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Life
Is it still Monday?? It's been a long day, so I am posting this late today. We drove back to Philadelphia last night and stayed in the Hope Lodge for an early-morning (early for me!) appointment with my husband's oncologist. Like everyone at Fox Chase Cancer Center, she was wonderful, very knowledgeable, and compassionate. The past few weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster for us, as we waited for the team there to finish all the testing to determine exactly what type of cancer my husband has. The final conclusion is that it IS a GIST sarcoma, as previously thought, but it has some characteristics of more aggressive cancers than the typical GIST. This means that treatment will be longer term than we expected, to prevent it from recurring. He'll be on a targeted therapy (a pill once a day), with follow-up scans every three months. We're glad he won't need chemo or radiation, but most GISTs are very slow-growing, so this was also a bit of a disappointment today. Next, he'll start the medication, see how he reacts to it (hopefully, the side effects won't be too bad), and we'll continue to travel to Philly for follow-up scans and appointments. We're grateful to live this close to Fox Chase; everyone there has been incredible.
Otherwise, last week was a busy one. I had three appointments (medical and a much-needed haircut!), and I still wasn't feeling well. I was definitely exposed to a virus or something the week before, so I tried to take it easy, other than the appointments. I was feeling a little better by the weekend, and we enjoyed having old friends over on Saturday evening.
We continue to be buried under snow and ice here. It's been below freezing for weeks (in the low 20's with windchills around 10!), so the snow and ice we got last weekend haven't melted at all. We were excited that it hit 32 F today in Philly! We're getting pretty sick of this bitter cold, but the groundhog saw his shadow this morning ...
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| Sleet on top of snow leaves these weird ice chunks behind! |
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| Pink winter sunset |
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| Almost-full moon |
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| A very short walk on a cold but sunny day |
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20 Bookish Questions Tag - This was a fun one, with questions about my reading habits, book preferences, and likes/dislikes.
Weekly Reading Update - My brief weekly update of the books my family and I have been reading.
My February TBR and the Mardi Gras Readathon - I enjoy reading for Black History Month in February, and I look forward to celebrating Mardi Gras with this fun reading event every year to brighten the winter days!
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We are so happy that Shrinking is back for a third season! (See my review of season 1 and a trailer at the link.) This show just gets better and better, with outstanding writing and a brilliant cast, including Harrison Ford, Jason Segel, and last season, Brett Goldstein (who is a co-creator and played Roy Kent on Ted Lasso) joined the cast. This season, as Ford's character grapples with a Parkinson's diagnosis, Michael J. Fox guest stars. This show about a group of therapists and their friends and family is warm, uplifting, and hilariously funny. If you need a mood boost, give it a try on Apple TV, especially if you liked Ted Lasso.
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After I finished A Ghost of Caribou by Alice Henderson, I started James by Percival Everett. Why didn't anyone tell me what a fabulous book this is? Oh, that's right ... they did! Everyone from my book group to my blogging and Booktube friends to the committees for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award have been raving about this novel since its release in 2024. It's the retelling of Huckleberry Finn, from the slave Jim's perspective. Obviously, that's a great concept, but in the hands of Everett, it is absolutely brilliant. This is the first book of his I've read (and I was shocked to see how long his list of published books is), but one of our favorite movies of the past five years was American Fiction, an adaptation of Everett's novel, Erasure. Like that story, James is smart, warm, funny, and highly entertaining. It also has all the action, suspense, and adventure of the original (which I've been sort of skimming on my Kindle as I read). But this is a thoroughly modern and very clever take on the familiar story, with plenty of complexity and some surprises in store. I'm loving it.
On audio, I finished listening to a middle-grade book, Finding Orion by John David Anderson, that I had downloaded onto my iPod last year and never got to. The narrator is 12-year-old Rion Kwirk (short for Orion; his mom is an astronomer). He has two sisters, Cassie (yup, short for Cassiopeia) and Lyra, one older and one younger, and their dad is a scientist who works for a candy company, inventing flavors for their confections. Get the idea? They're quirky! Their usual family routine is shaken up when a singing clown comes to their door to inform them that Papa Kwirk (the kids' grandfather and dad's father) has died. The family takes a road trip to go to his funeral, which is similarly unusual and unexpected! The funeral is followed by a very unique treasure hunt around the Dad's hometown. I really enjoyed listening to this novel. It might sound silly, but underneath the humor, there is plenty of warmth and meaning, as the family learns more about Papa Kwirk and comes closer together.
My husband, Ken, is reading Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run by Paul McCartney, edited by Ted Widmer, a Christmas gift from me. Like me, he usually reads just one book at a time, but he decided to try reading nonfiction during the day and fiction at bedtime.
At night, he's reading a novel, Beartooth by Callan Wink, another gift from me. It's an outdoor thriller that was recommended at Booktopia last year and that many of my Booktopia friends have enjoyed.
And our son, 31, has been reading Sorcerer's Edge by David Hair, book 3 in the Tethered Citadel trilogy. He loved the first two books in the series, and we got him this one for Christmas. He enjoyed extra reading time during last week's snow days!
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What are you and your family reading this week?