Bibliosphere

 Hello everyone and happy September! September is a very special month because it's Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. The color is gold, for our children who are golden (according to my mom). Now that I've restarted the blog, I'm aiming to ramp up the posting for September 2023. I don't think I can commit to a post a day unfortunately, not wanting to set myself up for failure. I do think I can commit to three posts a week about childhood cancer, for a total of 13 (or more) posts throughout the month. The 13th post will be the very first week, which will only have 1 post since it's 2 days. Since this is about the total amount of posts I've been doing, I will most likely cut back on other topics and save them all up for October. Isn't October lucky? Thanks for being with me on this blog, and I hope that you learn something new this month.

 Ok, here's the deal. I have heard this saying all my life, accredited to Gandhi, "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Come to find out, he didn't actually say that! This idea is actually credited first to Arleen Lorrance, a New York schoolteacher, in 1970. The quote is from a report on the Love Project and reads: "One way to start a preventative program is to be the change you wish to see happen. That is the essence and substance of the simple and successful endeavor of The Love Project."  Recently, I took this as my new motto. It's why I joined my HOA board (sure to be more on this later) and it's what's been driving a lot of other things in my life. Being the change is a lot of work, and will probably make even more work, but eventually I hope it's worth it.

 In the last year or so, I have started eating more vegetables. Mostly in the last few months. Since this was recommended to me as part of a healthy lifestyle (fancy way of saying my doctor told me three times to do this), I've had to come up with ways to enjoy the vegetables I've hated for years.  I started with veggies that I liked the most: spinach, tomatoes, artichoke, and green beans. I did simple things at first, starting with spinach and ranch, tomatoes with salt and pepper, marinated artichoke hearts as a snack or topping, and roasted green beans. Then I branched out. I added things to the spinach, making fancy and well adorned salads with vinaigrettes instead of ranch, including adding those tomatoes and artichokes. I roasted other vegetables: cauliflower, brussel sprouts, sweet potato, turnip, and parsnip. I experimented with vegetables soups and stews, combining veggies with beans, chickpeas, and more. I found things to add the vegetables to, like quinoa and pasta. ...

 Here I was under the impression I'd forgotten about this blog for over a month, when in fact I scheduled enough posts that it's only been 2 weeks. Better. It's finally (slightly) cooling off, meaning it's been in the 80s instead of the high 90s. Also an improvement. I'm enjoying my new increased outside time, meaning I don't have to wait until 8 pm to go for my walk. Also a good thing. I'll have more posts coming up, but just checking in to say hi!

 Childhood cancer awareness is something we're all passionate about, and it doesn't stop on September 30. Check out these facts from the Children's Cancer Research Fund about childhood cancer: Cancer remains the most common cause of death by disease among children in the US - We still don't know how to prevent cancer, and since we can't entirely prevent it or cure it, childhood cancer remains the leading cause of disease by death in the US. 1 in 7 children diagnosed with cancer in the US will not survive, and for many that do, the battle is never over - The past few decades have seen huge improvements in survival rates, but they're not where we need them to be.  Childhood cancer is harder to research because there's so many variations - It's not one disease, it's hundreds, and each type and subtype is different enough to need different research and funding. New drugs for childhood cancer don't even reach pediatric research for an average of 6.5 ...