Saturday, February 9, 2013Tonight's picture was taken in February of 2009. Mattie was participating in a physical therapy session. Mattie's therapist, Anna, held Mattie upright and helped him raise his hand so that he could use a water gun to squirt Linda (Mattie's childlife specialist). Linda played up her role and got dressed up in a gown, mask, and put a basin on her head to prepare for a soaking. She had all of us laughing hysterically and this inspired Mattie to work through his pain and fears to use his arms and legs. Keep in mind that Mattie wasn't walking independently nor did he get to the hallway by walking. Mattie was wheelchair bound and therefore getting up, out of his chair, standing, taking a few steps, and raising his arms were all big achievements especially in the midst of undergoing chemotherapy.
Quote of the day: There comes a time in life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. Surround yourself with people who make you laugh, forget the bad, and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is part of life, getting back up is living. ~ Unknown
I received this meaningful quote today and I decided to share it with you because I think its message can resonate with all of us. May all of you find and continue to surround yourselves with those "people who treat you right." This sounds SO simple, but in actuality is quite complex.
I have two photos of Patches to share with you tonight. Patches has some favorite places to stay now. It is either this ottoman, our couch, a living room chair, Mattie's bed, or our bed. Patches is still a beautiful cat despite the fact that her tumor is growing and her right eye is reduced in size. 
This is a picture of our "Sleeping Patches" on her other favorite location to rest, our living room chair. 
For several weeks Peter and I have been working on designing a retractable banner to take with us to the conference in Los Angeles. Naturally we do not have access to graphic design programs, so we created the template for the banner in PowerPoint. What I learned however is you can't use a PowerPoint to then create an 8' by 3' retractable banner. The resolution of pictures and text would look terrible. This is where abcimaging (www.abcimaging.com) came in to help me. When Mattie was in kindergarten, I attended his school's weekly chapel. During chapel each Tuesday, I sat between two women, Junko and Luda. My faithful readers know who Junko is..... my friend and our sons were also good friends. Luda and I became friends through chapel and when Mattie was diagnosed with cancer Luda began helping us with all of our signage and banner needs. Her help has never dissipated, in fact, it has only grown. It is thanks to Luda and her company that we have this finished product. Luda's staff worked with me throughout the week, because they couldn't use the PowerPoint we created. Instead, they had to recreate and transform our template into a design program that could produce this fine finished product. So though this banner may look easy to put together, it was not. It took great thought, we tried to make it substantive, and yet visually appealing. When we opened up the box to see the banner I was thoroughly impressed! It is simply beautiful and I am very happy with the way it captures Mattie's spirit and through photos illustrates some of our Foundation accomplishments. 
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