Birthday Post

Thank you all for your well wishes regarding my aunt. The memorial service was exactly as she would have wanted it.

Her view of life was this: "Enjoy what you have now, give back and be of good faith. Sorrow and pain must be endured. However, they are only temporary as are the emotions of joy and happiness. Life is best remembered for the joy of the lesson learned".

I almost didn't attend the service because of work pressure. Then I came to my senses. Hello?? Family comes first and I'm so glad I went. Not only to honor her but it is nice to see cousins that live across the country. I have a wonderful family.

My life has been overwhelming. From work pressures, to Nihon class homework and self imposed pressures in other areas of life.

I worked through my Birthday, today. But...I did take a couple of breaks.

One was to have my first mammogram. I was a bit worried and scared. I had heard the horror stories of having breasts squashed to pancakes. My experience was a good one. Yes, it hurt but like Auntie Lillian said, it was only temporary pain.

What made my experience so pleasant was going into Village Yarn and Tea and seeing my friends. Seeing familiar, loving and kind friends before the procedure really kept the fear at bay. I had the mammogram in a traveling Breast Express. The women were kind and wished me a happy birthday. Then I went back into the shop with my card that said I would receive a free gift for having done my mammogram. Get a look at this swag!

The other break I took was to have a quick dinner with some of my sisters, nieces&nephews. On the way out I found I had mail! What was in my mailbox??

My latest Blue Moon Rockin' Sock Club installment! I haven't been too crazy about this year's socks - the patterns I feel don't highlight the yarn as well as they could. This installment...I am really, really happy with.

To do some catch up - almost two weeks ago I took a week off to spend time at Bangrila, our lake house, with my siblings and their children. It was fun but quite honestly, work was on my mind...always in the background...providing mental white noise.

Here is a picture of my brother-in-law tubing on the lake with Bangrila in the background. Bangrila (what we call the lake place - rhymes with Shangrila) is a haven to get away from it all. It is on Spencer Lake near Shelton Washington.

While we were at Bangrila, there was this blue heron that kept visiting us. He was quite tame and friendly. Greg and I went out in a foot paddle boat to get close to him and he let us get quite close.

Greg got some really good photos of him.

This morning we had a visitor near/on our back door. I thought of Ryan and her kindness to bugs. I'm not sure why I thought of you Ryan...but...I did. I was going to write to you that you HAD to post today even if you noted you weren't going to. You have to..its MY birthday. Oh well. I guess the world does not revolve around me! :)

Next post I promise to update you on my knitting/spinning projects. I have many things going and I have been making progress!

It wasn't the best as birthdays go because I had to work. Today is usually a flex day but I've had to work through many flex days recently. I will also have to cancel my monthly knitting gathering tomorrow as I'll be working through the weekend.

As Auntie said, its only temporary and I'll find joy in the lesson learned.