I'll be home for Christmas.

I will.

I'll be home.

Today.

Hopefully, by noon.

And, when I get there, I will eat candy until I'm sick and sing until I'm hoarse. And then, tonight, I'll sleep so both my belly and my throat can recover, and then I'll do it all over again tomorrow.

There's nowhere else I'd rather be. (Even if the weather is better here.)

All season, this song's been making me cry. (Who's kidding who? It always does. And when my girl Karen is the one singing it, I'm even more prone to get all sappy and emotional. I so love her!)

When I'd hear this song in early November, I'd have to change the channel, because it was too hard to hear this song that I love talk about doing this thing that I love that I didn't think I was going to get to do this year.

I know, that's so silly. But it's also so true. (Also, holy-run-on-followed-by-fragmented-sentences, Batman!)

I've always loved this song, but this year, I think I love it more than I ever have before. This year, I've felt it in a different way, and I am grateful for that.

I'm so (SO!) incredibly grateful for the time I've been given. It has been such a gift, that I've been able to enjoy the holiday season with my family and my friends, that I get to go home for Christmas this year, where I can eat fudge and sugar cookies and tamales and microwave popcorn and little boxes of sugar cereal and all of the other things that are Christmas to me.

In a world where it can be easy to let the cloud of a dirty scan overshadow all that is good and light in life, getting a 6-8 week reprieve on starting cancer treatments has been the best gift I've ever been given.

I'll be home for Christmas.

Today.

I freaking love my life!

My favorite uncle

I went home this weekend, so I could spend some quality time with my favorite uncle.

Now, before any of you get bent out of shape about me playing favorites, let me just say... I'm an equal opportunity favorite-er. As in, I've been known to have multiple favorites at the same time. It is my way.

Which is NOT to say that Uncle John isn't really my favorite. He so is.

Probably because he has magical powers:

Also, he's a HECK of a story teller! I should know, because I got him to sit down and tell Katie and me stories for three hours Thursday night while all the other grown ups were out of the house.

It was a little bit o' heaven, I tell you.

John is my mom's oldest sibling, and as such, has memories/stories that I'd never heard before.

I love my family. Immediate, extended, adopted, grafted... however they became part of us. I love them.

Our wild (WILD!) weekend

As you may recall, I baked up a bunch of sugar cookies last week.

Like the dutiful sister/daughter that I am, I took a couple tupperwares full of leftovers home for the weekend.

Katie was pretty stoked. It had been while since she'd had the beloved sugar cookies:

Later, Saturday afternoon, we took a family trip over to the Taylor Bashas, home of the $2 two scoop, and Mom and I got matchy-matchy ice cream cones.

Sunday morning, we woke up, went to church... And then Mom had A FREAKING HEART ATTACK.

I only wish I was kidding.

She'd been tired that morning - having woken up early, like a kid on Christmas, excited about her RS lesson. (I kid you not. We Evans girls heart teaching and public speaking.) 

The VERY CLEAR upside is, even when Judy's been taken out of the house on a stretcher, she's smiling for the camera. (I know, we're a little sick, but Kate and I were following her - and the EMT's - with our cameras throughout the entire ambulance pick-up. If there's one thing we know about Mom, it's that she'd want us to take full advantage of a photo op.) *She's doing well. No permanent damage. With some diet modifications, she should be good as new in no time. (Good thing we got those double decker cones THE DAY BEFORE the big event, eh?)

Keeping the Faith

According to my dad, ice cream is referenced in the 13th Article of Faith. (It's the "of good report" in "If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or *praiseworthy, we seek after these things.") 

We're such good Mormons, practicing our religion on a Sabbath morning with a bowl of rocky road.

*And if it's really good ice cream, it's also praiseworthy. - Dennis M. Evans

Family Time, Redoux

I came home for the weekend again.

The food was so good last weekend, that I just couldn't help myself but make the drive from Mesa to Taylor after work last night.

Also, I had a four day weekend coming, and right now I'm trying to sidetrack my brain so it doesn't spend all of its days (and, more importantly, nights) obsessing about my next PET.

14 days from today, I'll have the results. (This is my new mantra.)

I so hate this end of the scan loop. The first eight to ten weeks after a scan, I rest easy. I know the results of my last scan, and I know there's nothing I can do about what may be coming. I can (for the most part) totally forget about the fact that my body's grown four tumors in the last two years and I can proceed with life as usual. But the second I get that call from scheduling, I go into a bit of a tailspin. And this time, that call came four weeks before they could actually get me in.

Enter the month of February. AKA: The month of little to no sound sleep and lots of wondering if my pants don't fit because I ate too much fudge at Christmas, or if something more sinister is at play. So then I eat more candy, because ... well ... my pants already don't fit, so what do I have to lose?

Seems like a perfect justification for coming home. Four days off. People to talk to. Bacon in the fridge and all I have to do is utter the words "ice cream" and Dad's all over it. Avocados and extra sharp cheese with a side of eggs for dinner. A multitude of fiberlicious muffins in the freezer. It's basically heaven here.

I was talking to my mom today, as we were going through a box of my grammy's things, and I jokingly said "Well, you know... I could always come back next weekend." She smiled from ear to ear, and exclaimed, "You could!"

Gosh, I hope they buy more avocados and bacon after I leave. I'd hate for them to be out of the good stuff the next time I decide to run away for a weekend.

I am, indeed, a small town girl.

Here is a true story, from my actual life:

When I was home for Christmas, my mom and sister and I were sitting, talking, in the front room by the tree. It was dusk, and as we were talking, my mom realized that I was staring intently at/out the window. (To fully understand why it struck her as odd that I'd be staring intently out the window, let me tell you what you can see out that window. ... Three of Sam and Sharon's (barren, wintry) trees and Mocina's empty driveway. That is to say, not much.)

My mom stopped talking and asked me what I was looking at. My response? "The window."

Mom: "The window?"

Me: "Yeah. The window. And the Christmas lights. This is my favorite time of the day, when the sun starts to go down and you can actually see the lights on the trees get brighter in the reflection on the glass."

Insert silent pause here.

Me: "See? They just got brighter!"

Mom chuckled, and then, wryly, said "You really are a small town girl, aren't you?"

Yes, yes I am.

Born and raised, thanks. Small town, through and through.

Even now that I am back in the city, it seems that all I want to do is sit and look at the reflection of the lights. In the patio window. Against the pool. ... On the TV.

That's right. It's the middle of January and still have my tree up. Don't judge. ... I love the lights. They bring me joy.

Probably because I grew up in a small town, just off a dirt road. And I'm good with that.

October 28

Tomorrow, my week long work reprieve is over.

Next year, I'm going to take a full week off work and do something fun and go somewhere beautiful. That's right, next year, I'm going to take an actual vacation. (No more of this taking time off to have surgery. I am OVER that work-release plan, in a big way!)

Don't get me wrong, I have been soooooo grateful that I'd planned this week off at the beginning of the year. And I am soooooo grateful that the bank let me keep this week that I had scheduled, even though I'd missed 8 weeks this summer on a medical leave. It has been a blessed relief, all week, to know that I had this time to heal without stress or worrying about work.

Seriously, I have been so (SO!) grateful - all week long - that I could nap when I needed to, alternately hold an ice pack or a heat pad to my face while it healed, and just hang out here in my cozy little apartment.

I love my apartment. I love my home. I do. I love it.

I love the view from my couch, both into my kitchen and out to the pool.

 

I love the red wall that my couch is up against. I love that as I lie on my couch, I can look up and see pictures of people that I love.

I enjoy spending time here, in the three rooms that I have to call my own. I have healed in this little apartment, in many ways, over the course of the past several years. I love my home.

I have always loved it here, but in the last several months, being in this specific corner of this apartment complex in Mesa, AZ - having been able to stay in my home - has meant the world to me.

When I found out, in January, that I had a new tumor, one of my very first thoughts was "Where will I live?". Beyond not having a treatment plan and not knowing if the bank would be able to give me a medical leave, I wasn't sure what was coming - or how in the world I was going to be able to afford it when it came. Over the past two years, I've had multiple friends and family members open their homes to me and offer to let me move in with them. I have been so grateful for the support system that I have, for the fact that there are people who would sacrifice a corner of their comfort, of their home, to help me. But I have always wanted to be here, among my things, in my tiny little apartment.

And I have been able to stay.

Thanks to so many of my friends and my family, and to a bunch of strangers - including the homeless man who emptied his pockets when my friend Kimmie told him about the girl they were doing a fundraiser for - I have been able to stay.

I've been able to stay in this little 600 sq ft apartment that I love so much, where I am surrounded by pictures and books and movies that I love. I have been able to sleep in my bed, in my room, where I get better rest than I do anywhere else on Earth. I have been able to cook in my tiny little galley kitchen, where you can't open the fridge and a drawer at the same time, lest they smack right into each other. I have had my own itty bitty bathtub with the crack down the middle and the lumpy carpet that I'm sure was never intended to last through seven years with one tenant. I have taken more naps on my couch in the last week - in the last several months - than I can count, and I have been grateful, every time I have woken up, to open my eyes and know that I am home.

This tiny little apartment, literally full to bursting with my things, has been a refuge and a safe haven in an otherwise stormy world.

I'm so grateful that it has been mine. I so enjoy it here.

Thank you, to everyone who has helped in any way this summer. Your generosity has allowed me to be where I wanted to be.

I love it here. I always have. But the love that people have shown me, in helping me find a way to manage what had seemed so unmanageable, has helped me love it even more.

I know that I quote her all the time, but Dorothy was right, "There is no place like home"; I'm so grateful for mine.

September 10

I went home for the weekend. I hadn't been home since New Year's. See, I found out the first week in January that the cancer was back. (This kind of news doesn't do much for a girl's ability to sleep, and when I'm not sleeping well in my own bed, I am not wont to travel and sleep in someone else's house. Not even my mother's.) Also, it snows a lot in January. And February. And March.

And I detest driving in the snow.

By the time the weather started to clear up and I knew that I'd be able to get over the rim without having to worry about snow/ice, I was way past how tired I had been in January. I had barely enough energy to get myself to work and home, and some days that felt like I was pushing it. (As we now know, I had a new little tumor friend crowding my organs during the spring. ... No wonder I'd been tired. Growing tumors is exhausting business. Don't ever let anyone tell you different.)

On the heels of learning I was now carrying two tumors around, I was told that surgery was scheduled in less than two week's time. ... I'm sure you can imagine that I had a few things I needed to get done in that time. (Stuff like laundry, clearing out my closet, vacuuming and eating at every single restaurant I could think of, before I lost the ability to eat more than a scrambled egg.) Sadly, a trip home prior to surgery wasn't an option. And it sure as heck wasn't an option in the several weeks that followed. But now? Now, it is an option.

So, I went home for the weekend. And it was a blessed, sweet weekend, full of the best things in life: family, Eva's tacos, Taylor sweet corn and Trapper's pie.

This is my favorite time of year. Taylor sports more shades of green than you can shake a stick at, in the weeks during and after Monsoon season. It's green as far as you can see. Well, green and yellow. The summer storms water the wild sunflowers that line the highway. There are yellow and purple wildflowers that grow at the edges (and in the middle) of every field in town. Between the blue sky, the green grass and the wildflowers, it's practically heaven. (My only regret is that I didn't think to snap a picture of the corn fields across from the church. I. Heart. The. Corn. Fields.)

This was taken on the road into town. Do you love that tall grass? I do. How about the field dotted with yellow flowers behind it? I love that even more than I love the grass (which is a lot of love). What you can't know, if you've never been there, is that this yellow field goes on for miles. Miles and miles and miles. Literally, as far as you can see.

It's beautiful to me.

I'd mentioned, over the weekend, that there were sunflowers as tall as my car lining the highway.

Behold:

Isn't that ridiculous? ... And awesome?! There are bushes of sunflowers like this literally crowding the side of the road. Many of them are over six feet tall. It is glorious.

These two pictures are very similar, but they're actually different angles of the view to the right as you drive "into town". (To the grocery store, where they'll give you a GIANT scoop of ice cream - in a waffle cone - for $1. I kid you not.)

Again, the acreage here is hard to imagine, if you haven't been there, but I'm telling you, these fields go on forever. Literally, they reach as far as the eye can see. And beyond.

 

Here's a fun little discovery that I made, quite on accident.

This is an iron cut-out that Eddie Hancock had made to put on top of the signage for the new little park behind his house. (Big E is famous for the iron signs he has made for his friends and family. They typically have a pioneer/cowboy theme to them, with a picture very much like this above a hanging sign that has the family name displayed.) I happened to look up at the cut-out while Mom was reading the dedicatory sign at the park and I literally gasped when I saw the blue sky behind that covered wagon. I'm afraid that the picture is too small for you to be able to see the detail in the iron work, but I'm here to tell you that the dog behind the wagon has adorable little ears, and the reins and yokes have amazing detail, as do the spokes of the wagon wheels. So much work goes into these signs. I've always loved them, but I'd (literally) never seen them the way I saw this one, with the sky behind it, until Saturday afternoon. Gorgeous, isn't it?

And speaking of gorgeous... Behold, my beloved Silver Creek.

My goodness, I do love the creek.

These pictures are as the creek is seen from the bridge, headed up Center to my parents' house. The first picture is was taken looking to the right, the second is looking to the left.

I know this may seem like nothing more than a muddy little stream to most of you, but to me, the creek means Summer Magic. (Cue the music.) I have so many memories that revolve around the creek. It is one of my favorite spots in town. I love the willows and wild grasses that grow along the bed. I love the smell of the creek and the flowers that grow just outside its reach.

In every season, the Silver Creek is signal of home.

Speaking of flowers that grow just outside the reach of the creek... Look at this!

I'm not sure which I love more, the sunflower patch in a puddle of irrigation water, or the barbed wire running across the bottom of that last picture in the group. Be still, my beating heart!

And speaking of barbed wire...

I don't know how something that haunted me my entire childhood (I could not even tell you how many dresses/pants I ripped the seat open on, sneaking under, over or through barbed wire fences) could be so beautiful to me now, but it is. So beautiful.

It makes me laugh, how often, when people (by which I mean: single men who are asking me standard "get to know you" questions on a first date) ask me if I like to camp/hike/fish, etc., and get the answer that I do not, in fact, like to do any single one of those things, I get a response of, "Oh, you're a city girl". No. No, I am not a city girl. I am a country girl. (In fact, being a country girl, I happen to have a fair idea as to how many bugs live outside and there's NO WAY I'm sleeping out in the wild with them!)

I am a country girl with a deep, abiding love of her hometown. I love the color. I love the land. I love the smell of hay and horses. I love that, no matter where I go when I'm home, I'll see someone there whom I love.

I love the natural, untamed beauty of the sunflowers in the late summer.

I love the contrast of blacktop against gorgeous, verdant fields.

I love that all you can see, forever, is land and sky.

I love my hometown. I'm so grateful that I was able to grow up in such a lovely, delightful little place, surrounded by folk who loved me. I'm so glad that I was able to go home. Dorothy was right, "There's no place like home." ... No place.

There's no place like home for the holidays!

I mean it. Really, there's no place like home for the holidays - esp when you come from a home like mine. (Who, besides my sweet mother, would have a Jack-in-the-Box antennae topper as a tree topper? I'm pretty sure no one, that's who.)

Gosh, it's great to be home, where we eat candy for breakfast, lunch and dinner with snacks of chips and salsa and tamales in between. I love it here, because we watch movies and we sing and we talk and we eat and we laugh.

Oh, how we laugh.

Christmas is here, and so am I. Life is good.

Happy Ho-Ho-Ho to you...

Homeward bound

I'm headed home this afternoon, and this is one of the first things I'll see:



Aren't those stockings beautiful? My mother sewed (and embroidered) them with her own two hands. They've hung in the same place, on the same wall, my entire life and I love them.

Across from the stockings, right between the window and the door, we have this crazy clock:



It's funny enough that my mom's Mickey clock is the clock in the living room. (You know, the "nice" room that we reserve for company.) But at Christmas, Mickey steps it up a notch and wears a Santa hat. All the ornaments around him are cut-outs of pictures of us cute kiddos at Christmastime throughout the years.

The wall to the right of the wall covered in stockings is what we lovingly refer to as The Wall of Christmas Pix:



Isn't that great? Those are 5x7 frames full of pictures of the eight of us (my parents and all six kids) at varying ages and stages at Christmas-time. There are over 30 pictures in all, and I love them, because every single picture is a memory.

Just to the left of The Wall of Christmas Pix is the freezer. On top of the freezer are the Milk Dud boxes:



I don't even know how old these little guys are. ... They're older than me, this I know. They may be from before my parents were married, even. I don't even know. But how cute are they? I love them!

As you walk into the kitchen, this is the view:



Every cupboard (every space, really) is covered with a decoration. Some of them, my mom made the first year my parents were married. Some of them, Spencer made in high school art. Some of them have babies' scribbles on them. They are all familiar. I love my mom's kitchen, all the time, but at Christmas? I love it even more!

I wish I could show you every room in the house. I'm not kidding when I tell people that our house is a little Griswold-esque. And this would be why:



This is the woman behind the madness that is a Christmas decoration on every cupboard, the mother who lovingly sewed our stockings and photographically documented every moment of our childhoods. She is exactly the kind of gal who'd make herself an electric vest out of paper bags, Christmas lights and masking tape and then plug herself in and go to a party.

She is my mom. She made everything fun when I was little. She continues to make everything fun now that I am big. Christmas is Christmas, wherever I am, but it's a whole heck of a lot more fun when I am with her than it is when I am not. And today, I am homeward bound. Let the good times (and memories) begin!