Plead your Leaf

Fall--a year or two ago!


I'm so lucky to live in an incredibly beautiful place--especially for being classified as a desert. Yesterday I coerced my children into going for a Sunday afternoon walk/hike. Although the idea of exchanging the afternoon nap for breathing fresh air and looking at scenery is not always viewed as a net positive exchange, I think that most participants would say that it was a repeatable excursion.



I walked with the slowest, youngest walker and the oldest child who kept wandering off to take pictures of great branches or striking trees. I was beginning to wonder if the other two teenagers and my young 20's brother had circled back to the car to avoid the boredom of the walk.... then rounded a corner to have them ask "isn't this where we've seen wild turkey before" and to find them comparing "the best" fall leaves and declaring that there will be a best leaf contest complete with voting and "pleading. Turns out when two equally amazing leaves come up against each other and the the voters cannot agree on the best one--the finder can "plead" to have one of the leaves sent to a special category such as "most intense color", "half and half", "spotted", "most interesting" etc. I think college life is beginning to get to my brother who was creating the elaborate rules for the contest and that maybe he should ditch accounting in favor of another popular occupation held by two other brothers....Pleading!

We made it to the abandoned mill, searched fruitlessly for a spot to cross over the water, and decided we will have to wait for a lower water year to cross over and really investigate the old mill. For now we can let our imaginations run wild with how all those early settlers built the bridges, walls and conduits that are now crumbled remains of all their efforts...and we thought it was exercise to walk there carrying only our treasured leaves!



As a crowning glory to our day--the youngest set the table while the comfort food cooked in the oven and the Mom took a "stave off the allergy headache" nap. We sat down in the dining room to a creative display of our hiking treasures as the centerpiece and I soaked up the joy of having another busy day with some of my greatest treasures--my kids and family members. Sorry Dad had to miss out on this one because of his trip to Chicago (that I had to miss out on!) 

So many adventures...so little time, but we'll keep trying to “plead” in as many as we possibly can into our 24 hour day!!!

Amazing Spontaneaity

My brother is the cutest dad ever.

We just spent the evening at his house having yummy potato bacon soup and eating a yummy chocolate cake to celebrate the 2nd birthday of his foster son. Don't think that his wife isn't amazing too, but that's for another blog, another day....see my brain is always thinking faster than I can actually function!

So back to the "cute dad" issue. We enjoyed dinner, cleaned up a little, chatted with a neighbor and then I realized it was getting time to get my kids and head back home--but where were all the kids, and where was my brother?

Since the two year old was freshly put to bed, after the thrill and excitement of opening his presents and blowing out the candles on his cute "CARS" cake, all the kids had headed to the basement to create a restaurant commonly known by the cousins as the "Cousin Cafe". My cute brother had them all enlisted in the effort to clean up the basement and restore order so Mom didn't have to deal with it in the morning....and all the kids were happily helping him. Somehow once the toys were cleaned up a spontaneous round of square dancing began and my cute brother (maybe we should call him DOTY--short for Dad Of The Year) began singing a square dance song from his 5th grade square dancing program.

Suddenly DOTY, my teenage daughter, youngest daughter, niece, nephew and a neighborhood friend were dosado-ing their partners, promenading, and grabbing hands to circle the ring. Up and back they'd go and collapse into giggles on the floor and the hop up to grab a new partner and do it all again. Not sure how many times the scenario repeated itself, but I got to be the couch sitter this time...just watching and smiling and enjoying the joy of the moment. And as far as I could tell it was pure joy--from the DOTY to the youngest child in the room.

I think Mom was smiling down and thinking she was a success as a mother because Mom loved any spontaneous, happy, giggling moment even if the hour was late and it meant we were giggling and falling off our chairs around the dinner table instead of eating and heading off to bed so she could enjoy a moment of peace and quiet in our house full of chaos (lots of kids create that with no effort at all!). She taught all of us that the little moments of sitting and reading a book, or telling a story, or sailing sticks down a stream were the important, sweet moments of life.....and no matter how crazy or busy, she made time for those kinds of moments for each of us during our childhood.

Thanks DOTY for being a reminder of the legacy of joy in the spontaneous moments of life--it's been almost 9 years since we lost Mom and the grandkids performed the first of the family productions to help dispel the gloom of a funeral on the day of a granddaughter's birthday. Mom knew how to smile through the most difficult times and how to create joy with the most simple things--and you obviously learned that lesson well!

One more Hike

November 2011

For the last ten years that we've lived in our neighborhood I've wished that I could fit more outdoor adventures into my daily routine...and the time has finally arrived for that to come true.

It helps, of course, if you have someone who calls you up and says "let's go". And I'm definitely motivated by an invitation to exercise with a buddy. It's the idea of getting up early that doesn't work quite so well with my internal clock. For all the years of my marriage, my hubby has been the one to rise in the wee hours of the morning and head off to work while I try to sleep off the "interrupted a billion times in the night,not quite enough sleep to feel rested" feeling so that I can be nice to the 4 busy kids for the long day ahead.

I've tried to convert to being a night owl at lest a dozen times over the years...but my happy time is after 10 pm when all the kids and the husband are asleep, the phone doesn't ring, and I can't see all the projects in the yard, and no one is knocking on my door....it's my time to crank on a project or read a book....but sometimes that means it's hard to get moving in the morning.

That explains the WOW factor in the early morning hiking that I did with my brother this summer. He too must be to work at a reasonable time so that meant we had to rise around 5:15 (gasp!!) to head out the door by 5:30 for a hike to the first waterfall in Bell Canyon. I might mention that my bro suggested that we "run" up the canyon, and I cautiously agreed...remember, I'm not a runner and even exercising hard is very difficult for me these days.

I don't say no very well, and I do have a little competitive spirit, so off we headed up the trail for a run/walk with my bro patiently waiting for me when I needed to stop and gasp for air. He'd time us and report whether our progress between stops to gasp was sufficient to keep us on schedule (meaning he could get to work at a respectable, non-eyebrow raising time). When I'd be gasping for air he'd be patiently waiting and talking about all the other times he'd hiked to the waterfall or above....I'd gasp in response just so he'd know I was still alive!

In spite of the fact that my physical progress has come to a complete standstill and perhaps even went downhill by the end of the summer, tonight my brother suggested that we repeat our Bell Canyon early morning jaunt one last time before the snow flies. This time we will require head lamps for the majority of the hike and jackets to keep us warm while we enjoy the mist of the waterfall at the top of our hike. I think I better stock up on calories, rest, and do nothing to exert my muscles for the next day so that I can hike at a respectable pace-- I really want him to invite me to be his hiking buddy again next summer....is that too much for a sister that is 10 years older to want?? I know it's not too much to sacrifice my night owl productivity or my early morning sleeping in....and hopefully it won't be too much for his athletic ego to slow down for either! Love those brothers of mine!

                   Pull up the Blinds and Open the Curtains!!

                                       Sunset over the San Francisco Bay Spring Break 2012

--Recently I had the chance to spend a week in Oakland, CA with my daughters and nieces while my sister-in-law and her hubby went on a bike adventure/rejuvenation trip around the Bay Area.  While they were gone all of us girls spent the week shopping, cooking, doing pinterest projects, painting our nails, watching chic flicks, reading, resting, and taking care of the basic duties of daily life. We met up with friends from home (yep they live in our neighborhood...but we just had to meet them for lunch in Pleasanton) and spent some time out at the Ranch.  Ra and I even took it upon ourselves to saddle up the horses, Houdini and Reveler, and go for a ride up to the power tower and take in the views.  Seems like I'm always trying to take in the views.....

But maybe I'm overly crazed about great views...I love the view of the mountains from my bedroom windows, the exercise room, the living room and every east facing room in my house.  I love the sunset views from my kitchen window, and from my bedroom deck.  I love the lights of the Salt Lake valley and across to the Oquirrh mountains  from my bedroom window and decks.  I love the views in Corner Canyon and up the Temple Quarry trail where I mountain bike. I love watching the sunset from Bell Canyon Reservoir. I love looking at the trees as they change along Wasatch Blvd and up the canyons. I love looking at the "mighty Joe Young" rock as I eat dinner on the deck in the summer.  I love the scenery of Millcreek Canyon and the open views of riding up Emmigration canyon.  I love the view of the Tetons from my Dad's house and the view of the Bay from the Johnson's...seems I'm always looking at the beauty around me and I can never get enough.

I realized I might be a little overboard about walking places and just standing there and drinking in the beauty when I was tucking my sweet mom-in-law into bed and commented about the amazing view she had out her bedroom window.  She mentioned that she'd just discovered how amazing her view was when they chopped a few trees down and took off the window blinds that never seemed to get opened when she was hurrying off to work everyday.  Now the blinds are always up and the gentle light from Oakland and San Francisco makes a beautiful night glow over the room. 

I couldn't fathom living in a room for years and never opening the blinds to enjoy the view.  I'm a curtain and blind opener....and rarely do I close them unless the street, neighborhood lights. or the full moon are keeping me awake at night. I make my sister-in-law crazy because I don't pull all my blinds down at night...and all my windows don't lock.  In fact,  I took all the window coverings off my living room windows so that every time I walk through I see the mountains (and wish I was outside, not inside cleaning)  True, the furniture will be faded prematurely and people can peep in on us at night...but hopefully they'll just see a family eating dinner around the dining room table (on occasional Sundays) enjoying music around the piano, or just hanging out together. 

I know open windows may violate your sense of privacy...but I don't have much to hide (that I know of) so I relish the open blinds and lack of window coverings....I want to see all there is to see and I only want the view covered if the west sun is beating in and heating the house to unbearable levels during the summer afternoons.  Even then, as soon as the sun drops below the trees, I'm the first one to re-open the blinds and see if the evening is providing a pink sunset.  Am I afraid of missing out on something? Claustrophobic? Extremely Extroverted?  I prefer to think of myself as just trying to enjoy the changing beauty of everyday...I can't stand the thought of missing out on what is blooming in my backyard, or watching my son triumph over the storm troopers with his green golf club, or watching my kids jump on the trampoline, mix concoctions or play pretend on the deck....It's all part of that urge to find the joy in the little things and to live every moment to the fullest....Have I always been this obsessed with living the present or is that a gift of maturing, or surviving cancer?  

No matter the reason I'm grateful for the joy a view brings me--in Utah, in CA, in Idaho, wherever I get a chance to be, I seem to be drinking in the view and hoping that the joy of those moments will carry me through one more day with all its challenges.  Thank goodness for the views!

A smile and gloves

I must be on a roll--or desperate for some adventure!

Spent the whole day inside working on the computer and trying to get the elementary school book fair organized and volunteers on board for all the different tasks that need completed before the first week in November. November sounds far away, but when you think about the details of pulling together all the details....yikes, it's time to get cranking.

Every time I was waiting for a page to load or had a break to look up, or answered the door for the pest guy to spray for spiders, I was tempted by the fall air and the view of the mountains out the window...exercise inside is just not an option today!

But as usual, the day has slipped by and there are only 90 minutes or so until sunset, just enough time to drive 5 minutes up the road, slip my mountain bike off the bike rack and pedal hard to get to the top of Little Cottonwood trail at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. I haven't ridden my mountain bike up this trail for almost two years. Last year the trail was washed out by flooding and closed for the majority of the summer. This spring we had similar flooding, but I did venture up the trail on a run/walk (mostly walking and gasping) with my oldest when it finally opened in August. While the run wasn't too exhilerating, the scenery was and I realized the trail was in the best shape I have ever seen it in....Time to get on a bike and ride!

But instead I've been riding my road bike or heading to Corner Canyon for some rides with the G-4 network... the Granite Gear- Grinding Gals, and the summer has passed and the chill is setting in. I've even missed the most spectacular part of the fall colors, but still it's on the summer bucket list....so I throw my bike on the bike rack, holler to the kids to come rescue me if I'm not back by dark and drive to the trail head.

The trail is more manageable than I remember it. I'm not saying that I'm flying up the trail with spectacular form and speed...just commenting that the trail is in pretty good condition in spite of MY condition. Trail to the first bridge is wide, with new bumps over culverts for the daredevils to fly over on their way down. The trail looks fresh and as I pass the bridge I am amazed at the places where I can still ride instead of having to get off to maneuver the huge rocks that used to make it difficult for regular biker folk. Several fast, lean bikers cruise past me while I get off to walk a few sections and I can barely keep up with a few of the hikers that have a pretty good pace. Still, I am happy to be riding and gasping for air in the beautiful scenery that surrounds me. If it wasn't so cool, and I wasn't in a protected watershed canyon I might be tempted to get into one of the clear pools of water below the huge boulders in the creek bed.

A family passes me headed down the trail and the kids all look relieved that their parents are having them walk and not pedal a bicycle. Two hikers are ahead of me, then I pass, then they catch up while I stop to check the phone that rings three times in quick succession. Downhill bikers with their full "motorcycle like" helmets blaze past me and I wonder if my little helmet shouldn't be replaced with a full body helmet!

I actually make it to the top of the trail, I stopped to breathe a few times on the way up, answered a few calls from my youngest :"when are you going to be home so I can order my Halloween costume?", "How much longer?", "Are you done yet?" Hint: Mom can get home faster if you quit making her stop to answer your repeated calls. Also answered the reply to my pocket call that I made to my Pocatello friend and when I don't talk and she just hears my heavy breathing, she thinks she should call back and make sure I'm okay. Maybe the calls were all just good excuses to let my heart rate slow enough to prevent that workout headache that has been so common lately.

The view at the top is worth the work. The water is clear and melodic as it pours down the creek bed, the lighting is beautiful just before sunset, and the fall leaves look beautiful. I can't believe how lucky I am to live so close to so much beauty and I'm so excited that I'm healthy enough to be enjoying more of it on a more frequent basis.

Now the race is on to get to the bottom of the trail before pure darkness sets in. I enjoy the downhill, but wonder sometimes if I'm going a little too fast to consider myself in control of my bike and personal safety. My hands are freezing--I looked at my gloves as I headed out the door, but I didn't put them on, getting sidetracked by finding a jacket instead. The jacket is flourescent yellow, light but protects me enough that I'm not a total icecube. My hands can barely squeeze the brakes but I tough it out until I get back to the first bridge, then I decide to run with my bike, hoping my typical overheating while running will help force the blood back into my fingers so that I can get back on and ride.

I'm running and pushing my bike when a fellow "trying to beat the darkness" rider slows to check on me. " Is your bike okay, are you okay" he asks since he recently saw me riding my bike at the top of the trail.
" I'm fine, just too cold to brake"
He nods and hops on his bike to take off, then reconsiders and asks again, "Is everything okay, is your bike okay?"
"Bike is great, I'm just running because my hands are so cold"
Then he smiles (at least I think he did--hard to tell with those motorcross helmets) and says, "Here, take my gloves, I'm really warm. You can give them back when you get to the bottom"

You would have thought I won the lottery! That was the nicest thing a perfect stranger has done for me in quite some time. I rode to the bottom of the trail with a smile, and a glow--and I'm pretty sure there was more to the glow than warm gloves covering my cold fingers.

It was a simple thing to do--offer me gloves and a smile, but it made my day, and my ride to the bottom so much more enjoyable. Thanks, Stranger, for thinking of offering your gloves to me in my moment of being unprepared for the quick cooling of the canyon that I know I should have been more prepared for. Thanks for not calling me an idiot or looking at me like I should figure out how to dress correctly for the season. Thanks for smiling and sharing--and making my day!

Thanks for reminding me that the little things are the things that can really make a difference, and thanks for taking a minute out of your busy, trying to beat the darkness ride to make my squeezed into the last minutes of the day ride more enjoyable.

E.R (--Embracing Reality, Earnestly Racing--the sunset)

Old Enough

I'm grateful that I'm finally old enough:

I'm finally old enough to laugh when a two year old dumps out an entire container of sticky, maple syrup on himself and the kitchen counter (at least it wasn't on the floor!)

I'm finally old enough to laugh when a two year old drinks sugar out of the sugar pourer.

I'm finally old enough to laugh when a two year old takes my lipstick and covers his mouth, chin, cheek, etc.

I'm finally old enough to laugh when all three things happen in just a short stint of helping my sister-in-law with her kids!!

I'm finally old enough to know that kids aren't perfect, they scream and embarrass you in public, they make messes, they refuse to sleep when you want them to...or for that matter do anything you want them to do when you want them to do it.... and they grow up so fast that you actually miss all those moments that made you want to pull your hair out when you were younger...and so were they.

To everything there is a season and time--today I'm grateful to be in the season where two year olds are cute and mischievous and not mine!

Celebrating 4 years of Aliveness!!

Yep, it's true. I'm still alive--and still crazy on most days! October 2nd is the anniversary date for the day my life got even crazier (is that possible??) with the diagnosis of Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. At the time we thought we were dealing with 3 tumors each 1mm--that's pretty tiny stuff...and we were hoping they would come back from biopsy as cysts or calcium deposits. But that was not to be the case and after getting the invasive diagnosis I spent a few weeks asking lots of questions and trying to decide whether to have a lumpectomy or a mastectomy.

After talking to lots of survivors, I was leaning toward the mastectomy--mostly because I didn't ever again want to tell my kids I had breast cancer (especially if I could have prevented it with a mastectomy) and because I didn't want to have the stress of worrying about recurrence every time I had a mammogram. When I met with my breast surgeon, Leigh Neumayer, and asked her opinion she asked me if I had any specific need for my breasts (meaning more nursing babies???)--when I answered no she said well, a lumpectomy and mastectomy will be about the same considering how little breast tissue you have...gee thanks!...then she mentioned that if it was her facing the decision she would just take both breasts and be done with it. Maybe not in those exact words, but that was the gist of her comments and it sounded like the perfect solution for me.

So on October 22, 2007 I had a skin sparing. nipple sparing, double radical mastectomy--the left side to remove the invasive cancer and the right side for prophylactic purposes. I was serious about only fighting cancer once! And it turns out that was the perfect decision for me--because in doing the mastectomy they discovered a 1.1cm invasive tumor that had not shown up on ultrasound, mamogram, or breast MRI. I got lucky twice--once the day my internist sent me for the original mamogram that showed three suspicious spots and once the day I decided to have a mastectomy. The unlucky part was the fact that my hopes for only having to do radiation after surgery were not to come true and instead I would do 6 rounds of CMF chemotherapy and then 6 weeks of radiation. But all the gory details have already been written in more accuracy and detail as they happened--you can check that out at www.kenjenjohnson.blogspot.com. This blog is about living AC (after cancer) and finding the joy in being a survivor!

So I woke up on Sunday morning October 2, 2011 and decided that I would take the day to enjoy the fact that I was alive.

Two details must be covered before you can appreciate what I did to prove to myself that I was alive.

#1--I flew to Hawaii on a buddy pass on Tuesday, Sept 27th, to watch my niece perform in Phantom of the Opera. It was frivolous and spontaneous, but the plan was to fly out on Tuesday and fly home on a thursday night red-eye flight. I tend to do these sorts of crazy things when I'm around my JJETs sisters but that's a story for another day. Long story short--I got "stuck" in Hawaii until Tuesday night of the following week. Can't ask for a better place to be stuck--especially because I "had to" hang for some extra days with the E of the JJETs!

#2--I have been taking Tamoxifen, an estrogen receptor blocker, since the completion of radiation (summer of 2008). Tamoxifen basically makes you feel like you're in menopause with all the symptoms that accompany that--I'll name just a few: HOT FLASHES, WRINKLES, and WEIGHT GAIN. My oncologist has tried to convince me that clinical trials of tamoxifen have shown no statistical proof that it causes weight gain....but just ask any female who is lacking in estrogen and ask her what her biggest beefs are...and she'll at least mention the hot flashes and weight gain! (okay...maybe the wrinkles popped out during chemo, or just the stress of life...but tamoxifen gets the credit!!) So after getting through chemo and radiation only gaining about 7 pounds I was pretty happy--because my doc predicted I'd gain the typical 15 lbs that breast cancer patients usually gain...must be all the chocolate our friends give us to help us get through the traumatic experience. So inspite of returning to my BC (before cancer) exercise routine, eating habits, and lifestyle of business and forgetting to eat.....I have been steadily gaining weight...2 pounds here, 2 pounds there and trying to adjust to new clothing sizes (at least you get to shop????) and lack of energy and lack of muscle tone.

I'm riding my bike, doing the Firm, getting up in the early am hours and hiking to the waterfall, P90x, walking, elliptical, mountain biking, eating less, avoiding dessert....you know...all the same things that you try when you want to get that pair of jeans to fit comfortably again...or even to fit uncomfortably! Well--after 3 years of working on it (did I mention that I need a nap after every exercise routine...is that the fatigue of radiation hanging around or just my mental issues surfacing?) and seeing no improvement on the scale, and miniscule improvement on how my clothes were fitting I felt pretty discouraged about getting back my BC healthy, fit, vibrant, energetic body.

Okay, now that the background is set--perhaps you can appreciate the monumental feat that I accomplished-- I ran for 4 miles on the beach!!

It probably helped that I live and workout in the high altitude of Utah, and I was running at sea level....and it probably helped that I had the inertia of feeling alive on the 4th anniv of bad news...and it probably helped that I slept for easily 11 1/2 hrs the night before (did I mention that I seem to require WAY MORE sleep AC than BC?).... and it probably helped that the weather was balmy and the sky was blue and I had no obligations to return to or worry about...but still, I RAN 4 MILES!!

To you runners, that is not big deal but to those of us who have been battling knee pain for the last 9 years (yep, since the birth of that beautiful last child) aching bodies (tamoxifen?) and gasping for air (yep, since chemo and radiation and tamoxifen...not sure what to blame that one on) and who could barely stay on the elliptical for 20 minutes without having a pounding headache.....4 miles is like running a marathon. It is all about perspective!

So from my AC perspective I treated myself to one of the greatest things...a 4 mile run down the beach in Kailua, Oahu, Hawaii and a cool off swim in the blue-green ocean. Salt water in the eyes and up the nose....floating and moving and feeling healthy and alive after 4 years as a BREAST CANCER SURVIVOR. The race for the cure is awesome and motivating....but this was just me--celebrating just me! For a crazy, busy girl that is an amazing place to be. Just me, the beach and the water....just being alive. And so GRATEFUL to BE

E.R. (embracing reality... ever remembering....evoking reverence!)
Hint of the day: The American Cancer Society recommends a"baseline" mammogram at age 35 - 40 with an "every other year" mammogram from ages 40 to 50. After age 50, women should get a mammogram every year.