And so it begins....

Thursday, December 2, 2021

10 Years- Cancer Free

December 2, 2021

A decade is ten years. Ten years is a long time. These past ten years have been packed with special moments. I have watched my children perform in school plays and watched them complete several school projects. I have watched my girls graduate from middle school. I have watched my children become self-sufficient independent learners. I have watched my son play travel soccer and score a goal or two. I have watched my oldest tackle cross country and track during a global pandemic. I have watched my middle child join a sport to be with her sister and grow as a runner. I have visited with family and friends near and far. I have donated blood several times, the most recent time for a dear friend who is on her own journey of survival. Come take a trip down memory lane with me- I tried to find a picture around this time each year to share my accomplishments with you.

Year one 2012- I survived and celebrated the holidays with my family. Let’s be honest, getting through year one was a true accomplishment.

Year two 2013- I finished my middle child’s quilt. I had created one for my oldest and knew I had to finish this project for my middle child.

Year three 2014- I raised close to 8,000 dollars for ChaiLifeline and ran a half of a half marathon with my sister-in-law in Las Vegas.

Year four 2015-- Spent the holidays with my extended family. I watched cousins get to visit with one another.

Year five 2016-- Took a trip with Stephen to Rhode Island. Even though the town was mostly closed due to it being the off season- it was nice to get away and explore some of the town.

Year six 2017--Went snow tubing with friends. It was fun to be a kid again and watch the kids have a blast sliding down the hill.

Year seven 2018--Again I raised close to 10,000 dollars for ChaiLifeline. Again I ran with my sister-in-law. This time I ran with Stephen and my brother. Technically I didn’t run with any of them but completed the race by myself. This time I ran a half marathon. I ran the entire race. I took in the sites and sounds of the Las Vegas strip at night. I had always wanted to get the marathon covering that the runners received when they finished the race. It was no easy task, especially because my legs and feet hurt all the time but I achieved my goal. I proudly own a 13.1 magnet.

Year eight 2019--I baked 14 pies for Sharsheret with my girls. This is a tradition that the entire family looks forward to. The kids help me bake as well and transport the pies to the delivery spot.

Year nine 2020--I taught from home from a computer for part of the year. I taught both to a classroom filled with students as well as to a computer with students who were learning at home. I learned that my time at home with my children was precious and a once in a lifetime experience. We had a lot of fun together. Here is one example where I got down in the snow with the kids.

Year ten 2021--I cut off 14 inches of my hair to donate it. Then I dyed some of it purple. Thank you to Katee at Salon Deja Vu for talking me through this adventure. Thank you Lisa for making it happen. I love the haircut and the purple. I will be back for more!

Very thankful and grateful to be able to celebrate 10 years cancer free. Celebrate with me--- live each day to its fullest, grab hold of those once in a lifetime experiences, and cherish time with your loved ones. Life is what you make out of it- don’t wait for it to happen, but make it happen.

My Crazy but Perfect Family

Sunday, May 23, 2021

Mementos

Recently I was searching for a souvenir from my childhood. In the process I came upon some other important mementos.

XC Race Results

When I was in high school my cross country coach would record our times, place, dates, and competition of the meets. She would give us a large popsicle stick for us to keep with this information. Of course I recorded my info and made a scrapbook of my races that were printed in the newspaper. However, I also kept my popsicle sticks as souvenirs to remember my high school XC races.

Wow- look at that progress!

If you look closely at the popsicle sticks you can see that when I first started running XC I was not really that great. I honestly started running to get in better shape for basketball which was my true love. Over time, clearly my true love changed and I kept running to improve my running times. I like to believe that I have instilled the attitude of “it doesn’t matter how slow you run- just run” in my children. Even though my oldest daughter doesn’t like running with me and would rather go off on her own runs, it warms my heart that she wakes up early on a Sunday to hit the pavement. I was so excited to show her my popsicle sticks. I always told her that when I started I was not very good but I stuck with it and put the time into getting better. If you look closely on 9-13-94 I ran a 29:28 for a 3.1 race. I know that I was a lot slower and would end my race well over 32 minutes. I know that I walked some in the beginning but on 9-13-94 I ran a 29:28. I did improve throughout the season and got down to a 26:36. However the real joy for me is looking at the following year when I ran 23:10 on 9-19-95 and came in 2nd for the meet. I was super excited to show these popsicle sticks to my daughter this past weekend. It was nice for me to remember the races but it was also nice for her to see that all the stories I have been telling her had hard evidence to back them up.

Currently it takes me 23 minutes to run 2 miles but I still love to hit the roads. Sundays are my favorite. Even though I could sleep late, I love to get up early to beat the sun but I also love to have the roads to myself. I love listening to the birds chirp or see the foxes running when I am out running. Sometimes I even see my daughter running which really makes me smile.

As I stated earlier, running was not my first true love. Now though I would say it is one of the activities that makes me the happiest. How did I get to this point in my life. I wouldn’t be the runner I am today without several runners from my past and present. To start, my coach was by far the best coach I have ever had. She always was encouraging me to keep at it and try my hardest. She made me feel important and a part of something important. She started me towards my love of running. Of course there are the runners that I ran with in high school. There were the older girls Dana and Lisa who introduced me to the streets of Rockaway and gave me a goal to aspire to. There were not too many girls my grade that I ran with except for Aileen. After the older girls graduated it was the youngins, Nikki, Christine, Lauren, Erin, Jessica, and Cheryl, that provided encouragement and helped me achieve my goal. After high school and college there have been several people that have been my source of motivation. Margaret has always been running. I remember when I first started teaching with her she would always tell me about her runs and encourage me to keep at it. She even got me to run a 10 miler which was a goal of mine. Her buddy Anne who is a cancer survivor is also a fellow runner who definitely has helped me with the attitude of “it doesn’t matter how slow you run- just get out there and move.” Also, there is Lori who lives in my town and I see on the streets has been a great source of motivation. She is definitely much faster than me but she would always run with me and always calls out to me when I am running and usually gives me that little push to finish my run hard. Lately, I have been running for my friend Nancy. She was recently diagnosed with Leukemia and has started her treatment. I know first hand how chemo takes a toll on your body. I have been keeping her in my thoughts as I hit the streets. Usually when I get to a spot in my run where I want to stop and just walk home, I think about what she has to go through and keep on running.

Did a little more today than normal-

Definitely happy to be done - very humid

Backstory- Why did I find these popsicles and write a blog entry? My oldest has been talking about wanting to go to Six Flags Great Adventure for several months now. We discussed how possibly after she is vaccinated that it could be a possibility. Then the other day I get an email that her grade is taking a trip to Great Adventure. I was super excited for her. When I picked her up from track practice I told her about the time in high school that I went to Great Adventure. It was physics day at Great Adventure. I remember taking my physics packet to the park and I remember having a fantastic time. I was telling my daughter how I bought a souvenir. I tried to explain it to her. My generation will remember this- you know how when you get to a park there are always people to take your picture and try to get you to buy the picture. Well I did and I got one of those mini magnifying cones (see picture). I remembered some of the people that I took the picture with but I couldn't remember everyone that I hung out with that day. I needed to find this souvenir to show it to my daughter. I checked my usual memento spots without luck. I went to bed and couldn’t not stop thinking about it. Bright and early I found the container that held my souvenir. Of course I showed my daughter right away- she was super excited for me to disrupt her early in the morning to show her a picture of me from high school. And in the same container were these popsicles that brought back so many memories.

Stacey, Bruce, Jill, Me, Sara, Jen, Mike (Jason in the back)

It has been a long time since my last entry. If you have made it to the end of the blog, let me know if you enjoyed it and if you want to see more entries in the future.

Monday, May 4, 2020

May the 4th be with you 2020 Quarantine Reflections

Every night I go to bed and reflect on my day. As I lay there, I have all these thoughts that I want to blog about or share with my fan club. However, morning comes and I don’t remember everything. So here are some random thoughts in a random order. Enjoy!

Today is the day that I learned that I will be teaching the rest of 2019-2020 school year from my living room, or my bedroom, or the closet, or outside, or the playroom. It all depends on who is on a zoom during my class time.

The positives of being quarantined:

As an introvert, I am ok with staying home and not having to interact with lots of people all the time. I don’t miss shooting the breeze with people while waiting in line at the grocery store or chatting at a ball game. I honestly don’t mind sleeping a little later and staying up to binge watch t.v. During the school year I never really have the time to watch all the shows or movies that I want to. I usually keep a list of what I want to watch and slowly watch it all during the summer. I think I am pretty caught up to date at this point. I actually find it hard to watch t.v. shows right now. I think I have watched too much and my mind just doesn’t have the attention span for more t.v. right now. I enjoy wearing pj’s or sweats while teaching. I like that I can do a load of laundry during the day because I am home. I like being able to have family lunch time during the middle of the week. We always eat family meals on the weekends. It is nice to do a family dinner in the middle of the week. It is nice to listen to everyone share about his or her day. No one is rushing off to a meeting or rushing off to a sporting event. It is just nice to spend quality time together. Being able to exercise in the morning. I love my morning runs before work. Playing family games during the middle of the week. Reading Harry Potter out loud to my son and daughter. We have made it to book 5. Just to let you know, book 4 has over 700 pages and book 5 has over 800 pages. That is a lot of reading out loud. But….we have the time so why not. Hanging in the dark with my son and his starry sky night light and watching the stars cover the ceiling and just share silly stories together. Sunday family movie day. Ordering from a restaurant once a week. It is so nice to not worry about cooking for a meal. Sometimes I have no idea what day it is. Sometimes I have no idea what time it is. I am not counting the days of quarantine because it doesn’t really matter? Day 15 and day 16 are exactly the same. Listening to my son on instant messenger with his grandfather. Their conversations are great and the pictures from the conversations are also very entertaining. Reading books. I have been able to read so much more. Long walks. Each morning I try and walk up my street and take in nature. I usually walk with one or two of my children up the street a few times a day.

Negatives of being quarantined:

I miss being able to spend time with my extended family. I worry a lot about my aging parents and relatives. We zoom and video chat regularly but it just isn’t the same. I miss seeing my students and colleagues daily. I have spent way too much time on 4th grade assignments. Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching and I love my son but doing both of those things at the same time all the time is ..….. I find that I have very few free quiet moments to myself. I miss the hour in the morning when I am up and the house is quiet and everyone is still sleeping. I miss the hour when I get home before everyone else gets home and the chaos starts. There is just something about the quiet that I miss. I sometimes find myself going to sit in the car. I don’t go anywhere but just sit there and enjoy the quiet. My kids have figured out my hiding place. My neighbor suggested driving to the next block. If you see me on your street in my car….I just needed some quiet time. The constant asking what to eat or the constant eating all the time by the little ones. It seems like they just eat all day long. My eyes hurt from staring at a screen all the time. I desperately miss seeing my students. I get so excited when they show their faces on “meet.” I miss interacting with them and learning how they are doing and what is new with them. I miss teaching and I miss teaching them. Online teaching is not the same as being in the classroom.

I often think of this time as a unique experience. I never would have imagined that I would be teaching from my house. I know that I will never get time like this with my family again so I am trying to capture and enjoy every moment. I mentioned to my oldest that I feel like I am on maternity leave without the baby. I went back to work so quickly with all three of my kids. I think of this as a tween/teen leave where we spend our days together and enjoy each other’s company.

Enjoy the pictures-

I have included some special surprise at the end.

Nature on the street

lego friends/people- wrestling match Maybe too much listening to me teach about Rome

nature- picture taking by my son

Family Sunday Movie Day

Rainbow- Nature- Happiness after a storm

Tent- why not?

One of the many family games that we play all the time (of course- educational)

Celebrating a birthday during quarantine

Growing all sorts of plants in all sorts of containers

S'mores- Why not?

Social distancing while dropping of food supplies

Harry Potter Time

Starry Night Sky Night Light time

Kindergarten 2025/26 One of my favorite videos shared with me during Quarantine

Some of my favorite memes to come out of quarantine:

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

1/2 Marathon for Team Lifeline

How did it go? I have been asked this question about a gazillion times since I ran my first half-marathon. Here is an account of the journey from start to finish.

Let's take a step back and go back five year to 2014. My sister-in-law Devorah told me that she wanted to run the half of the half for Chai Lifeline in Las Vegas. I had run several 5k's before and thought I could handle the 6 mile race. I thought about it over Shabbos. I knew it was going to be a lot to raise the money for this race. Stephen said "You really only need 100 people to please 36 dollars and you are set." After hearing that, I thought I would be able to raise the money, run the race and accomplish this challenge. The 2014 Vegas Team Lifeline experience was extremely uplifting and powerful. I met so many awesome individuals. Before the race there was a pre-race pasta party. At this party we watched individuals who had been running the race for five years get their "5 year jacket." My sister-in-law turned to me and said "I want that jacket." I turned to her and said "See you in five years." I ran the race and finished it even though it was way harder than I had planned. I knew that it was not going to be something that I could do every single year. However, Devorah took on that challenge and I tried to support her each and every year as she raised money and trained for the half of the half.

2014- Half of the half race

Fast forward to June of 2018. Team lifeline announces that registration is open for the Vegas Rock and Roll Marathon series. Both Devorah and I sign up again. This year we decide to step up our game and run the half-marathon. I had run a ten miler last year in preparation for running the half. I still needed to put the time into training for this race. Devorah never really liked running but followed the training schedule and ran farther and faster than she has ever run.

Training was easy at first. I would wake up before the sun during the summer and get five miles in easily. I would swim laps at the pool on my off days. Things were moving right along. I was raising money with each run I ran and the support group kept growing. Then things didn't go as planned.

One day I woke up with intense leg pain. The pain didn't go away at first and some days the pain made it so I could barely walk and going up and down stairs was near impossible. Of course I rested my legs. As I watched others run the streets of West Orange, I started to get depressed. I had worked so hard and I didn't want to let myself or the fan club down.

It took awhile to figure out the problem. Lots of advice from Eliot and constant reassurance that I would get back out there helped me recover and solve my problems. One of my surgeries removed several lymph nodes in my body. This makes it so the water doesn't circulate like it should. I started to wear compression sleeves on my legs. At first I would wear them to run. It helped a little bit but it was still a struggle to run. After a while I started to wear them all day long. I noticed a huge difference. The compression sleeves started to regulate the water in my legs and made the pain go away. Once I got the leg pain under control it was back to training like a rock star. Of course the more miles I ran the more my feet hurt. One of the many side effects from the Chemo is the neuropathy in my feet. Sometimes I can't feel some of my toes or parts of my feet as a run. I have grown accustomed to this feeling and just learned to run with it.

wore these all the time--

Sometime over the summer I convinced Stephen to run the half marathon with me. Even though he wouldn't be running it with me, he would take on the this challenge. He would run occasionally but nothing more than 5 or 6 miles. This summer we both took to the streets of West Orange to train for our first half-marathons. Together we raised over 7,000 for Chai Lifeline.

Now let's talk about the actual marathon.

It truly took everything I had to finish the race. I didn't walk once. It was a goal for me to run the entire race. I felt that if I started to walk I would not start running again. I also felt that if I walked I would be letting myself down. I didn't want to walk because then I knew I would have to try again to run the entire 13.1 miles and prove to myself that I could do it. At the time, I couldn't imagine running this particular race again. It took everything I had to keep on running. Several times I recalled Eliot's words of wisdom "one foot in front of the other" and used this to get me through the rest of the mile.

Before the race pictures:

Just some of the many that ran the half for Team Lifeline

Taking on the world together!

Let's get to the mind of Rachel during the race.

Mile 1- not bad, I could do this

I got this....

Mile 2- ok, it is thinning out and people are starting to walk but I am still feeling good

Mile 3- I haven't even run a 5k yet????

Glad I am carrying the water bottle (Thanks Joe)- rinse out my mouth

Mile 4.5- met up with a fellow survivor and ran together

Two survivors- proving cancer didn't win

Mile 6- I am not even half way there

Splashed water on my face and rinsed out my mouth

Mile 7- I see the Stratosphere, just make it to the Stratosphere

Mile 8- I feel like I have barely moved on the strip, I am no closer to the Stratosphere then before

Splash more water, rinse mouth, feels like I am eating sand as I run

Mile 9- when will I turn around and head towards the finish, this is taking forever

I can't believe people are waiting on line for the port-a-potties.

Mile 10- ok- only a 5k left, I can do this

Finding every tenth of the mile is harder and harder to run

Feel just as bad as I look here-

Mile 11- One more rinse of the mouth, try to get rid of the sand taste in my mouth, chuck the water bottle, I should be able to make it to the end

Mile 12- only one more mile but it feels like the end is no where in sight, just one palm tree after another, one tree, two tree, three tree, ok, forget this, counting trees is not helping

Mile 13- trying my hardest to push through but feel like I am barely moving

I finished the race- probably in shock that I actually finished it

Grab a medal, get water, a banana, chocolate milk and other snacks

Get a Mylar blanket- I had always wanted to run a race that deserves one of these

Asked a random person to open my chocolate milk because I couldn't get my fingers to work right

Stopped by several of the medical tent people and asked "Are you ok?" Did I really look that bad? I knew I felt exhausted but I must have looked horrible.

Hobbled my way back to the Team Lifeline tent. Sat for a few minutes and then met up with my brother Joe and sister-in-law Devorah who ran the race together. Where was Stephen? Well...Stephen had enough time after he finished his race to walk back to the hotel (20 plus minutes), take a shower, and relax on the couch before I crossed the finish line.

He makes it look so easy

Would I do it again?

I think it is like childbirth. Right now my feet kill me and every step is painful but in time the pain will fade and I will forget all about eating sand while I run.

Thank you to everyone who was a part of this journey with me. Thank you to everyone that checked in on me before the race and after the race to see how I was. I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you Stephen, Joe and Devorah for raising money and running with me. Thank you mom and dad for holding down the fort so that I could participate in this experience. Thank you kids for being the best kids out there and making it possible to train for a half marathon. It truly was a family journey.