I've got to end on a better note...I need that tonight

Here are a few things to put me in a better frame of mind, which I so desperately need:

1. My baby niece Natalie is showing such a spunky little personality...she reminds me of Katie's babyhood with the way her hair is now.
2. My baby nephew Matthew is so adorable, and I am so proud of my sister Amy and her new motherhood! We had a really wonderful weekend, stayed in the same hotel as my parents, ate meals together, went swimming...
3. Emma is reading to Katie instead of being mean to her (a little and probably short-lived victory, but still). Emma had a great night tonight at the Westerlund household, which may have helped to pull her out of the post-diagnosis slump which seems to have sucked all of her niceness out.

And one last thing...I'm going to be crazy and register for the Michigan Breast Cancer 3-day tonight. I've always planned to do it again this year (even more so before I was diagnosed, I was just waiting until closer before I started the fundraising piece). Since I was diagnosed, I thought it would be better for me to wait for all of my treatment plans are in place, to make sure I could do the training and the walking. There is probably a good chance I'd be doing chemo until pretty close to the 3-day date (late September).

Tonight, though, I need to look at all that pink and I need to make a plan, and I need to think of all that music and emotion, and 3-day stuff to make me feel better. I need to plan to walk myself right through this crazy time in my life (a nurse said today, "walk all the way to St. Louis if it will help"). Kathy also promised that the team would push me if I couldn't do all the walking myself!

I'll start my fundraising tomorrow. It should help me pass some of this time in the next two weeks, so I keep my mind off the gigantic changes that are in store for my body, very soon!

p.s. - If anyone wants to join my team, it is the same amazing team I walked with last year: Nancy's Naughty Nockers. Nancy is my role model, Kathy's energy could keep anyone going (even through a mastectomy and chemotherapy, I am imagining), and it will mean so much to me to be walking with the same wonderful women again this year. I do hope they won't have to push me, though!