Angels in Flannel - or something like that

Well, they say it takes a village. Today half the village of Kohler and several guys from our church came over to paint our porch. Last summer we did A LOT of work on the front of the house, and we painted the front of the porch to make it presentable. We left the side and the back of the porch unpainted, as well as one of the windows on the other side of the house.

When our friends Ken and Biz offered to paint, I pretty much pictured...well, the two of them painting. Boy was I wrong! TEN GUYS showed up to paint today. I almost fell over. It's not that ten of them showed up - it's that ten guys organized to all be in one place that didn't involve poker or football. Just kidding. I was just bowled over by the outpouring of friendship (guy style) and just downright goodness.

So today, eleven guys (eleven counting Jim Sr.) - Ken, Biz, Sandoval, Jay S., George, Brian, Chris, Jay M., Dave, and Mark all showed up to make our porch look respectable. It was like an episode of This Old House. These guys were amazing. Working in unison, eating lots of food (planned and delivered by their lovely wives), and listening to 80s music. They removed all the old screens (damaged from the vines the previous owner had let grow onto them), painted everything, built new screens, fixed the porch door, painted the exterior door on the top of the porch, painted the entire top of the porch including the spindles, and painted the window on the other side of the house. And the window on the other side of the house was no easy feat - second floor, only to be accessed from the right (plus the fact that no one was left-handed) on a very high extension ladder placed on a muddy patch of garden. And when they were done * poof * everything was cleaned up like they'd never been there.

I know I said it today guys, but thank you. Thank you to you and your families, who all gave up a full Saturday to paint our porch and check our biggest task off our list. Angels come in all shapes and sizes. Today they came dressed ready to paint.

Leaving for Mayo today

Hello friends. It's July 4th. A day to celebrate our freedom. Hopefully next year at this time we'll be celebrating Jim's freedom from cancer.

We leave for Mayo this afternoon. We're going to miss the Kohler fireworks with our kids. I am a little disappointed, I have to admit, but our appointments start at 7:30 am tomorrow morning. The Kohler fireworks are something to be seen. They kick things off with a Sousa concert in a bandstand. They sell cotton candy and popcorn. Every kid gets a balloon. There are hundreds and hundreds of people there. It's amazing. Like something you'd expect in a Norman Rockwell painting. Janet is going to take Rachel over to our friend's house to watch the fireworks tonight. I am glad that Rachel will be there and have some friends to hang with. Jake goes to bed at 6:30, so Jim Sr. will stay with him. Trying to bring Jake to the fireworks would be disastrous. Jake doesn't do well off his sleep schedule.

Please pray for us. We are scared. We still haven't heard anything about whether or not we can get that trial drug, and we were hoping to go to Mayo armed with that as an option. Right now we're just going to have to keep our minds open to the alternatives. I know it's all going to be okay in the end, but that doesn't relieve our fear at this point.

Tomorrow is an entire day during which Jim will be poked and prodded and have to drink contrast fluid. Please pray that he'll have the strength to get through tomorrow. Please pray that we'll find some good options and hear some good news. Please pray for us to have the grace to make it through the next couple of weeks so that we can give Jim the best treatment possible. Please pray for our family - that we can continue on this journey together.

The grass is always greener

We've been living in Kohler for almost 2 years now. I hope I've painted a pretty good picture of Kohler - it's an enchanting utopia that borders on Stepford. In a good way. I wouldn't trade Kohler's charm for anywhere else in the world. (Except Ireland, but that's another blog.)

Kohler is home to, of course, The Kohler Company. But for those of you that don't know, the enormous Kohler conglomerate includes The American Club and Kohler Waters Spa, which together make one of the finest resorts in the United States. Kohler is surrounded by Kohler owned golf courses - the US Senior Open will be here this summer. The American Club is one of the most classic, beautiful hotels you could ever hope to see. Frederick Olmstead, the designer of Central Park, designed Kohler, "A Garden Community". The Kohlers don't fool around - they do everything first class.

So you can imagine that everyone in Kohler, for the most part, keep their properties in top form. Weeds are not welcome inside the Kohler borders. It's frowned upon to let your grass grow too long. Shame on those that don't use Weed and Feed. Each little house has a small yard, and most are surrounded by beautiful gardens. When I look down the street, I see yard after yard of beautiful green grass.

We purchased our Kohler house based largely on it's potential. The gardens surrounding our house were wild, bordering on out of control. According to neighborhood lore, the previous owner was attempting to make the house look like a French chateau. The more traditional houses don't really lend themselves to the wild look, although I respect the previous owner for her dedication to planting. We pretty much sent the neighborhood into a tizzy by ripping out almost all of her hard work. It was just so overgrown that starting over was actually the easy route. The lawn also needed a lot of work - the previous owner didn't like to use Weed and Feed because she had a dog. (We don't care about Palmer and Major's health.) A few of the neighbors are still divided on what we've done to the house, but if you look around, our house now matches the others. It's more "Kohleresque".

We've put a lot of sweat equity into this house, and it's worth it. The neighborhood is worth it. Every Friday and Saturday night, the guests at the American Club are treated to horse and carriage rides around our beautiful historic neighborhood. Our street is on the route. The carriage rides are so quaint that we are delighted to be on the route. The kids go crazy when they hear the horses coming. It's one of the fun things of summer - holding a drippy popsicle and waving to the riders.

All this is my elaborate (and rather long winded) explanation of how a green lawn makes a difference in this neighborhood. I was green with envy (no pun intended) at the lush lawns surrounding ours. That's why cutting our lawn is such a big deal for me. Over the last several weeks, I've noticed improvements in our lawn. It's quite green. And I've become rather brazen with the mower - I cut all sorts of patterns in the grass. (My neighbor across the street is my idol - no one cuts on the diagonal like Brian!) I actually giggle as I cut the patterns - all proud and thinking I'm comical.

Now, all that being said, a couple of days ago I received the biggest compliment of the summer. The most admired lawn in Kohler (not to mention the gardens, which are out of this world) is two doors down from us. So you can imagine my pride when the owners of that lawn walked down and told me that our lawn is looking very green. My heart almost beat out of my chest I was so excited.

Everyone around us has wonderful green grass. The grass may be greener on the other side, but honestly, there isn't much I'd change about what we have. Jim and I have worked hard to build the kind of life that we want. Including a village house with a green lawn. We have earned every single thing we have every single step of the way. We've toughed it out through thick times and thin times. I truly wish that Jim wasn't stricken with cancer. But other people have other crosses to bear, and there's no way to tell what kind of cross they are carrying. One of my Mom's favorite sayings is "you can't tell what goes on behind closed doors". The guests at the American Club that take the carriage ride on Friday nights don't know what we're dealing with. They look at our pretty house and our green lawn and could quite possibly have a little lawn envy. They could also be admiring the wave I cut into the lawn last week.

The grass may be greener on the other side. But our grass is getting greener by the day, and when all is said and done, we'll stay on our side of the fence.

Updates

Things going on at the Marventano household:

1. Rachel had her first dance recital last weekend. I took her to a salon to get her hair curled. She got to sit in a fire engine while having her hair done. Then onto the recital...she was fabulous. Not scared at all, and in front of quite a large audience - at least around 200-300 people. She actually came out onto the stage waving. The girls did a teddy bear dance. At the end they got to throw their bears up into the air. Apparently that was Rachel's favorite part because she took the liberty of tossing her bear. Twice. Rachel is in the middle in this picture.

2. Jim's leg is getting better. He still has to keep it elevated 95% of the time, but he's not longer using the wheelchair, which is nice. I'm not such a hot wheelchair driver. Strollers turn on a dime. Wheelchairs hosting a 200 pound man don't. He's even managed to get off the crutches, although he can only walk for a few minutes before the pain becomes so intense he has to sit. I asked the nurses at the Vince if it was normal for a clot recovery to take this long, and they confirmed it. Darn. I secretly suspected that he's been okay since Saturday, but he was just having fun bossing me around from the couch.

3. Jake is a drooling, biting, screeching cutie. Good thing he's so cute. He's in desperate need of a haircut, but I refuse to have it cut until he's a year old. The poor kid looks like one of the Ramones.

4. I spoke with the Mayo Clinic today. We've set up a tentative appointment for the 3rd week in July. The reason for the time gap is that they agreed with Dr. Holen's assessment in Madison - stay the course and reevaluate in two months. Even if we drove over to Mayo today, they still wouldn't take him off the regimen he's on. They were also highly complimentary of Madison, which gave me some mental relief. They also commended Dr. Haid for urging us to seek out other opinions.

5. I learned the hard way about letting the lawn go a little too long without cutting it. Now, bear in mind that I've mowed the lawn twice before today. It was sort of fun. Before today. But I've been putting off mowing the backyard because I hate to pick up the dog poop. My neighbor, Kate, graciously mowed our front yard (not because it was unbearably long, but because she's cool like that), but was wise to leave the backyard to me. I hate the dog poop. So the lawn was so long tonight that the blade got stuck in the mulching and basically shut the mower down. I'd just filled it with gas (a first for me), so I couldn't figure it out. Annoyed, I had to come in and ask Jim. I'd be one of those people that pulls mulch out from the blade and gets her hand cut off. What a way to make the 5 o'clock news. The blade got stuck more than three times before I started leaning on the handle to lift the front of the mower up. By then the yard was pretty much done. I'm learning all sorts of new things. I've always considered myself a little prissy when it comes to manual labor. Why do the work I can pay someone else to do? But I'm finding there's almost a meditation to it. I can sort of zone out and not have to think about...anything.

6. Rachel's last day of preschool is tomorrow. My heart aches. I frosted 50 cupcakes tonight for her class. 20 kids, plus a parent - plus a couple who'll want more than one. I'm really getting into the Stepford thing...frosting 50 cupcakes? I would have turned my nose up in a minute before Rachel was born. But now...Her last day of preschool. Sigh.

7. We went over to the Vince today to return the wheelchair that we hijacked for the weekend, and for Jim to have his blood tests. We ended up staying and talking to the nurses for quite a while. They are just so soothing. I imagine they really want us to go home so they can, you know, help other patients. But they are so awesome.

8. I put Jake to bed at 5:30 tonight. Rachel had swimming lessons at 6:00, and I couldn't handle schlepping them both around the pool. Good thing because Rachel had a hissy fit at the end of her swim lesson (in front of everyone in Kohler, whose kids are perfect - strike one for the crazy family). She was in bed at 6:50.

9. My horse won on The Bachelor. No making fun of me. Jim was rooting for her too. But...in his defense, he can't get off the couch. I watch it voluntarily.

10. Tomorrow Jim has an appointment with the therapist. I think it's good to have someone to talk to about this emotional rollercoaster.

Things are good, then sometimes they're not. Sometimes we forget about what we're dealing with, especially when we see the kids so happy. After all, not every moment has to be double-dose of reality. Watching Rachel frolic around in a huge tutu is good for the soul.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

Laugh if you will, but Wisconsin is the BEST!

It was sunny and 70 here today, with a slight breeze. We went to church and ate brunch out. At church, a friend mentioned that another friend of ours might have a return bout of cancer. This friend (we'll call her S because I haven't yet asked her permission to write about her), is one of the happiest, best, friendliest, coolest people I know. And she's only an acquaintance.

The day I met her, we started talking about Jim's cancer and she told me that she, too was a cancer survivor. She's been cancer-free for 5 years. You know how you meet someone and you instantly know there's a connection? She's one of those people. For me and for Jim - she's really awe inspiring with an attitude and sense of humor that cannot be beat.

So we got word today that S may have cancer again. We immediately went over to see her, and as it turns out, she's still waiting to hear. Argh. The waiting is the worst part. She doesn't get her scan until Thursday of this week. She won't have her results until MONDAY the 30th. That is just NOT right. Can you imagine sitting around for the next week, wondering if you have cancer?

I was glad we went to see her. We wanted her to know that she's got our support all the way. She just seems like one of those people we're supposed to know. I'm not sure why, but I'm certain that the reason will present itself over the next year.

After we went to visit S, Rachel and I shopped a little, picked up grass seed, and came back to putter around the yard. She played with the girls next door while I started spreading grass seed. It was a lusciously sunny day. There's nothing like the first day that really feels like summer. Our neighbors set up their trampoline and the girls exhausted themselves "helping" and then finally jumping.

Even Jim and Jake were able to get in on the action after their afternoon naps - they came out and sat outside with us to get a little Vitamin D into their systems. Good for both of them. Jim, because he's cooped up, and Jake, because he's pasty white like me.

While the girls were jumping, I got bored of grass seed (see Headless Angel), and went inside the house to start dinner.

That's the kind of place Wisconsin is. Sunny days, and lots of them. We're able to let our kids play outside without watching every single step they take. We're able to easily connect with other people who might need our support through cancer (or better yet, though a cancer scare, but a benign tumor), able to hear that a friend might need us through another friend at church.

Cancer sucks. We know it does. But I am constantly reminded that we are in the right place at the right time. When he beats it I'll bet Kohler will do something totally Norman Rockwell like have a ticker-tape parade or something like that. Don't laugh - it's Wisconsin.

Out of Commission

I haven't written over the last week because our family has been a bit out of commission.

Jake was struck with the norovirus the week before last. Norovirus is basically a stomach flu - highly contagious among kids. I blame the YMCA babysitting, but of course I have no proof. Well, once Jake was sick (and boy was he ever - 104.6 temp!) Jim was convinced that he was sick too. Of course. So over the last week I've taken care of two babies, plus Rachel. Jim miraculously recovered on Friday, although we still took it very easy over the weekend and we went up to my parents' cabin. [Help with the kids. Pure bliss.] Jake didn't fare as well as Jim, and he really just got over it yesterday. Norovirus starts with throwup and ends with diarrhea. Yuck. Probably my #1 least-favorite activity as a parent is cleaning up anything that came out of someone else.

Jim couldn't receive chemo last week because he wasn't feeling well. If he did have norovirus it could have been disastrous with a new chemo regimen. They aren't really jazzed about administering chemo to sick people.

Well, Rachel woke up whiny this morning. Lo and behold, she's at 103.9. Ack. And, as luck would have it, Jim is "sick", too. I told him he'd better buck up and go in to receive chemo tomorrow because I'm not taking care of three babies. This is where I put my foot down.


You know, as a girl, I imagined a vastly different life than I am actually now living. While other little girls dreamed of their wedding day, I dreamed of a sales career and owning my own loft in New York City. Much akin to Sex and the City, except that at the time I didn't know about sex, so my dream involved having my own cat and being able to do whatever I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to do it. And wearing really cool clothes all the while.

I doubt quite seriously that my green Lands' End down vest and Gap jeans would fall into the "really cool clothes" category. And Sheboygan, Wisconsin is hardly a synonym for New York City. And I don't even have a cat - I have two smelly, giant dogs. And I was never much good at sales.

Although I've largely failed at my childhood dreams, I realize that my current life blessings far outweigh the things I thought I wanted as a child. One never really envisions long, sleepless nights with inconsolable sick kids, getting thrown up on, and having so many poopy pants in the laundry chute that I finally run out and am forced to let my son sit in a diaper while I do an emergency load of laundry. Would I trade it for a day in the life of "Sex and the City"? Not on your life. I can't think of a better life than the one I'm living now.

Although I could use a new Marc Jacobs bag, some arch-killing Blahniks, and a crisp pair of Seven jeans.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Well, one day late. But for those of us that are truly Irish, it's St. Patrick's Day every day, and we're blessed all year long. After all, look at everything I have to be thankful for - a great husband, two beautiful healthy kids, two smelly yet lovable dogs, and a happy home that manages to house all of us without busting at the seams. And, of course, we live in Kohler - what could be better than that?

We went to dinner and then to a fun party last night. As I looked around the party, I realized how truly blessed we are to live in Kohler. Jim and I have been trying to make a move to Wisconsin for so long that it's crazy. We spent 8 years trying to get to where we wanted to be - right here. Even though we didn't know it was Kohler we wanted, this just seems to be our match. I was rooting for Chicago, Jim was rooting for anywhere in Wisconsin - and we got a great compromise. Two hours from Chicago but in a teensy town that holds more charm than some cities twice it's size.

When this opportunity came up, we were so delighted that it was offered to us. We were excited about the possibility of living closer to my parents, excited about moving out of Atlanta, excited about the potential for buying a great house...the list goes on and on. There are a lot of places to live in Sheboygan. We chose Kohler because Jim can walk to work, but also because when we drove by the school (the school, meaning a single school that houses kindergarten through senior high school!) the kids had their bikes in the bike racks with no locks. Leave a bike without a lock in Atlanta for 15 minutes and it's gone.

What sealed the deal on this house for us is our neighbors, David and Kate. The day we looked at the house, their two lovely girls were outside playing. There were very few kids in our Atlanta neighborhood. As it turns out, one of their girls is in Rachel's class. The other is a little older, and is the sweetest girl I've ever met. Both the girls treat her like a little sister, which is very endearing. That day, after we were done looking at the house, we stopped and spoke with Kate, and we just knew that this was it.

I consider our neighbors, and Kohler, the pot of gold at the end of our rainbow. A couple of days after Jim was diagnosed, I was crying to Kate and I said "we just got everything we ever wanted, and then this happened". And do you know know what Kate said? She said "Well, now you know what you're fighting for." And you know, she was right. I think about what she said all the time.

Going to parties and seeing friends, spending time with people we care about, enjoying our cute little village house, and living in a place where our kids can walk to school or ride their bikes (without locking them!) - those are our everyday reminders of the special things we have in our lives.

So even though our last name is Marventano, we've got the luck of the Irish every day.

If you're too sick to go to school, then you're too sick to play outside

Or at least that's what our mothers told us. So I have to admit I felt a little guilt when we skipped church today. Not only did we skip church, but we then went out sledding on Kohler's picturesque little sledding hill. We just woke up and it was one of those mornings. We stayed out "late" last night (midnight! We are NUTS!) for a round-robin holiday party. When we got up the snow was falling, and it just seemed like the kind of day to hunker down and be a family. So that's what we did. I know we should have picked it up and been a family at church, but whatever Jim says goes, so we stayed home.

After sledding we saw one of our favorite nurses, Chris, from Jim's stay this fall at Memorial Hospital. She happened to be out sledding with her family. It made my day to see her. Jim was delighted. It's so funny how a solitary event brings you into contact with so many people. If Jim hadn't had cancer, we would have just walked by her on the sledding hill, never knowing that we were walking by a truly special soul. It just happens like that. You walk by people every day and never know what they're about. Of course you can't just stop random people on the street and introduce yourself, lest people think you're a complete loon, but at the same time it makes me wonder how many wonderful people we miss in our daily activities. I certainly would be willing to give up meeting the 2K nurses from the hospital if we could trade in Jim's cancer, but since that isn't an option, it seems like getting to know some of these people makes the pain less painful.

After seeing Chris, we went to our friends' house for hot cocoa. Friends from church. Of course, they made it to church. Oopsies. Well, in any event, we had a lovely afternoon and I got to drink tea with two friends that are very dear people. See above - I don't know that I would have had the opportunity to get so close with these women if we hadn't joined this church...Jim's cancer drove us into the church scenario. When I read articles by cancer survivors that tout the benefits of cancer, I silently wonder if the chemo has driven these people off the deep end. But when I look at the big picture...the big, big, big picture...I realize that indeed, we've been blessed by new relationships, new friendships, a new relationship with God (me - Jim always had it), a deeper appreciation for each other and our kids, and for everything that is so special in everyday life - snow, the sound of a shovel scraping snow, the happy screams as kids fly down the hill on their sleds, chocolate chip cookies, the taste of hot cocoa, and having people with whom to enjoy the cocoa. Cancer sucks, but we are truly lucky people.