Upcoming Scanorama

Have you seen these posters?   Oh man, I haven't laughed out loud at my computer in ages until I saw these on another blog.  Talk about hilarious humor.  I guess I am like the Pioneer Woman, because I totally get this humor.  If you want to see more, go to Despair.com--you gotta love that name.  I really liked Challenges.  Funny stuff.  I am like Ree, if I had an office job, these posters would be all over it, tacky like, hanging on every inch of the space.  

In scan news:  Scans are scheduled for Tuesday the 25th.  We won't know results until the following Wednesday, but I will be sure to post them when we get them.  

Treatment has been okay.  I have some increasing queasiness with each recent treatment.  The meds I have for the nausea work, but they just make me more sleepy than I already am.  The ones that cost a bundle a pill and don't make you sleepy aren't really working, but the cheap drugs do.  Go figure.  This past treatment was rough as far as fatigue and weakness go.  I got the Vivix product and started it the day before, so it had not kicked in yet.  For 2 - 3 days after, I felt like a zombie.  I couldn't hardly do anything but sleep.  I got up on Friday to do a few things around the house for like a half an hour, but it totally wiped me out.  I just felt YUCK.  The good news is (as if there has to be some) by Sunday I felt fine.  I totally was moving and grooving all day without even a nap.  I am not sure if it was the very small coffee I had that morning or if the Vivix was kicking in.  I felt great Monday too.  The bad new is I couldn't fall asleep Sunday or Monday night.  You would think that after all the activity, I would be wiped.  But not so.  I even got up and took a warm bath to relax, and that didn't work.  I took drugs, counted M&M's, SweetTarts, Sprees (I have no clue why they are all candy related, but they are easy to count), and sheep.  Maybe I am getting too much subconscious sugar!  Ha, ha!  So now today, I was tired, and I slept while Emma took a nap.  I should have just stuck it out and not slept, because now I am awake.  I may try to head to bed soon and at least attempt it, but I have my steroids in me tonight.  Gotta love the joys of cancer treatment:  Tired, Can't sleep, Queasy, Tired, Can't sleep.  Geez, can we get a break???  I know, I'm funny right.  As my Aunt Kim said, and I quote her loosely, we're ready to be rid of this chemo lifestyle.  I think it is time to find a new lifestyle.  What should I do, go start a llama farm?  It would be better, and my family can all come scoop llama poop.  Okay, I crack myself up.  

In fun news, I re-did Emma Mei's room with all my new-found energy.  It is so bright and colorful and fun.  I should post pics on our other blog.  I found the comforter cover long before she came home, and over the past couple of years, I have been "collecting" things to go with it.  So in two days, a little spray painting, and craftiness, her room was transformed from a sweet, adorable nursery to a bright fun room that really matches her personality.  I was a little sad to take down her old name I had made though.  There was something symbolic about it.  I probably will never get rid of it, and find some secret place to hang it where I can peek at it once in a while.  I guess I should have posted this over at the family blog, but it is related to new-found energy while having treatment.  By the way, her new name on the wall looks sweet as I took pictures from her comforter and printed it into paper for decoupaging.  Josh says it is his favorite name that I have done so far, so kudos to me.   Although Katelyn's room is done and gorgeous in my humble opinion, she had plenty of jealousy over my doing Emma's room.  We had a little talk about life and fairness, and blah, blah, blah.  So, if you ever come over and see Katelyn's room, feel free to gush about how adorable it is.  

So my next project, I am praying, praying, praying (no pressure here, honey) for a certain (big) room in my house to be painted a certain beautiful shade of Benjamin Moore Pottery Barn color.  I will sell all my furniture to have it painted, just to sit in it on the floor and bask.  It is all I want for Christmas, and I must be desperate if I am actually posting it on here.  Well, it isn't all I want for Christmas, I want a couple of other things (and of course they aren't cheap), but the painting would sure take the cake.  Anyone like good at painting out there?????? Hello, hello is this thing on????   I am good at it, but I really don't have the strength it takes to tackle it.   I would be all over it if I did.  

Well, Jack-jack is here this week with lots of yummy food for us to gobble up.  It is nice to have her here to take care of us.  So, I am signing off with a yummy recipe for Mystic Chai Tea and a story about it.  Some friends from church had the pastors all over for dinner, and she served us this yummy tea mix she had made.  So today, I found the recipe online and I wanted to run out and get the ingredients.  

Here is the recipe typed out as I found it: 

RE: Mystic Chai Tea Mix Recipe

Post By Susan (Guest Post) (01/07/2005)

Instant Chai Tea Mix

1 cup nonfat dry milk powder

1 cup powdered non-dairy creamer

1 cup French vanilla flavored

powdered non-dairy creamer

2 1/2 cups white sugar

1 1/2 cups unsweetened instant tea

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

Directions

1 In a large bowl, combine milk powder, non-dairy creamer, vanilla flavored creamer, sugar and instant tea. Stir in ginger, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. In a blender or food processor, blend 1 cup at a time, until mixture is the consistency of fine powder.

2 To serve: Stir 2 heaping tablespoons Chai tea mixture into a mug of hot water.

Note:

You may choose to omit the French vanilla creamer, and use 2 teaspoons vanilla extract instead. To do so, mix the vanilla into the sugar, let it dry, then break the sugar into small lumps. Follow the same procedure as above.

You can spice it up even further by adding 1 teaspoon nutmeg and allspice, and 1/4 teaspoon white pepper. Makes 36 servings. 

Warning, the rest of this plays like a dumb blonde joke, except it is the dumb chemo-brain joke.  Does anybody want to guess at what I did?  I go to the store to gather all the ingredients.  I have everything I needed except one thing.  By the way the cardamom is expensive, but this recipe makes a lot of tea, and the taste is worth it.  (You can buy it whole and grind it in your coffee grinder to get it cheaper.)  What one thing did I spend at least 15 minutes looking for?  Yep, the first "ingredient" on my list, instant chai tea mix.  DUH, that is what I am making, not an ingredient.  I hope you will all admit that it looks kind of deceiving, but still I should have figured it out by there not being an amount of it to put in the recipe.  I got home and felt like a goofball when it finally occurred to me that wasn't one of the ingredients.  Ughh, so I am going to try again tomorrow perhaps on the way home from chemo.  I did end up buying some kind of chai latte mix, but I knew that wasn't the right thing, as it had other stuff in it.  I just knew I was looking for plain chai tea mix.  I was thinking about taking tea bags and seeing if I needed to rip open a bunch.  I am so glad I figured it out.  I thought our store was just not carrying everything I needed.   So glad you can all enjoy my dumb moment.  Let me know if you try the recipe.  It truly is good stuff to keep on hand.