My Story of The Benefits of Wasting Time up at the Mighty, Fall Scenes in Woodinville, Anxiety and MRIs

Woodinville in November on the Sammamish River Trail

Thanks to The Mighty – My Story on the Life-Saving Benefits of Wasting Time is Up!

I hope this will be helpful to some of you! My personal essay “How Wasting Time Has Benefited Me with Chronic Illnesses” is up – I am a bit of a newbie with personal essays so I’m really excited to have this one published at The Mighty, and I’m especially excited because it includes my first ever published photo credit!  I started doing photography as a hobby back when I had that nasty cancer diagnosis two years ago now, and I haven’t stopped – I took photography classes back in high school, but the new digital cameras make the endeavor a completely a different kind of challenge – some things easier, some things harder – but I definitely don’t miss the chemicals! I may not have the phone selfie completely down yet, but I’m enjoying keeping a record of trees, flowers, and birds as I go.

November Rain and Un-Fun Anxiety-Provoking Things (Dental Work, MRIs) are Looming…

Mount Rainier, sunset, November

This morning it is raining here but I know the midwest and east coast got hit with scary snow and ice storms yesterday. November insists on proceeding whether we want it to or not, so we have to get out and appreciate the few days of sunshine we have left this year. I’ve got a few un-fun things coming up – today, an abdominal MRI to check on my liver, and some emergency dental work (I broke a filling – ow! Crumbling teeth are a drag…) a few days after Thanksgiving. Not things I would want to do for fun, sadly, but necessary nonetheless. Today I will think positive thoughts for shrinking (disappearing) liver tumors and I will try to keep my broken tooth from breaking further for another week! My ankles are both getting better so I hope to be almost normal by the holidays…

But At Least the Holidays are Coming…

Next week, we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving my little brother and his wife, which will be good. This is a picture of me at the local farm stand – a benefit of living in wine and farm country – which brings apples, pears, squash and other goodies from cabbage to carrots from their Eastern Washington farm locations as well as the little patches of things they grow here. I’ve been craving carrots, and they have these really ugly stubby yellow, blue, and orange carrots that taste amazing when we slow-roast them. I’ve been working on my own little garden – planted some bulbs, got rid of some leaves, replanted some things from containers to the ground. Sadly discovered our local deer had eaten the leaves off of a couple of my treasured plants – including a pink lilac (cry!) but that is part of sharing a garden with nature. Next stop – putting up some holiday lights! It sounds like it’s early, but honestly, it is so dark so early (4:30 PM is darkness time) that we need something to brighten things up. I don’t get a chance to travel much for the holidays these days, which it forces me to pay closer attention to the small beauties of winter in the Pacific Northwest, and spend time with friends I might not get a chance to see otherwise. What are your favorite holiday traditions? I love going out to the Bellevue Botanical and Zoo holiday lights, visiting the big hotels (like here in Woodinville, Willows Lodge, and in downtown Seattle, the Sorrento,) doing their fancy decor and lit fireplaces that seem like the perfect place to talk about art and poetry over a glass of something warm, the chance to spend time guilt-free in bookstores (hey, you’re buying presents, right?) Happy season of reading-and-writing! Hope you are keeping yourself surrounded by light.