new website/blog

For the foreseeable future, this is my new home. I will be de-activating the former website/blog (the one at nodestination [dot] net) sometime later--for now, it'll just sit there unused.

I've made this move for a bunch of reasons, including (but not necessarily limited to) the following:

• the previous blog was overrun by comment spam


• the previous website had no obvious link to any of the names I go by online


• I was feeling disconnected from everything, and feel like a fresh start will help

Basically, I went through a long period of time where I felt like I didn't have much to say beyond, "Cancer still gone. Really tired." I felt like all I was doing was sleeping and working. Even when I did get some knitting done, I could hardly bring myself to take pictures or to write anything about it. Same with any other projects or events. I don't know if I've gotten past that yet, but I can say one thing: I've had the last surgery I'm likely to need for a good long time (uh, it was just last month--I didn't post about it. Sorry). At this point, all I can do is hope that I'll get my energy back soon. More than anything, I want to get back to hiking again this summer.

The worst part of this whole cancer thing hasn't really been the cancer, per se. The cancer itself has been gone since the very first surgery back in February 2007. And since I didn't have to do chemo or radiation (for which I am eternally grateful), that's nearly the last I've had to worry about the actual cancer (other than the pill I take every morning--which I'll be taking for four more years--and the recurring doctor visits). The surgeries since then have been about restoring me to some sort of normalcy. Not fun, to say the least, but, hey, better than having cancer, right?

So the cancer's gone, I look more or less normal--different, certainly, but pretty "normal"--and I have hope that some day I'll feel something like "normal" again, too. The thing that really sucks, though, is that I'd worked really hard in 2006 to get into decent shape. In fact, before my first surgery I was in the best shape I'd been in since I was a teenager. I was still overweight, but I'd lost a good 20-25 pounds. Best of all, I was exercising. And even enjoying it. I felt better than I'd felt in YEARS.

Fourteen months and three surgeries later...I'm completely out of shape again. I'm exhausted all the time (given that it's been not quite four weeks since the last surgery, I'm trying to be patient with myself...but my patience is running a bit thin, I think).

So that's my big goal for this summer: get back on the trails. One step at a time. I'm confident that I'll get back to where I was pre-surgery, but boy...it's a slow process and is going to require a good bit of patience.

Thanks for reading. I'm going to make it a goal to post regularly on this new site. :)