Merry Christmas Eve!

Some quick housekeeping notes:  one of the winners of the MedSystem has not come forward - username had "Sew" in it.  If you don't contact me by the 26th, I'm going to give the prize to the next in line.  I'd hate for you not to get your prize so contact me at butdoctorihatepink AT gmail.com ASAP.

Also, please, don't forget to vote for me in Healthline's Best Blog's Contest.  Click here to vote using either facebook or twitter.  Healthline will not use your account for any reason other than to post that you have voted, and you can even control that by clicking on the "x" after your vote, so don't be afraid to give them access.  They have never sent a message into my feed or used my data for anything.  I have been alternating with Maria between first and second place, but I am slowly losing ground and am a solid #2. With her 24,000 facebook fans and my 3,000, I expect that is where I will stay.   However, she posts recipes so if I promise to post a recipe, will you vote for me?  Every day?  :)  (Mine will not be a beautifully photographed meal of delicious gourmet goodies, probably will be a photo of my husband bringing take-out in.  Hey, I do have cancer.)

Finally, I want to wish every single one of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I never thought so many people would follow my story and I'm grateful for the many friends I've made through this blog as well as through my facebook page  and if you can't say thank you at Christmas, when can you?  I count among you some true friends and I am so grateful for your love and support all year long.

To those of you who have been helped by following my story and reach out to tell me - thank you.  Your words keep me going, keep me wanting to describe living life with end-stage cancer.   I certainly hope that I will be able to keep healthy enough to keep up with this blog for part of 2014 - dare I hope for all of it?   This year will be a good one for me  - my son will graduate from high school, my stepdaughter will have her first child, and I intend to be around to see those things.  I will also hit my 3rd anniversary with mets to the liver - after that I will have outlived my prognosis, which as everybody knows I am stubborn enough to do and then some.  I would like to make it 5 more years, like my friend Sandy did.  Think of all I could see in those five years!  Why, I could see my son graduate from COLLEGE.

But in keeping with our three month limit, in the coming months in this blog, I will have another contest or two, I will share with you my experience being photographed by a true artist, I will maybe talk a bit about my childhood and young adult years, which enabled me to deal with advanced cancer the way I have.  I will post part #2 of the "how to live with cancer" post that I had promised.  I also intend to share with you my scrapbook pages and a wonderful thing a scrapbook company did for me.  There are many delightful things in my life, as diminished as it is and as controlled by pain meds, and I want to share them with you.  The lessen learned so far is that you don't have to be active to enjoy life.  Small, peaceful things are equally gratifying.

Now I have family coming so I need to bake cookies and get food ready.