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 Last Thursday, I said goodbye to a good man and a good friend. He came to me through the Sandra J Wing Healing Therapies Foundation, a non-profit that provides people receiving Chemotherapy and Radiation with complimentary treatments including massage therapy. They are an amazing group of people you can read more about here. If you are looking to donate some money to a great cause… this is money well gifted.
CB came to me with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), or cancer of the white blood cells. He found me through the Sandra J Wing Healing Therapies. He was an amazing man, and when he came into my office it was like when the sun pokes through the clouds on a gloomy day- the man just could light up a room. He loved fast muscle cars, a good harmony in a song, and the woman he was proud to call his wife, PB. He laughed and sang as we worked to get the aches and pains to go away, making his legs, and I think his heart, a little lighter with every visit.
He was not only my client, he became my friend. He is one of my favorite clients, if it can be said that we have favorites.  He is my first client from Sandra Wing that has not made it through their treatment… and I am very sad. The cancer that brought CB to me in the first place is the very thing that took him away. He was so young… only 63.
CB showed me so many things… what “good music” sounded like (he was a radio dj for many years), good ideas for marketing, and above all… he taught me what real love looks like. He bragged to me, every time I saw him, how lucky he was to have “his woman” by his side, and what it was for a woman to love a man as he goes through cancer treatments, standing by his side with pure, unselfish love. He always said he was amazed at how much PB did for him every day.
So I am sad, and of course it is a tearful day. I will miss my friend. I will miss listening to everything from Buffalo Springfield to Bocelli as we laughed like old friends. I am proud to have been one of the many many people caring for his body, and his spirit, as he passed from this life into the next. I am grateful that I had the few months that I did with him, learning what God intended me to learn from him, about caring, compassion, and love… and learning not to waste a single minute, for each day could be your last.
Farewell, my friend. The world is a little less bright without you in it.
 When I was in 5th grade, I had to do a report on any subject I wanted, and I decided to do a report on whales. I started researching them in my grandma’s national geographic magazines, and instantly I fell in love with the majesty of the humpback whale.
After I wrote that report, I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist. I wanted so badly to be able to see a whale up close, and to study them and protect them. I wanted to be a marine biologist until I was about 15 years old. I had a cousin who was a marine biologist and when she came over I would always be full of questions about her job, about the things she had seen, and about the places she had been studying sealife.
I am still fascinated by the ocean, although the thought of spending my life aboard a ship at sea makes me turn a little green… I get seasick pretty quick. But I can still stand at the shore and watch the gray whales migrate off the coast of California and remember my childhood dreams.
 It is my guilty pleasure that I just learned about… American Pickers.
I found it on Netflix, and it looked mildly entertaining, so we out it on, and then proceeded to watch EVERY SINGLE EPISODE of this show that they had on Netflix.
It is a show about 2 guys who travel through the US looking for old stuff in people’s barns, backyards, and abandoned trailers, for things that they can resell. They love old advertising signs, motorcycles, and bicycles best, but they will buy “anything they can make a buck on”.
This show appeals to me because I love looking through what other people deem as garbage (or cast offs) at garage sales, yard sales, and such to sift through all the stuff that’s not so great, and find that ONE AWESOME THING in the bunch. Old fans, beautiful pieces of dishware, old toys… all that old cool stuff. Sure, I could go buy it in an antique store, or even buy it on Ebay, but what’s the fun in THAT?
This show is all about the finding. The fun is in the finding.
 I am your density! I do believe that there are some people that you are just meant to have in your life, and that they come to us through sometimes very odd circumstances. I believe that we are all destined to meet the right people to surround ourselves with in life… but that we should not try to make a “season” into a “lifetime” if it isn’t right.
I believe that everything happens for a reason… that sometimes what looks like a horrible curse can turn out to be the best thing that ever could have happened to you, because it made you learn a valuable lesson, meet an important person, or take a different path in your life.
 1. Swim with the dolphins
2. Be an extra in a movie
3. Stand under a waterfall
4. Visit Yosemite and hike Half Dome
5. Take a racecar driving class (!!)
6. Watch a sunset in Hawaii
7. Ride in a limosine
8. Ride a snowmobile
9. Bathe in an old tub in front of a fire
10. Go to the UK and see England with James <3
 Ah… such a deep question. My daughter’s birth? No, that was horribly painful. One last breakfast with my Grandma and Grandpa Hodges and my brother? Easter growing up? Christmas? Easter? Thanksgiving?
When I think about it very deeply, I can’t decide which I would want to relive- the last Christmas I spent with my Grandma and Grandpa Michaud in their beautiful home that I grew up in, in Sunnyvale…or the last breakfast I got to have with me, a teeny baby Nikki, my brother, and my Grandma and Grandpa Hodges.. but if I had to choose I would pick reliving Christmas with my huge family.
Christmas was always amazing at the Michaud house- we had ALL of our family over, and it was HUGE. Aunts and uncles flew in from all over the US, and we always dressed up like Santa, Miss Claus and their elves, or reindeer, or some other obscene outfit, to pick up my Aunt Susie from the airport. We had bags of individually wrapped candy canes we always gave out to people while saying “Marry Christmas! Ho ho ho!” to strangers at the airport and waited for Aunt Susie at the gate, and she always laughed when she got off the plane and saw us waiting for her to walk down the long hallway from the plane before she greeted us all with kisses and hugs.
We all would gather at my grandparents’ house, all of us kids running off to play with their cousins that we hadn’t seen in a few  months, and the adults would all sit around playing Hand and Foot, Spite and Malice, Canasta, and Dominoes. All the ladies would be furiously cooking huge pots of potatoes and frozen peas, and making sure the turkeys didn’t burn, and my Aunt Randy always brought her homemade pies, and occasionally a chocolate cheesecake that was just to die for. Grandma would make the traditional Norwegian food of Kumla- potato dumplings that you would cook in pork stock and that I always thought tasted horrible- but they were a delicacy to a few family members, with a pat of butter. Apparently if you ate them they sat in your stomach like a rock for 3 days. Grandma always made her special Christmas krumkake which she would make a few days ahead on the krumkake iron that left pretty hearts and horses, and us kids got to roll them on the wooden rollers where they stayed until they cooled, making crunchy, sweet, waffle-like cookies.
More fun than the unwrapping all the presents (which, I admit, was fun), we all got to be with family, and my family was HUGE. It was not uncommon to have 50 people over for Christmas,  50 people crowded into tables spread the length of grandma and grandpa’s ranch style house. We would all gather around the Christmas tree at the end of the evening and wait to see what presents everyone opened. All the grandkids would get one each from Grandma and Grandpa. I remember one year all of the granddaughters got Cabbage Patch Kids (which were the craze at the time, you had to wait in line just to get one) But I did not get one, because I already had one so grandma didn’t get me another, and I cried and cried all night. Amazing what you remember even at 38, watching all your cousins opening their cabbage patch kids and knowing, just KNOWING, yours was in the pile and then for it not to come… Yep. Still heartbreaking after all these years!
I miss the Christmases of my youth. I miss being around all of my family during the holidays. And I dearly miss my Grandma. I wish I could have shown my daughter, growing up, what it was like to have all of her family around her, and to feel the joy of playing with her cousins when she was small. I wish that my daughter Nicole had more time to spend with my Grandma as she grew up. I love this picture of Nicole with my Grandma- her little blonde curls bouncing as grandma tried to get her attention. I pray that when my daughter has children, that I will know them well. And maybe, just maybe, we can all gather in the kitchen and try our hand at making krumkake.
*note* And I notice, as I write this entry, and look through the pictures I have of my memories, I do get to relive the feelings and the memories, if only through pictures. And it is now I am reminded how important pictures are to me, and why. <3
 I have always wanted to go to Hawaii… I have so many friends who have gone recently and when I tell them I haven’t gone they look at me and say WHAT?! You’ve NEVER BEEN? Nope.. never been.
I would love to see the waterfalls, and see the beautiful sunsets and clear water there. I want to swim with the dolphins. I want to snorkel (close the the shore so sharks don’t eat me). I want to hike the mountains and see the beauty that is there, and get rained on.
Oh yes, one day.. we will go to Hawaii!!
 I have been to Alaska… I have been to Florida… I have been to Colorado… but the universe decided to take away the things that I did not need to keep looking back at and crying over, so it crashed my hard drive and left the pictures irretrievable. :) Sometimes, the universe gives us what we need, whether we like it or not.
I have been many beautiful places. I have taken many beautiful pictures when I have gone. Looking through them can make me sad. But this is one of the greatest places I have ever been… this was October 2, 2010. This is the day that I landed in Florida and got to drive with the love of my life across the United States to bring him home. The picture of him sleeping is the picture of just after we left Florida- he was so pooped he needed a nap right after we had made it out of Florida. 
The other picture is of the Texas sky… driving through this same flat land for miles and miles, all we saw were beautiful fluffy clouds and blue, blue sky all the way around us. We now understand what they mean when they say something is “big as the Texas sky”… we know that is damn big. It was beautiful. And the sunsets.. wow. The sunset in Texas was amazing, but the pictures of it just don’t do it justice.
I am excited to make new pictures, and new memories, with the right man next to me now. I have a good life. <3
 Ahhh.. my favorite kind of thing to write about. My hopes and dreams.
In the next year, I hope to move into the loft in Alameda with James and get all of my credit card debt paid (granted, it isn’t much, but still) off and to put all the money I would have been paying in rent toward paying off my car. I’d like to have my car paid off in a year as well. I would love the loft to be a project for James and I both to work on for years to come… I would love to share his dreams as we make something beautiful together. <3
I hope to have our LLC together and be looking into leasing a space for my school/ wellness center with my business partners.
OK I admit.. I hope to be engaged or well on my way to it. <3
I hope to meet in person my dear friend John who lives in Minneapolis and his partner, Nick.
I hope to grow my own business into it’s own entity, not hanging on to the business I kinda “worked under” for the last 5 years.
I hope to see my daughter move out of my ex-husband’s house and meet someone who is good to her.
 I am not a very private person, so most people know all the little “seriously… I didn’t know that about you” things about me. But let me dig deep for these 5 things.
1- I have one brother I talk about all the time (Johnny) But I have at least 2 stepbrothers and 1 stepsister, who I have tried to meet but they have never wanted anything to do with me.
2- I sleep with a fuzzy pink blanket next to me every night. I call it my “woobie” and when I feel bad, I snuggle up with it and fall asleep.
3- I would love to have another child some day… but alas this is a dream I think I won’t get to fulfill.
4- I have fancied myself an actress since I did a few skits in church, and I secretly wish I had the courage to try it.
5- I can’t go to sleep unless my kitchen is clean- I toss and turn all night if I know it is a mess.
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