmas tree up and decorated for The Peanut.  Just in case.

If nothing else, it's a good excuse to drink some eggnog.

I find myself thinking "just in case" about way too many things lately.  I suppose that's a normal side effect of the melanoma diagnosis, but it is a little morbid on the day to day.

But it is also liberating.  What is it that I truly want to be doing, saying, feeling, right this minute and not really care a whit about what someone else thinks about it?  What do I really want to do in this one moment?

What if...?

What if "one of these days" could be just around the corner?  What would you be doing right now if that were the case?