My sister and her husband came on Tuesday evening to spend just a few days with us before I have surgery. It is nice to be able to feel well enough to even cook and do some things without the fatigue that the chemotherapy caused.

We had a picnic on Wednesday! We packed our lunch in a basket I had received as a gift years ago and had never used, so it was time to dust it off and enjoy the outdoors. Sue, Steve and I met Pete at Cal Poly and took our lunch to the beautiful arboretum there on Campus and it was just perfect. Then we pet a few horse noses and took a walk along one of the many trails behind the school. I even got a little sunburn on my shoulders!

Thursday, Sue, Steve and I packed another picnic because I so enjoyed it, and we drove up to Cambria. We ate at the park at the end of Moonstone Drive and afterwords, we walked at the Fiscalini Ranch Trails. It was the perfect day. It isn’t a long walk, but just enough. Then we walked around Cambria a little bit and we were pretty pooped out.

All week, since Sunday evening, Pete and I have been pet sitting as well. We have been watching Tango, my one bird client who is a conure parrot. This bird just loves Pete. He likes me too, but needed to warm up to me again. He prefers men for some reason, probably because his owner is male. But he just loved my sister! She was delighted and we went over every evening to put him to bed, but to also visit for a while and talk to the bird. I find that he is a delightful client to take care of. Who would have thought?

I had been forbidden to take care of cats and birds while I was on chemotherapy because of the bacteria in their feces. But the timing worked out well, because Tango’s owner needed me to parrot-sit this last Sunday, so that was great!

Friday, we just walked around San Luis Obispo. Steve got his favorite chocolate dipped cookies from Rocky Mountain Chocolates, and Sue and I split a candy apple and a cookie later. We will have to work those off this week! We have been active with walking, so we are probably fine.

Friday evening, my family left after we ate at Splash Cafe for dinner. A mighty fine dinner it was too. Fresh swordfish tacos. Yum! Tango’s owner came home this afternoon as well, so we had the evening to ourselves.

Saturday has been an errand day, and we did run over to a yard sale to say hi to some friends that just moved back into the area. It was wonderful to see them. What was hard for me today was that I had been fighting depression again. It was easy to ignore that feeling with family around and doing some active things. Now everyone is gone, with no pet jobs this weekend to detour my feelings. I think that the thought of such a drastic surgery and reconstruction with not knowing the outcome of this procedure, plus running out of money because of the bills has finally caught up to me. I was looking at what we owe for the rest of this month and it isn’t a little amount, and that makes the stress a bit much. I know that God will provide and come through, but it is still lots of large issues to have to process.

All week I have been feeling great physically, but I am still recovering from my toe procedure I had done on Monday. I had gone to the Podiatrist to have a difficult toe nail removed that was really giving me a lot of pain. I knew it would be too much for me to care for after my surgery coming up on the 27th. I have had to soak it twice a day in Iodine, and it has been ok. It oozes some, but hasn’t been to painful since the day of the procedure which it really throbbed. I am glad I had it done now, and it didn’t interfere with walking the rest of the week at all.

I was thinking it would be nice to be on the worship team once before surgery just to feel like I did one thing normal this year, but then decided that maybe it would be too much. I can return to all that later this year. This just isn’t a normal time right now. I know that I will be in a new season next year. I just hope I don’t feel depressed the rest of the week and can enjoy my stronger physical and mental state while I can.