In Celebration...

...is that the word I want to use? Celebration? Maybe "honor" would work better.

Anyway, to mark the beginning of the New Normal, I have sorted through all my chemo hats and scarves, kept some, donated some, giving some to others who are currently without hair due to chemo.

I feel a little creepy keeping some, but I think I'm a little too pragmatic to get rid of things that worked super well, just in case (knock wood) I should ever be unfortunate enough to need them again. Creepy, right?

I also kept some that were made especially for me, out of love, by friends, some of whom I've never met in person. That seems less creepy. Keeping those hats and scarves is very similar to keeping baby clothes, right? Of course, many of those hats were knitted, and therefore I'll also be more able to wear them with hair. A few of the wonderfully warm, stylish, and comfortable fleece hats a friend made me fit so well when I was bald that I won't be able to wear them now that I have hair.

On the other hand, I wore those fleece hats the most when I felt the worst, and looking at them now makes my stomach clench in memory.

Also, now that the Year of Suck is over and we have a new normal in our lives, I cleaned off the corner of the kitchen counter where I kept all my meds and supplements and that kind of stuff. It's empty. And I found an area in a cupboard where the few I'm still taking can be kept, you know, like normal people do. It's not the focus of the kitchen now. Instead, I also got a new pot rack to hang up and that's the focus now. Something normal and healthy like utensils for cooking food to share with loved ones. I'd show you pictures, but for some reason blogger isn't allowing picture uploads at this moment. They are on facebook, though.

Slowly, I'm also finally getting around to figuring out how to live in this house. You see, I got diagnosed 50 days after our official move-in date. During those 50 days of "old normal" (must come up with some better way to refer to that time--BC almost works, except that it is also the commonly used abbreviation for breast cancer), I was out of town for 9 days doing AP scoring, there were three weekend soccer tournaments, and we had out of town company over at least a week. So, while we were "moved in" it wasn't like I had the opportunity to really "settle." And for the past year, things have just devolved from that point. For instance, today I finally cleaned out the very first junk drawer...the drawer that I just randomly stuck stuff in during the month when we were working in her before we moved in...things like receipts, and hammers, and extension cords, and whistles, and fertility goddess necklaces, and exercise ball plugs, and freezer tape, and Buffalo nickles. You know, that stuff that you just need to put down, but you don't really deal with it.

It feels good, like I'm reclaiming my life whilst reclaiming my house.