10 Things I Am Up To: May

Hello!

Things are crazy busy around here,

so I thought I'd do a bulleted post to let everyone know what I've been up to in May.

1) Traveling...a ton..for work.

I've been to Pierson, Onawa, Whiting, Mapleton,

Smithland, LeMars, Cherokee, Marcus, Remsen.

I get very tired of being in the car and night meetings, but I love to connect with communities.

And, it's fun to find new roads to get to the towns, so I get to see new scenery.

2) Biking....a ton....for fun.

I am obsessed with bicycling right now. Matt just got a bike

(as seen in a previous blog post), so we've been on a few bike rides.

I started biking to exercise class, which is about 3.5 miles from my house, I think.

I just love biking. It makes me feel young and carefree...like skipping.

3) Baking, lots!

I think I am still on a sugar high from Christmas. I have been baking a ton,

and eating a lot (hence the need for bike rides!).

I made a new recipe for Peanut Butter Triple Chocolate Cookies

with walnuts and they are almost gone.

Luckily, I froze a dozen so we will have more when we run out of these.

4) Grilling...ahh the smell of charcoal!

Matt loves to grill and we now have two grills. We had a small charcoal grill then my grandparents wanted to get rid of their grill, so we inherited it.

plus Matt has a small smoker.

Thus, we grill out a lot....although I've noticed we have been eating way too many hot dogs and brauts (especially since every time Jennifer calls we are eating hot dogs).

5) Farmer's Markets and Gardening

I FINALLY got my garden planted and immediately an animal ate

one of my zuchini plants and the tops of my marigolds.

How rude! Luckily my lettuce is doing well.

And, Bows and I made our first trip to the Farmers' Market two weekends ago.

I just love fresh, locally grown produce and homemade jams.

6) Spending time with friends

Living in Iowa makes winter feel like hibernation.

You go to work, come home and hunker in for a hearty meal and TV before hitting the hay early. But once summer hits I want to see people and stay up past 9 p.m., so we've had lots of friends over for grilling or gone out to dinner lots.

(Okay I have way too many food-related issues in this list!)

7) Enjoying our new bathroom

(Photos to come soon in a blog post!)

Thanks to my multi-talented husband, we have a brand new bathroom in our 1920's bungalow.

Matt completely ripped out the bathroom last July and 10 months later it's almost done!

He installed the sink last weekend and just has a small bit of trim to finish up.

It is awesome and so white and clean.

I am so grateful to be able to take a bath after 8 months of showers.

8) Bows is loving the warmer weather!

Bows is getting older. She is 12 years old, and her arthritis is getting horrible in the winter.

She walks around crooked and can't look up straight, she has to tilt her little neck.

But, once warm weather hits it is like she's a new dog!

She frolics and barks up a storm (much to Matt's dismay).

She even went to cheer David on at his softball game last night.

(I think they lost the second game because we took her home before it was over,

and before she had a coronary from barking at all the kids running around.)

9) Planning vacations-woohoo!

We have no clue where or if we might go somewhere this year,

but there's something about summer that makes me daydream about where we'd like to go.

Since summer is Matt's busy season for lawnmowing we probably

won't take a family vacation until his Thanksgiving or Christmas break from college.

But I have trips lined up to go to Lincoln for girls' weekend, Des Moines with my mom,

and possibly to go visit my new baby twin cousins in California.

And, I love to hear about my friends' and family's upcoming trips.

10) Enjoying life

On May 31st, 2007 I was diganosed with Stage IIA Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

Now, almost 4 years later I continue to have follow-up visits

(one coming up in July) of lab work, chest x-rays and PET scans.

I usually forget about my cancerversary on May 31st

and tend to celebrate my cancer-free anniversary on Dec. 31st,

but this last year was really hard.

We lost a GREAT family friend on August 23rd to cancer,

and he will be missed but never forgotten.

It made me very mad at cancer,

and makes me realize how much cancer does not discriminate.

Brian's courage and grace with which he fought cancer reiterates

my decision to just enjoy life and live it to the fullest,

therefore, I think I will enjoy another cookie.