A Glimpse of Hope- April 26, 2020

Sunday's are meant to be lazy days, but not today! I was very productive! I awoke with energy around 8:30 AM, had my Pop-tarts, and sat down at the computer to work on my website. I knew I had a long time before anyone else was going to be awake, so I took advantage of the quiet time.

Around 1:00, Sleeping Beauty arose and bounded down the stairs. It had been a long time since I'd seen her so energized after waking up. I knew it was going to be a good day. Emily took her seat at the kitchen table and worked on her Diamond Art kit, while I sorted through old grades, letters from teachers, high school resume's, and awards from my past. I decided to add a page to this blog called, "School Days." As I read the report cards my mom had graciously kept up with, I realized there were some similarities to my academic mindset now, in my adult life. I found some things to be very interesting, while others were quite surprising. I remembered how busy I was in middle and high school, but there is one post (my fifth grade year) that got really personal. All the feelings started coming back, and those were not good feelings. I started to feel angry and resentment. Confusion set in once again. Once I got it all out, I felt calmer.

I sat down at the table to have lunch with Emily. While she ate chips and salsa, I actually had a real lunch (tuna sandwich, Frito's, and a bag of chocolate chip cookies). I never eat lunch, but I needed my energy since I knew we would be going for exercise later.

It was around 2:30 and I felt I needed to go out for some air, so I woke Harry up, asked him if we could go to the park to throw the softball, instructed Emily to get dressed, and we all went out for some fun in the sun. The sky was bright with barely a cloud to be found. The temperature was around 71 and it was pretty breezy. Harry and I tried to work with Emily on catching the softball, but she gave up after a few minutes. Harry and I tossed the ball around for about 15 minutes before I started feeling the twinge in my joint, so we switched to throwing the Frisbee. My shoulder felt fine then, although I did a lot of squatting and bending to pick the Frisbee off the ground because the wind was making it a trick toy and took it all over the grass.

All in all, we were outside, playing as a family, for about an hour and a half. This is something we had not done in years. It felt nice to do something together. There is a glimpse of hope my family can enjoy time together outside. My face was pounding and I felt the sweat beads dripping down my back and it felt good. I was able to run, skip, and leap and not feel like I was 80 years old! My physical therapy is working! I should have let it go then, but no! I wanted to give the shoulder one more try, so I asked Harry to throw with me a few more minutes before calling it an afternoon. Reluctantly, he agreed. I over-did it. I wanted to throw hard and far and on the 5th or so throw, my shoulder popped. Now, normally, I would have continued, but I remember how much pain I was in before and decided it was a great time to go home. I think that was a good decision, considering I can still move it now.

I don't think I stopped once I got home until my butt hit the couch. I was chilled from being hot earlier so I covered up with a blanket and played solitaire on my phone. CNN News was on and discussing a glimpse of hope about the country possibly reopening in phases starting tomorrow. The virus has slowed in some states, while just ramping up in others. We watched reruns of, "The Office" until it was time to make dinner. I made Harry and Emily Sloppy Joe's and ate a little leftover tuna casserole for myself (nobody in my family likes it other than me). Since it was Sunday, it was time for our Family Movie Night. We watched "Wall-E" and "Cars".

Overall, today was good. I need to refocus my brain to what I need to get done this week at work. I know it's a big week with a couple important meetings. Physical Therapy is on Wednesday, and I hope to have good news to tell Kyle (that I'm no longer broken and ready for tougher exercises). There is a glimpse of hope I can fully recover from the knee and shoulder injuries and possibly play softball again in the Fall.

I've decided to leave the stats of the Coronavirus out and take a fresh new look to my blog. If there's any news that is worthy of posting, I'll embed it into my posts. I'd rather have a more positive tone to my posts from this point on. I hope my readers are OK with that.

Here's a funny photo I took today. We had 3 squirrels on our back porch (you can only see 2 though).

Even the Squirrels are Social Distancing

I hope you are enjoying this blog. There is still so much to uncover from my past. Make sure you follow the other pages on this website to get updates. I will be posting all my K-12 photos as soon as I can dig them out.

Feel free to head to the Forum and answer some of the discussion questions I have added. I'd like to get interaction on here! Lastly, if you enjoy it, please share it. Have a great night everyone!