Amateur Night

My best friends husband coined the phrase, Amateur night for New Year's Eve.  I adopted it, because it is perfect.  New Years Eve is an international excuse for normally logical well mannered people to be stupid.  Not that I haven't been stupid on New Year's Eve or other nights, but on New Year's Eve the stupidity is rampant.  All kinds of people who typically never drink go out and decide that it is New Year's so you must get sloppy.  Hence Amateur Night.  

I, myself, am not a fan of the holiday.  As a kid we always went up to my aunt and uncle's place in the mountains where we would play games until midnight.  Many times as an adult, I have done similar things gathered with friends to play games, hang out, no one drives anywhere, no $100/ head fee etc.  Just togetherness and fun.  The problem in LA is you have to drive everywhere. Henceforth, I volunteered to work.  A ready made excuse to not participate.  It isn't that I am not looking forward to 2009, or am in a bad place right now.  I am actually in a very happy place and happy time in my life.  The future looks great, I just am not a fan of the whole New Years Eve thing.  Still, I wish everyone a Happy New Year and please be safe, there ARE a lot of amateurs out there.

A Very Merry Christmas

This year was a special Christmas, my brother's inlaws invited my parents and I to join them in Taos to celebrate. So we all journeyed to the VERY cold mountains of northern New Mexico where we enjoyed 5 days of wonderful hospitality and family togetherness. I got to ski for two days in amazing powder, but couldn't see much because of the snow. We all enjoyed a white Christmas, and many board games.

Sunset over the mountainside



Girls v. Boys snowman contest on Christmas day- it was a tie as voted by our partial judges

Addie on skis.  She is getting pretty good.

Owen heading down the slopes.   

The adults enjoying post skiing margaritas while trying to thaw out and before getting the kids out of ski school.

Thanks to our gracious hosts for a wonderful Christmas.

Birthday Poisoning

I never used to believe that it was possible to lose the ability to tolerate certain foods.  I have a friend who used to be a vegetarian and she would claim that eating things with even a hint of meat in them would make her sick because she hadn't had meat in so long.  I laughed at her. I thought that line of thinking crazy, but nonetheless when she came over for dinner I would cook the meat in a separate pan out of respect.  For months now, I have been eating super healthy- very little salt, minimal processed food, pretty much no refined sugar, only whole wheat bread and pasta and only that rarely.  I pretty much eat nonfat yogurt, chicken, fresh fruits and vegetables.  You get the idea, but this was my birthday weekend and the people at work got me a princess cake.  This thing was beautiful-  white cake with mascarpone cheese on the inside, white frosting, topped off with some kind of marsipan thing.  Sugar on top of sugar on top fat and sugar.  I ate a piece it was delicious.  I felt a sugar rush and then CRASH.  Within 15 minutes, my friend said he could see it in my eyes- serious crash.  I was weak, dizzy, nauseous, couldn't focus.  It was awful.  I tried eating something healthy to feel better no luck.  4 hours later, I still felt like hell, so I decided to go for a run since eating good food wasn't helping. Finally I felt almost back to normal, my trainer claims that is what I should have done in the first place.  Seriously, bad.  No more cake for me. I truly felt poisoned, ick. 

Happy Birthday To Me

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me.  It has been a weekend of birthday celebrations.  I am looking forward to this coming year with all of the good things that are happening in my life.  So, I am joyfully celebrating this birthday with friends and family, but wishing that those of you too far away to celebrate in person were closer by.  

Happy Blogiversary

In addition to this being the week of my birthday it is also the second annivesary of my creating this blog with this post. In writing this little blogiversary post, I reread that first post I ever wrote and it got me thinking.  I started this blog at a dark time in my life, at a time that I thought I might lose my leg because of my diagnosis.  I was scared and needing to let it out.  My blogsite is 1goodfoot, because that was what I had and I feared that might be all I'd have.  I am glad that I have chronicled this whole event, but some of it is still really hard for me to read.   I know I lived it, but I want to forget.  Rather than bemoaning where I came from I want to celebrate where I am now.  In the next few posts, I am thinking about detailing how I went from 1 good foot to 2 stronglegs and find myself here in the best shape I have been in years.  Stay tuned, but first I have a birthday to celebrate.

RevelationsThe sisterhood

The other night I went out for sushi with 3 of my single girl friends.  All of us are in our late 30s/ early 40s.  We sat around the table eating our edamame discussing the usual- guys, dating, work, life when one of the group got serious.  She informs us that she is now 1 week into radiation for breast cancer.  They caught it really early, she had a successful lumpectomy.   Not the usual single gal dinner chat, but then as I looked around the table, I thought of giving the response that the girl sitting across the table gave to me when I told her of my diagnosis 2 years ago-  The simple "welcome to the sisterhood."  I still remember her saying it.  It wasn't pity or fear she was sharing with me, it was friendship, welcoming, and an understanding that you only have if you've been there.  I hope that we were able to share that kind of welcoming to our friend.  

Then on further reflecton, we all realized that oh man-  here we are 4 single women in our prime, and 3 of us have had cancer in 3 different forms.  All of us were diagnosed early and have good prognoses, but one of us has already had a recurrence.  We all are healthy appearing, vibrant young women, none of us has that "woe is me" thing going, but yet how?  That is rhetorical , obviously.   It seems to me that you keep hearing more and more about younger and younger adults getting diagnosed.  I like to hope that it is because of better screening leading to catching it earlier, but I don't know.   I thank goodness for public awareness about mammograms that caught my friends tumor at such an early stage that she has an excellent prognosis.  I am thankful that she, who had a lot going on in her life at the time, didn't cancel the appointment as so many (including myself) do.  Thus, giving her the best chances possible.  I continue to encourage everyone to get their own screening done- please

This post is dedicated to you my friend-  may health and healing follow you and may you know that people are thinking of you.-  Lisa

Karma Rocks

I have many amazing friends, I am blessed that way, but I am thinking of one of them today.  She is one of the strongest women I know.  She has worked in Illinois government since we graduated from college, rising through the years to become a senior policy person for the last republican Lt. Governor of Illinois.  When their administration was coming to a close she moved to a new a job in the Illinois government.  When the new governor, Rod Blagojovich, took over, one of his first things that he did was fire all senior staffers from the old regime still working in the government, including my friend.  He fired them publically, in a news conference and then printed it in the Chicago Tribune.  I read about a few hours after she told me.  Today he got arrested for trying to sell Barack Obama's senate seat for his own personal gain.  Here is what she had to say about that.  Her post is all about feeling guilty for smiling all day.  However, I am right there with you.  Smile on, girl