Eff cancer.

I've realized lately that I'm a grown-up now. How do I know this? I've begun feeling genuine, crying-for-another-person empathy. When I was a kid and something sad was happening, it was "oh, I'm sorry. That sucks. How sad!" Then I'd go about my life. But now I get engrossed in other peoples' cruddy situations.

I have a coworker (M) who is more than twice my age and she's awesome. She's so sassy and smart. And she and I talk crap about customers behind their backs. She's how I imagine myself to be when I'm near retirement age. Or she's how I HOPE to be when I'm near retirement age. She's awesome. But her so sweet, kind, caring, cool guy husband was diagnosed with cancer. It started with a trip to the doctor for a sore throat which turned into a diagnosis of squamous-cell carcinoma of the throat, which has now turned into metastatic cancer that's spread to his liver. I'm so amazingly sad for them. He's not a spring chicken, as they say, so the chemotherapy is going to be rough. Another dear friend (P) of my coworker came in today and was told the news, and she immediately sprung into action of "everything will be okay, what can I do to help? I'll bring him in for treatment, I'll help you make a bed for him in the lower floor of your house so he doesn't have to climb stairs. We'll all help you both get through this." I lost it. She was verbalizing everything I was thinking. Yes, I'm older than I used to be, but I still have trouble saying the right thing when faced with a situation like this. And I didn't want to accidentally say the wrong thing, or the insensitive thing, or the stupid thing. So I cried and told M that P had said everything I wanted to. Eff cancer.

Cancer has taken my three grandfathers, and it almost took one of my two grandmothers several years ago. Cancer is ridiculous. If cancer was a person, it would be a coward. A coward that takes the very young and the elderly alike. It beats down professional athletes and babies. Mothers and fathers. The rich and the poor. It is indiscriminate.

I don't know. Cancer sucks. And it scares the crap out of me.

Thanksgiving in February!

So back right before Christmas, I smashed a deer with my car.  Oops.

There are deer parts under the snow. You're welcome.

We have a local auto body shop that offers a free frozen turkey if you bring your deer-smashed car to them for repairs. Sweet...... and weird. Whatever, so they fix my car, and give me a turkey.

Cut to 2 months later, this 12-lb monstrosity is still taking up valuable freezer space, and I'm not growing my proverbial set of testicles as far as gaining the courage to cook the thing goes.  So I manned up last weekend.  I found the following recipe on All Recipes.

Homestyle Turkey, the Michigander Way 

(why it's "the Michigander Way", I don't know. Maybe you have to know how to build a car to fully enjoy this meal?)

1 (12 pound) whole turkey
6 tablespoons butter, divided
4 cups warm water
3 tablespoons chicken bouillon
2 tablespoons dried parsley
2 tablespoons dried minced onion
2 tablespoons seasoning salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Rinse and wash turkey. Discard the giblets, or add to pan if they are anyone's favorites.
2. Place turkey in a Dutch oven or roasting pan. Separate the skin over the breast to make little pockets. Put 3 tablespoons of the butter on both sides between the skin and breast meat. This makes for very juicy breast meat.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the water with the bouillon. Sprinkle in the parsley and minced onion. Pour over the top of the turkey. Sprinkle seasoning salt over the turkey.
4. Cover with foil, and bake in the preheated oven 3 1/2 to 4 hours, until the internal temperature of the turkey reaches 180 degrees F (80 degrees C). For the last 45 minutes or so, remove the foil so the turkey will brown nicely.

It was fan-freakin-tastic.  I didn't take a picture of it because I'm an idiot.  But it was so delicious.  You know how when you go to your grandma's house for Thanksgiving, and the turkey is always dry and bland and you have to cover it in gravy?  Yeah, not this one.  It's still moist today, after being sliced up and refrigerated. Outstanding.  And I feel like an idiot for being so nervous about cooking a turkey this whole time.

Much has changed

When we last left off, our intrepid adventurer was but a novice, young mother to a baby a mere 3 months old.  Today, she is a seasoned veteran-mother of a toddler of a ripe old 19 months.

Sir Jack is now a professional Goldfish cracker eating, "NO!" shouting, bathtub splashing, nap resisting, Elmo loving, amazingly bright little dude.  Here's the handsome young lad now:

We had many sleepless nights while adjusting to parenthood, which by the way, has not been the 100% puppies and rainbows that people claim it is.  However, as Jack's becoming more vocal and independent, it's definitely getting more fun and less stressful.

Quick recap time!  He had near-constant ear infections until we had tubes put in at 9 months. Which was also right around the time that we took on one Dr Richard Ferber as our personal mentor.  So when he's not sick, we finally have a toddler who sleeps in his own bed for upwards of 12 hours a night.  That's been a major factor in the "life is looking up" department.  

He's in the Toddler room at daycare now.  Jack and I both definitely cried when I dropped him off the first day in a room full of "big kids".  But he's flourishing with his peers.  And he has some older (I'm talking 3-year-old mini cougars) female admirers who apparently chase him around for kisses, and he loves it.  Player.

As far as mom and dad go, things are good.  I'm currently working 2 part-time jobs, one of which I thoroughly enjoy, and the other, not so much.  D is rocking at his job.  He recently got an amazing raise, which is helping us to get out from under some debt, and we've started talking more seriously about getting out of our tiny apartment and into a house, which excited me to no end.

Basically, we're just living every day.  Parts of me wish it was more exciting than that, but most of me really likes the day-in, day-out routine.  Since I'm not crazy busy all the time, I'm getting to watch my son turn into this awesome little person.  Every time he looks at me and says "mama" or gives me a kiss, I feel terrible about how awful I thought the first few months were. And I feel like I'm right where I'm supposed to be.

Jack is 19 months, 4 days old, and life is pretty nice today.

That awkward moment when you try to start blogging again...

So, blog... I know it's been over a year, but do you think we could go back to where we left off? I mean, I was in a weird place emotionally, and I just wasn't ready for that kind of a commitment. But baby, I've grown. I feel like I'm more capable of nurturing you and helping you grow as a blog. Can you ever forgive me?

Alright, so I'm back. I have big plans of writing some kind of a condensed "what have I been doing for the past year" post in the next few days, so keep an eye out.

Weeee!