Finding Pneumonia

It's been a very difficult weekend.

On Friday, after Crafty's graduation, Curly and I ran our broken double oven down to the neighborhood dumpster. Unfortunately, someone had already put some huge beanbags in there about the size of a twin bed. One of them had a hole in it and as the ancient foam rubber came spilling out, pieces disintegrated and became airborne.

Some of that toxic stuff found its way into my lungs. I started coughing right away and by Saturday night, the cough had progressed until I found myself in the emergency room.

The diagnosis was bacterial pneumonia with a side of bronchitis in the airways just for good measure. I am still coughing all the time, but at least I'm not getting progressively worse. I have a followup with my main doctor tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.

I just wanted everyone to know that pneumonia doesn't always come in the form of a cold and illness.

It's Graduation Day!

You all know that Crafty is a Senior in high school, and you also know she has been taking college-level courses for a very long time. On Friday, all of her hard work finally paid off when she earned her Associate's Degree from Salt Lake Community College!

Earning her high school diploma and her 2-year degree at the same time makes her a New Century Scholar in Utah. The also means that the state will pay her money to complete her next two years of school.

She was able to get quite a few of her credits through concurrent enrollment and AP classes, but many of them were done during the summer when her friends and siblings were out having fun.

So proud of her!

Since my sweetie and I are not seafood people, it has been our tradition of late to take the kids to our favorite Japanese restaurant and let them try sushi for the first time. When we first did it with Dog Walker, I thought sure he was going to puke. Crafty held it together much better. She even suggested that she might like it.

That will make it much easier if she is assigned to a mission in Japan... that's right, Crafty started the process to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! Her availability date will be October 1. We just have to finish up all this high school stuff first.

Reflect on Reflections: Crafty - Film Video 2017

Crafty has become a pretty decent filmmaker over the years. This is one of my favorites from 2017. It is appropriate that we honor her today as she is graduating from Salt Lake Community College in a few hours.

Make it a Double!

Curly played in another baseball game on Monday. I say played, because we have had so many cancelled for rain this season! This is his 5th game and 5th loss for the team. I say for the team because even though they lost by 10 runs according to the Mercy Rule, Curly played a very successful game.

We were playing the Crushers from Copper Hills, a team with very few losses. Their pitcher was extremely fast and almost no one was able to hit off him. We were 3 up, 3 down for the first 3 innings, but by the 4th inning, he was getting a little tired. Quite frankly, these are 10-year-olds, none of them should be allowed to pitch more than 3 innings.

We were still scoreless and our first batter grounded out to 1st. The 2nd batter hit a hard ground that got him to 1st base and we were all thrilled. When the next batter walked, it put Curly up to the plate. It was his 2nd at-bat for the game and like most of the other boys, he struck out the 1st time. But this time he was determined to hit.

Make Mine a Double!

He swung at the 1st pitch and missed, adjusted his feet and waited impatiently for the 2nd. It was a beautiful pitch and right where he likes them. He pounded it into the outfield and it nearly hit the fence before one of the boys snatched it up. Both runs scored as Curly rounded 1st and safely made it to 2nd. Two RBIs and a double!! In subsequent pitches, he managed to make it home to score the 3rd run for the inning.

After the game was over, Curly convinced me he was starving and needed something from the snack shack. I don't generally buy ballpark food because of the expense, but this time I relented. As we made our way over to the ordering booth, the coach from Copper Hills stopped us and congratulated Curly on his amazing hit. "You know," he commented, "Almost nobody hits off that pitcher, and certainly not a pounding double like that." He gave Curly a fist bump. "Good job!"

Curly's grin was a mile wide. I figured his double was worth a double, but even that huge grin could barely stretch far enough to get over all that food. Great job, Curly! Love watching you play.