Making the Most of Summer

Summer is my favorite season, and I look forward to summer every year. But once I started on Alectinib, being in the sun became challenging.

Because of my treatment, I burn so badly. Then I noticed that I burned right at the very beginning, and after that, I could tolerate the sun. Not much, but I can be in the sun for a little bit and enjoy the warmth and sunshine from the sun.

Gardening lessons learned

This year I wanted to plant some vegetables and herbs. We went to buy some seeds, and in May, we started our little garden and planted our seeds.

I made sure to lather up in sunscreen and protect my skin as much as possible. But I still got a very bad sunburn and it seemed to last forever.

Now I know that I need to go out to water my little garden either early in the morning or in the evening. That is perfect for me because I still get to enjoy the sun and not get a sunburn.

I really enjoyed planting fruits, vegetables, and herbs for the first time, and I’m learning along the way. We succeeded in planting squash, jalapenos, cucumbers, and arugula. But we failed in the carrots, cilantro, watermelon, and possibly our tomatoes.

Now that we know, we’ll be prepared for next year, and I’m excited about it. Plus, my granddaughter is learning and enjoys seeing the fruits and vegetables.

Adapting summer plans

In the summertime, we take one week’s vacation each month, and we go somewhere with the grandbabies. But in January of this year, we had a tragedy in my family, and our vacation for the summer went to a lot of doctors and hospital visits.

So, I decided to buy a pool that we could take down at the end of every summer and put it back up at the beginning of the summer. Let me tell you, it’s the best choice I made, and my grandchildren love it! So now we spend a lot of time in that pool and enjoy the summer as best as we can.

Since we couldn’t go on vacation this summer, we made sure to do fun things. We live about 20 to 30 minutes from Chicago, so we spend a lot of time in the city. Also, where we live, there are a lot of fun summer activities, and we made sure to do a few and some with our grandchildren.  

Camping was also part of our plans for this summer, but it didn’t seem to work out as we had hoped. My husband’s job involves a lot of summer activities, and he’s pretty much in charge of them, so trying to plan a weekend to go camping was impossible.

Future summer goals

My goal for next summer is to plan a camping trip with the grandbabies, build up my garden, grow other fruits, vegetables, and herbs, and take a vacation with the grandbabies. I want to build memories with them so when it’s my time to go, they will have all the fun and wonderful memories of our summers together.