September 4-23rd - All the things!

I’ve had a pleasant few weeks. Still keeping busy, living life. Because of that I (again) haven’t kept up with my blogging updates!

I went to a pie social and ate all sorts of pie, got a massage, had lunch with many different people on different days, family dinners, coffee dates, went to the fair per tradition and held a 7day old goat – heaven, ate fried cookie dough (at the fair of course!) went to a makeup class for cancer patients (scored a lot of good free makeup!), lots of farmer’s market visits, brunches, birthday parties, learned how to make my favorite aunt Annie’s cinnamon rolls – so many things!

 

My dad celebrated his 71^st birthday on the 8^th. It is wild to me that he is 71, he doesn’t look or act how I imagine someone who is that age. Not sure if that is a good thing or not? We had a family dinner and a giant cake to celebrate.

Sarah (my sister) and I ventured out about 45-minutes north to Brigham City Peach Days. Expectation: peach everything; peach pies, peach cobbler, peach drinks, peach candies, actual peaches. Reality: basically a fair like event with one stand selling peaches and then a random peach flavored thing here and there – maybe 5 things. So, not what we expected but it was still a lot of fun and I would definitely go again. We had some tasty Dutch oven dinner and peach cobbler (one of the only real peach thing we saw outside of the actual peaches). I want to do a Dutch oven cookout or something, maybe just dessert. I think that sounds fun!

My sister and I also went to an Indian cooking class where we learned how to make butter chicken, aromatic rice, pickled eggs Indian style (forget the name of this dish), mint and raisin chutney and my favorite, naan. It was a lot of fun and man there are a lot of spices and ingredients to each dish! The instructor tried to kill us with a Carolina reaper pepper but we survived. I don't do well with spice but it turned out good! I could go without the eggs, but am happy to have tried it all and now know how to cook some Indian food from scratch! 

I had my liver levels checked (on the 14^th) and the levels are down a bunch! Both are under 100! Best news ever. This means the liver meds are doing what they are supposed to and I can stay off of the steroids. Yep you read that correct – I am officially off of the prednisone!! It is pretty great. I have felt pretty good since being off of them, just low energy. I am able to not use a sleep aid now and my shakiness (mostly in my hands) is much better. I do have some skin reaction to the new BRaf meds but not bad enough to take steroids again, and truly hope it stays this mild and I can tolerate it. 

 

My last 5mg dose of prednisone! 

A long way from 120mg!

My dear cousin came in town to play (and deal with some family stuff) and we had some good times. We had a delicious dinner out the first night and then followed that up with a ReAl Salt Lake soccer game. It was a sister double date – her sister and my sister joined us. It was a lot of fun even though the game kinda sucked. The next day we went to the Wheeler farmer’s market and then headed up the canyon for brunch and to see the amazing leaves changing. It was beautiful. After brunch we walked around Silver Lake, an easy local hike (walk). It was so great to have her here to play, and I am so happy that she and I have become close in the last few years. We’ve both had some major stuff happen to us and we just connect on a deeper level.

 
              Sisters photoboming sisters - priceless!



 

Mandy’s (my melanoma soul sister) family invited me to go to a paint night with them. Paint Nite is where you head to a restaurant or bar and everyone paints the same picture step by step while being able to drink or eat. The painting was “Rainbows and Dragonflies.” Dragonflies is how Mandy said she would come back as to come say hello so it was only fitting. It was a lot of fun and it is great to see how different everyone’s painting comes out – even though we are painting the same thing. I was happy with mine; the colors are much more bright outside of the bar lighting.

Mine is on the left - Shaundra's (Mandy's momma) in the middle - and family friends on the right

I am truly lucky and amazed each day to have such great and fun people around me. Life is too insane to let it conquer all aspects of your life – you have to live a bit and enjoy yourself! I have worked hard these past two months to live it up and I feel like I am definitely succeeding. I have a good friend’s wedding tomorrow that I am looking forward to and then just spending time with my army. Man my blogs get super long when I don't do them often! Goodness!