Two shades of brown. Circular-ish in shape, but certainly asymmetrical. Slightly raised in one area.

I remember Googling pictures of moles, comparing the looks of basal-cell and squamous-cell carcinomas, and melanomas to my own brown blob. I saw a couple that could have been its twin. The look-alikes were classic melanomas.

I researched further, finding an article about the ABCDEs of melanoma. I made a mental checklist. Asymmetrical? Check. Border irregularity? Check. Color variation? Check. Elevation? Check.

The only descriptor that didn’t fit was the D — Diameter. Because my mole was smaller than a pencil eraser.

Brushing aside all the signs that pointed to something more ominous, I allowed one unchecked box convince me that my mole was simply that, a mole. Not some scary tumor the name for which ended in -oma. No way.

Months passed during which I only occasionally thought about the mole. Usually, I would be sitting on the chaise section of our living room sofa, and I would cross my left leg over my right leg at the knee, catching a glimpse of it. Of my smaller-than-a-pencil-eraser-probably-totally-nothing “age spot.”

In late May, I read and commented on a post by writer Megan Jordan of Velveteen Mind. In the post, Megan told the story of her then-recent diagnosis of melanoma. In my comment, I said,

Well crap, Megan. So terribly sorry this is on your plate right now. I’m thinking of you and sending loads of positive thoughts your way.

And yeah, I’ll make the appointment I’ve been putting off to check that weird freckle on my calf. First thing in the morning. Thanks.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I added “find a dermatologist and make appointment” to my lengthy to-do list. At the bottom. Naturally. And another two months passed.

On my 40th birthday, July 9th, my family gathered at our home to celebrate. Near the end of the evening, I was chatting with my sister-in-law, who is a P.A. (Physician’s Assistant), and the thought crossed my mind that I should show her the spot and see if she thought it was something.

And I didn’t.

You know how people say sometimes God — or the universe, or fate, or destiny, or intuition or whatever or whomever you believe in — whispers things to you and then, if you don’t respond, SCREAMS things at you? Consider the following:

On July 24th, I was drying off after a shower and stopped to really study that mole of mine. I thought, You know Jenny, deep down, you are worried that it is something. You know it is something. You should really find a dermatologist and make an appointment right now. Really. Now.

But instead of listening to my gut, I took a couple of pictures of the area with my iPhone, intent on posting them to Facebook or Twitter and asking everyone else for opinions on the matter. Then I changed my mind and deleted the pictures. And did nothing. Again.

Until . . .

The very next day, a friend of mine (not to mention one of the smartest, funniest women I know), Melanie Nelson of Blogging Basics 101 posted this on her Facebook wall:

Can anyone in Tulsa recommend a good dermatologist? Preferably in south Tulsa, but it’s important enough that I’ll go past 61st if I HAVE to. Anyone?

I nearly fell out of my chair when I read it. Why hadn’t I posted a similar query to my own Facebook wall nearly a year ago? Why had I waited and wondered and worried for so many months?

I watched Melanie’s wall as her friends made recommendations that day, and then I called and made an appointment.

On August 15th, Dr. Tracy Kuykendall examined my mole. She looked at it standing up. She knelt down and got a closer look. She ran her index finger lightly over its top. She pressed it flat. Then she said, “Let’s just shave it off and do a biopsy. I don’t think it’s melanoma, but let’s just do it. I’ve been surprised before.”

Click here to see a picture of the post-biopsy wound.

Two days later, my iPhone rang. “Hi Jenny, this is Dr. Kuykendall’s office. We got the results of your biopsy back and it is definitely melanoma.”

Surprise.

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• Did you know that Oklahoma has only three seasons? Winter, summer, and tornado.

• Did you know that by May 12th of the year you first begin homeschooling you will be so ready for the school year to end that you will start to incorporate into your curriculum things like jumping on the trampoline (counts as P.E.), games of Twister (reinforces the concept of left vs. right, also the colors green, blue, yellow, and red), and flower bed gardening (because nature = science).

• Did you know there are muscles in your thighs and butt that you only ever discover are there on the day after you spend seven hours in a flower bed squatted down ripping out viney ground cover and rogue Bermuda grass from the dirt?

• Did you know that if you find a baby robin hopping around your backyard after a fall from its nest, you can put on gardening gloves and chase the little bird, despite protests in the form of  loud squawks and repeated dive-bombings from the robin’s parents, until you (gently) capture the baby, and return it to its nest?

• Did you know that you were lied to as a child when your Dad told you that if you touched a baby bird then its parents would abandon it because they would smell the human scent on their baby?

• Did you know that birds have a very poor sense of smell?

• Did you know that bees and dogs can smell fear*?

Enjoy your day.

**********

(*Name that movie.)

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1. A photo of Emma hitting Jenna in the head with her Tootsie Pop. (Because Jenna was annoying her.)
2. A photo of the floorboard landing location of one Nokia 2300 (circa 2004) propelled by me, from the driver’s seat, at Jake and Jenna, who were seated in the 3rd row of our Expedition. (Because they WOULD NOT stop their constant bickering and arguing. For the record, I missed.)
3. A photo of my lobster-red, hugely swollen feet in flip flops. (Because who remembers to sunscreen their feet for a visit to Santa Monica Beach on a windy, cloudy, barely-80-degrees-Fahrenheit day?)
4. A photo of me in a wheelchair, being pushed around Disneyland by my Aunt Patty. (Because my feet were in so much pain (see number 3) that there was NO WAY I would have been able to walk around the park for twelve hours.)
5. A close-up of my bangs after having them in a pink foam roller overnight. (Because I wanted to look especially fancy for our viewing of the sunrise at the Grand Canyon.)
6. A photo of my brother, flat on his back in the floor of an Arizona gift shop, wearing an Indian headdress.(Because there was a poorly visible two-inch step which he backed into. I can’t really explain the headdress.)
7. A photo of my brother’s souvenir Ghirardelli white chocolate golf balls, floating waterlogged in our green Coleman ice chest. (Because who knew the ice would melt somewhere between San Francisco and Tulsa on the trip home?)

Thanks to Samsung for sponsoring my post today. Samsung is taking their compact, WiFi-enabled Samsung SH100 on a month-long road trip across America in the month of May! The mobile team is going to record all the amazing people they meet and the fascinating places they visit with the SH100, and the best photos and videos will be shared on the Samsung USA Facebook page.

Here’s a super fun video with details about the Samsung SH100 Coast-to-Coast Photo Post Campaign (running time: 57 seconds).

I was compensated for this opportunity by Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity. All opinions are my own.

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Solution :: Pinterest.

Pinterest describes itself as “a place to catalog the things you love.” I like to think of it as my personal online bulletin board. That I share with all my internet friends.

While the website has the potential to be yet another in a long line of major web timesucks (looking at you, Twitter and Facebook), it also has the ability to guide and inspire your personal style.

Case in point: I went shopping last week for some new spring wardrobe pieces. Before I left home, I used my iPhone to snap photos of some of my favorite Pins, to take with me for inspiration. The result? Two complete spring outfits that will not be headed back to the Target return desk. Ask my husband how monumental a feat that is.

A few really good posts elsewhere about Pinterest:

• What’s all this hype about Pinterest? via Miss Vinyl Ahoy
• {Obsessed with} Pinterest! via The TomKat Studio
• Pinterest: your virtual inspiration board via The Working Closet

Some of my fave Pinners:

• Aimee Giese
• Melanie Nelson
• Amie Adams
• Little Alouette

So, now you’re wondering how to start your own boards on Pinterest, right? Especially since registration on Pinterest is by invitation only. Well you are in luck.
I have invites for you.

Just leave me a quick comment telling me how you hope Pinterest will inspire you, and I’ll shoot you an invitation. (Be sure and include your email address in the appropriate box on the comment form — your email address will not be published unless you include it in the actual body of the comment.)

You can also touch base with me via email, Twitter, or Facebook (see my sidebar and/or Contact page for links), and I’ll get a Pinterest invitation to you lickety-split. Which translates to “probably within 24 hours.”

Hey, once you’re all set up, be sure to follow my Pinterest boards so I can follow yours too.

Oh, one last thing . . . the Pinterest iPhone app is set to release on Monday, May 9th!
Happy Pinning!

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My daughter, Emma, said this to me this afternoon and I about died laughing. Apparently, she heard it on one of those Disney shows. (Naturally.) It was a lot funnier when I thought she made it up herself. Oh, who am I kidding? It’s still pretty funny.

By the way, I revised the MAKE DILEMMA-NADE graphic in non-Crash Test Mommy colors, and uploaded it in high resolution for printability. It’s a bit smaller than 7″ x 5″.

Have a nice weekend!

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The 9:03 Gate and the Reflecting Pool

I took over 200 photos and edited 23 for posting here. To speed up page load times, I am posting them on their own page. Please click “Continue reading” below to view them.

License Plate from the Ryder Truck Carrying the Explosives

What’s Left of the Murrah Building

Rubble and Belongings

Rubble and Belongings

Structural Damage

At 9:00, This Was a Men’s Bathroom

S.O.S.

Daina Bradley’s Story

Amputation Tools Used to Free Daina Bradley

Dress Up in the Children’s Area

Dress Up in the Children’s Area

Message Left by Search & Rescue Team 5 (Journal Record Building exterior)

9:01 Gate

9:03 Gate (Visitors place hands in Reflecting Pool water, then touch to gate)

9:03 Gate Overlook

Survivor Tree :: The Tree that Witnessed and Withstood the Tragedy

Survivor Tree (An American Elm)

Fence Outside 9:01 Gate

Chalkboards in the Children’s Area

Field of 168 Empty Chairs

Jesus Wept

9:03 Gate

The inscription reads, “We come here to remember those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.”

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I’ve been taking tons of photos in recent months. While in OKC,  I did the majority of my shooting with my Canon DSLR, but most of my other recent images were captured with my iPhone 4. I even took a few shots with my iPhone at the bombing site for instant sharing on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.

They say the best camera is the one you have with you. And my iPhone is always with me.

The cool thing about iPhone photography (iPhoneography) is that taking the photo is only half the fun. There are scads of iPhone photo apps (many free of charge) that produce scads of effects that can make even ordinary images, extraordinary.

Leading the pack is Instagram. Or, rather, leaving the rest in the dust, is Instagram.

Instagram :: My iPhone Photo App Addiction

Instagram is a free iPhone photo app that allows you to shoot an image within the app itself, or select a photo already in your iPhone library.  It crops the image into square format and offers a choice of 15 filters to customize lighting, saturation, texture, and other image qualities. You can even create faux bokeh with their Tilt-Shift feature.

The thing that most makes Instagram unique in this app genre is that it is a full-fledged photo sharing community. Friends from Facebook, Twitter, and contact lists can find and follow one another within the Instagram app, and then share, like, and comment on each other’s images via the app itself.

Images can be also be shared to other social media communities such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Posterous, and Foursquare, or be sent to friends and family via email. I upload my Instagram images to my Crash Test Mommy Tumblr, so I have them all in one easy-to-reference location.

A couple of things to remember when using Instagram:

• Instagram has built-in location sharing, so if you don’t want your location to be attached to your image, turn off location sharing. From iPhone’s home screen, tap Settings > General > Location Services, then scroll to Instagram and tap or move the slider to OFF position.
• Using Instagram’s filters goofs with the quality of your image such that actually printing your post-processed image will most likely produce less than stellar results. So, use Instagram for internet fun and social sharing. Not once-in-a-lifetime moments.
• To be safe, you should always save a copy of the original, unfiltered image you took within the app. To make that happen, from iPhone’s home screen, tap Settings, scroll to and tap Instagram, and tap or move the slider next to “Save original photo” to the ON position.

Leave me a comment with your Instagram user name, so I can follow you!

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