Life's Journey

I am excited to write about my amazing weekend. First ,I once again, am over-the-top grateful for my angels out there. Last weekend I met 5 girlfriends in Sonoma California. I've been planning this one for a while, coordinating calendars, and planning a Girl's Weekend Getaway in Sonoma. We were traveling in from Montana, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Phoenix and all met up at Cline Cellar's in Sonoma. Thanks to my angels and the Cline family for gifting me 2 nights in the villa located at the vineyards. This is a beautiful winery. The old farmhouse has been converted to the tasting room, it's perfect. We went straight to tasting and the Cline wines were the perfect start. The staff met with us and took us up to the villa. This place is more than I could have imagined - it's beautiful beyond words. This is more than what I would call a "villa". It's 6500sf, 4 bedroom suites, 2 livings areas, a huge dining room, a gourmet kitchen, and a pool. We had the whole place to the 6 of us for the weekend. This was perfect and never would have been possible without the help of my angels. We took a tour, choose sleeping arrangements and settled in. Each of us arrived at different times and we gathered on the patio with wine, cheese and crackers. I can't tell you how relaxed and grateful I felt within seconds. I am so blessed to have such fantastic women in my life. As we sat together throughout this weekend and shared our stories I looked at each of my dear friends and smiled. This was a weekend that I found myself just sitting back and "taking it all in".

Ok, a little more detail about our weekend. Our first night we had a great dinner at Harvest Moon in Sonoma Square. We sat on an adorable patio area and enjoyed each other's company. I was the only one that knew everyone there so it was nice to introduce new friends. The next day was wine tasting day. We kicked the day off with coffee and monkey bread at home - yummy! Then headed to Gloria Ferrer for our first tasting and tour. They specialize in sparkling wines and they were very good. They have one called Va De Vi that I really liked, I took one back to the house to enjoy later. Across the street was a little shopping plaza with a great café called Park 121 where we had lunch. We enjoyed a little shopping - pretty cool little artsy shops here - and found a wine tasting room for what turned out to be a not so great wine. We ventured on to Ramsgate. I can't believe how fast the day went by, the wineries were closing by the time we left here. We stopped by the Cline tasting room and picked up an extra bottle to enjoy this evening. This night we ate in. We enjoyed more wine, cheese, fruit, crackers on the patio then made chicken parmesan for dinner. This was a really nice evening together a few of us made it through the wee hours of the morning enjoying the stars and remaining wine. I kept the corks from the trip and we were all shocked to realize that in 2 days we "tasted" 17 bottles of wine. Good job ladies! The next morning one of us had to leave early while the rest of us took the opportunity to sleep in a little. We enjoyed coffee and breakfast before saying goodbye. We needed to be out of the villa by 11 and 3 of us were flying out of Oakland later that afternoon… what to do with ourselves? We decided to drive over the Golden Gate and into the city for a sourdough breadbowl of clam chowder. I also had the opportunity to meet up with another friend in San Fran which was a nice bonus to the weekend.

We laughed, we drank, we cooked, we ate, we enjoyed an amazing weekend together. I am so grateful that I was able to spend a weekend with dear friends and create memories together that we will always have. It was hard to say goodbye.

When I got home it didn't take long for me to start snoring… I was beat. I was preparing for the reality smack because I had chemo scheduled the next day. I woke up that morning and quickly realized that I had pink eye - again! Yup… pink eye! I am so tired of pink eye I can't even begin to tell you - it's. so. Frustrating! And I was still crazy tired. This also meant no chemo. I can't go in the chemo room with super contagious pink eye and risk giving it to everyone there. I called super nurse Michele and we rescheduled for Wednesday. A part of me was a little relieved that I got a chance to rest up before loading my body with chemo. When I went to treatment yesterday I had a chance to sit with Michele for a while and I told her about my awesome weekend. I told her that my friends often say "I really wouldn't know that you were dealing with all this medical stuff, you look great". She said "Well sure because they don't see this part. You are great at putting on a strong face and enjoying your time." She nailed it. I am like a dog - I don't like to expose my weaknesses. I just want to enjoy every moment that I can while I can. I know that there will come a day when that is going to be harder to do. I don't want to miss a second or an opportunity before that day comes. I will fight as hard as I can to stay as strong as I can for as long as I can. But, what I'm finding is that each trip gets a little harder to recover from. So, I just need to learn to let my guard down a little and be a little more honest with myself about how I'm feeling. I think I've talked about this in a blog before and here I am circling back to it. It's hard to do, to be honest with myself about what is happening to me and my body. It's hard to recognize that I can't do the things I used to do. It's hard to admit that I have to start sitting on the sidelines rather than playing in the game. But I have moments where it all floods in and I realize that although these things are hard to do - these are things that I have to do.

Yesterday was chemo and today was a Neulasta shot. I am not feeling like a million bucks today. And I realize that I now know the pattern of what is happening. On shot weeks I know that the next 3 days will be downhill before I start feeling better. Double whammy - pink eye forced me to push out chemo which means that my weekend is shot because I'm going to feel awful. But, on the bright side next week is a no chemo week - something to look forward to!

While I paid a price when I got home I wouldn't have changed a thing about my Girls Weekend. I am so grateful to have these friends in my life. Each of these amazing women have taught me different things about life, each has given me so much support in ways I don't think they even know. Thank you all for spending an amazing weekend with me, I will carry these memories with me always.

Hugs & Smiles,

Sarah