Fun with pictures!

I don't know how anyone can stand to read this blog...I prefer to read things with glorious pictures, and this blog has heretofore been entirely lacking glorious pictures.

However, with the brand new paint in my house, I feel the need to finally put up some of my favorite pictures of my family! Of course, first I need to FIND all of those pictures...which means a lot of work.

The happy upside to all of this work is that I can share some of the cute pictures I find here! So I am starting today. Here's my darling middle daughter - I was looking for pictures from this time of the year, as far back as I could find.

Grand Cayman - Feb. 2003

March 2004 and also...

Feb. 2004

February 2005

March 2006

March 2007 (with Cookie Dough)

February 2008 (my wig!)

February 15, 2009 (Class Valentine's Day party)

The Hair Wars

This is something I wrote today for Trusera...but why not share it with my friends here? If I was writing it for this blog only, I would have related that JUST TODAY I figured out that I could use hats to help with my big giant hair problem. Can anyone say, clueless? I should also say that I know I could be coloring my hair to make it not look "like dirt", as Emma so delicately puts it...and that could probably boost my appearance a little. But I've never colored my hair before, and sort of want to make a point to my daughters that people are beautiful how they come. Who knows how long that is going to last, as I greet my dirt hair in the mirror each day!

So here is the post...

I think it is ironic that my biggest problem, throughout my experience with breast cancer, has been my hair. Honestly, despite having a bilateral mastectomy, an infection with one of my tissue expanders that required its removal and eventual reinsertion (and a chest that was half-flat, half-expanded for over 7 months), 4 surgeries on that chest, 5 weeks of drain tubes, so many battles with compression bras, breast forms, mastectomy bras and a bathing suit - it's the hair loss that bothered me the most. And today, as I sit here, my chest is put back together, but I am still at war with my hair!

I'm about 4 months into having hair again after chemotherapy (I remained essentially bald for almost 3 months after I finished chemo), and my hair is crazy. It's growing out, the same color that it was when I cut it off (the definition of dishwater blonde), but it seems thicker...and wants to stand straight up, as if it is saying, "Look at me! I'm here!" I've wanted that kind of body for as many years as I have had hair, but can now understand the drawbacks to such a situation.

Anyway, I am still happy to have hair with which I can wage battles...and have a few tools with which to do this. All of those hats I was SO happy to put away once there was a smidgeon of hair on my head are just waiting to be put into use again. I only regret I didn't start using them a few weeks ago ("You mean, some people wear hats when they have hair? That's news to me...") - I could have saved myself a lot of bad hair days!

P.S. - This is my 300th post. That's a lot of writing!

Birthday Party Boy (and his Mommy)

Here's a little picture of my magical nephew, and wonderful sister, at the party on Saturday...

(so cute I can't stand it!)

NOOO! Winter break cannot be over!

We had such a lovely break - the trip to Evanston, some quick home improvements before the big first birthday party for Matthew, the Kay family visited, the birthday party itself, and then tonight we went to a fun 18th birthday party for my nephew David. Sadly, though, I was moving so fast I did not expect this break to be over so soon! It's a good feeling when you are not sick of your kids, and they aren't sick of each other, at the end of 9 days off.

Not to say we didn't have our moments... but I have realized I am more immune to those moments than I ever thought I would be. 9 years of motherhood (and three kids) have really taught me to just let some things slide...and then there was breast cancer to teach me more big lessons in that way.

I could really tell the difference in pre-breast cancer Pam and post-cancer Pam when I was painting over the past week. I decided at 3pm on Saturday that I would paint the entire main level - about 1000 square feet, but no ceilings, and not the heinous kitchen cabinets, which take up a lot of those square feet. Still, it was a fair amount of work, but I finished the job Sunday around dinner time. (Just don't look too closely, because I am not a painting perfectionist!) I was about 10 hours into my painting weekend when I realized I had not yet had one single fit or tantrum. I could hardly believe it! Pre-cancer, it would only take about 4 hours of painting to set me off...and here I did a whole weekend without losing it.

So...maybe it is the 9 years of motherhood, or the fact that the kids are getting older and easier, or maybe it is the nice way my breast cancer experience colors things - but something has weathered me in a rather nice way. Because here I sit, after 9 days of crazy home improvement projects, a trip with 3 kids in tow, preparations for a party at my house, more busyness than I normally like, and trying to control the craziness at my house so that my 3 kids and too many pets (including puppy) did not disrupt every minute of sleep my nephew/sister/brother-in-law may have been trying to have at our house - and I don't want it to end!

Good thing the Luckens are going on vacation together in only 4 days...

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO ME!!!!!!!!

I'm a couple of hours early (about 22...I got the phone call around 8pm Eastern Time on the 18th of February)...but Happy Anniversary to ME!

I was thinking I should do something really special, like write something about all of the things I have done this year - the number of appointments, surgeries, bras, hours I spent in bed, blog posts, kind email messages from friends - anything to collaborate my special year. But instead, I am having such a great time living my life...too much fun, really (tonight I am in Evanston with my kids, visiting my sister, and magical nephew - and we have had a lovely stay, though the kids miss Daddy terribly).

And really, isn't that the point? Life, despite all of its difficulties (which are varied and many...my breast cancer having been quite small in the scheme of possible difficulties one could face in life, I realize), is really, really wonderful.

I'm happy to be here, happy to be alive, happy to feel healthy again. And even if I am not perfect - because of the breast cancer that I had, or really, because of any other shortcoming I have - it doesn't matter so much to me anymore (and that is a breakthrough for me, a different statement than I could have made a year ago). I accept that I'm not perfect, that things aren't always easy, and am really just grateful for the chance to PARTICIPATE in this journey called life.

And THANK YOU! To all of the people who have helped me, or sent good wishes on this journey of mine, or kept me company here on my blog - THANK YOU! I never imagined I would have deserved such good will and kindnesses, and am blessed to have such wonderful friends and family members.

(And now, I have to stop three overly tired children from fighting...and send them to bed. The Kohl Children's Museum in Glenview blew their minds and made them so happy, but now they are exhausted. And Katie just said, "Mom, are you almost done? Or are you just writing silly comments? MOM? I just asked a question. The polite thing to do is to answer." OK, Katie, stop saying such funny things and I will stop writing them.)

Love is Chroo!

In honor of Valentine's Day, courtesy of my darling Katie...


(That's "Love is True!", for those of you who don't readily understand first-grade phonetic spelling...)

Everybody is Kung Fu fighting

Don't I just love having kids who want to hear their new favorite song over and over and OVER again, until we know all of the words and the way the singer lifts his voice in that one verse, but not in the other? YES, I do, because I am the same way. I can, and do, listen to one song, possibly hundreds of times in a row before I feel the need to move on.

So the new song in the Lucken household, courtesy of Mr. Nathan R. Lucken, is the song that closes out Kung Fu Panda. And I love the words. So here are some good lines for you (and for me):

Everybody is Kung Fu Fighting
Your mind becomes fast as lightning
And though the future is a little bit frightening
It's the book of your life that you're writing...

You are a natural, why is it so hard to see
Maybe it's just because you keep on looking at me
The journey's a lonely one, so much more than we know
So sometimes you have to go, go on and be your own hero

(chorus again)