our $400 bathroom makeover

The weekend my sister Ellen was here, she and I painted the bathroom. I'd had high expectations of getting it done before she arrived, but I was on chemo, and we spent that whole week with blue masking tape on all the edges and splotches of paint samples on the walls. It was great to have Ellen's help. We made a good painting team!

Steve and I went into the spring season fully expecting that this would be the year we remodelled the bathroom. It was the most challenging room in the house when I moved in nearly six years ago. The terracota tiles were matched by an equal shade of intense, pinkish-melon walls, and it felt oppressive. (I don't have any "before" pictures here, but you can click here for an idea.) The light fixture was ancient and flourescent and sometimes took 20 seconds or more to flicker on. And the mildew between the tiles on the shower walls was just insidious. Steve detested that the most. I detested the overbearing color.

But things happened (cancer, new fence), and we put the remodelling plans on the back burner. In the meantime, we've tried to make the most of some basic cosmetic changes. I was inspired by an article in Real Simple magazine that showed bathroom makeovers without the need for remodelling. A new coat of paint and some updated fixtures and accessories can go a long way.

So we lightened up the paint on the wall above the tiles, using a rich, creamy color (Benjamin Moore's Antique White), and it really opens up the room. (Ellen said it felt "spiritual, like a Jewish temple" — not that she could explain what that meant; it was an impression she had, and she went with it.)

Late last year, we ripped out the ugly light fixture and replaced it with a more modern one. Unfortunately, this left gaping patches of unpainted wall and screw holes where the new one wasn't able to overlap the borders of the old. The paint job, along with some sandpaper and Spackle, took care of that. (See right photo.) And, after I got spoiled during trips overseas, we replaced our fixed shower head with a handheld one (mounted overhead so it can be used as a fixed head), which feels like a little luxury.

And finally, we got rid of the mildew. Loathe as we were to contaminate the house with highly toxic cleaners, I did not say no when one of the women who cleans our house once a month (thanks to a generous and wonderful gift from some friends) asked me if I wanted her to scrub it out with some heavy-duty bleach cleanser that left an odor wafting through our house for about 20 minutes. What magic, though! Steve's jaw dropped when he got home and saw it. It was like having a whole new tub! (I wish I could remember the name of the product; I think Clorox makes it.)

Now I've grown to be at peace with — even a little fond of — our bathroom. The total cost? Probably around $400, including what we paid the electrician to get the light fixture installed. There's still more I'd like to do, but ... knowing we can wait on a complete overhaul? Priceless.

(And while we're on the subject of bathrooms, you must take a look at my friend Vanessa's new downstairs bathroom. Gorgeous!)

magnificent

I went to acupunture this morning. I was in good spirits because my chemo session is finished, and I'm feeling OK, and — best of all — I'm completely unattached to any tubes and catheters. I'd been to acupunture before, when Steve and I were trying to have a baby; but that time, I went to a different practitioner across the street. The session was a gift from a friend, who sees the same acupunturist. I really liked this woman. We talked for a while about my cancer and how I'm doing, and then she told me where she thought she should put the needles this time — mostly in my arms, hands and shoulder.

So I lay down on the table, and she put the needles in — little yows and yips as they tweaked my chi but nothing more — and she told me to relax and breathe in the spring energy and fill my lungs with white light and breathe out all the grey yucky stuff. I tried to focus on that meditative breathing, although I allowed all manner of colors to fill the white — sherbet colors, greens and yellows mostly, swirling around inside the body of my imagination. I thought about my tumors and told one of them (the one near my spine that I can feel) that I wished it would just go away. It wasn't a hateful command, and I couldn't bring myself to curse it or feel anger at its evil. I just spoke to it as part of my body that's getting out of control, like a frustrated parent.

Then, out of nowhere, a voice in my head said, "Something magnificent is going to happen." And I was overwhelmed with emotion, and tears formed in my eyes.

That's all I can say. I left feeling good and positive, like someone reaching for the stars.

the banquet of life

When it comes to my prognosis, I hear two main lines of thinking: On one hand, there are the hard, cold survival statistics that I see in medical articles every time I try to do research about my sarcoma. The words from the doctors, like "probably not curable" and "prognosis not good." On the other hand, there are the words I hear from the spiritual people in my life, like a priest I respect very much who said to me this weekend, "The longer I'm in this business, the less regard I have for words like 'poor prognosis.' I see too many things that the doctors don't see." And the woman I met last fall from Well Within who came over yesterday to do healing touch on me, who told me she hates numbers and forecasts of how long people have left, who told me of people who have beat the odds for no apparent reason.

I much prefer to dwell in the latter zone. Obviously. But how do I go on educating myself about my condition — which all the cancer literature encourages patients to do — and keep my hopes up at the same time? I've started to dread reading the medical articles. They depress me too much, and a big part of me wants to bury my head back in the sand. I know I can't do that, not completely. (Thank God for a doctor friend of mine who is smart and willing to read some of them for me.) And while I would love to place all my eggs in the "miracle" basket and have faith that I will be the woman who beats the odds, I know I can't live in denial of what might happen to me — I have to be prepared, to have my house in order, even as I have hope. How do I do that? Seriously — how do I find that balance?

My dad turned 70 a few weeks ago, and I was thinking about him on his birthday, reflecting on what turning 70 would be like. It was before I knew my cancer had come back, and I was still in my happy place, just enjoying our family and the newness of Ben. I imagined myself on my 70th birthday, sitting on the porch in a rocking chair with Steve, reflecting on the long life we'd had together. I imagined us talking about those years when the kids were young and I had the cancer scare. "Remember those crazy times?" we'd say.

Mary Treacy O'Keefe (the woman from Well Within) says visualization is a powerful tool for healing (making the subtle distinction between curing and healing), and that it helps to imagine a specific scene like that. She told me about a woman who said she wanted to dance at her grandchildren's weddings. Not her children's, but her grandchildren's. I love that idea, too. I love imagining myself at Daniel's and Ben's weddings, putting my arms around my grown sons as we dance and telling them how much I love them and how proud I am of them. (I am crying now as I write this.)

But honestly, am I going to get that gift of time? I hate that I can't embrace this idea freely. I saw an obituary in yesterday's Pioneer Press for a woman who died after a "courageous five-year battle with sarcoma." Five years, I thought. That's pretty good. I'd be relieved if I knew I had five years left. But wait a minute. Should I give up the rest of my life so easily? Shouldn't I aim higher than that? Shouldn't I hold out for my 70th birthday, for the weddings?

Something else comes to mind. It's on a page I tore out of Oprah's latest issue the week before I got my diagnosis. It's a short, powerful paragraph by the African-American studies professor at Princeton, Cornel West. I'm going to type it here because it moves me so much; it's an attitude worth striving for. He says:

The surgeon was rolling me into the operating room for a seven-hour procedure on an aggressive form of cancer that was in the last stage. He said, "I don't understand; how is your blood pressure normal?" I said, "I've made my peace." My response to the cancer was that I was full of gratitude that I had been invited to the banquet of life for 48 years and experienced an abundance of blessings, especially in the form of family and friends. It just turned out that I've been spared for a while.

words from emily to emilie

Certain things — words, moments, jokes — arrive just when I need them. A friend sent me a beautiful, letterpressed card this week with a stanza from a poem by Emily Dickinson that brought tears to my eyes. Here is the poem.

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune — without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

rooms

Steve and I got into a scintillating conversation this morning about the definition of a den. I say it's a family room, where the TV is, and Steve says it's more of a home office. Maybe it can be both. Steve swears that in The Brady Bunch, Mike Brady's home office was called the den. I couldn't remember where his home office was, and I wondered if he used a corner of the family room — the room that had the big patio door that led out to the driveway — in which case that would be the den, too. But no, wasn't his office off the living room at the other end of the house? This led us to picking up Daniel's MagnaDoodle and drawing floor plans of the Bradys' house, leading to all sorts of reminiscing: "This is where the vase was when it got broken." "This is the front door, where Davy Jones came in." "Where was Alice's bedroom? Off the kitchen and under the stairs? What was her boyfriend's name again?" "This is where Jan sat on the couch and said, "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!"

At any rate, we agreed to disagree on the den definition and went downstairs to look at our basement, which we use as a playroom, perhaps the closest thing in our house to a den (if you use my definition). It's a finished basement and works splendidly as a playroom for Daniel (and not so splendidly as a guest room for my family when they come visit). But it's not very attractive — shoddy panelling instead of drywall, pull-string lights and only two of them, only a thin layer of insulation. We wondered if we should redo it. Then we wondered if we should put in an extra bathroom downstairs. And if so, where? And how much would a basement remodel improve the resale value? And is resale value more important than our enjoyment of our home? And if we really want to enjoy our home and increase the resale cost, wouldn't it be better to tackle the bathroom or kitchen? Besides, aren't we already putting some money into landscaping this year?

Which led us to pick up the Magnadoodle again and jot down some priorities. (OK, we soon switched to paper and pen.) And we realized that the one room in the house that irritates us the most — both of us — is the bathroom. I hate the color scheme. Terracotta, peach and beige are desert colors, and they smack of the '70s. They just don't belong in a bathroom (not mine, anyway). They're not soothing or relaxing. My dream bathroom would be pale, cool colors, greens and blues, neutral whites, shabby chic colors accented with lots of pretty colored towels and maybe small touches of black. Steve hates the ubiquitous mold on the tile. I have to admit I like our bathroom a tiny bit better since we replaced the ancient, flourescent light fixture with a more modern row of sconces and changed the shower head to a handheld model that mounts over our heads and serves as an overhead shower, too. (Oh my Lord, I am in love with the handheld! And not for reasons you may think, naughty readers.)

Anyhow ... hooray for lists! As a result of our brainstorming, we decided that if anything is going to be remodeled this year, it's going to be the bathroom. We've already gone on Angie's List to get an idea of how much it would cost us and how much of a facelift we can afford. I think it might be doable. The only question is when — and how — we'd survive without a bathroom while the work is done. Especially with a new baby. I guess we'll figure it out.

forty for 40

It's my birthday! I think Daniel wanted me to be conscious for every minute of it, so he made an effort to wake up several times in the middle of the night crying and not wanting to lie down. Teething, maybe; hopefully he's not sick. I got a blessed hour to myself this morning — Steve stayed home with Daniel while I went to the chiropractor and stopped off for a Starbucks on the way home. Now he's off to work, and it's just the two of us with no real plans for spending our day. Tonight, Steve and I are leaving Daniel with a babysitter and going out to dinner — I wanted to start my 40s out with a real date. Which reminds me: At some point today, I need to wash my hair and maybe even shave my legs. (!)

I wasn't really planning to do this again — make a "life list" — but when I started thinking about things I hope to do in the next year, the ideas came together more easily than I thought. Some of these are no-brainers — things I'd do anyway, already on my to-do list — and others are so out of my control that they're really just hopes more than goals. Most of them fall in between. I did pretty well on last year's list, all things considered, so we'll see how things go this year.

1. Have a (healthy) baby! Done!

2. Have a successful VBAC. Done!

3. Come out cancer-free on all my CT scans. :-(

4. Still be breastfeeding on my next birthday (or for six months at least). :-(

5. Take a family trip to Oregon.

6. Replace the dining room light fixture.

7. Replace the light fixtures in all the bedrooms.

8. Get the trees in our back yard trimmed and shaped. Done!

9. Fit back into my pre-pregnancy jeans. Done!

10. Give away my maternity clothes, or consign them. Done!

11. Watch all this year's Oscar-nominated movies.

12. Get my FICO score.

13. Find a special Christmas ornament for our 2008 tree — probably a new baby one.

14. Learn to make the flourless chocolate torte that Marc makes, now that I know where to find the recipe.

15. Read to Daniel every day.

16. Take a trip (or two) to the North Shore. Done!

17. Keep flossing my teeth every day.Ha.

18. Buy a storage box for my photo CDs. Done!

19. Send out Christmas cards to everyone on our list.

20. Send out birth announcements when the baby is born. Done!

21. Spend $400 or less a month on groceries. (This is what we budget for, and we always go over. Perhaps that's a sign we should revise the budget.)

22. Send birthday cards on time.

23. Take an ECFE class with Steve and Daniel. Done!

24. Sign Daniel up for another Music Together class. Done!

25. Have professional photos taken of the new baby and Daniel. Done!

26. Order copies of our credit reports and make sure they are accurate.

27. Save up enough money to buy this lens or this lens for my camera. I don't care so much about this one now. I have two great lenses, and I would be happy just to keep using them more.

28. Keep writing my monthly column. Done!

29. Come up with five good story ideas in a new market I haven't written for, and send out five good query letters (even if I get five rejection letters back).

30. Get a babysitter and go on a date with Steve once a month (with some understandable leeway right after the baby is born).

31. Say no when asked to be on committees. Done!

32. Start doing yoga again. Probably not going to happen. How about if I change this to qi gong?

33. Send thank-you notes promptly. Maybe not promptly, but I'm working on it.

34. Do something special with Steve to celebrate our five-year anniversary. Done!

35. Make time to spend with friends.

36. Interview high school seniors in the area who are applying to Columbia. Done!

37. Master the art of taking an infant and a toddler on outings. Hmm...

38. Finish Daniel's baby book.

39. Start a college fund for the new baby. Done!

40. Don't sweat it if I don't do all the things on this list!

thirty-nine for 39

In honor of my birthday, here are 39 things I hope to do in the next year of my life! It will be fun to look back and see how many of these I actually accomplish. (Last edited on Jan. 1, 2008)

1. Replace the living room drapes. Done in April!

2. Fit into my size 6 jeans. Done! Feb. 4 ... I wore them to a Superbowl party.

3. Walk on the Oregon coast. Didn't happen ... but I'm glad I did make it to Oregon.

4. Take a writing class at the Loft. Didn't happen.

5. Throw a 1-year birthday party for Daniel on Saturday, Aug. 25. Did it!

6. Organize my photo CDs. Sort of done ...

7. Ruthlessly give away clothes that don't fit me anymore (or that I don't love). Getting done ...

8. Buy shelves for the basement/family room and move all our extra stuff onto them (and off the ground). Done in August!

9. Tell the people I love that I love them (more often). I hope I am ...

10. Write, in my journal, five things I'm grateful for each day. Whoa, Nelly. This one ended before the end of January, I'm afraid.

11. Finish reading Jane Austen's Emma, which I started the week before Daniel was born and didn't get back to. Didn't happen.

12. Take Daniel to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Jan. 25: Done! (And more than once ...)

13. Floss my teeth every day. So far so good ... give or take a day.

14. Keep eating whole grains instead of white grains. So far so good ...

15. Get pregnant again, this time by accident. :) Yippee!

16. Get dressed before noon most days. :) Piece of cake.

17. Find a Christmas ornament with Steve that represents something we've done in 2007, like we do every year. Done this fall, on our trip to the North Shore. It's a wooden bell, stained orange, crafted by a woodworker named Joseph who lives in a cool house out in the country north of Grand Marais.

18. Make a decision about the whole work/daycare/freelance/stay-at-home question. Done!

19. Frame photos we like and hang them up. More or less done, though this is always a work in progress.

20. Read more poetry. Not really.

21. Get the Mary Grandpre State Fair poster framed and hung in Daniel's room. Didn't happen.

22. Polish up the essays sitting on my computer desktop and submit them to publications that might pay me for them. Started ... but didn't really pursue it.

23. Have date nights with Steve every week, or at least once a month, even if they are at home — just the two of us. Ugh ... this one's tough. But we're working on it.

24. Hang up the carbon monoxide detector. Got it professionally mounted last week.

25. Have friends over for brunch regularly. I guess we did this a few times. Maybe not regularly.

26. Learn to make the flourless chocolate torte that Marc makes, the one that always makes me salivate when he brings it to family gatherings. Didn't happen.

27. Declutter the kitchen and sell or give away tools and appliances I don't use, like the mini-bundt pan. (Or heck, make mini bundt cakes.) Feb. 23: Done! But this remains a work in progress ...

28. Watch Borat, The Queen and every best-picture Oscar nomination. Done.

29. Stop grinding my teeth. Ugh.

30. Get a manicure and pedicure before spring comes. Done!

31. Do something out of the ordinary with highlights. Not really, but now I don't really want to anyway.

32. Take down this year's Christmas tree. Done!

33. Learn to knit. Didn't happen.

34. Open a college savings account for Daniel. Done!

35. Get life insurance policy for myself. (Long story; when we tried to do this last year, I was pregnant and therefore had a perfectly normal amount of sugar in my urine. But the insurance co. would not give us the good rates as a result. And even though my doctor has told them I no longer have sugar in my urine, they won't look at me again until a year after the original urine test. &*%$# insurance bureaucracy!) Done!

36. Drive down the coast highway from San Francisco to L.A. in May while we are in California for a wedding. Done!

37. Donate 10 percent of our income to charity. What with the extra doctor bills, we didn't hit 10 percent by a long shot.

38. Take a trip to the North Shore. Done, done and done!

39. Read the new Harry Potter book. Done!

resolutions

On New Year's Eve, Steve and I sat in the light of the Christmas tree and brainstormed goals and resolutions we'd like to accomplish in the next year. We made lists and charts and mind-maps and talked about our hopes and dreams.

And then at one point, I looked at my piece of paper, covered with words and arrows and circles and stars, and I thought, to hell with this. I said to Steve, "You know, what I really want this year is to just get it together enough so I'm dressed before noon and remember to wear deoderant."

So that's what I'm going to try to do. That, and keep a gratitude journal of five things I'm thankful for each day. The rest of it — building a freelance career, planning meals efficiently, exercising more, having a weekly date with Steve — that's all well and good, and if I do those things, great. But getting dressed in the morning is good enough for me.

a new year meme

Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters posted this meme and tagged anyone who reads it to play along. The directions as the Stirrup Queen explains them: "[It] can be done in two different ways. Either you can do all seven categories and list two answers for every category (get it? It's 2007, so I'm playing on the two numbers: 2 and 7) OR you can choose two of the categories and list seven answers."

If you want to play, either leave your answers as a comment on this post, or post the whole thing yourself on your own blog (and leave me a comment letting me know so I can go look). I love these pay-it-forward memes!

The categories:
Things you learned this year
People you met
Things you don't want to take with you into 2007
Things you want to hold close as you pass into 2007
Things you're looking forward to in 2007
Things that were life changing in 2006
Things you hope to accomplish by the end of 2007

My answers:
Things you learned this year
1. That all the extra hair that grew during pregnancy would fall out about three months post-partum.
2. How to cut up a whole chicken.

People you met
1. Everyone on my church's liturgy committee, which I joined this summer.
2. The Robertshaw siblings I met this weekend. They were very nice, and I was glad to have a chance to get to know them a little.

Things you don't want to take with you into 2007
1. My baby weight, and it's coming off slowly but surely, so maybe I'll leave it all in 2006!
2. My resentment about certain money issues.

Things you want to hold close as you pass into 2007
1. Stephen and our baby Daniel.
2. The realization of myself as a mother, something that is still sinking in.

Things you're looking forward to in 2007
1. Getting back to ballet classes.
2. Our trip to California in May for a wedding in the wine country.

Things that were life changing in 2006
1. Having a baby, obviously!
2. Starting this blog, which has been a new and more public expression of myself than anything I've done before.

Things you hope to accomplish by the end of 2007
1. Possibly getting pregnant again and/or deciding to adopt a second baby.
2. Getting some freelance work published.