I keep falling behind on my blogwork as I get more and more into work at the clinic, gardening at both houses, and our full social calendar with friends. It takes a lot of work (and sometimes planning/organization) to juggle two households, two sets of friends, a 3 hour commute back and forth each week, and a job. Lately, we have been doing a lot of additional travel as well, with trips to Charleston, Sunset Beach, with this w-e to Kansas. There are so many comings and goings that I keep getting confused exactly which w-e’s are Asheville ones and which involve travel to another area. It’s a great problem to have, and one that I could only dream about last year during my cancer treatment. I don’t take it all for granted. A few rogue leukemia cells, and I’d be back in my Duke blue chair in the bone marrow clinic getting platelets and blood, only dreaming about going somewhere for pleasure travel.

I have been thinking about travel a lot lately because this week is the 1 yr anniversary (if you want to call it that) of my leukemia diagnosis. While that is not exactly something to celebrate, I am looking forward to June 20th which will be 1 yr in remission from AML. Last year, I was hospitalized from June 13th-20th for 7 days of intensive, continuous chemo. At the end of that treatment, I was in remission. I plan to celebrate June 20th because it commemorates a year of life I wouldn’t have had without all of that tough treatment. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to many people for helping me through all of that. My pal Peggy, the potter out in California, has been making mugs for me to give as cups of gratitude. I just got a shipment of them, and they are gorgeous. I am hoping that everyone who gets one realizes how much I appreciate their efforts to help me get well. And I hope that they can symbolize for me, and for them, how precious life is. Yeah, and here is a beautiful handmade piece of sky and mountains to remind you (the mugs are porcelain with a beautiful blue and green glaze that looks to me like the sky and mtns).

Today's photos are from our hike last week in the Max Patch area of the Appalachian Trail-our Ansel Adams, and cucumber vine.