The Santa artwork of Susan Comish

About a month ago I had the opportunity to go to the home of a artist named Susan Comish.  She belongs to a women's group that I attend every month and she invited us all to her home to see her Christmas paintings and specifically her Santa Claus original art pieces that she has hung all over her home.  They were BEAUTIFUL!!  She gave us all a copy of the print of Mr. and Mrs. Claus and I bought another one of just Santa.  I love them!  I BELIEVE in Santa and I love having her work in my home that captures the sparkle and magic of Santa.  Check out her web site here. 

Look at all her PRINTS and ORIGINALS and see how reasonable her prices are.   She is the QUEEN of painting Santa Claus and capturing the magic of Christmas!

Sister love

 My two oldest sisters Janet and Mary Ann came to town to help me get ready for Christmas!  I know my two younger sister would have come as well if they hadn't been working.  This is what they created in about one day of decorating.  I would have taken me days with my low energy to accomplish what they did in hours.  In fact I wasn't even sure if I was up to the task this year.  I love my international creche collection in the living room and my Santa collection in the family room.  My sisters saved the day and got us all ready for Christmas with cleaning, decorating, shopping, wrapping and just having a great time together while listening to Christmas music.  What a BOOST in every way possible before my 6th and last chemo treatment! 
This year my THOUGHTFUL and KIND nephew Dustin and his wife Daelynn cut us a fresh Christmas tree from the mountain near the home where I grew up in Idaho.  I haven't had a freshly cut tree since living in Idaho!  He brought it all the way to my doorstep and set it up ready to decorate!  It's the last picture.  Isn't it beautiful?  It is still so fresh and smells so good.  It's drinking about a quart of water a day and will probably last til Valentines day.  What a sweet, sweet surprise from a darling nephew!

I got these new pictures this year from the artist Susan Comish
 who is a wonderful artist and who paints a lot of Santa paintings.

Janet and her family gave us this wonderful map of the 50 states and we love it!

Thanks Dustin for this beautiful freshly cute Christmas tree.  WE LOVE IT!

Chemo #5

November 14.  My sis-in-law Margie went with me to the chemo clinic this go around.  She stay and chatted with me until Rick came towards the end to take me home.  It was so nice of her to come down all the way from Farmington and spend the day with me.  We had a great visit. It still takes about 5 hours with all the blood work, Dr. visit and then the 5 drips of drugs.  Colleen brought us dinner from Milagros.  Yummy food. The last "real meal" I would eat for about 10 days.  Still have my eyebrows and most of my eyelashes!

I got the Neulasta shot on Thursday which brings bone pain for about four days while the white blood cells are working hard to rebuild.  Dr. Wallentine decided to take a proactive approach this time and and have me return to the clinic on Friday and on Monday following treatment to get saline, steroids and anti-nausea drugs.  They helped so much and I think he will take that approach this last time.  My red and white blood cell counts weren't that good...boarderline...and he even considered postponing treatment for one week. Luckily he decided to forge ahead with my encouragement.  I want to get this over with! Each treatment is harder and it takes longer to recover.  It really beats down my body, but I try to concentrate on the fact that it is also beating down and killing the cancer.  Die, cancer die!
My sweet daughter Jordan came to town from Arizona on Thursday night to help me.  It was so nice to be with her for three days and she took such good care of us cooking, cleaning, raking 12 bags of leaves with Rick and providing loving service.  We even got out Friday pm to watch the last installment of Twilight.  It was so cheesy, but we've come this far, we had to finish off the series and we had some good laughs.  Her husband Jake was the main caretaker of their three little girls while she was gone and it was so good of him to encourage her to come and pay the way for her to fly!

 
Sunday we went out to Rick's parents home for their family Thanksgiving dinner with about 30 people. I rested while they went to church and did absolutely nothing to help out (no one would let me.)  We had a lovely dinner, baby shower for niece Catherine, family pictures and a large extended family gathering of Rick's dads side of the family for the annual pre-Thanksgivng pie party.  About 70 aunts, uncles and cousins attended at their ward building while I stayed at their home and rested.
 

 

Monday, November 19 I got anther IV of saline and anit-nausea drugs and was just barely up and about the next day when Rick and I drove to New Mexico for Thanksgiving with Claire and Rich.  I felt OK and made the trip fine.  Wednesday-Friday I was having more side effects and hardly ate any Thanksgiving dinner.  However, it was worth the trip since we got to see 5 of our 6 grandchildren.  What other activity would put a smile on my face and a spring in my step?? Jordan and Jake drove over from Phoenix and we had a lovely dinner sharing it with Rich's side of the family in his sister Elise's lovely home. 
Saturday the 24, the troups all headed to the BYU-New Mexico state football game in Las Cruses  while I stayed at Claire and Rich's home and watch three movies and rested.  All in all, it was a very fun Thanksgiving holiday and a WONDERFUL distraction from the side effects of chemo #5.  One more to go!

Colleen gave me this darling hat!  What do you think??