UPDATE with video & photo - Look at these four fine young people enjoying one of my Portland Trail Blazers' season ticket holder perks!!

Update: Well, I got my hair clipped down to a Velcro-like stubble yesterday, professionally and in no time flat, by Rosa, my sweet friend and hairdresser.



Here's the big reveal! It's video, so when you click on it, you'll go to my Flickr account and have to click one more time to see and hear it. Thanks! Now, over 24 hours later, I'm completely at ease with how I look and ready for whatever is next. Chemo Round Two is Wednesday.



A photo that I took today, wearing a scarf which soon became loose. I'm not so sure about scarves. Maybe I'll come around because I believe I'm gonna have plenty of time to find out!



Back on August 5, I had hoped to go see the Portland Thorns play soccer at Providence Park. However, it turned out that my chemo port placement procedure got scheduled for first thing that morning, be at the hospital at 6:15 a.m. to check in. I knew I'd be very tired, still recovering from the July 29 Chemo Round One, plus the early rising to make that appointment. So, Lamont, Leland, Rachel and Brody enjoyed the soccer outing instead. They had a blast! The Thorns won 5-2! The kids also got a meal voucher for a hot dog, chips and soda. Oh, and the each got a cool pair of shades!

Lamont turns 39 today, Leland turns 36 on Halloween. Happy birthday, guys!

Most of these photos are the same ones I posted in celebration of September 24, and October, 31, 2010. Back then I thought I'd make a post for Lamont's birthday, then later on make one for Leland's birthday. However, as brothers should be, they're together in lots of photos, so I combined their birthday posts.



First, though, here are the three of us last November 13, outside the Hollywood Theatre--we'd just seen that wonderful documentary "Muscle Shoals." I'd already seen it and loved it, knew that their Daddy would've loved it, and wanted to make certain that they saw it. The two of them thoroughly enjoyed it!



One more photo before the repeats from 2010--this one that I took on Christmas Day 2013 in my apartment. Leland, Lamont, their friend Lee, and my sons' roommate Brody. Four great guys! And we can celebrate one more birthday--Brody's is Sept. 24 also, and, get this. He was born in the same exact hospital as Lamont, not the same year, but the same day, in Kansas City, Kansas! The two of them met when they both worked at a hotel and became roommates not too long afterwards.



Now for the repeats from the 2010 combined birthday post. In this photo, Lamont is between four and five and Leland is between one and two.



Lamont was three years, one month, and one week old when Leland as born.



When Leland was six weeks old in December, 1978, the four of us moved from Kansas City, Kansas, to Jackson, Mississippi. To help us, my parents came in their Winnebago so the kids and I could ride with them. My husband LeRoy drove the Ryder truck. My brother came, too, in his own vehicle to help out with any and everything. Here we are, early spring 1979, at the John Bell Williams airport out from Raymond, Mississippi. Our friends had flown down from KC to visit, in that airplane right there beside us. I'm holding our older son Lamont. LeRoy is holding our younger son Leland. LeRoy and I loved our prescription glasses that got darker out in the sunshine. We look pretty doggone cool, I think.



Our friend, Ronnie, the pilot. Our friend Lyndall, holding Lamont. My sweet, dearly departed husband LeRoy, holding a dozing Leland.



Baby Leland with me, his Mama.



About 1990, Lamont and Leland with their great-grandmother Vivian, my Daddy's Mama. If it really is 1990, then she's celebrating her 92nd birthday!



Mama and Daddy's backyard. We've got seated, left to right my Aunt Baker and JL's grandson Patrick, my son Leland, Patrick's fraternal twin brother Michael. Standing, left to right, my son Lamont, and the twins' older brother Steven. Lamont is in 6th grade. He broke his arm skateboarding, and one year later he broke the other one, skateboarding.



Lamont and Leland horsing around on Leland's 21st birthday, in 1999. I loved the photo so much that when I taught myself to make calendars, I put it in the background of this 2000 calendar.



Leland's kindergarten graduation.



I think this is kindergarten, too.



I think Lamont's about 18 months old here. We're still living in Kansas City; he's wearing a sailor hat that he loved to wear. I sewed those curtains myself.



Our cutie's a bit tired here.



Precious son Lamont.



Precious son Leland.



Lamont with Papaw, my Daddy. Lamont's got a Tupperware lettuce storage bowl on his head. He loved to wear it!



Leland's a few months old here--it's 1979.



Lamont's standing on a chair in our house in Kansas City, at the kitchen sink.



The guys are six and three here.



Here they're four and one. Love that jacket on Lamont and that bow tie on Leland.



LeRoy with Lamont who is probably close to one year old.



LeRoy with Leland who is probably five or six months old.



My two precious sons. I love them very much.



Lamont and Papaw.



Grandma and Leland.



The guys, taken on July 9, 2004. They got up early before they had to go to work at their respective restaurants, just so they could see us off back to Mississippi. Grandma and I had come to visit on June 30, fell in love with Portland, and jumped at the chance to join Lamont and Leland there, especially after they said, "Move out here! We'll take care of you when you're old!" They certainly did take care of their Grandma before she died in January, 2011, and they continue to take care of me.



And here they are, the photo that I took it on 9/11/2010.

Two photos from a swell Christmas Day!

Leland, Lamont, Lee, and Brody smiled as I took their photo because I made them chuckle when I hollered, "Festivities!" They repeated it, smiling all the while! Brody is Leland and Lamont's housemate; Lee works with them. Both guys are their good friends.
 

Rachel, Leland's sweetheart, graciously posed with me around my spur-of-the-moment Christmas decoration. One Sunday afternoon I had picked up the wooden tray from someone's parking strip on a nearby street--folks set items in front of their houses in the strip of grass between the curb and the sidewalk and intend for you to take it, if you like it. I liked this wooden tray with a divider and a handle. It dawned on me that I could put Christmas lights along the center divider and make a holiday spot in my apartment. I set various shiny, sparkly, Christmas decorations in there, too. Everyone agreed with me that it made a great stand in for a fireplace.

We were all so hungry that none of us even gave a second's thought to taking photos of the food I had cooked--pot roast with potatoes and carrots, fresh green beans, steamed broccoli, and homemade yeast rolls. Dessert--I baked a box of Duncan Hines Fudge Brownies and had bought a small pecan pie at Fred Meyer Monday evening when I shopped for this meal. No one wanted pie, and I sent the last four brownies home with the guys.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all

For your enjoyment, the window at Knit-Purl on the corner of SW 10th and SW Alder.


I took a picture of what I suspect is some of the same felted Thanksgiving food in 2008. When you click on the link, you'll see not only the earlier photo of the felted food but also the turkey pot pies that Lamont had made that Thanksgiving, plus our loved ones who enjoyed being together, thankful for each other. Two are no longer with us--Brody's dad Gary and our darling dachshund Duncan. Oops, I just noticed that I spelled Brody's name wrong back then--sorry, Brody.