Jumped through another hoop!

It's official, I passed comps!!! :) Despite studying a lot over the past month, I was fairly certain I had a good chance of failing after giving my best guess on many questions which seemed to have no right answer or not enough information to actually answer the question. As you can imagine, I was much relieved to get the call that I passed today! :) Now I just have to finish up my last class and onto dissertation!!!

My Knight In Shinning Armor

Col! Actually, it was Levi who came to my rescue after running through Plan A, B, C, D, E...there was a lot of them. Tomorrow is the big day (comprehensive exam at 9am) and I woke up to a flat tire on my bike...no problem, I'll just drive over to the track...and then I realized Matty (Jeep) had a flat tire too. Still, no big deal, ride the slow leak to the track (I can't actually change the tire on my front wheel rim because it is so tight I cannot get tires on/off) and have guys help me with the tire and get help changing Matty's tire later...well, that was a great plan until Mandy, Levi, and Col showed up at 5pm and I realized my special lock lugnut was missing which meant I literally had no way of swapping the flat/spare tires. I ended up calling lots of auto parts stores, asking other Jeep owners in the complex, and calling towing companies looking for the special lugnut...no luck and Jeep dealerships are not open on Sunday. Then I found Jeep/Chyrsler has 24 hour road assistance so I call them and explain the situation. The lady assures me they can help me out and an hour later the guy shows up with no clue that I needed the special lugnut and of course he didn't have it...now we are at 7:30pm on Sunday evening and I have an exam in 14 hours. Levi calls one last auto parts store and the guy suggests hammering a regular socket on and it worked! Horaay!!! So Col kept me company but Levi saved the day. And I will definitely be replacing those special lock bolts with regular ones just as soon as I get time.

What I have been up to...

You're looking at it. I am taking my comprehensive exam on June 29 and have 3 years of coursework to review plus learning things I never learned. In the past seven days, I have made 700 notecards and studied 2-6 hours/day. This is my final stack of notecards, not sure how many are there but I have to know them all plus some other stuff I didn't feel like putting on notecards by next Monday. Wish me luck!

Track Nats are In Colorado!!!
Most of you know that racing at Masters Nats has been my goal since the first day of chemo. Well, I am riding strong and nats were just moved from Indy to the Springs which means I get to race nationals on my own track for the second year in a row! :) And that also means my friend Melissa has come out of retirement and is racing again.

The best part is she showed up wearing my "Serial Cancer Killer" shirt last week and I had packed mine to wear after racing. If you click on the photos, they will enlarge and you can get a better view of the shirt. Anyways, I am riding strong and burnt my "cancer card" because I am plenty strong enough to keep up and now I am going to start racing to win versus hoping to keep up. About sixty days to nationals!!! :)

Pups Pools Patio at Nosh

Yesterday I spent the afternoon hanging out at Nosh with my friend Lara and her dog Kojak (the husky). Nosh has dog days throughout the summer and dogs are allowed to hangout while their owners eat lunch or dinner on the patio. They give out treats and dog toys to all the dogs who come. Since I don't have a dog, I had to recruit Kojak as my sidekick but it was so much fun. I wish Cos and Rudy where here so I could bring them!

Mandy's Baby Shower
Mandy really did not like taking this photo but I wanted to make sure you could all see the progress from her last preggo pic. She is due in July and does not know whether she is having a girl or boy nor will she tell me names. So, I had to name the baby after myself (I call it "Baby Kate" which is better than "it" right?) but she is always quick to remind me the baby's name is going to begin with a vowel. That is the only clue I have so far...

And here is little Wesley. I love hanging out with him! :) Wesley is only 6 months old and has already had two haircuts...I am quite certain he has more hair than I do right now and his looks a bit more controlled than mine. I am currently sprouting hairs out the side which stick straight out when I have a pony tail...at least it is all growing back!

Lions and tigers and BEARS oh my!

After 29 1/2 years and 6 years in Colorado, I came across my first bear. I was riding up Goldcamp Road last week and just about at the top when I came to a narrow part of the road and saw a bear coming towards me. For a split second, I thought "Hum, this is going to be interesting riding past this guy" (he was a pretty big bear like the one in this photo) and then I noticed his ears went back and he started running towards me. I saw a truck was coming behind him and the bear's only choice was to come at me. I changed my mind rather quickly, did a quick U turn on my bike, and sort of speed away...I thought I was safe going downhill on my bike, no way a bear could catch me, and then I found out bears can sprint up to 40 mph an hour. Next time I might be a bit bigger hurry to get out of there!

Looky, Looky...
The track is FINALLY open and I am racing my bike again!!! :) Last night was the season opener and the skies cleared after an afternoon of storming and torrential downpours. I am so excited to be back on the track but have a lot of work to do. Most of these girls (all of them) have been racing since March and that's when I started training again. No matter what, I am so thankful to be racing this year and it felt so good to be on the track again!

For locals, the track is open for the summer and racing starts at 6:30pm on Tuesdays (free) and 7pm on Thursdays (supposedly they are charging admission this year). I hope to be racing most, if not every Thursday, and many Tuesdays as well. I will be out there both nights next week assuming the weather holds up.

More Weddings

Leslie, fellow Hoosier, actually married Rob (both are fellow high school leaders) in Ohio this spring but they had a wedding reception at Jack Quinn's last week. It was kind of nice to celebrate with them and eat wedding cake (carrot cake, my favorite!) without having to dress up. And I think people are starting to realize I don't have a disease anymore because there is no more staring...appearantly, three weekends in a row of me looking healthy and having hair (albeit sprouty, frizzy, and out of control at times) has assured them I am okay.

High School Graduation
As many of you know, I have been working with highschoolers for the past three years. Last week I spent an afternoon at Palmer High School's graduation. I have not been to one of those since Peter and Chris graduated high school many years ago. It was the usual pomp and circumstance complete with class speakers attempting to be funny but really saying nothing at all. The show was stolen by their superintendent who is retiring and played a song on his guitar about their graduation and his upcoming retirement. It actually made me laugh out loud.

And along with high school graduation goes open houses. I spent Saturday afternoon hanging out with "my highschooler" (as I have affectionately referred to her for the past two years) at her open house. It was fun to see a lot of people I have not seen in a very long time; however, the past few weeks have started a trend in which everybody stares at me like I have a disease. Well, I did, and all of the people that I have not seen since my diagnosis don't know I am cancer free now so they stare at me wondering but too scared to ask. I think I should just wear a sign saying "I'm cancer free and fully healthy!"

Jaimee's (my highschooler) younger sister was very amused that I showed up to the open house with "Ms. Brown." Heather is a high school teacher and Julia was so intrigued that we were actually friends (because teachers obviously don't have friends outside of other teachers). She approved us as a "good friend couple" though.