Good Days

First and foremost, hello to any newcomers stopping by! My blog is outdated since the cancer diagnosis, but this post is always a good place to start. There’s also the About Me page and some of my favourite posts from when I was just a plain ole’ food and fitness blogger. Hope you enjoy yourself and can stay for a while!

Today is the big auction day! Here are some handy dandy links:

Complete list of items
Items available for my Canadian friends
How the auction works
Latest update on item closing times

I’ve already gushed about how incredible all of this is, so I will spare you from having to go through that again. Besides, there are some pretty stellar items up for bid. You gotta bid for yourself too!

Such a high point to start the week on, especially after yesterday, which I would say was probably my best day yet since starting chemotherapy exactly one week ago. I realized very quickly that good and bad days are unpredictable, so I should take advantage of my good days when I have them.

So what did I do with my good day yesterday? Nothing notable. And that’s the point. I spent it like I would any other Sunday before all this cancer mess happened. I enjoyed every second.

It means I put my baking apron back on.

After getting lavender in last week’s CSA box, I’ve been thinking about all the sweet baked goods I could infuse its floral taste into. I began trolling the internet for recipes just I like I used to. Things haven’t changed that much I guess, because per usual I couldn’t find anything that met my fancy and made part of the recipe up.

I ended up using my favourite buttermilk biscuit recipe, adding honey for sweetener, 1 tsp vanilla bean paste, and 1 tbsp lavender buds, to create Vanilla Bean Lavender Biscuits with Honey. So girly and elegant.

It felt amazing to get my hands into some dough again, to obsess over ingredients and flavours instead of medications. To get out my camera and start playing with aperture and light. When my dad saw me in my apron, he came over and hugged me, saying it was “so good” to see me in my element again. It’s true that everything is different now, but the process of making a killer batch of biscuits remains the same. Comfort at its finest.

Apart from baking, a few other things that make for a great Sunday, cancer or no cancer, include a walk with my family…

Big sister Jane is in town!

Steaks from my dad’s barbecue…

Not surprisingly, chemo hasn’t done much to suppress my always heightened appetite.

And a visit from my baby nephew Cole.

He looks so serious for the camera, but when he flashes his baby smile and dimples, you can feel the weight of the world immediately go away. Instant mood enhancer :)

Today is hopefully shaping up to be another good day! But I refuse to spend it crabby like I would have on any other Monday. Instead, drop by Twitter from 1pm-2pm ET under the hashtag #TGFA for a special chat with Katy, Janetha, and I about the fundraiser and my thoughts on my experience so far.

As my friend Madeline says, make it a great one!