Today wasn't my best; I stomped and raged and struggled.

I railed at the frustration of someone changing a schedule THEY had set (and they changed it at the very last minute, with no regard to how much of a difference it could have made in our day. )

I tried so hard to visit my mother and just be nice, but other frustrations crept in and I ruined the visit and I felt guilty.

I'm also so MAD that she has a sweet new granddaughter and won't go visit. Excuses. Blah.

I cried, eating pancakes that my son made for me, because I want to go see my sister so badly. And I didn't save up for a plane ticket (in the madness of the past few months, which isn't a fail therefore, but still makes me sad...)

I went to the market which is SO not my favorite place, but my sweet daughter put up with my stomping and storming and helped me get groceries and bring them in.

Then I went out to water my garden and the hose isn't right so it spritzed me over and over and I got all covered in grass clippings and my favorite flip flops broke and... Ugh.

Then she put on Big Bang and it soothed me with funny, and after watching the wedding I went to my porch and played with my flowers until I could act like a normal human again. I drank wine and we ate steak and DIDNT get calls from the aides with drama - silence for the win!

And I tried to write bills and sort papers and do real work that people pay me for and felt like I made a dent. Sometimes, that's as high as you can jump. Barely getting off the ground That's it.

It seems like February third* was 100 years ago. Today I really felt like my day was not in my control at all. I got three phone calls related to my father in law's care while I was at work - all from different people. At one point I ended up in a conference room ( because I sit in a shared workspace now, designed to cram two dozen people into a minimal amount of space. Go, go ahead and google Dogbone workstations - I'll wait... ) and when the phone call was done I just wanted to put my head down on the table and cry out of fatigue and frustration.

It was bad enough that the regression test assignment I had today confused the hell out of me; people walk in and out of the new work area all day long and I'm struggling with the steady stream of distractions. I HAVE ZERO ATTENTION SPAN AS IT IS, people. I also want to kill or maim the two, like, secretaries who, like, totally sit right near my now-very-open floor plan office space and won't. Shut. Up. With their loud phony voices. Like. Really loud.

I have my sister and a few trusted people that I can turn to and say OHMYGODTHISISALL SOFRUSTRATING and so on... And I am grateful for that. And for dumb knock knock jokes and riddles and silly games on my phone that help me get mind off things. And a nifty app, ambiance, which lets me download a variety of urban background noises which somehow help me tune out some of the clatter.

BUT. I am tired of piles of clutter and chaos around my house, and disappointed that I can't seem to ever make progress on things *I* want to do, especially now. Saturday I wanted to weed my garden and after 30 minutes of hunting for gloves, I drove to the hardware store in tears. I know I have three pairs. Somewhere.... But I had to put on my big girl pants and just go buy more, and not yank my husbands chain because the garage is a disaster and I'm spending all my free time buying diapers for his parents.

Because by the grace of whatever benevolent force in the universe allowed me to dodge my OWN coffin a couple of years ago, I got lucky and now is when I pay back all that karma that I got on advance.

I knew the abundant free time I had in January was a nice break. Now I see it was the water pulling away from the shore, and the feckin' tsunami is hitting me NOW.

*february third is the day my now-88 year old father in law fell, breaking his femur in three places...

If you missed Louis Van Amstel dancing with Anna Trebunskaya last night to Santana, go watch it on YouTube. THIS is how it's supposed to look.

The best part is that it's really Santana, not those hack singers that do bad covers for the competitors. (as my daughter would say, "where are YOUR prize ribbons?" but I swear I could do better....)

So... where was I ?

My father in law is still in the hospital. He will hopefully be coming home soon. In the meantime one of the women who help me care for my mother in law, M., is keeping plenty of baked goods supplied to my home. Chocolate chip bread. Banana bread. Blueberry. Cakes... and on and on it goes. We are all expanding. The goal was to put weight on MY MOTHER IN LAW. Not all of us. M calls to tell us she has a few breads for us, and we all sigh quietly.

This is my busy week at church; singing almost every day. Last night the priest was intoning several VERY long prayers in a row and I just. Got. So. Sleepy.  Suddenly I realized that not only was I RIGHT on the edge of falling asleep, Stanley was looking right AT ME. And he was saying "You're not falling ASLEEP are you?"  (Stanley talks to us all the time during mass, because we are upstairs behind the congregation, and they usually don't hear his Irish whisper as he reminds us how to sing a particular part of whatever we're doing next.)  So I turned bright red, and bit my lip and shook my head. No. Nope. Not falling asleep.  He laughed at me.  See if I bring him any candy. Or cookies. Or home made fudge.  (This year he asked me for maple. Early taste tests of the spoon indicate success...)

Hmmm... what else can I share with you? (I have a few loyal readers I see, I get a handful of visits every day even though I don't post as often since Harry fell. Are you reading my tweets over at the right? Do you like the photos I post? Feel free to look me up on Instagram as Carlyq80. )

We are very busy preparing for a trip to see my sister, who is having ANOTHER adorable baby for me to gush over. If the stars manage to align, she will cooperate and go into labor so that I can be with her while the baby is born (there is maybe a 5% chance of that). But it would be really awesome since she was with me when my son was born so many years ago.

I will have to be very careful if I am in the delivery room, since I am just as graceful as ever....

The other day I noticed that one of my neighbor's kids somehow lost track of a green ball that the wind had blown into the bushes in the very back of my yard. I walked back to go get it, forgetting that I was wearing shoes with a bit higher heel, which helpfully sunk into the wet grass every few seconds, since it had rained earlier.  I got to the ball, retrieved it, and was sinkwalking toward their yard when I remembered their big annoying german shepherd who chases people.  We don't get on well with those neighbors so I decided to just stop and kick the ball in the general direction of the other crap sitting around their backyard.  Unfortunately my shoes are slip ons, in addition to having heels, so OF COURSE ONE SHOE WENT FLYING. Of course. I had to walk across the wet grass a few feet to fetch it. My only consolation was that due to the angle of her house I know she wasn't watching me from her kitchen laughing.

Ah, don't you wish you could be as cool as me?   - one more story, then I have to go.

My daughter is also preparing for her prom, and discussing colleges. We need to start visits this summer. They will all be local, given the havoc that unemployment and cancer wreaked on my finances. Luckily we have some great options near us.  She told me in the car the other day that she was considering joining the Navy. I laughed for about a mile since this is a girl who takes no less than 30 minutes in the bathroom then still has to dry her hair and do her makeup just so, in her own room. I said, you are ABSOLUTELY not suited to the demanding life of a solder or a sailor.  She joked with me... "You'll see. I will do it just to prove you wrong."  I said nothing for a few moments.  Then I turned to her and shouted as loud as I possibly could, 'DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY' and was rewarded with a scream and flailing of arms.

I rest my case.

We had just had a brief but violent snow squall. Oh right, it's still winter. It's suppose to snow. Crap.

At any rate, this is the progression of my edits to the photo so far.

You can see my dashboard in the original photo, which makes me laugh. I have to work on the basics of framing a photo (and not cropping later) and also of actually holding my camera or phone so the horizon is level.

So I crop in photogene and sometimes rotate -- it is a quick and simple app I've had a while. They have a newer version but I'm not smart enough for Photogene2 - it does too much when all I want is some basic fixes.

Then I go into Dynamic Light, which provides HDR effect. I also add some filtering there; in this case the "Orton" which adds some blur and greenish/ blue tones, plus the vignette to darken the edges.

Then I cropped it again. I try sometimes to improve my haphazard compositon...

Lastly, I use Instagram to share photos sometimes, so I put a filter on top of everything else there. I think it might have been Hefe, but does it matter at this point?

It was fun. THAT is what matters in this case.

Ow. My feet. And I did wear the best sneakers I have. Ive got blisters on my blisters. We did all four parks and even rode the boat from hollywood to epcot. I love that useful things like the boats and buses are free.

I like the fastpass system but it should be refined so that the best rides dont "sell out" before 2 pm. I didn't get on Soarin which was one ride i really wanted. Maybe limit the number of passes that can be generated each hour???

Disney is loud and full of young children in various stages of tantrum meltdown. Im so glad my kids are grown. When they still are wearing their princess dress and have the princess makeover bun and sparkly tiara it is awesome. The toddlers... Not my kids.

I'm pretty tired and when we stayed for extra magic hours the other night I was more or less delirious trying to fall asleep. Moaning and talking in my half-sleep and waking myself up. My daughter loved it. Not.

We were pretty much in synch so it was great. We both kinda liked Everest, hated space mountain, and loved Aerosmith's rollercoaster. Plus it was fun to just walk around and hang out with her.

(My son did his thing with his friends and I'm fine with that)

Gotta run!!

An extra play day for mommy on the front and back of this trip was inspired genius, if I do say so myself.

(this is the main pool at coronado springs resort.... It's going to rain, but i have a margarita...)

I was never a huge Whitney fan, but I did like her. I downloaded her
greatest hits album last night when I was updating my Alcatraz
podcasts. This morning I was driving to work, heavy hearted and
Whitney singing "I go to the rock" was at least a little bit of
comfort.

Things are not looking good right now. My father in law has an
infection (possibly c-diff which is not fun at all to google). He is
back in the hospital.

I am torn inside. I'm disappointed at the possibility that my vacation
is going down the drain, and feeling guilty and selfish. I wanted my
children to enjoy our Disney trip (our departure was/is/ might be
still scheduled for this Friday- they were supposed to travel down
with all of their band / classmates).

A Disney trip is something I never had as a kid, that I wanted to give
to them, and they have been eagerly counting the days while I have
been secretly struggling to juggle the finances to make it work. If
it weren't for the fact that they are supposed to be performing with
their school band, I would have already told them that Disney will
always be there but we will not go this time, and we will wait to go
when we are not so heavy hearted. But... I have responsibilities to
help chaperon, I'm supposed to have the cert check to pick up the
parkhopper passes, B was supposed to stay in my room, and so on.

My daydream bubble of a contented Friday afternoon (of "me time"
poolside before the bus arrives) has been burst. Even if I do get to
go, I'm not sure how RELAXED I could possibly be. But far more
importantly at any minute my father in law could leave us forever, and
despite him being 85+ we are not really prepared for that, and we are
also busy caring for my mother in law who can't take care of herself.
We have some help, but it's only been a week since this all started so
things are not really properly sorted out.

And, it's supposed to snow Thursday night. Which is just... perfect.

(...probably because my eyebrows still haven't grown back. Just sayin'.)

This is going to be a long confusing rant that you may want to skip if you're a guy. Unless you have a wife, or sisters, or a mom.

Tonight on Facebook I saw a picture of a bunch of oranges that was photoshopped to show various symptoms of breast cancer. It was a very cathartic sucker punch.

(side note: Kerry Anne, I love you and don't doubt that for a second, please)

It's sad that we can't just show PICTURES OF ACTUAL BREAST CANCER without it being tee hee, boobies. And I wish I had a nickel for all the people who were embarrassed FOR ME that weird cells grew deep down in my breasts and not in, say, on the surface of my pasty white skin. PEOPLE. It doesn't embarrass me in the least. Breast cancer, Breast cancer, breast cancer. It's not dirty. I'm not immodest if I tell you where my tumors, all four of the fuckers, chose to set up shop.

But what stung just a little is that one of the photos was right on target. And I have blamed myself for it, far too long.

The orange in the photo that I'm referring to was leaking. Drip, drip.

So was I, for a while.

One day in the summer of 2009 while I was visiting my sister in Pitt, I woke up and my tshirt was wet. Just a little bit, near the right nipple. It was annoying. It happened every now and then. I assumed that at age 45 (seriously, how long have I been writing this blog?) I was perimenopausal, and rolled my eyes whenever the topic came up. Old bag. Sigh.

The year before, I'd gone for my annual lube/oil/ and filter check (come on, joking is the only way to get through that ordeal) and dutifully said to the ob/ gyn's nurse practitioner "uh, you know, sometimes I leak, and my kids are teenagers, so what's that about?" and they did a few extra blood tests, and found... Nothing. And I let it drop.

I let the matter drop. My family doctor glanced through the bloodwork and basically shrugged.

I am only starting to forgive that now. Him, me, all of of the medical people who failed me that summer in '08.

The following summer, in Pitt, I started to worry. But it was in a long line of worries at that point (helloooooo unemployment!!!) - I was depressed. I didn't WANT to go for another checkup. They had said the year before, everything was fine... I assumed still that I was just getting old. I really did live in denial then. But that was in part because both breasts leaked (because, my dumb luck, I got cancer in BOTH OF THEM....) so it probably *was*just me getting old... Or so I thought.

I am writing this to tell you: it's not fine. Your breasts should not suddenly start to leak, years and years after your children start school. Don't settle for "eh, it's probably just..."

My surgeon told me that it would have been five years before I could feel my tumor doing a breast self examination. Five years.

Five years. And it had already spread to the nearest lymph node.

I am grateful to myself for pulling it together in November (my birthday month) that year and saying to myself "Carly, get your damn mammo and checkup done already.". It was a few months later than I usually did it.

I wonder now, if I'd done it in the summer, would they have seen anything? I wonder if I'd have gone another year, not quite feeling right and not knowing why, while the cells marched onward through my lymph system.

But I am starting to forgive myself. For not jumping up and down and demanding REAL ANSWERS. For waiting a few extra months in 2009 to get that mammo- because I might have skipped the ordeal of chemo. But I might also have missed my relatively early diagnosis. It's just something I'll never know.

I'm starting to forgive my family doctor (who I stopped seeing when he told me, without seeing ANY of my biopsy info, that I would need a double mastectomy, and radiation treatments were horrible and to be avoided and so much other bullshit, that I should just sue his balls off. )

Mostly I am leaving him in the past, as a distant memory. I got a second opinion from wonderful doctors who actually LOOKED AT my tests and knew what they were doing. They are my personal heroes and I hug them both whenever I see them.

But the point of my long rant is this: okay fine, if it takes a photo of weird oranges to get people talking about breast cancer symptoms, then so be it.

TALK ABOUT IT.

Talk to your wives and your sisters and your mothers. These are the facts: anything that is different or unusual is a sign that needs to be checked out. Puckering? Check it. Weird skin texture? Call the doctor. Leaking? Stand on someone's desk and demand to be heard. Fight for an MRI or at least an ultrasound.

For me, tell even ONE PERSON today about what I've written here. Please.

We need to stop being embarrassed by breast cancer. It's hard enough to fight it.

The other day I got my park hopper pass. (Theirs is part of their band's tour package... I'm sort of tagging along...)

I have even found a ride that appeals to me (Soarin' - an IMAX hanglider tour of California. Awesome. )

Let's do this!

I really like this, for no other reason than, I just do.

So YOUR assignment for this weekend is to do something you like, just because you do.

(Oh, and to watch Alcatraz because it's excellent. Saturday. Fox. )

I have been enjoying being a little bit "bored" this week in the evenings. Kinda nice to just chill after the Christmas mayhem.

Going to the Pink Zone game again tomorrow; it was so much fun last year.