Happy Halloween! (*Late)
It was our first Halloween in our new house! We left all of our big props in Pennsylvania - gave them away to a local Halloween lover - and so we needed to start anew!
We had a deck out back that was for a pool that has been relocated to a shed at my sister’s house, so we started removing the deck. The neighbor was very happy, bonus! Gabe was really happy with all the different types of screws the deck was built with. As he’s been removing it, he’s out there with a drill in each hand, and sometimes it’s a different type of screw so he still has to change the bits. He’s really loving it*! *Sarcasm in use.
Anyway, because we were destroying a deck, we had lots of scrap wood. So… we made a few things. Giant paper mache pumpkin man:
And a coffin:
We also found an old chair behind the garage that had been left by the previous homeowners, so we put a dude on the roof of the garage, and also built gallows to hang baskets with skeletons and bones in:
All in all, a pretty successful first attempt at Halloween in our new home. And everything comes apart. Except the coffin, but maybe we’ll use it for storage or something?
We also went through a variety of costumes to make sure the neighbors knew we were serious:
Halloween night was not super busy, but I believe that’s because another neighborhood in our area has put it out that they are the Halloween place. That’s fine. I have leftover Reese’s still. Winning!! Yes, we do full-size candy bars. That was one of my goals in life: Be the house that hands out full-size candy bars.
Done.
To catch you up on my health - we found a nurse practitioner in the area to see for a regular doctor. It’s a monthly fee, but then you have access to the PA or a doctor 24/7. We’ll still have to keep regular insurance too because I also found an oncologist at the University of New Mexico. She listened to all my concerns and I had an MRI on Sunday. Yes, Sunday. All appears to be well except my neck is getting old or something.
Obviously I know how to read MRI reports very well. Anyway, no metastasis is always a good thing, and hopefully I’ll be ‘in the clear’ in 2023 from triple negative breast cancer. It’s most likely to reoccur within 3 years of diagnosis.
Almost there.
I also had acupuncture on my neck and it seemed to help a lot, so I’m thankful for that and will perhaps go again soon. Did you know acupuncture was illegal in the United States until 1973? Crazy. I highly recommend it. It’s not going to cure cancer, but it has helped all of my issues with pain to date.
I’m working on a blog about my friend Lucy. We had the same type of cancer, except hers wasn’t caught until it had metastasized and was stage 4. She died at the beginning of October, and I’ve been trying to work through how to honor her as best I can. Words seem not enough, but I’ll do my best.
Hopefully I’ll get that done before Thanksgiving.
Hug the people you love every day. Promise me you’ll do that. And vote in every election. We did! Woot!