She's Doing Better

Molly has been doing a little bit better. She actually ate three times today. This is the first time she has eaten more than a few spoonfuls since Saturday. She smiled a little bit, too. Good girl!

In other news . . . the Utes won a game. They beat New Mexico and actually played well. Hunter lost another one. It was at my school, Murray, and was a bit out of control. My sister gave her take on it here. Tomorrow is versus West and they are good, too. Hold on.

I get e-mails for sites like Groupon and City Deals and they always seem to be discounted prices for spas and fancy trips . . . nothing practical that I would actually use. But, last night I found out about a deal that was pretty cool! I bought it! It was a $20 Amazon gift card for $10, no strings attached. I purchased it last night and got the gift card code today. What did I buy? I had several ideas and looked around, but then I settled on diapers. Yes, I'm a dork.

Sick Baby!

Molly is sick. It started more than a week ago. James was in Beaver for guard duty and Molly woke up Sunday morning with an ear full of crusty goo. I was worried so I took her to Instacare. As I suspected, she had a ruptured ear drum. Yikes! The doctor said, "Didn't she scream bloody murder or anything like that?" I said "No. She actually slept well last night. The night before she woke up once crying, but she drank a bottle and went back to sleep." He gave her an antibiotic and some ear drops and we went to church. She'd been a little fussy off and on for the whole week, but nothing too extreme. This is the third time she's had ear infections and she really hasn't been too grumpy or fussy at all before now.

Fast forward to Friday. We only had a half day of students and then a few hours to finish our grades. I was sitting at my desk when the phone rang and it was the daycare. They said Molly was not her usual self and that something was wrong. I was planning to call her doctor and follow up with her ears on Monday, but I decided to do it on that Friday. I got an appointment and then went and got her. Unfortunately, I still had grades that needed to be completed by 3:00. Molly came with me up to my room and ate post-it notes and highlighters for a while, but was obviously not going to let me get my work done while not feeling well. Luckily James had a lighter day and so we called him and he was able to come rescue Molly so I could finish up at school. I met them at the doctor and he said Molly's lungs were clear and that she just had a bad cold on top of the ear infections. He switched antibiotics and said to stop using the drops because the ruptured ear drum had healed.

Unfortunately, Molly's sickness only has gone downhill from there. She keeps coughing up phlem and is just miserably uncomfortable. James and I are pretty sure she's got new teeth coming in on top of everything else. She doesn't want anything touching her mouth. She's cried more in the last 3-4 days than she has in the last 3-4 months. She wakes herself up at night coughing and she is just not a happy camper. Hopefully she gets better soon. The cough is still just a phlemmy cough and she doesn't seem to have any signs of RSV or something worse like that (knock on wood), but she is just not healthy at the moment and I'm not sure what to do.

Perhaps I should go stop catching up my blog and go to bed now. It's after midnight and she is asleep at the moment. Why am I still up? Who knows.

Guster!

Yes, I am getting old. I used to like to go to concerts. I still do, but now it just makes me feel old. I am never too old for Guster, though. We've seen them at least half a dozen times at Bricks/In the Venue. We've seen them at UVCC/UVU), Deer Valley, the E Center/Maverick Center, Virgin Megastore/Urban Outfitters and my sister reminded me that we even saw them at the U's Union Building and we took my mom. I had forgotten about that. As far as I know, we've only missed them coming to Salt Lake once, but that was before we knew who they were. (Don't worry. They played at DV8 and I have a bootleg copy of that show somewhere.) They are always entertaining.

Guster was in town the other night. James, Annie, Willie, and I all went. We had a good time. Luckily, the crowd was all pretty much our age (with the exception of one 80+ year old lady and two 10-12 year old boys with their dads).

I can't say it was the best Guster show ever (I'm not sure which one that would be), but it was really good! We had a lot of fun singing along and bouncing around like a bunch of ruttards. James even smiled and Willie did well at acting like the cool 16 year old with his dumb older sisters, but deep down he did have fun.

I REALLY like their new album and they didn't sing as much off of it as I would have liked, but there were still plenty of sing along favorites. We missed Joe. He left to join K.D. Lang's band. The new guy, Luke, was ok, but he wasn't Joe (and he pulled strange faces and was wearing a Mr. Rogers white cardigan).

Guster is my favorite, no matter how old I am.

Amber and Colton

On the weekend after Christmas, Amber and Colton came home to visit for a week or so. We went to Garland to see them. Annie, Jared, and her kids came down. Mary fixed dinner, we frosted cookies, and Molly entertained everyone in her cute red dress! Here are some pictures.

A Tuesday with Basketball and Spern Whales

Its Tuesday. I'm tired. James is tired. He still has work to do, but is watching the Utah v. BYU game highlights on the news. I still have work to do, but decided to blog. We decided not to go to the Utah v. BYU game tonight at the Huntsman Center. No, we're not waining in our support for our dear, terrible Utes, but weeknights are hard and I chose to watch my brother play over watching the Utes lose. As much as I would never cheer against the Utes, I can predict a loss.

Unfortunately, we were 0-4 on the basketball front tonight. Every team at Hunter (plus the Utes) lost. Willie played quite a bit of the 1st quarter of the varsity game, but then didn't get back in. I don't know why. He's no superstar, but he's a good solid player who hustles, works his butt off, and isn't afraid to fall on the floor. If I were the coach, I'd put him in for a couple of minutes every quarter. Let him bump someone around, get a few rebounds, then pull him back out. I guess I'm not the coach, though. But, if I were, let me tell you a few other things I'd do . . . .

Haley's guide to basketball

(or . . . things that Hunter does not do, but should)

* DEFENSE and REBOUNDS are how you win ballgames. Yes, you need to score, but if you focus on defense and rebounds, you will score plenty. Living by the 3-pointer means you will die by the 3-pointer.

* When playing against a zone, swing the ball back and forth, send cutters, move, and watch for the open man (don't resort to chucking up crapola at the backboard)

* Passing the ball breaks a press, NOT dribbling. Try a bounce pass. It might surprise you.

* If your players are giving little to no effort and are making stupid mistakes but still think they are really cool, PUT IN OTHER PLAYERS!

* When the other team has a 16-2 run, you probably should have called a time out.

* Make your hot shot sophomores earn their spots. They need to ride the bus to games, participate with the team, at least play a little JV, and pull them when they sucketh. A little humbling can go a long way to making a better team player.

* Keep your bigger guys near the key. Doing so allows them more likely opportunities to pull down rebounds and put the offensive ones back up. Having them set screens on the 3 point line does nothing. They end up out of position for the rebound or they end up with the ball, and to their credit, can't do anything with it or else they'd turn it over.

On a lighter note . . . .

Elliott drew me a picture during the awful JV game. He wanted to draw me

a picture of a "spern whale" because they are the biggest whale in the ocean. He broke his drawing concentration at one point, though, to ask me if I would "like the spern whale to echo-locate off it's baby." Huh? Are you almost 4 or almost 34? Goofy kid. Yes, I recognize that you don't know how to say "sperm" whale, but I am definitely impressed by your "echo-locating" skills. Oh, and the picture of the giant squid attacking the mother spern whale? . . . that was pretty scary.

I asked if I could keep the picture. I'll scan it and post it here, but not right now.