Let's just chat

Today (well tonight) I am going to stray from exclusively cancer-related topics, and here's why:

I decided to be a good friend and go with my little sister to babysit last night. It ended up being way more exerting than I had expected and I slept in pretty late today. Normally I'm up by 7am or so and if I try to sleep any later, Wellington just won't have it and he forces me to get up, go out into the cold (as it is bitter cold here in the early morning and then a toasty 80 degrees by 1 or 2), and start my day. This morning, however, Wells decided to cut me some slack or else I was so completely unconscious that he couldn't rouse me... Either way, I slept really late and by the time I got up, half my day was gone. Oof.

While I peacefully slept, my dad was up and outside, working away. Something you should know: my father is literally the hardest worker I've ever met, seen, heard of, etc. Just because he's not at work doesn't mean he's not going to be working! We have the most beautifully manicured lawn in the neighborhood and it is single-handedly due to him and his high standards. So the first time I got out of bed this morning was because my mother came running in my room to tell me that Daddy had been cutting down limbs or something when he accidentally got sawdust all in his eye. We proceeded to try to flush out the sawdust with saline solution and debated taking him to an emergency eye clinic. Once we got that situation under control (luckily it seems no permanent damage has been incurred) I decided to lie back down briefly. I promptly fell asleep for another hour or so.

When I stumbled out of bed and into the living room this second time I was immediately flooded with guilt. My hard-working, eye-injury enduring father was still at it! Tilling dirt, whacking weeds, blowing leaves, there's just no end! He was enjoying teasing me and little sister in a good-natured (with underlying tones of seriousness) way about how we should be out there helping him. Yeah... I'm not afraid to get dirty or anything but that's not really my scene, nor is it Lindsey's. However, I felt so lazy with all my sleeping and guilty with all of his working his butt off and all that I decided to acquiesce. Even though I didn't feel up to taking on the responsibility of tilling or whacking or whatnot (that's a lot of pressure-what if I inadvertently destroyed the lawn of perfection??) I offered to perform the daunting, if somewhat mundane, task of picking up the thousands of pine cones, sticks, and general et cetera around our front and back yards. So, very long and strenuous story short, I did that for a couple of hours until I became the textbook example of "over doing it". However, I am proud to say that our yards are practically pine cone free! I may have thrown out my back and fallen into a bit of a depression over how out of shape I am, but at least our lawns are no longer plagued with those unwelcome, troublesome cones...

Anyway, this long and pointless story is meant to explain why I am too exhausted tonight to offer witty commentary on my cancer perspective. I will return to (and hopefully round up some more enticing pieces) tomorrow or Monday. As for tonight, I am going to take a few thousand Advil and watch some college football. I hope you all are having a lovely and less exhausting Saturday! Oh, but some news for excitement--I received correspondance from the journal where I have submitted my latest scientific article and they have accepted it for publication with minor revisions. And the revisions certainly are minor: just adding a couple of sentences to the discussion and conclusions, it seems! Please share your good news and updates with me, too!