A more finished product...

Well, here it is-Chip's fully recovered tail and hopefully the end of this tale! Ha Ha-I know, not funny, my kids would be so embarrassed! Anyway, here's my cross-eyed accident prone kitty with almost all the hair grown back out on his short tale.

It's been a ride lately. So much is happening I can hardly keep track. It started about 6 weeks ago when a very good friend of mine found out her husband has colon cancer. He has since had 2/3's of his colon removed and all the lymph nodes and other organs were cancer free. We count that as an answer to the prayers of many. However, he is having a difficult and long recovery and has been plagued by some heart problems (all fixed now with 2 well placed and functioning stints) and his small intestine wanting to shut down. He's finally doing better but the road before him to a full recovery is still a bit long.

3 weeks ago my friend Jo's father-in-law passed away. This was hard on her and the bishop but both are feeling better. Even though he was elderly and not in great health, it's still a hard loss. I also lost a cousin 10 days ago to cancer. She was just 47 and had been battling it for 8 years. She had a remarkable attitude through it all and kept on living despite pain and difficulties. Her funeral was very inspirational.

Just 2 nights ago my childhood friend Denzil called to let me know his brother Murray (just 49) had passed away from a heart attack. Denzil's sister Dell was my age and we were best friends when we were growing up. They lived across the street and their parents still do so our parents are friends as well. Murray was a good guy who had had a very hard life and was finally living the good life. It makes me very sad but also very grateful for our Father's plan of happiness and salvation that assures us we will be together again.

Also, but not necessarily lastly, my BFF Sis has been having stomach problems since May and finally had a colonoscopy this week and we were all relieved that it wasn't cancer and that they discovered her true problem, inflammatory colitis. We have all been nervous and it's hard to watch her not feel good for so long but it took a long time for her to get up the courage to go find out the problem. It's all been a lot to think about and a lot of things to care about and try to help with. I'm tired! I'm grateful that all these things are resolving in one way or another, even if not how we would have them.

But! Tonight is an important night. It's our big game with our rival, Orem High. We are all excited and Text Guy is hyped. We want to win sooooooo bad! Two weeks ago we had an amazing victory over Springville. We were behind until the last 3 and a half minutes of the game. Our guys fought hard for it and ended up winning 34-27. It was the funnest game of the season so far. I hope they will play that hard and with that much heart tonight. If they do, they will definitely win.

Well, enough for now-I'll talk about the shake ups at work another time-oh, life is so interesting! I'll just say the latest change is that my boss, the director of admin services, and the assist city manager traded places! I've got to get to know my new boss and how best to help him and the department. We also had a great work retreat that I did all the planning for. We had it at a really cool place. I'll talk more about that and add some pictures of it later.

A little Billy to finish on....'they say these are not the best of times but they're the only times we've ever known...it's either sadness or euphoria.'