My Alphabet Life

 I haven't been blogging as much lately. I'm sure you've noticed. (Um, why no, no you haven't?) And there's a reason for that. I think.

Next Wednesday I head into UCLA for a check-up. July 19th marked my two year anniversary of completing breast cancer treatment. (Yes, yes, I should have gone for an appointment then...did I not mention the epic wine tour we were on?? Also, I wanted to get my left and right breast on the same mammogram schedule, which required the right one to wait until insurance deemed the left one worthy. Crazy, but true.) I'm not stressing about this check-up. In fact in the last few months, more than ever, I feel like I've moved on. I'm back to "normal" and I don't even feel like it's a "new normal."  It's just me. Yes, I know, the cancer could recur (why people feel the need to remind me of this is beyond me--who could forget that???) but I choose not to focus on that. I'm still involved in The Pink Ribbon Place and getting more involved with the American Cancer Society and I'll talk to and support just about anybody else on that cancer odyssey. But....I kinda don't wanna blog about it anymore. My world is bigger than my right breast and I'd like to focus on the "bigger than" part.

So here's the deal. I'll probably give my personal BC updates from time to time. I'll mention the goings on at the pink ribbon place and maybe even interesting articles or books or some such dealing with breast cancer. But it won't be the focus. Instead, I'm going to focus on what I thought I'd be focusing on after my divorce. See, back then (almost eight years ago) I'd decided I wasn't any good at relationships and I was really tired of other people's crap relationships so my world was going to consist of B,C and D. Books, Coffee and Dogs. Then a friend reminded me that I wasn't likely to make it without  Alcohol "Adult Beverages."  My Alphabet Life was born. A(dult Beverages), B(ooks), C(offee) and D(ogs)! Perfect!

Well, Chris had other ideas on the whole relationship thing (he's so smart), but I had a pretty good basis for my new life. I think it will work for my new blogging life now too. If you continue to check in, you'll find musings on wine, books (and writing), coffee (and Chris) and dogs. Occasionally the "B" might be for Breast and the "C" might be for cancer, but...maybe not. I find my own self reading less of the breast cancer blogs and more of the dog, food, wine, writing, book blogs...and that's a pretty good sign of the direction I'm going. Away from cancer. I love to travel and I'm traveling on.

I'm keeping the blog name though. After all, Seamus is the great inspiration for living life.  I'm going to refrain, however, from re-designing messing with the look and layout of the blog though...at least until I've made some progress with this alphabet life blogging (I mentioned my past issues with relationships, no?).
My blogging goal this week is to be well launched into the "A" portion of the alphabet with a day-by-day review of our epic mother of all wineapallooza trips. One post a day for 12 days. Can I do it? Probably not! But we'll give it a shot. Also, as wineries and dogs seem to go together like hot summer days and rose' wines, you'll meet a few of the dogs we met along the way too.  And just to throw in a little "B"--I'm completely obsessed with author Lionel Shriver right now. I've read three of her books right in a row and I can't get over how brilliant she is (I finished "The Female of the Species" in the middle of the night last night). So you can expect more of that too.

Do you know your ABC's??  (That's rhetorical...although apparently the cool thing to do when blogging is ask a question at the end...presumably to elicit comments. So, sure, go ahead and give me your ABC list.)