Oh my gosh….the craziest thing happened: I woke up this morning bald.

And my teeth are bigger. My sister Perry and I joke that we have horse teeth, it takes work to close our mouths. My teeth grew even more with the absence of hair.

I slept in a ski hat last night. It was awesome.

My head feels like it has mint or wintergreen on it…..you know that “cool” feeling?

Diesel (our dog) never even noticed my hair was gone. Dogs are awesome.

I took a shower last night and still used shampoo and conditioner. I don’t like rubbing my head against the grain of the hair…..so I could only wash it in one direction. I’ll get used to it. I didn’t have to put a towel on my head afterwards. I just pat my head dry!

I watched the video from yesterday this morning with Boo and it got to the point where she’s staring at me and I asked her what she was thinking at this moment. She said: I was thinking “are you sure about this?”

All of your comments and messages about the rite of passage video and the cancer chronicles are so overwhelming. And so appreciated. I am completely humbled. I don’t think of myself as an inspiration. I mean, why should my simple little life be at all inspiring? I don’t know…..someone said yesterday that I have a lot of readers and maybe that this is why I was chosen to have cancer. Maybe? I know everything can have meaning behind it….and I don’t want to waste it.

Here’s the honest truth: I do choose joy everyday. There is rarely a moment that I am not upbeat and positive. I’ve been questioned countless times through email: there’s no way you could be this upbeat, it’s not normal, it’s too exhausting, it’s weird. Maybe it’s not normal, maybe it is weird. But it takes less energy. Life is terminal….I’m going to die. That’s the only thing I know for sure. I could be worried about paying medical bills….but I know we’ll figure it out.  I could get angry at an incorrect order at a restaurant….but I’d only ruin the waiter’s day.  I could be self conscious about what I’m wearing but everyone else is probably self conscious too….and it sounds ridiculous for all of us to be in a group being self conscious about ourselves. We aren’t living in the movie Heathers. With any inconvenience I try to tell myself: This too shall pass. And I know it will. The hardest part is realizing it before anger and frustration set in. I remember one day when I couldn’t find Boo’s lunch tickets for school…..all prepaid. Brett was out of town and I was feeling overwhelmed. I got so flustered and frustrated and we were late for school and I took everything from the counter……and literally threw it all very dramatically all over the kitchen floor yelling “NOW let’s see if I can find the @#$@#$ ticket!” Papers, magazines, pencils, snacks…..everywhere. Boo just stood there in horror. She probably thought she was next. The second we walked in the school office Boo said “Ooooh, Mommy made the biggest mess. She threw stuff all over the kitchen. She was so mad. And she said a bad word.”  All I could say was “yep, I need a chill pill. pronto.” It was just a stupid lunch ticket. I probably lost a year off my life with that little rager. I probably lost another year cleaning up the huge mess. And it breaks my heart to think about how horribly Boo’s day started out. It wasn’t worth it.

Anyway, it is just impossible for me to respond to all your comments from yesterday, and if you’ve been around a while you know I like to respond. So I wanted to say thank you. You took precious time out of your day to comment and I want you to know that I appreciate it. I read every comment.