Helping someone that helped me

I don't talk about my experiences in high school much. Part of it is because it is the past, and part of it is that it seems to make people feel bad for me when really they shouldn't. I am a cancer survivor and a much stronger person because of my experiences. I met a lot of great people and am who I am today because of the cancer and the subsequent events that followed.

While I am really positive about my experience with cancer I will admit that there were some tough times and I am thankful for my friends and family that helped me through those experiences. I am posting this blog because of a group of people that made having cancer less scary.

I went to Camp Okizu my first summer after getting diagnosed with cancer. I had just gotten out of the hospital and was at my lowest point health wise since getting diagnosed. In spite of all of this my doctors encouraged me to still go to Camp. I'm so glad that they did! I may have been really sick for most of the time and had to spend time in the infirmary, aka "The Inn", but I had a blast. I was put in a cabin with an amazing group of girls and we called ourselves the "Superstars", I swam in a lake, I did archery, I learned how to make some new friendship bracelets, I developed crushes on some of the boys, I went to a dance, and I spent every night under the stars. Basically I experienced all of the same things that a normal teenager would at a summer camp. All the girls I was with had been through cancer and chemo, in fact all of the kids had. We could easily ask each other about our experiences, we could say how much it sucked, or how awesome our doctors were. After having these talks we would then move onto other things like the cute guys at camp and who was hooking up with who. It was amazing to go from normal teenage things to talking about cancer then back to normal teenage stuff.

After I left camp that week I had a whole new perspective on my experiences and I looked forward to the following summer, which I did go again and had a blast again. In fact that was the summer that I met some more really great friends and really built up a group of friends that I wish I was still in contact with. Some of those friends have passed on due to their battles with cancer and the others have moved on to live great lives, but we will always have the great times at Okizu.

You may wonder what is so great about this camp and why I want you to vote for them on Facebook so they can get some much needed money, it is because all of these experiences were completely FREE! They didn't charge any money for those experiences, but offered the chance to escape for a little while. They offer three different types of camps, cancer kids, siblings, and family camp. It is a little bit for everyone, and let me repeat this, FREE! But it is only free because of the support of both private and corporate donors, so please click on the button at the top and vote for Camp Okizu. Thank you!

Resolution Update

I feel like I am chugging along with my goals, although the whole keeping my place cleaned up thing has been a bit of a struggle. I did do my dishes last night which is huge for me, and I took out my trash this morning which cleaned out part of my fridge.

I casted on my first “sock” last night. It is actually the Loopy’s Red Sock Kit from Loopy Ewe so it is a teeny tiny little sock, but its a sock and I think it will help to teach me method before getting into the whole actually fitting someone part.

Another little plus for me is that I finally called to cancel my gym membership last night. Since I started going to my gym at work I don’t need to keep paying for a membership. That should help to balance out the difference in my paycheck with my change in health insurance. And I actually worked out during my lunch hour today all by myself!

Hey she's Knitting!

Tonight was a wonderful night out with my boyfriend and some of his friends. It started with going to a really delicious revolving sushi restaurant and then we migrated over to a British pub. While at the pub most of my DBFs friends were doodling on some paper (they are all into the art scene and really good at what they do) and DBF was talking to them and well, I was kinda just sitting there. So I nudged DBF to get the car keys and I went and grabbed my current knitting project. Can't say what it is because its a gift. But when I pull it out one of the girls goes " Hey she's knitting!" I almost, in a smart ass way, said "Hey you were drawing!" Luckily I held my tongue and just said yes I am. I just thought it was interesting that it was perfectly normal for them to be doodling in the pub while it was odd for me to be knitting. Then again I guess it was an unusual thing for me to be knitting...in a British pub...eating Spotted Dick...with a group of Asians...after eating sushi made by Mexicans. Okay...the whole situation was just interesting.

The above situation reminds me why I love knitting out in public, or KIPing. It is always interesting to see peoples responses. It ranges from people telling me about there experiences with yarn crafts to guys hitting on me because I'm knitting to older gentlemen telling me about the amazing blankets their grandmothers made and are now family heirlooms. I also really enjoy the compliments on the objects I'm working on and have to suppress the urge to show them all of the other projects I have with me. I have to remind myself that not everyone wants to see every single thing that is on my needles or that I have knitted and that there is a fine line between interesting girl knitting out in public and well...that crazy girl who obsesses about knitting and won't shut up about it if you say anything to her. I mean I may be the crazy girl obsessed with knitting in my head and according to DBF, but if I want to make any friends in this world I do need to act somewhat normal while KIPing, otherwise I'll give a bad name to knitters everywhere and I really don't want to do that.