Holy crap - November 21 is the third anniversary of my mastectomy! Crikey time has flown by fast.

This also means it's time for my mammogram, for the onslaught of emails from Princess Margaret Hospital as they continue to fundraise for the The Gattuso Rapid Diagnostic Centre which reduces the time from initial testing to diagnosis to a mere 3 hours instead of days and/or weeks. Which for a woman facing the crushing diagnosis of breast cancer means more than I can adequately describe because she can begin planning immediately rather than live in fear, facing the unknown for however long it takes to get an appointment with her oncologist.

Now onto other November tribulations:

I did not take Jakob to the Santa Claus parade this year because I still have not recovered from our November 2007 excursion ... which is covered in detail if you would like to revisit the nightmare that was that afternoon. Not that he wanted to go this year anyway, I could barely get him dressed such was his mood. Or perhaps he was hesitant because he remembered yelling "Santa SUCKS!" as we waited for the sled - reducing the crowd to silence.

While reading through some old November posts I realized I have written virtually identical comments about volunteering to create a painting for my office Christmas card and then donate it to the United Way auction - and each comment was me vowing to never, ever, get sucked into doing this again. Yet here I am once again cursing, stressing, drinking wine (well not at this very moment, it is only 9:44 in the morning after all ... and I'm at work) trying to make this painting look at the very least ... okay.

I'm hoping that very soon I will hit the magical moment when everything comes together and the painting is finished within 30 minutes.

I am also hoping that the magical moment happens this Thursday around 8:00 pm.

But if it doesn't, my back-up plan is to look through older paintings and see if one is appropriate and can be sacrificed for the cause.

And then this year will be the VERY LAST TIME I put myself in this position.

I hope.