Friday Things #590

1. Hello and Happy Friday! I hope that your summer is off to a fabulous start! The weather has been beautiful here the last couple of weeks, which has been a nice kickoff to summer break. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted and I am overdue on sharing some updates with you, so let’s get to it…

2. The last I checked in, Dominic had finished a round of chemo with immunotherapy and we were getting ready to head to NY for scans. He completed those scans in early May; while there was still a small amount that light on the scan, the results of an MRI is leading Dominic’s oncologist to believe what is lighting is dead/treated disease.

The plan from that point was to drop chemo and complete three rounds of ONLY immunotherapy. Dominic has completed two of those (the second one last week) and my goodness, what a massive difference it has made to not receive chemo. His treatment weeks are much smoother, he is way more alert without all the anti-nausea meds, and as soon as he’s finished, it’s basically back to regular life. No worries about tanking counts.

He spent the first two days of summer break swimming and has been going to basketball camp this week. He’ll have another round of treatment at the beginning of July and then we will travel back to NY for a huge workup that will determine if he is indeed finished with treatment. Thank you all so much for continuing to pray for our boy, please keep them coming!

3. Joseph and Isabelle are having a great start to their summer, too! Joseph has been keeping busy with sports (summer league basketball, golf lessons, tennis, dek hockey, oh my!) and Isabelle decided to try swim team! I’m so proud of her; she doesn’t back away from a challenge and never really cares if she knows anyone or not, she just goes for it.

4. I did quite a bit of reading at the hospital last week. Here are my recent reads:

• Theo of Golden – I finished this awhile ago and LOVED it, oh my goodness. So many of you recommended it to me and it absolutely lived up to the hype. 5/5, highly recommend!
• Say You’ll Remember Me – This was okay, not my favorite Abby Jimenez book, but an easy read. 3.5 or 4 / 5.
• Our Perfect Storm – LOVE, LOVE, LOVED THIS. Perhaps my favorite Carly Fortune book, although Every Summer After has always been one of my favorite reads. I blew through this one… 5/5, highly recommend!
• The Burning Side – I just started this yesterday, but I’m already hooked!

5. I also attempted embroidery while I was at the hospital last week, but it frustrated me and I quit (so much tangled thread!). Perhaps I will return to it; any recommendations for easy beginner tutorials or kits?

6. The last week of the school year, I made a double batch of chocolate chip scones sand gifted them to the kids’ teachers. They are a hit every time I make them (my mom requests them for her birthday every year) and are SO easy; if you haven’t made them, give them a try!

7. A favorite from a recent James Clear newsletter:

“Be forgiving with your past self. What’s done is done. No sense in beating yourself up about it.

Be strict with your present self. Win the moment in front of you right now.

Be flexible with your future self. There are many paths to success. You don’t need life to be a certain way to live well.”

8. While this article is mainly about crime fiction, it centers on the tradition in Norway to retreat to cabins in the woods over the Easter holiday. We first heard about this when we met a family from Norway at a hockey game a few years ago and the dad was talking about it, and it struck us as so amazingly cool.

9. We introduced our kids to The Karate Kid (the original!) over the weekend and they LOVED it. We have a whole list of 80s movies we can’t wait to watch with them.

10. TGIF! Our pups say hello! Duke has a birthday coming up at the end of the month :)