2 reunions in 2 days

Cute Thanksgiving cookies my Aunt Beth made. I didn't eat them but they were cute enough for a picture.
Whew! I’m exhausted. First Thanksgiving, then Black Friday shopping (yes, I am one of those people out there, but I am not crazy and crabby like some of the rest), then Kevin’s Berkley High School reunion Friday night, followed by my Clarkston High School reunion Saturday night. (Does this mean I get to cross off going to the 10 year High School reunion on my bucket list twice???)

First I'll write a little about Thanksgiving. So how the hell did I stay on my diet on this day? I did cheat, but not a lot. I started the morning out with a huge 32 oz green drink of cucumber, celery and kale juice and also did about 4oz of wheatgrass. I figured I would start out completely alkaline and then it would all be downhill from there. I actually didn’t do that bad with the meals. At my mom’s I loaded my plate up with squash, mashed potatoes, green beans, and my grandpa’s famous rutabagas. This stuff was all good. I took a tiny piece of Turkey (tiny) a little stuffing and had to have some canned cranberry sauce. God, do I love the canned stuff. I had about 1/8th of a slice of pumpkin pie. Not bad if I might say so myself. I made sure to fill up on the healthiest veggies first so I would be full and not eat all the stuffing and turkey, although I am never too stuffed for the cranberry sauce. The only moderation with the cranberry sauce was only putting a small amount on my plate.

I went to my Aunt and Uncle’s house after my moms. I got to meet Karl. Remember Karl?? He was the guy who wrote the story about me last May that was on Caringbridge and is now in my blog. It was cool to finally meet him and put a face with the name and the writing. At my aunt and uncles I ate about the same except I had some raspberries instead of pie for desert.

Me and Pat at Kevin's reunion
Kevin’s reunion was really fun. Smokey, but fun. We did get spoiled living in Austin with the no smoking indoors law there. Kevin was one of the really popular guys in his school so he knew everyone there. He was really good at introducing me. I also know a number of his friends that are very nice to me. I ran into a couple snags when people asked me my dreaded question “What do you DO?” I’d freeze and look at Kevin like “Help me! What do I say?” It’s not like I don’t know what to say, but if I tell people I have cancer the automatically adopt the “Awwww” face and I DO NOT like to be pitied at all. So I try to tip toe around it and it’s hard to do when I don’t have a good answer to that question.

Me, Jamie and Ronny Grinold at the Clarkston reunion.

Me and all the girls at the Clarkston reunion. I used ot have the long blonde hair like the rest of them.

The cool thing about my reunion was that they had a webpage where we could write our stories. I wrote a paragraph about my life including my diagnosis, but after that I assured people I was not a person they should feel bad for and then I wrote down my blog address so they could see for themselves that I am really FINE. So, a ton of people had already checked out my blog so I didn’t have to answer those kind of questions as much. When I did get asked, I just told the truth. I had the job, got diagnosed and then re-diagnosed and decided to spend all my time getting healthy and doing what is important to me.

I had so much fun and am so excited I decided to go. Everyone gets nicer with age. I was surprised how similar everyone looked and I was also surprised how easily people recognized me. Once I graduated from Clarkston I moved to college and my family moved from Clarkston to Sterling Heights. So, when I did come home, I didn’t really spend much time in Clarkston. A good majority of the people I had not seen since graduation.


I went to my Grandma and Grandpa's house today and learned how to make Pizzelles (not healthy but fun to make) We have an old school iron that we make them with. I'm giving them all away, but it was fun to learn. See how proud I am? My grandma and I made some hummus.

I leave for Houston tomorrow. Yep, it’s that time AGAIN. This is my 9th trip I think (8th or 9th) in the past 3 months. I will be in Houston Dec 1st Monday through Dec 4th Thursday. I have all my tests (CT scans, MRI, Bone Scan and blood work) on Tuesday and then I have the doctor’s appointment on Thursday. I decided to go to Austin while I was in Texas. I will drive to Austin on Thursday and stay there until the next Tuesday. I’m so excited because I will be there for Tim and Michele’s annual Christmas party. I’ll also get to see the Pink Ribbon Cowgirls at a little event they have at Crate and Barrel. Maybe I can even make it up to Applied Materials so I can go around and see some of my old co-workers. I’m excited for the trip. I need to stop writing about being excited about this trip and I need to get up and get the suitcase out and start packing.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get a blog post in while I am in Texas.

See all of you Texans soon!!

Shannon