someone's been driving my car

and always leaves talk radio on for me.  Hmmmmmm.....

hello again

Well, I actually sat somewhere besides on the couch this morning.  That couch and I have been good friends for many days now, but I think it's time we have some time away from each other.  I actually sat down at the desk and saw this notebook in front of me and was surprised at how long ago it seemed that I had written these lists. 

It was really only last week.  Doesn't seem like it to me.  I had big plans for getting lots of things done before chemo last week, huh?  I will say I did finish the Thursday list (the box on the left) and made the royal icing (see the post below for that mess) and everyone had clothes to wear (until today when both Brian and Ethan apparently wanted to wear pants to go out of the house - hmmm).

So what about the last week?  I won't bore you with all the specific symptoms and ailments, although I could because I wrote everything down these past two cycles.  I know that in a few weeks I'll be saying that chemo wasn't all that bad.  The mind forgets things like that.  Or at least mine does.  But I wanted to look back at this and remember what life was really like for us that week after chemo.  Definitely don't want to relive it, but want to see how far we've come and be thankful.

Anyway, just the shorter version for you all.  The nasty taste in my mouth and the fatigue started earlier than usual last Thursday.  Just ask Rachel, whose couch I fell asleep on during Elliott's piano lesson on Thursday!  This was Brian's weekend to work.  I thought I could do this one on my own and not need anyone here to help out.  Thankfully, I changed my mind almost last minute, and Amber came down for the weekend.  No way that I could have done it on my own!

Saturday brought on an extremely sore throat.  Thought some vanilla chai tea might help.

It did for a while.  Thankful for that.  The neuropathy in my fingertips and tongue started getting worse.  And a bit of muscle aches in my neck from the Neulasta - nothing like the first round.  It was all bearable.

By Sunday I was getting a bit tired of this view.

That's when the nausea started.  Again, earlier than before.  Kept praying that if the symptoms were coming on earlier, then they would disappear sooner.  Not sure that's what God had in mind.  I have 3 different types of anti-nausea medicines.  This was the first time that I had taken all 3 in one day.  I honestly can't remember now if they really helped.  I know the last one made me kind of loopy, so maybe it at least took my mind off of it :)  I also lost my appetite on Sunday.  Had a few bites of oatmeal on Sunday morning and I think that was about the last real food my mouth saw for the next 4 days.

Monday and Tuesday were definitely spent on the couch.  They can be summed up like this:  nausea and fatigue.  I couldn't eat or drink anything.  I would try and whatever it was usually came back up.  You stop trying after a while.

But our friends made sure that the rest of my family was well-fed.

I watched them eat dinner from the couch.  It was comforting to know that they were being taken care of.  It was fun to listen to their conversations.  It was a bright spot for me in the week.

Well, apparently my body likes to be fed and hydrated. 

Apparently it doesn't react well to not having either food or drink for periods of time. 

Yesterday was my day to get the Herceptin, and honestly it was a physical struggle just to get to the doctor's office.  Brian and I joked as I was leaning against the wall in the elevator that I might need a wheelchair, but it really wasn't all that far from the truth.  I had no energy and it took all I had to walk just a few feet.  We made it though.  But I don't think the look (or color) on my face convinced anyone that I was feeling like myself.  After taking my blood pressure (96/60) and my weight (lower than they liked also), the girls in the office treated me to 4 extra bags of fluid.  Two of which were sugar water.  Brian told them thank you for giving me the sugar water.  I didn't think that was very nice of him.  But I did think it was very nice of them.  I'm guessing that they probably kept me from having a suite down the hall for a night.  Not sure, just a guess.  But I know that I felt way better than I did when I came in that morning.  The nausea still came back in the afternoon and I still spent most of my time on the couch, but I didn't feel nearly as energy-drained as just a few hours before.

So last night I tried half of a scoop of ice cream.  It was incredibly sweet.  Never thought I'd say that about ice cream, but there's something about all of this that has made me overly sensitive to sugar.  It stayed down - yay!  This morning I was really adventurous and tried a few little pieces of a really soft biscuit smothered in gravy.  Could tolerate that too!  Praise God! 

I really feel like we're on the easier side now.  I know we still have a few bumpy days ahead, but the worst is behind us.  I still get tired doing little things and can't do as much as I normally would in a day, but that fatigue has been getting accumulatively worse in the past few cycles and I'm sure it will take a while to get back to "normal".  Just grateful for the little everyday baby steps, and everyone who makes them happen!

the big day

So we dropped the boys off at school and headed straight to the donut shoppe this morning (Heaven Scent if you live near me and are dying to know).  I took my time picking out the donuts cause we didn't have to be at the office until 9:30 this week.  We ended up with a box of glazed and a variety box as well as chocolate covered strawberries for the staff.  Carried them to the car and got settled so they would be safe on the drive into Chesterfield and were on our way.  We chatted about our assignment from Dr. P.  Decided we would plan to go to Chicago for a weekend in December.  Glad to have that assignment finished and looking forward to actually following through with it.

We parked in our usual spot and carefully balanced our boxes of goodies as we walked toward the entrance.  I walked in first and saw out of the corner of my eye that were several people standing inside the door and they were holding a banner....with my picture on it....that came from my garage....that was made for the walk that we did a few weeks ago.  I was so confused as to why someone had that banner....duh!  Then I realized exactlly who was standing there surrounding the banner.

Somehow Brian was able to keep this surprise a huge secret to me, and these wonderful people took time out of their busy early morning to surprise me and celebrate my last big chemo day with us!  I can't tell you how much I love them.  Each of them has been a huge support in many different ways.  All of them have shown us Christ's love many many times. 

There were tears on my part, of course, as I hugged each of them.  I am so thankful to Joe for praying for us before we had to leave them and go upstairs to begin the treatment.  Love this picture of friends surrounding me as we all shed tears during his prayer (thank you Rachel for capturing this).

 I wanted to take all of them upstairs with us to spend the whole day with us.  That would have been so much fun!!!  We love you guys and cannot thank you enough for being there today for us.

Once we got to the office I was so excited after the big surprise that it was nearly impossible to be sad today.  I thought I would be, knowing that I might not see some of these ladies again, as they may not be on the same 3 week cycle as I will be on anymore.  But I just really enjoyed so much this time with them.  There were two new people in the room today.  One man, one woman.  I often wonder if we ladies scare the men sometimes.  There are not as many of them in our little beauty-shop-like chat room, but I think they hold their own pretty well and I always enjoy our conversations with them.  The woman that was new today said she guessed she would be taking my place now and asked if she would be able to fill my shoes.  Oh yes, that will definitely not be difficult!  She was very sweet and I look forward to getting to know her also.

I'm hoping the donuts stay fresh for tomorrow.  I think by the time we got there and got out of our office visit and actually into the treatment room that it was getting closer to lunch time but hopefully everyone enjoyed them anyway.  They were definitely better than the cookies would have been :)

So Dr. P did not ask us about our assignment.  Maybe he's waiting for the follow-up when he releases me fully from chemo.  I'm glad we have an answer for him and that it's an answer that we really like and are looking forward to.

We were able to get pictures with almost all of the friends that I had met in the treatment room and all of the staff except for one.  You know how I love pictures.  I typically like to be behind the camera, but I allowed Brian that role today and he did a fabulous job.  I even found out that one of my nurses has a Nikon, too.  I'm going to have to chat with her about that.  I love photography talk.  Always learn so much from others.

And a very special treat was that one of the nurses that has been on maternity leave came in with her little guy today.  He is adorable!!  Made the day even better to get to see her and the baby.

Then we got home and I took a little nap (I ended up not being able to fall asleep until 5:30 this morning, which meant a whole hour of sleep last night - I was exhausted this afternoon).  The doorbell rang twice.  The first was the UPS man bringing us a box of goodies from my mom and dad.  Then it was a delivery of flowers from my Apple Tree Academy girls

Aren't they bright and beautiful?  I guess I was still a little groggy from my nap, because I totally dropped and broke the vase and the flowers and water went everywhere :(  Sorry girls!  Brian and I fixed them up into another vase and they are making our kitchen table beautiful now.  Thank you for remembering us today!

Great day.  Great end to a chapter in the journey.  Great beginning to the next chapter.

the last one

The last one.  The last one.  The last one!

I'm so looking forward to tomorrow. 

Seemed like this day would never come.

Now that it has, I have mixed feelings about it, though. 

Definitely happy to celebrate that God has carried us through this part of our journey, comparatively unscathed.

Definitely happy that He has shown us so many blessings that we would not have been able to see had He not sent us on this journey.

Definitely happy that this is the last time I will have to experience the now way too familiar side effects.

Definitely happy that routines will start getting back to normal - well, closer to normal anyway.

Definitely happy that my hair will start growing back.

Definitely happy, definitely, definitely happy for my mouth to get back to normal and actually taste everything again.

Definitely sad that my time with a lot of these ladies and gents in the chemo room is coming to an end.

Definitely sad that I will not get to chat with my nurses every week anymore.

Definitely sad not to meet up with with my doctor every three weeks, feeling comforted that he has an answer for all of our questions and concerns - and he has interesting stories too.

Definitely sad that I will not get to laugh and listen to all kinds of stories with these new friends.

Definitely sad that I won't get the weekly encouragement that I've become accustomed to.

Definitely sad not to keep up with them as much, with their lives, their health.

It will be hard to leave knowing I may not see some of these friends again.  Super glad for the time I've had with them.

And one of my friends here across the river is obviously already ready to celebrate....

Found these on my front porch this afternoon as I went to get the boys from school.  I've tried to find out who it was from with no luck yet.  You were super sneaky and quiet!!  And I love the surprise of it - thank you to whoever you are!

It's 11:30.  I forgot to take the Dex (steroids) until about 7 tonight.  So I still have lots of energy.  The good news is that I can get lots of blog posts written and watch American Pickers at the same time all by myself cause everyone else in the house is on the norma,l non-steroid routine, and have gone to bed.  I love that my phone keeps chiming, telling me that I am already getting FB messages and texts from awesome friends, wishing me well for tomorrow, celebrating the end of this part of recovery.  I will say again and again that the fact that I've realized how much and how many people truly care about my family and I has been worth all the yucky stuff that has come with this journey.  Forever grateful.

I have my feet propped up.  I've been on them all day and they let me know that they are done with the vertical stance for a while.  I was on them for good reason.  Trying to make cookies for tomorrow.  I had tried and tried to come up with something creative to share with everyone at the doctor's office to celebrate the last big chemo treatment.  I finally settled on round sugar cookies with light pink icing and a brighter pink ribbon in the middle.  Brian came up with the idea to put them in those cellophane bags and tie a little card to each one.  He requested the Andes Mint cookies, but I thought those weren't special enough (remember this, cause if it were a movie or book, this would be foreshadowing).  So I spent most of the morning and afternoon cutting out cookies and baking them.  They looked like this, taking over the kitchen table:

 I taste tested one not long after it was out of the oven.  Oh yum!  I think all sugar cookies should be served warm.

So late this afternoon I decided to go ahead and start icing them.  I will preface this with the fact that I watched a LOT of Food Network this past chemo cycle.  To the point that I thought I could pretty much do anything Paula Deen or Ina Garten could do.  It was SO easy!  I knew I would be a pro in the kitchen as soon as I could get up off the couch for any length of time.  I was also convinced that I needed some new tools and cookware, but my budget convinced me otherwise.  So I watched Ina (aka Barefoot Contessa) decorate these sugar cookies the right way - so that the icing didn't run off the cookie.  I remembered everything she said (or so I thought) and printed the icing recipe off her webpage so that I could duplicate her work exactly.

And this is how they turned out.

Okay, a little part of me knew it would most likely turn out like this.  But I thought after all my time with the barefoot lady that I could conquer it.  Wrong.  And my legs were telling me that they were not going to cooperate for me to try to perfect it.  The perfecting would have to be accomplished later.  There was no way I could put these in a bag as a gift, so the creative celebration gift is now going to be donuts from our favorite donut place up the street (well, a few streets).  They are awesome donuts that we'll be glad to share.  Just disappointed that the original idea didn't work out.  Perhaps I should have listened to Brian cause there would be Andes Mint cookies in those special bags with the pretty ribbon and cute card right now.  Oh well.

I'm just excited to see everyone tomorrow and let them know how much we enjoy and appreciate them.  And to be done with chemo!!  Done.  Finished.  Finito.  Finale.  On to the next big thing :)

Well, except for one thing.  We've had an assignment from our doctor for a few weeks now.  To decide what we are going to do to celebrate and tell him what it is.  Seemed like we had a lot of time, yet here we are, the night before, still undecided.  I'm feeling some pressure to make sure it's really awesome.  Hate that kind of pressure.  Yet know that he's right.  If we don't decide and commit to something, time will go by and it will be forgotten.  I would love to take a trip, but I think that will be a long-term goal.  I'm thinking eating at a really great restaurant after my taste fully comes back (can you tell I really miss food?).  All I know is that we'd better come up with something!!

I'll be thinking of you all tomorrow (well, today now since it's 12:20am).

busy days.....I mean fun days

I was talking to Amber today, telling her what we had been doing the past few days and couldn't believe how busy we had been.  But it's a good busy.  Maybe busy isn't the best word.  Maybe I should say how much fun we had been having, instead.

I have a standing Friday morning "date" with Nyla.  We had let "busyness" take over and had not been making it a priority to see each other and catch up and decided to do something about it.  We don't get to do it every week, but we do make it a priority.  This Friday we spent almost the whole day together - unheard of!  It was really because we both had to make a Walmart run before getting together and kept seeing each other in almost every aisle.  I obviously spend way too much time in that store cause I was able to point some things out to her as if I got paid to be there :)  She brought pumpkin muffies over to share - yum.  And then we talked so much that we forgot to eat lunch.  I made up for it later that night.

We hosted a youth team meeting for church at our house that night.  We had soups, sandwiches, salads, breads, desserts.  I sampled it all.  Told you I made up for missing lunch :)  It was a great meeting.  I love all the people that were there and their heart for the teens and preteens.  I also love that our kids love playing together.  My prayer is that they continue to grow to be great friends and will be great influences and Christian havens for each other if that makes sense.  I also love that some of them have older children and are willing to share their parenting experiences with us.  Great night!

Then Saturday morning was soccer time for Ethan.  We decided to eat breakfast at McDonald's on the way (I had already had a bowl of cereal, but an egg and cheese biscuit was suddenly calling out to me).  He scored a goal at the game, but I missed it cause I left at half time to go to a fun baby shower for a new friend, our new worship minister's wife.  It was a brunch, so I ate my 3rd breakfast there.  It's okay cause I won't eat anything at all next week.  Fun to see all the precious (that's for you, Molly) baby things.  Miss having a little one at home.

After the baby shower, we started getting things ready for Ethan's birthday party.  There were about 15 kids here.  I was a little nervous about being able to keep them all occupied in case some of them really weren't into playing baseball.  It all went great though, and the all were pretty content to play baseball.  And eat snacks :)

I really don't remember much of the evening.  I was exhausted.  I know I fell asleep around 7, much to Brian's amazement since Georgia was playing.  I tried to stay awake.  Just needed a little catnap to get me through to the normal bedtime.  And Georgia won, so all was good at our house for the rest of the night!

Made it to early service at church the next morning.  I got to help in the younger 2 year olds class during second service.  It had been a long time since I had been in the nursery classes.  It was so much fun to hang out with them!

Then a friend asked the boys over for lunch and swimming for the afternoon.  Yes, it was warm enough to swim....outside!  The boys had a blast!  And Brian and I got a quiet lunch on the lake, followed by a long afternoon nap.  It was awesome.  Thank you Lori for giving us some time to reconnect.

Picked up the kids, made a quick trip to Dierbergs for our food contribution to small group, then off to small group.  I've loved each small group we've been involved with.  I like changing things up periodically.  I love the friends that we've met in group and the ones that we're getting to know better.  And their adorable kids!  And the discussion that happens every Sunday evening.  And that Lisa made peanut buster parfait ice cream cake to celebrate fall birthdays and my last week of treatment.  Love how she is always celebrating with us.  Good stuff.

Monday was back to school and work and running errands for me.  One of the errands was retrieving Brian's Bible and Sunday School binder and Elliott's piano books from church.  This has been my favorite errand the past two weeks cause it gives me an excuse to get up there and see everyone.  I chatted with Sandy and Victoria for a while and then made it on to ATA.  Unexpectedly sat with Kim and Nyla and their new friend Shelley while they ate lunch.  Good to catch up with them.  They always make me laugh.

Today was full of baking.  Cookies.  At dinner I was wishing I had made apple crisp or pumpkin pie instead of the cookies.  That's the plan in a couple of weeks.  Can't let fall get away with out making both of these.

Tomorrow is chemo day.  That's a whole post of its own.  I'm pretty sure the fun will not start dwindling until Friday night.  Grateful for the fun!

new obsession

Ethan got Beyblades for his birthday from some friends.  This is our first experience with them, and they are definitely a hit at our house!  The boys played with them for probably 4 hours Saturday afternoon/evening.  I love that Ethan shares so willingly most of the time and that they play together so well most of the time.  This was one of those times, and it was so nice to watch them have so much fun together!

These will be especially great for a couple of rainy days that are supposed to be coming up in the next few days. 

nails

So I had noticed toward the beginning of chemo that ridges had started appearing on my fingernails.  Then a few weeks ago I decided to ask one of my nurses about it.  To me, it looked like there was a ridge for every cycle of chemo.  She confirmed it.  Then she had some really great news about it......they will most likely fall off.  Great!  Not more than a few days later did the nails on my right hand start peeling away from the nail bed, beginning the process.  So now I'm just waiting to see how this is all going to play out.

This is my "normal" hand (my left)

And here is the other hand.

It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but about the top 1/3 of each nail is starting to peel away.  I think it's odd that my left hand isn't as affected.  I did notice today that one of the fingers are starting to peel, so it looks like it's just a matter of time.

Oh well, I'll have brand new nails to go along with my brand new hair soon!

Happy Birthday Ethan!

Happy 7th Birthday Ethan!

Can't believe you are already SEVEN!

Love your expressions here.

So you.

Love your sense of humor and fun-loving self.

Love your sensitive side.

Love your love for us and others.

Love your generosity.

Love that you'll play any sport and love it.

Love you!!!

 

major league party

Ethan wanted to have a backyard baseball game for his birthday party this year.

Brian told the kids we could sing the National Anthem before we started.

Guess who had to sing most of the song by herself?

The first pitch of the game.  The birthday boy got the honors of first at-bat!

I think most of the boys could have played for hours.  It was a lot of fun to watch them.

Waiting patiently in the dugout for their turn at bat.  This is probably the most that were ever sitting there at one time.  Most of the time they were over in the snacks or getting a drink.  They were starving after all of that baseball playing :)

We played relay games, too.

One of them was "dizzy bat".  I think we should have made them run around the bat a few more times because none of them seemed too dizzy.  Maybe that's a good thing, though.

Another crazy face getting ready to blow out the candle on the cookie cake he requested.

So glad that Ethan has such great friends.  I love each of these kids and the blessing that they are in Ethan's life.  Thanks for celebrating with us!!

best of missouri market

Last year I waited months to get to go to the Best of Missouri Market at the Botanical Gardens.  It's this huge spread of vendors from all over Missouri showcasing their items and products made or grown here in Missouri.  Yes, that had my name written all over it.  I can't remember now exactly why we didn't get to go, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with rain and cold weather.

So this year a friend mentioned on Friday that they were going Saturday.  I had forgotten about it this year with everything else going on.  We debated for a while about whether to go, since Elliott's sleepover was the night before and then we had Ethan's soccer that morning also, but in the end we decided it was a beautiful day and just to go for it.

And we did not regret it for one minute!

We probably walked about 10 feet into the first tent when Elliott turned to me and said "I love this!"  There were all kinds of food vendors - salsa, fudge, bbq sauce, wineries, jams, jellies, bakeries, meat markets and more.  And each booth had samples.  I think they sampled almost everything!  And we came home with two kinds of bbq sauce, jalapeno pepper jelly, and a mini pumpkin pie (and empty Fitz's bottles).  It was almost torture for me, because I still didn't feel like having anything in my mouth, but I just loved being there in that atmosphere with all of those handmade, local-grown items.

They had a kids' area behind the Children's Garden set up with a pumpkin patch, crafts, etc.  This is Ethan grinding some corn.  They both also got to make apple cider with a cider press, and one of them even milked a cow.........

Ethan didn't want to try it.  He thought it was disgusting.  Elliott was game though.  Brian and I passed too.  I'm sure I got to do that at Grandpa's when I was younger so I didn't need another turn.

Honestly, this was one of a handful of events like this that I can remember that all four of us really loved.  We will definitely go back next year......with backpacks to carry more stuff and with my true tastebuds to start the sampling again!

campout (or camp-in) party

Elliott wanted a campout party this year for his birthday.  Brian said he would campout with them so we went for it.  It was tons of fun even though it turned into a "camp-IN" party.  The mercury dipped into the lower 40s that night so they all camped in the loft.  The boys were disappointed for a few minutes and then got over it and played TRON with the glow sticks I gave them. 

We ordered pizza and ate out in the blustery wind.

They made trail mix.  This was a last minute thought on my part, but they really enjoyed doing it and it gave them something to snack on and they had plenty to take home the next day too.

One of Elliott's friends had a 3DS that took 3-D pictures (very cool), and he was quite the photographer while Elliott was opening presents :)

Okay, so I really like to make their birthday cakes.  I just enjoy coming up with the ideas and seeing how it all plays out.  I don't do it every year, and I figured I might not be able to this year.  But I had found a camping cake that looked really easy that I was going to do.  So I asked Elliott what kind of cake he wanted, and he said a cookie cake.  Really?!  So disappointed not to be able to decorate the camping cake, but in reality this was the best scenario cause I did NOT have the energy to even BAKE a cake, let alone decorate one.  But I did build a tent out of graham crackers and a campfire out of pretzels and candy corn.  That counts, right?

a peek out the window

Last Thursday Brian came home from work, ate dinner with us, tucked the boys in, and then went back outside to put the tent up in the backyard for Elliott's birthday campout the following evening.  We had the boys' windows open cause it was such a nice night out, and when I walked by Ethan's room this is what I saw.

I thought maybe he was talking to Brian, but he was quiet.  I finally asked him what he was doing, and he said he just liked looking out the window.  He liked the view, he said.  And he liked all the sounds.  It made me think of how I like to sleep with the windows open and listen to all the sounds too (well, as long as they're just nature sounds).  Maybe we need to do this more often.

radiation

Today we met with the radiation oncologist.  It was somewhat of a short visit, but informative.  He was a very nice guy and explained everything really well (not that I remembered everything as well as he explained it though).  So here is what will be happening.

My last chemo cycle will begin on October 12th, and about 3-4 weeks after that I will get a CAT scan to make a "map" of me to determine exactly where the radiation will be focused each time.  That mapping will take a week to 10 days, and then after that is completed radiation treatments will actually begin.  So, it will be mid-November at the earliest before treatments start, and we're still not sure if they will last for 6 or 7 weeks.  That will be determined by the mapping from the CAT scan.  And we may wait until after Thanksgiving at that point, just so that I can enjoy some normalcy over one of the holidays.  It all just depends on a few things that we need to discuss.

So all this time we've been thinking that the big treatments - surgery, chemo, radiation - would be finished by the end of the year, but that's looking uncertain now.  But that's okay.  It will still be over soon. 

Other than that, he explained that the treatments are everyday, Monday - Friday.  And that each time would take about 30 minutes at the most.  No surprises there.

Side effects most likely will be a sunburn-type of skin irritation and fatigue, both more likely to come at the end of the treatment period.  Again, things we had expected.

At one point he asked about my appetite. I said it was okay. I think what he heard was "I really haven't been eating much because my mouth and stomach are all messed up and it's too much trouble to try to fight it". Because he started telling me how they really don't want me to lose any weight right now, and how your body actually needs extra energy in order to heal. And how no one really ever gains weight while going through this, so I have a free ticket to eat whatever I want. Whatever sounds good. Whatever tastes good. McDonald's, whatever. I nodded and said okay that I would do that. Inside I felt guilty because I should have told him I threw nutrition out the window months ago when I started eating ice cream shakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner cause that's all that would go down and stay down :)  The funny thing is that I immediately got a craving for a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit from McDonald's.  And, yes, I ate potato chips and lil smokies for lunch.  See, I'm a great patient.

one off the to-do list

I like making lists.  Somehow it helps me to remember things if I write them down.  Possibly because I can actually look at the list and not rely on my memory?  Hmmmm.  Anyway, we, probably like most other people have an ongoing list of things that need to be done around the house.  I keep ours in a notebook, organized by room so that I can find it easily and add it to the honey-do list when I can (Brian LOVES that list).

One of the things that has been on the list for the kitchen ever since we moved in was to get crown moulding put on the top of the cabinets.  The builder wanted something like $900 to do it when we were building.  At least I think that's what it was - I do remember that it was a crazy amount of money for the one section of cabinets that you can see in the picture and then another 4 foot section above the refrigerator.

So I finally ordered the crown and even got a little crazy and ordered a piece for the bottom of the cabinets, too. (It has a name, but it eludes me at the moment).  That was about January.  Then a few weeks ago our friend, Tim, from church installed it for us.  I was so excited!!  It was fun watching it change and look totally different.  He did a great job (and he brought homemade toffee - yum!!).

But what I'm most excited about is that we get to cross it off the list - yay!!!  I know, I'm strange like that.  I get a lot of satisfaction from drawing that line of ink through all of those faded letters after 4 years, and I'm not afraid to admit it!