After 10 days away I finally made it down from NorCal to SoCal, and in record time.  Not proud of my speed, but was so wanting to just get home.   After a couple days snoozing and catching up on rest, I thought I would turn my sights toward some Christmas decorations to make, that seem easy and I can do in my spare time.  No machine sewing required, just a little imagination!  Here is the first one!

CHRISTMAS HEARTS

These cute little hearts can be hand sewn with any type of buttons, pins, or bows. 

Make them BIG, make them SMALL,

it doesn't matter much at all!

The ideas are dancing around in my head, so more to come very soon!   Hope to see what you can come up with!

Cher

Last day at Stanford Medical!

This week has flown by and already I'm packing up for the next stop.  Kate is at the Cancer Treatment Center getting chemo treatment #2 of 3 total.  We arrived yesterday at 7:20 am for blood work at the lab, radiation treatment, followed by an appt with her oncologist, and finally, last stop was the chemo lounge.  We have nicknamed everything here!  We even theorized that the doctor was an 1-1/2 hours late in seeing us (as we sat in the tiny room waiting), because he was falling in love with his nurse and enjoying some moments with her.  You get the picture?  Quite not the case.  He was waiting for her blood labs to come back.  We just make up our own scenarios to keep the humor going.  Guess I've been watching too many doctor shows - like Grey's Anatomy.

I'm so impressed with Kate.  Not one complaint.  Well just one that we both share.  They seem to want you here at a certain time, and even tell you how important it is to be on time.  Once here you sit and wait!

Everyone here has been so thoughtful, right on down to the massage therapist coming into her chemo room and offering a free massage while she lay there.  She declined, so I put my feet on her bed and said "How about these pretties?"  No dice!  Well I tried!

Kate's husband arrives tonight, so my duties here will end.  Last time we saw the doctor he confirmed that her cancer, that was the size of a fifty cent piece, is now broken into two much smaller pieces, shaped like little bunnies.  It's working - YEA!   WE LOVE YOU STANFORD!

Thankful for my health!

Cher

Cancer not for Sissies!

So today is day two of helping my sister-in-law through one week of her 5 week journey of receiving chemo and radiation for lung cancer.   One cannot imagine your life becoming interrupted with a life changing event, if you have never experienced one.

It started with a cough that never went away, which finally lead to a chest x-ray which lead to a Cat-Scan, Pet Scan, endless blood tests, and finally a diagnoses.

I swore when my daughter became a survivor of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma I would make a healthy liffestyle change.  Do we really have to be handed a major life challenge to decide to make a change?  Apparently I thought so, I'm no different than anyone.  It wouldn't happen to me and the treadmill of wrong foods wouldn't betray me either. 

Kate has been through the wringer.  She has lost about 20 lbs and only pudding, water, sherbet, soda, and ice cream taste good.  She is so fidgety she can't sit still and can barely sleep.  Hair loss is the least of her worries.  For a gal that used to be in the fashion industry, going to the drug store bald today wasn't even a second thought!

Can't say enought about how she loves her oncologist and the nurses around her, here at Stanford Medical.  They have been sent from heaven and truly know their calling.

Hope everyone has a good week, I'll be checking in again as her cancer journey continues until the 28th.

Cher

Oprah's Lifeclass

If you haven't signed up for Oprah's Life Class series that started on Monday (today is Tuesday) there is still time to view her 5 classes that will end on Friday.   The schedule is as follows:

1. Monday - The False Power of Ego
2. Tuesday - Letting go of Anger
3. Wednesday - You Become What You Believe
4. Thursday - The Truth Will Set You Free
5. Friday - Joy  Rising

I have listened to Monday nights talk about ego and how it gets in our way.  So much info on ego that I was unaware of.    Where is your ego getting in your way?  That was the question of the day.  We are not our status in life, or the car we drive, or the title we hold.  Eckhart Tolle (The New Awakening) says our ego starts when we are babies.   So much info.  Please tune into the series.  If you missed it on TV (OWN network) you can see it on her website www.oprah.com as a webcast.  There is still time.

Happy learning!

Cher

Tempation? Is it really?



Oh wow, Halloween is almost upon us!   The thing I love about this FUN day is seeing all the little kids coming to the door and screaming with delight "Trick or Treat"!  I try to get down to their level, and ask them what they are or who are they dressed up as.    The answers are endless, even if they aren't sure! But surely they are happy, excited to get a small present, and enjoying participating with a group after dark.  The twinkle in their eyes and the smiles on their faces - well I just melt!  When that happens, they obviously get a whole hand full of candy!   It reminds me of when I used to take my own kids out!  Such fun!  Now I get to watch my grand kids make the rounds of the neighborhood with their parents, then coming back to count their loot.  

What makes this month difficult are the huge amounts of candy that seem to be on every isle of the grocery store.  So just because it's there, does that mean I have to pick it up, toss it in the cart and pay for it at the counter?  

All of this candy business got me thinking alot more about temptations in my life and how does it manifest itself in my life.  I have to ask myself these 5 questions:

• When am I most tempted?  Certain time of day?  Certain day/days of the week?
• Where am I most tempted?  At work? At home? In a restaurant?
• Who is with me when I'm most tempted?  Am I alone?  With friends?  In a crowd of strangers? Am I a closet eater?
• What temporary benefit do I get if I give in?  Does is taste GREAT ?  Do I feel better?  Do I get relief from stress?
• How do I feel right before I'm tempted?  Am I frustrated?  Feel alone?  Bored?  Insecure?  Angry?Sad?

When the urge is there, I am going to refocus my energy and attention to something else.  Maybe take a 15 walk around the neighborhood, design a piece of jewelry, rev up the sewing machine, turn on some music and just dance, etc.  We all have ways to divert our attention, that I know. 

Patterns of Temptation

• Attention - I think about what it is I am willing to sabotage my life with, how it will taste and how it will make me feel.  Is it worth it?
• Arousal - There is some sort of emotions that cling to the thought of the temptation  and it gets stronger the more I think about it.  All this could be in the matter of seconds too!  UG!
• Action - Then I do it!  I eat the ice cream, swallow the candy, or eat more than I should at a meal, lacking portion control and blame it on something else.  The reason  I fail, is that the thought should have been stopped before it got to the action.  I need to stop it at the attention phase, when it first grabs me..

As I work through this, I am really trying to see where my pitfalls are, what time of day I am tempted, am I alone, etc.  Here's the funny thing!  The options to caving into your food temptations are:

• Chewing it until most of the good flavor is gone, then spit it out in the trash can!  Been there done that!
• Chewing it and swallowing it, pretend it didn't happen, so I won't have to write in my food journal and count the points/calories.
• Orrrrrrrrrrrr just not caving, thus being able to pat myself on my back for a Who-ah, telling myself you did it once and can do it again, and high fives all around.

How do you handle your temptations and what triggers you mostly about going off track?  And most important, how do you get back on track?  

Until then I'm still bribing my grandaughter into wearing the ice cream cone costume I made for her last year!  

Happy Autumn,

Cher

Now is the time

If you are reading this, you are about to embark with me to an unknown destination but one that will clearly start to appear as time presses on.  The timeline is also unknown, but as time marches on, the flight time (for lack of a better description) will begin to show up as well.
As a proverbial yo-yo dieter, it has become SO clear to me that the time is now.  My health is all right, but my body is whispering for me to make the changes NOW, in such subtle ways as, allowing me to have Planters Fascitis on my left foot, creaky knees from cheerleading and too much tennis, and sporadic back issues that render me to my ice pack for a few days at a time. 

I have a daughter, Amy, that survivied Stage 4 Non Hodgkins Lymphoma in 2007 which you would think would give me a kick in the rear to make changes, but like so many, it didn't make a dent in my brain.  I knew I had to make changes.  I tried, but just didn't complete it like so many other times.  I now have a sister-in-law, Kate, that is dealing with lung cancer, has completed 2 rounds of chemo and will be starting 4 weeks of intense radiation at Stanford U.  I will be spending one of the 4 weeks helping her through this.   A very humbling thought.  That could be anyone and the anyone this time happens to be Kate.

I'm a dreamer and even thought of writing to Ellen Degeneres to chronological my weight loss on her program - I know silly, huh?  Do you ever dream up ideas like this?  I also thought about Oprah and Dr Oz.  However one dream I do have is to be healthy!  I'm not sure if that means a certain size I want to wear,  being able to walk a marathon again,  or preventing myself from ending up on a motorized scooter as I approach the "much" later years, as my Dad.

I do know that at my present weight of 220 lbs, I'm not happy with my lack of exercise, or my eating habits.   I hope to discover the "why" of eating unhealthy foods and not exercising.   Together we can discover many things about ourselves if you care to follow my journey.  This is the first of many posts, and I will add some pictures as I go along on my journey so you can see the progress, and also see who inhabits my life on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis!  You will get to know all the players that (I hope) will help me on my journey.

I promise to be honest and truthful as I expose myself to the elements of the internet.  It's only fair!

Happy weekend to you all,

Cher  :)