MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas to all!

Spent Christmas Eve at my niece Melissa's house, where she made a feast of foods and desserts.  I was determined to photograph all the food, but after appetizers, I got glassy eyed, and forgot all about it.  There was a delicious Lasagna, and for dessert, all home made... 7 layer cookies, strufulli, and Mexican wedding cake.

yummiest baked clams

Logan introduced Superman to Christmas

Jimi (Mel's dad), JC, Melissa, and Logan

The Hostess with the Mostest

beautiful boy

scrumptious appetizers

Melissa and me

Melissa, and my sister

knitted with love

I am so lucky as to have quite a few online friends that I truly cherish.  There are a choice few, though, that stand out among the rest.  My friend "Leek" is one of them.  We've known each other for about sixteen years now, I believe, and have shared a lifetime of changes.  We know each other in private forums that have been kept by another dear friend, "Detes", over all these years.  All of us having met in a very special, but now defunct forum, called The Waking World.
Leek is a knitter extraordinaire, and knowing that I would be losing my hair, she made me wonderful hats in my favorite colors to keep my head warm.  On top of that she knitted this beautiful shawl, and an amazing goddess doll.  How lucky am I?

Thank you so much Leek.  I treasure these things.

the process

Here are a few free draws I did tonight.  The first one is of me getting chemo, with a small inset in the bottom where I am getting the wbc injection the next day.  The others are when I'm getting expanded.  (Expanders are put in the chest wall.. this is a hard silicone implant that is then filled with saline (150cc at a time for me) every couple of weeks in preparation for the eventual reconstruction.)  This is to stretch the skin for the permanent implant.  Free draws are just crude drawings that take a few minutes each.

and the boys

Last time I posted some pics of Evie's female cats, and here are her two male cats, Sam (white) and Rocky.

Both were rescued from a shelter.
Sam turned out to have some issues.  He is deaf, and seems to have almost autistic tendencies, not making eye contact, etc. And jumping away when you go to pet him often.  He is also endearingly polydactyl.

Rocky was originally going to be fostered by Evie, for a month.  Well, long story short, that turned into Evie keeping him.  He was sick from a babe, about 8 weeks old.  It turned out he had a mass on his brain that was seen on MRI.  He was sent home with tons of medicines, and a prognosis that he would have 6 to 8 weeks of quality life, before he started going blind, falling over, and a host of other horrible things.  Well, we administered all that horrible medicine to him everyday... it was so sad for him, making him froth at the mouth, and he was nearly dead in our arms.  But he would eat... everyday he would eat like a champ.  There were many people praying hard for Rocky.
Well, it is over 2 years later now, and Rocky has rallied, and is such a beautiful healthy cat.  "Getting stronger, getting stronger"... you can almost hear the music every time he walks into the room.

And speaking of boys... here's my great-nephew, Logan, at Pre-K, in his pilgrim hat.  He's going to be 4 years old on Dec 9th!

Now, an  update on me.  Went for my 2nd round of chemo  yesterday.  Have to get the Neulasta injection today.  Going to keep a log of when symptoms of side-effects start, and subside, so I can get an idea of how this process flows.  Feeling fine so far, but it's usually after the shot that stuff starts... at least it did last time.