use real butter

Recipe: chicken diablo sandwich

I feel like I’m in pole position, revving my engine, ready to bolt across the starting line. I began to sense a slight increase in energy this afternoon and endeavored to take a short 2-mile jaunt on one of our backyard hikes. The smells of pine forests and damp earth (the snow is melting out in earnest) trigger the urge to run for me. I like the soft feel of the pine litter under my feet as my eyes search for what is around the next turn. That’s the beauty of trail running for me – I don’t get bored. But my body wasn’t ready for that today, so we hiked and had time to spy the very earliest of our local high-elevation wildflowers like the lavender-colored pasque, violet astragalus, and pretty white draba. I have a hard time running with my camera (unless I want to take out several ribs in the process), so it was just as well :)

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: greek beef/chicken salad with tahini-yogurt dressing

My favorite weather to hike in is overcast and cool (50s F). That was the forecast for Boulder this morning, my last “good” morning before my body is overrun with side effects from: my primary drugs, my secondary drugs (to treat side-effects), and my tertiary drugs (to treat side-effects from the secondary drug side-effects). Even so, round #5 wasn’t quite done with me and I’ve gained 10 pounds of fluid in the form of swelling over the last 2 days. Uncomfortable, painful… annoying as hell.

But I wasn’t to be deterred because I knew if I didn’t go wildflower peeping, they might up and bloom and wither away before I am well enough to see them after chemo #6. Jeremy knows how important this is to me – to get out right before I go down for the count. He offered to spend the morning with me and chaperone the pup (deprived of her rightful hiking all winter and spring) while I got my fix.

Recipe: chicken kebabs

I can still spy snow on the ground across the valley, but the sun has been doing her work in these parts. We have one giant snow bank left in the shadow of our garage. The rest of the yard has thawed and dried, much to Kaweah’s exploratory delight. It’s beautiful, really. While I was feeling like hell over the weekend, Jeremy cracked a window overnight to let some cool air in. Although my taste is boned from the chemo, my sense of smell is heightened and in my delirious state, the smell of that mountain air calmed me. I love being outside, sleeping in the dirt, smelling the pine forests, walking the hills. It smelled like camping, because we always camp in the mountains – but we live here. Hell yeah.