Skipping Town

Final days of winter break for the kids. Andrew and I took down the trees today and packed away the Christmas decorations. I feel like I only enjoyed them halfway this year; we decorated in a fever between Toronto and my surgery, and then I was upstairs recovering for the first two weeks of December. And now we wanted to get everything cleaned up before chemo starts on Wednesday.  The girls and I played two rounds of Unstable Unicorns, and the four of us played Splendor. I love playing games and am sorry that the pace of the regular year--school, sports, hecticness--usually prevents us from playing more often. I made a honey garlic chicken with rice tonight, and then the girls and I watched the first three episodes of Lost--a show I never watched when it was out in the early 2000s. We liked it.  Laundry, plant watering, reading, walking Farrah. A nice Saturday. I'm not ready for this break to end because I like having the kids around all the time, but we need to get this next ...

Andrew and I went first thing in the morning to the appointment for my scalp cooling helmet. I'm glad this is an option for me and hope it makes at least this one element of this upcoming ordeal a bit easier. Then we ran some errands to do the last of my Christmas returns. In the middle, I got a call about the results from my genetic testing: I do not have a gene mutation that could have been passed on to the girls. This is a huge relief.  Some days there just feels like too much information coming at me all at once. I take it all in as best I can. In the afternoon, the girls and I played two rounds of Unstable Unicorns, and then all for of us played Ticket to Ride. Lucia won both games.  It snowed a few inches today--wintry and beautiful. The kids played outside for a while despite the extreme low temperature. Tonight, finally, was the season 3 premiere of The Way Home. Lots of new mysteries and questions. Farrah is still snuggled right up next to me, by the fire, nested in b...

Forgetting what day it is. The day tripped along. A bright spot was that I tested negative for covid and so could rejoin the family without a mask, and begin moving back downstairs from the attic. We all went to B&N so the kids could spend gift cards they'd gotten for their birthdays. We watched a few episodes of The Way Home. Andrew made chicken and dumplings for dinner. I also got news that scalp cooling will be an option during chemo, and made an appointment for a fitting tomorrow. In the meantime, I was instructed to cut my hair above my shoulders--about six inches shorter than it's been. I tried in the afternoon to find a salon with an appointment, then just gave up and did it myself, chopping it off in the bathroom. It's uneven but so be it. My hair hasn't been this short since I was in my early/mid twenties.

I've always disliked January 1, the weight of the upcoming year pushing me down. But we had a nice day together, me still masking with COVID. We played some games (Bananagrams, Unstable Unicorns, Splendor, Ticket to Ride). Andrew took the girls ice skating at the rink in Schenley, and I walked around in the pretty snow around the track. All the activity around the holidays really helped with my surgery recovery, and I'm able to walk around at length now. We watched a few episodes of The Way Home season one in preparation for the start of season two on Friday. We listened to a bunch of songs to help Lucia choose one for her musical audition, revisiting songs from Descendants that we once listened to endlessly. A nice family day.  No resolutions for me this year except getting through the next eighteen weeks and then moving forward and learning to live with this. An appreciation, even a reverence, for daily life is what I'm taking away from the absolute hellscape that was 202...