I have the house to myself for a few days. In trying to invoke some type of magical transformation for myself, I decided to have no contact with anyone and silence for 24 hours.

I broke silence three times. Two times with email and one trip to the grocery store. I guess the temptations were too great. The more I try things like this the less I am in awe of people who go into the mountains for months. It’s easy to be zen with no distractions.

When all is said and done I am in a better mood. I’m going dancing tonight too.

Once again I’ve spent weeks trying to write a non-chemo post. Frankly though nothing these days is as interesting to me as me. How’s that for small sizes?

My final Adriamycin and Cytoxan treatment was not near as bad as I feared. I got to a good place before the treatment (see my last post) then after my treatment I had some good old fashion healing time at my mom’s and then some serious time alone at Amma. I just came to a wonderful place. I mean I was centered, in the now, feeling great, whatever other positive catch phase you can think of, I was it.

Wednesday I went to meet my new oncologist. I’ll be doing my next set of treatments (Taxotere and Herceptin) a block away from my house in the ER of Jefferson County Hospital. My new doc. seems good. All should be well. But since that meeting my stomach and mood has been at times a little sour and at times very sour.

I know this is all in my power. I was not sick from chemo. I now realize how powerful my attitude impacts my recovery. Yet it can be very difficult to master.

I think that behind every negative emotion is fear. So I just have to have compassion for myself that I am scared. Why I could completely overcome it before and not now, I don’t know. It’s different now. You think you get it all figured out and the game changes.

This of course is the beauty of life! ;-)

Sometimes I’ve thought what would I do if I ever had millions of dollars.  Things like yachts and sprawling mansions never come to mind.  I usually imagine myself being a philanthropist (building schools) and traveling with my family (like to China or Prague).  Sometimes I imagine a really nice watch.

Today I saw something on Boing Boing that would the millioniare Will would purchase in a heart beat.  An ancient Roman D20.  Honestly, it’s way under valued at 18 grand.

I think this is a toad, but my Google search was a bit inconclusive. Dawn found this one in our (finished) basement. We have two cats in the same basement by the way.

Our daughter took the toad/frog and turned her kiddie pool into his/her new habitat.

I was impressed at how much she put into building the new home. For instance in the center of the pool she put in an unused planter filled with dirt and some weeds. Like a little toad island.

The ground has been dug, the manure spread and the plantings completed. Now it’s time to watch it grow (and weed).

Here are the numbers.

Cost so far:

• $40 - tilling
• $50 - manure
• $18 - plants and seeds (lots of free starts thanks to Terrell)
• $32 - tomato cages
• $38 - peat and compost for blueberries
• Total - $178

Total planted to date:

• 14x Tomato
• 12x Cantaloupe
• 16x Potato
• 6x Sweet Potato
• 4x Basil
• 8x Blueberry

All the rain and sun this week is working: we’ve already got tomatoes, the cantaloupes are growing like weeds (and weeds are growing like weeds) and the blueberry stems are all sprouting.

Even the worms are off to a good start. I assume finding 10 inch worms in your garden is good news.

One of my Flickr friends has been posting her Bento creations the past several months. They’re amazing to look at and perhaps too beautiful to eat. The other day while glancing over my Flickr feeds I noticed she posted what I thought was a painting of a Stormtrooper.

In the seconds it took me to click and load up the full image, my view of her transformed. What?!?!?! She’s a painter? She loves Star Wars? She’s a girl who loves Star Wars but not Luke or Han? She paints Star Wars?

I stared at the image of the Stormtrooper. Something wasn’t right.

OMG! It’s a BENTO Stormtrooper. And oh look, a Jawa too!

Star Wars + Japanese Food + Art. I can imagine that single sci-fi geeks throughout the universe are swooning.

Check our Rena’s Bento diary on Flickr:

After waiting nearly month for the ground to dry up to be tilled, we got our load of manure this weekend. We got a truck load of year old, grass fed cow manure for $50 and spent all weekend spreading it around. Dawn got out for a bit before retiring to the shade to cheer me on. Good thing too - we found out that working with manure and chemotherapy are not a good combination.

We’re starting with a 600 square foot area in our back yard and the plan is to focus on potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and melons in order to take up all that space quickly and focus on soil growth this year.

We’ve got 5 tomato plants in the ground so far (all from the farmer’s market) and a friend has given us about 8 more.

Our friend Reni gave me a tip on this bee swarm happening in her front yard so I rode my bike over there to take some photos. She wasn’t kidding.

In her front yard, in small tree is was a 12-16″ long mad pile of up honey bees. I was a little nervous taking photos with all of them buzzing around me and never could get up the courage to get too close and steady for some great macros but I managed to snap a few with one arm extended.

I’ve never seen anything like this.

UPDATE: Reni reports that sometime between 1-2 pm today they all left.

And it looks great too! Because it has started falling out it looks like it has been beautifully textured. I’ll have Will take a picture before it all goes.

Tonight P and I had a special ladies night out dinner. I was excited that I had a night of good looking hair. When P and I returned to the car she said, “mommy, what is that hairy stuff on the seat?” I thought, “Oh my god! Driving over here I lost a huge patch of hair! I have a bald patch in the back of my head! It’s on the car seat!!” I ran around to the front seat to see my scarf sitting there with only the fringe visible to P in the back.

I am still laughing.

I received this video from the Seeds Of Change yahoo group.  This short clip is about a family which uses all of its normal size yard to grow 300 different types of organic foods as well as raise animals!