This entry is starring Evie

SNAP SNAP SNAP SNAP SNAP.

I waited to write until our little sunshine came out of the baby baker, aka womb of my sister in law, and here is my NIECE!!! YAAYYAYA!

Baby photobomb time!

Welcome to the world Evie! 

PROUD GRANDPARENTS!

XCU of darling Evie

Looking precious and just witttttttllle

Love this picture, this pose she would search for boob.

Poppa and Evie.

Now I'm sure I'll be able to get pics of the proud parents Daley and Alicia later when they aren't so tired. Plus next time I'll get to see her she will be bigger.. her eyes will open up like a baby kitten.

I don't know if I've ever loved someone so much, she just makes my life happy, I am proud to be her auntie!

So yes my parents and I hung around all weekend dropping in between naps and feedings and passing her around, which she dealt really well with, every once in a while you think you see a smile or a stink eye but it's gas and the brightness of the world. 

I can't wait to play with her and watch her grow.

I haven't forgotten the second new baby, my cousin Francesca and her husband Ryan's first, 

FINN!

He's soooo cute, and loves to be in a diaper and nothing else.

Look at those blue eyes! They match his fluffy diaper!

So life has changed a lot and I haven't been able to blog about it all, May 1st I got laid off from my job after 4 years, won't lie it felt like a bit of a slap in the face... but I am not gonna get all bitter about it, it is what it is and if that was the direction the corporation wanted to take there is little I can do but shake hands and get the fuck outta there. 

That's that! One paragraph because my severance sucked!

So here I am, what am I doing now?

School like crazy, prepping for a final, grooming dogs with my bestie than the restie John, and just trying to be cooooool.

Here's a quick photo montage of things that have been going on...

Enjoying our yard

Getting dirty at my bestie than the restie's shop grooming doggies a couple days a week!

This guy was a talker

Having rock n' roll evenings where we sing what we can and some of what we can't

More yard enjoyment

Ended up on a mural somehow with a couple queers I know...

Took this picture drunkenly deciding to attempt quit number 3000, hopefully it will keep me reminded that smoking is gross..

At the same time I am posing for pics trying to glamorize smoking..

Geez.

Well, that was a nutshell alright, in my fathers health news, he is awaiting his surgery still, gotta get him a bed... that will be June 16th I believe.. I could be wrong I'll have to double check.. but in a couple weeks he has to have a biopsy of the thyroid as well...

At this point it's the super annoying waiting room time as I think of it...

When you are waiting for a huge surgery its like, grab a ticket, some snacks and a good book or 10, some valium, a picnic basket, and several hobbies because you are going to be waiting.

It pisses me off but I also know this is just how the system works.

He is looking good and staying active, which will make a big difference.

I am of course going to fighting in my dads corner all the way through.

I am in that end stage of my recovery where I am actually active again, feel stronger and less exhausted, not so delicate and beaten up, and trying to shed a few of the gazillion pounds I gained since interferon ended, where anything or anyone could walk past me but I was focused on finding a Wendy's or a donair. I went well overboard on my eating, and decided for my health and of course my risk of diabetes has changed me around these last 7 weeks, and I feel a thousand times better sweating my ass off, reminding myself that sweat is fat crying, and punishing myself sometimes, but other days are easier, staying away from garbage take out and cooking most of the week, doing shit like burpees and yoga and pretending I'm running from angry zombies, that helps. Getting ready to rock out some skanky summer duds.

BOOM!

Well, dats dat for tonight, I am on a more normal schedule after a couple of nights in a beautiful hotel bed after literally having about 3 completely sleepness nights, not in a row but close, that was fucked up and made me vampiric, but I did a quick switch around after one particularly sleepless night and tiresome day, and I am back to the land of the living. Gotta get up early and be a productive human, maybe do some yoga... who the fuck am I?

Love ya shiny babies and pals. XOX

-E.

Today I live

Thank you Blue Oyster Cult for making me think.

Listen to this whole song. I know they were on drugs but this song is beautiful.

LISTEN TO IT!!!!
ALL OF IT!!!!
I COMMAND OF YOU!!!!
I PROMISE CUPCAKES OR BEER!!!!*

*IF YOU WANT CUPCAKES OR BEER YOU HAVE TO COME HERE

->http://youtu.be/AUO_5EALZoM<-

So here I am thinking about life and death.
There is some frank talk about dying in here so if this would bother you, I suggest you come back when I am dancing around in a sarong eating a chicken wing, which may happen later....

Life isn't a given.

To live life you need health- not a given either.

Death is inevitable.

Death is what we are born to do.

LIFE IS....

short

exciting

wonderful

glorious

simple

challenging

beautiful

Life is of course many other things, including the ugliness, life is brutal, mean, unfair, disgusting, impossible, boring, sad, sick, strange, life.

Now I think at times I can be a pessimist, but not as much as I think I was before cancer. 
 I didn't have a real understanding of the delicate nature of life and didn't see as clearly the beautiful and wonderful and special and simply GLORRRRRRIOUSSSSS-ness of it all.

Life is great.
It's a lot like me, I call myself a roller coaster, because roller coasters are fun but terrifying, like me of course, and such is life.

Wouldn't it be boring to be on a roller coaster that doesn't turn you upside down, make you puke all over the other riders, never goes up high and never swoops you down low and fast?

I think so.
Who would we be without all the excitement and terror, not humans.
Some type of horrible alien.
Aliens sick me the fuck out, and they are out there, and they are slimy, translucent, without any human characteristics (unlike how TV and film portrays them) they are the enemy and we must be aware... ok whole other entry there....

ANYWAYS! Enough about slimy disgusting aliens. 

DEATH IS...

sad

peaceful

wrong

natural

scary

unstoppable

final

Death frightens most. I feared death stronger than ever last year obviously.
Several dreams and self revelations led me to come to not fear it.
Or it could be the prescriptions....
BUT regardless, at some point, I just stopped and thought:

ERIN:
If your cancer is destined to come back, that will be the time to worry about it.
Worrying is just a waste of time, and doesn't help you prepare for the reality of the situation or diagnosis. Life is happening today. You are as close to normal in a health aspect as a cancer survivor could be.
Wouldn't you be so sad on your deathbed if you spent your last years WORRYING and thus giving the disease power over you and your LIFE? How could you live? You would only die.
IF this is your last few years, why would you want to be a cancer status, a victim, angry and fearful of the disease that you did everything at your disposal to treat, and you have the best team of doctors to monitor you, as well as having your own awareness, so that you can always take a proactive approach to any changes in your body or on your skin.
WHY would you WASTE your LIFE with PETTY things, or people that drain your life force,  leaving you weak and vulnerable to malignancies?
You have today.
Tomorrow is a different thing, but that's part of the ride, now isn't it?

Once this sunk in I felt very peaceful. 
I could enjoy my life again.
I was free of the identity of cancer victim and be Erin, fighting cancer.

Now of course that the chemo is gone the cancer is further away, and now I am just Erin, who has fought cancer. Most of the time I am JUST Erin.

Fear is normal and I think I will always have fear, at least some.
The biggest change is that it has opened my eyes in
 how I want to be in life, and how I want to be in death.

I LIVE IN A BEAUTIFUL WORLD
Words my Uncle Bertie painted before he died. 
I never understood it more than I do today.
Of course, his version is much nicer, I wrote mine backwards on a piece of scrap manilla envelope, and that shitty retarded looking writing is actually mine, and that last word is world, and it is the least perfect of course, but after all, there is beauty in imperfection.

"Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain..we can be like they are"

-E.