Thursday, September 19, 2013

Embracing bedhead and other things

Having short hair is so easy! You get out of the shower, maybe blowdry for a short time, and go.  It has only been in the last month or so that a brush was even necessary. (Yes, I know that is sad, but when your hair just sticks straight up, you just run a hand through and done.)  I love Ginnifer Goodwin's short hair and the many looks you can get with it, and I have learned the most important lesson of short hair with curl from her - "Embrace bedhead!"  It doesn't seem to matter what I do.  When I style it, my hair looks like this:
But, give it two minutes out in the Florida humidity from just walking to my car, and this is what you get:
What is that one rogue bang thinking?  I am not trying for the Superman curl on the forehead, let alone the birds could nest in this crazy mess look........... face palm!  So, I'm learning to embrace bedhead at any time of day.  My hair is going to do what it wants anyway!   Plus, I'm sure that my bad habit of playing with or running my fingers through my hair when thinking does not help it anyway.  Any of my former band students could tell you that I do pretty odd things with my hair when concentrating that I don't even realize I'm doing.  At least I can't really twist the front of my hair into a bun or anything too  crazy while working since it is so short.   It is growing, and is still very thick; so, I'm thankful for that!

I've also had to embrace the fact that I had to go up a size to a size & 1/2 in shoes. Crazy!  My feet have swelled ever since chemo. That is how I've always reacted to the steroids that they give you, but apparently it is a side effect of my anti-hormonal drug, too.  It wouldn't be such a problem if it weren't for the stupid hand-foot syndrome that I got during chemo.  The bottoms of my feet hurt all the time, and if the shoe touches even just a tiny bit anywhere, I get bad blisters.  I knew that hormonal changes in pregnant women could cause them to go up a shoe size, but I've recently found out that  my hormonal changes could also cause that to happen. So, add that to swollen feet with skin that blisters if you look at it funny,  and I had to go out and buy bigger shoes for work/church.   I've had people say, well, sometimes  if you lose/gain weight, your shoe size will change too, which I know is true.  Though I wish it wasn't the case, I have been in the same 15 lb area playing up & down games for the last year and a half so this fairly new thing of all my shoes being too tight isn't directly related to that, I don't think.  I'm not chucking all of those old shoes, though yet, just in case any one of those things eventually gets better.

My goals have been coming along nicely.  We've sent out several blankets for Covered with Care, and I made it through a full spin class standing as much as everyone else this past Monday night.  Now, to trying to up the resistance more than I have been.  I wish I had seen more weight changes, but I know that the Livestrong classes and spin are making a difference.  To go from barely being able to stand up 10-20 seconds per time within the class to standing the whole time for every interval in 5 weeks seems like I'm making good progress fitness wise, to me at least. Getting more fit for anything that comes my way in the future is the most important thing fitness-wise to me!

I still appreciate your thoughts and prayers that things will stay NED and good for as long as possible! I count my blessings regularly, and am so thankful that I'm only having to worry about little things like shoes and hair right now.  A year ago today, I was heading to an ART lunch (Adams Retired Teachers, but they let it stand for Resigned for me) having had my PETscan 4 days before. My world changed in July with the initial cancer diagnoses, but this time last year, I didn't know how much the following Tuesday would forever impact my life.  I was still living in my cancer is gone, but we are doing chemo just to kill any possible stray ones,and then I'll be cured land.  Wow, I was naive!   Today, I am again, minutes away from leaving for an ART lunch, but I'm at a very different place now.  Still hopeful that cancer is gone and thankful for every minute that it stays away,  but I've learned so much about cancer and myself in the last year.  
Enough of thinking....I'm going to finish getting ready for lunch. Hope you all have a good week! I'm going to leave you with pictures of two of the cutest little blessings that my family has added in the last year. Their dads and older cousins are pretty good blessings too :)