Fires, memories, blood and zerberts.

This month is becoming increasingly negative for me.

The 7th - 14th in particular so far.

I just found out last night that there is a large wildfire burning out of control extremely close to where I called home for five years.  And where my uncle who passed away a couple years ago lived since the 70s.  I am absolutely heartbroken and was looking on the web all day at updates about the fire trying to get information.

The High Park wildfire is close to Fort Collins, CO where I worked on a Master's Degree in Music Therapy for five years.  I never finished it, but that's an entirely different part of my life for another day perhaps. The fire is very, very close however to my uncle's former property.  It was within a few hundred feet from Mishawaka Amphitheatre, and I have a lot of special memories of both the Mish and my uncle's home.  It was a log cabin and he was the most mountainy mountain man you could imagine.

Here are some pictures of the Mish from their website...

This is how close the fire is the last I knew...

I've now just spent about half an hour looking for a picture of my uncle to share and am coming up empty.  Can't find the e-mail my brother sent me with all the snapfish or photobucket album address of all these great family photos.

So hopefully I'll find something soon and can post it later.  But imagine your stereotypical mountain man with friendly eyes and a big long beard and a big frame and a big heart.  He had shorter hair and was more clean shaven towards the end of his life, but I like to remember him a little wild looking.  He passed away too soon and suddenly, unexpectedly.  I don't think he was 60 yet.

The other anniversary which is the hardest of all is the death of my mother.  She passed away June 14, 2008 from pancreatic cancer.

Here is a picture of her and I when I was 25... 14 years ago!!!

So this is a pretty tough week.

Went to get my blood drawn again this morning.

Going to work in the morning then my appointment at about 2:30.  I imagine what she's going to say - that I will have a choice of how I want to handle things.  With or without some kind of surgical or medicinal intervention.  I don't know what I will want to decide.  I think it just depends on other information I don't have yet.

More updates tomorrow.

This might not be the most compelling blog or prettiest blog.... sorry if that's the case.  Hopefully it will get better lol :)

I also need to figure out a lot of things regarding how I want it set up etc.  Formatting and other things - but right now this is all I've had time for.

Oh, and must share a really cute highlight of the day.  Simon has learned to give zerberts.  And he's REALLY good at them.