Sick

It's Friday again. Luke has been sick now for a full week. We finally went to UrgentCare last night to have him checked out. Good thing we did...

He has pneumonia.

I've never had anyone in my family have pneumonia before. The doc put him on some serious drugs to get this thing kicked. Right after he took the codene, he seemed to greatly improve.

Until he got up to go to the bathroom.

All the sudden I hear him calling for me in the hall. I find him white as a ghost standing in the hallway. "I think I'm passing out." Sure enough, as I'm having a heart attack, he grabs my arm and slides to the floor. Thankfully he never fully blacked out, but he looked dead. Completely drained of color. I'm panicking. Is he allergic to this stuff? Should I be getting him to the ER? So I run and get some juice. And throw some bread in the toaster. He hasn't eaten much in a week, and he sweats so much during the day, he has to drink a lot.

The juice and toast helps, and I get him to the couch and call work. I'm not leaving him alone if the drugs are doing this to him. He could pass out, hit his head, and I come home to him unconscious on the floor. The codene worked though, he was able to get a night's sleep without waking up coughing every 15 minutes. I slept on the cot next to the couch to keep an eye on him. The dogs are loving the fact they get the bed to themselves, but are confused why we're sleeping in the living room.

Today was better. He only went white again when he sat at the computer for a couple minutes. It was really hot in the house though, despite all the fans trained on the living room. When we get the money, we're having AC installed. It's insane to live in the desert and not have AC. He's sleeping again, and I hope that he'll be much better by Monday. I'm so glad now that I decided not to become a nurse. While I don't mind caring for him, in fact I like taking care of him, it's the running around to take care of him I could do without. I'm good with the love, but the drink refills and toast making on demand gets old. Could be worse I guess. He could be throwing up as well.

I got some very sad news today from my best friend, Rachel. Rachel and I have been besties since high school, and for the last little while, her mom has been battling breast cancer. Unfortunately, last night she lost that battle. It came at a rough time for Rachel, who just finished the bar exam earlier this week. Luckily, she was able to make it home before her mom passed. She was a super nice and smart lady, and the world will not be quite as bright without her. But she is no longer suffering.

If you're reading this, I'd ask you to pray, or just send good vibes her way. I can't imagine what she's going through right now. I've had my share of loss in my family, but never anyone as close as a parent. Rachel, I love you, and I'm thinking about you. If you need ANYTHING at all, give me a call.

Oh Pioneers!

It was a lovely, perfect Pioneer Day here in Salt Lake City. Really a near perfect Saturday. Just one problem...

Luke is sick.

Sick as a dog.

He slept most the day, and has been achy and not eating the rest of it. His skin feels like a furnace, except for his forehead. It started last night. Poor guy has been pretty much going from the couch to the bed all day.

So while he was sick...I started my day early.

I stole Luke's bike (mine has a broken pedal and the brakes need to be loosened) and rode all the way downtown to Pioneer Park for the farmer's market this morning around 7am. What a pleasure it was! Almost everyone in town was lining the parade route, waiting for this morning's Days of '47 parade. That meant lots of closed roads. Which means I got to ride down the middle of them, without having to worry about traffic. Plus, it was nice and cool...still in the low 70s, not a cloud in the sky and a slight breeze. It's a little over five miles to the farmer's market...longer than any ride I've done in the last 10 years. But it wasn't too bad going there.

I've never been to the farmer's market here. It was really nice! There's such a HUGE selection of local growers and vendors. The best part...free bike valet. I walked around a couple times, seeing what was available before I grabbed what I wanted.



First, I stopped at Thompson's Melons. We had these guys on the noon show on Friday, and their melons looked really tasty. The guy was nice enough to give me a free cantelope, and I bought a honeylope from him as well. I was excited to have fresh melon, but they were a pain to haul home in my backpack. They grow their cantelopes, honeylope, watermelon, and Israeli honeylope in Hurricane.



Next, time for Cherries. I'd never had Rainier Cherries before today. I'm switching!



Didn't want to make it just a fruit run today...and what's in season right now, Luke doesn't like. So I got a huge head of romaine lettuce from another guy, before ending my adventure with a big bunch of carrots. It took careful arranging to get everything in my backpack. The green parts of the carrots ended up hanging outside the top of my pack, so it looked like I was sporting green extensions.

The ride home was not as easy as the ride there. I had what felt like a 5th grader on my back, and for some reason, it's not all down hill from downtown to South Salt Lake. Plus, I had to deal with barricades and increased parade traffic. Luckily the parade hadn't started yet where I was. I wanted to hit Liberty Park on the way home to take advantage of the water fountain there, since it was getting hot and I didn't bring water on my adventure.

I ended up riding right down the middle of the parade route, carrot greens hanging from my pack, in front of hundreds of pioneer people. That was actually pretty fun. But I'm sure I looked silly.

The rest of the ride home was tough. My butt was really hurting by this point, and for some reason, the latch for the seat doesn't close on Luke's bike (I think it's too tight) so it kept hitting me in the hamstring everytime I pushed the pedal down. I pretty much tried to coast from 1300 South home, so it took me a little longer than I'd like. That, and with every block, that 5th grader on my back felt like he was eating an entire box of Twinkies every minute, putting on weight like a sumo wrestler.

I found Luke still in bed when I got home, so I turned on the parade and watched while he half slept-half watched. We both ended up taking a nap until the early afternoon.

Then, it was time to make a decision. Is Luke feeling well enough to go to Dave's BBQ tonight? It was an easy decision. So I ran to the store and got some hot dogs and chips for our own little BBQ, which turned into my BBQ, because all he ate was a hot dog and a couple cherries, and of course, a bowl of ice cream.

This was also my first experience with starting a charcoal grill.




Charlotte was eager to help since Dad couldn't...



Ham...not so much.



So we had our food, Luke slept some more, and then I brought out the fireworks. I saw Big Budah at a stand on the way home, and thought the fireworks might make Luke feel a little better, take his mind off being sick. I don't like to spend money on fireworks, because they last like 20 seconds, and it's all smoke and sparks. But I thought what the heck. We had a nice time sitting outside (it's cooler out there than in our house) and playing with fire.






All in all, probably the best Pioneer Day, except for Luke being sick. It's funny, he's the one who has the Utah pioneers in his family. I think if I was being true to my ancestors, today would be celebrated as Pie and Beer day, since we never came out in the handcarts. We stopped in Colorado. It was a good choice.

Tomorrow...it's off to Wendover with the Girls! Hopefully Lady Luck with be with us!

Camping

I've decided I very much like leaving the city for the weekend and going where it's cooler. Therefore, I'm going camping. Anyone who wants to come is welcome. I have a 7 person tent. It is giant. I'm going to go the first weekend in August. Likely a 2-night trip to the Uintahs.

I enjoy ultimate smores and wine coolers by the campfire, along with hot dogs. Not bringing the dogs, because Ham would bark at everything all night.

Also, I am thrilled to report I found my small camera and changed the batteries. It now is functional. I will finally be posting photos to this blog of my life. It shall be much more entertaining.

Dog Days of Summer

It's Hot.

Very hot.

So hot, Luke got up before me. At 5:45am. Probably earlier, because it was at that time he came in and turned on the light, declaring it time to get up. I spent the better part of the morning making sure he wasn't dying. Are you sick? Do you have to be at work early? Was I snoring? Did you have a nightmare? I can't recall any time in the five years we've been together when he's gotten up that early, without an alarm, and still having at least 2 more hours to sleep if he wants. It was nice though, because I was much more awake and ready to be up when I was the only one left in the bed. I don't like feeling like a slacker. Especially when I'm supposed to be to work before him.

So it's been close to a hundred degrees every day for the last week or two. I never thought I'd say that I was glad to be at work at 6:30am on a Monday morning. But it's considerably cooler here than at the house. Our thermostat says 83, but it feels way hotter. If you haven't guessed by now, we have no air conditioning. Big mistake on our part for agreeing to buy a home...in the desert...without A/C. I guess we thought the swamper and fans would be enough. We were horribly wrong.

Despite the heat, the dogs and I went out to Memory Grove on Thursday to celebrate...dun dun dun DUUUUN!!! THEIR FOURTH BIRTHDAY!!!! Can you tell I have no real children? :) We went for a birthday hike and stayed in the off leash area, just because it was shady and near the creek. Charlotte slopped around in the water, and even Ham got his front paws in...just barely. It was like 94 degrees out, so we didn't stay out long. I didn't bring water. So we're all dying on the way home in the car, so I stopped in the drive thru at McDonald's to get some ice cream. One cone for me...one for the dogs.

It was the cutest thing ever to watch them share a cone. I need to get a smaller camera for these instances that fits in my purse. One day I'll reenact the ice cream-eating and throw a pic up here. Their eyes were as big as saucers, incredulous that they were actually given their own cone, and I wasn't scolding them for sniping bites. Tired and happy, we headed home for family nap time...a very good birthday for my furry kids.

Saturday, was Youth Parade day. Meaning for two hours, I got to run around on a hot blacktop, telling anchors what to do, running out in front of marching bands to stop them for TV, and keeping things from blowing away at the tent. It was 91 degrees when we started at 10am. Needless to say, I got my workout for the day, came home, and slept for about four hours.

Later that night, Luke and I escaped the heat, and went to Deer Valley for the Ben Folds concert with the Utah Symphony. It's one of the better dates we've had. We took a picnic, which included a bottle of wine and a six pack of wine coolers, sat out on the grass on our blanket under the stars, and listened to one of Luke's favorite artists. He was magnificent. It was his song, "The Luckiest" that we had sung at our wedding (which he obviously performed much better than the people who we had sing it.) It was nice and cool once the sun went down, and was just nice to sit around all these other people, who were also enjoying the concert and a bottle of wine. Not something you usually find in Utah.

Last night we were able to escape again, this time for dinner up Big Cottonwood canyon with Luke's family. It was his uncle Jim's birthday. We had to wait for over an hour to sit all of us on the patio, but it was worth it. Wonderful food, wonderful company, and wonderful temperature. We even saw a coyote and some deer on the way up and down the canyon. But coming back down, I got super sick. Not sure if it was the temperature change, the food, or the driving, but I felt like I was going to hurl. We had to stop and sit a while at the bottom of the canyon while I pulled myself together, and then it was sketchy the rest of the way home. I still don't feel real well, so I'm thinking it was the food. Shame.

So overall a good weekend, but definitely too hot to stay in Salt Lake. I wish I could call in sick all this week and escape to the cabin.