The Participation of Sportsmanship

11-30-15

Over this past weekend my 9 year old, Dax, got to participate in his very first Turkey Tournament. This kid lives and breathes soccer, practicing every free second he has so it was truly a weekend of awesome for him. Imagine the excitement when he managed to tie up the score in their last game with a headed ball into the goal from a corner kick. It was a beautiful play and it was hard to not cry as he ran back to set up for the kickoff, hands in the air in victory. Yet there was something that certainly marred the moment.

You see, earlier in the tournament, I heard that a team was reprimanded for being too excited at the end of their match. Their cheers for a job well done were considered in poor taste. I worried that my child, proud of his accomplishment, would be scolded for his reaction to his amazing goal.

Sportsmanship is a big deal, especially in youth sports. You don’t want kids pitching a fit if they lose and you don’t want anyone to rub it in if they win. We encourage teams to pull their best players when the score is heavily lopsided and we do our best to make sure teams are balanced in their roster so as not to stack one team over others. However, games will ultimately end in one winner and one loser at the end of the match.

As much as I appreciate the reminder to our kids that winning isn’t everything, it would be harmful in their development as people to tell them it doesn’t mean anything. In addition to this, these are kids that worked hard to achieve a win and let’s face it; they should be able to celebrate.

I am firmly against taunting the other team after a win. I like that I watched teams after each match come and clap for our side after they won. These are still things that should take place, making sure the kids are good winners and good losers. But taking away a basic human right to be pleased with results isn’t right. Some of these games are such an amazing battle back and forth, it is reasonable that their emotions get the best of them in an after game shriek of triumph.

The oversaturation of participation awards for kids when they do any activities has truly changed the landscape of how kids are able to cope with failure. They don’t have proper frame of reference on disappointment if their team comes in last place yet they still all get the same trophy as the first place team. These are games in which there is a score and a hopeful outcome. If the team doesn’t do well, it would make more sense to then coach them on how to do better rather than simply sugar-coating it with awards.

I know Dax will be playing soccer for a long time. I know that as he ages, he will be less enthusiastic with each goal he scores. I am just hoping to hold on to that look of pure joy that he gets now for as long as I possibly can without him feeling bad for showing it to the world. It would be great if others were on board with this, too.

Road House, y'all!

9-24-15

The 80’s have been on heavy rotation this week in my house.

My movie afternoon with my mom was Heathers, which was enjoyed. I have always liked the flick, and truly, it does seem to hold up. I find myself cringing a bit at the liberal use of the term “fag” and some of the obvious homophobia, but truly that was the times so I can’t get to angry.

Last night, though, was my adventure that was long overdue. Our Tivo has a banner of suggested flicks and shows for us to be aware of. On the list was Road House. Now I have never seen this movie. I know, shocking on every freaking level. It seems like it a rite of passage to experience this cinematic masterpiece. Lucky for us, we had nothing on tap and said flick was available on Netflix streaming. Clearly the movie gods wanted this to happen. I made sure to verify I wasn’t in store for another Red Dawn fiasco in which I expected campy comedy but in the first 5 minutes watched a teacher get gunned down. I knew what to expect in terms of action taking itself too seriously. Time to pop the corn!

Not a comedy!

Damn, there was a lot of naked. I didn’t have issue, but I was a little shocked for sure. I also didn’t know that the masterpiece that is Sam Elliot was in this. Holy crap that man is magnificent. In fact, I was quite disappointed that the blonde broad, played by Kelly Lynch, didn’t die and they let Sam die. What the fuck, y’all? Sure, that ended up being the super trigger to cause Mr. Swayze to explode with rage, but let’s face it; he would have done the same if the chick died so why not do that?

I laughed out loud several times and truly thought it was incredibly fun. I am pretty positive I don’t need to see it again, but that being said, it was a fun time for sure. I also enjoyed the numerous comments made when I posted on Facebook that I was watching it for the first time. Many were confused by this confession that I had never seen it. One pointed out if Ken told the judge he would get the kids, the house and everything. Ha! Truly the entire experience complete with my peanut gallery chiming in led to one of the best nights in a while.

The next movie watching has been determined. Somebody asked if I had seen Point Break what with my lack of Road House cred. I may have received equal scorn so Ken and I will be obtaining a copy soon. I may need to get a list from people so I can make up for lost time.

The afternoon was an interesting bittersweet event. The boys get home early on Wednesdays and with no practice, the house tends to be much more relaxed when it comes to homework and other activities. The boys walked in and Bobby announces he has something to tell us. He proceeds to explain how some of his friends are going to go hang out at Sur La Brea for a little while right now. He didn’t even need to ask me for permission. I told him to go before he even finished talking. Look, I know homework is important but so far this year his has been painless. Plus, I was all kinds of excited at the prospect of him finding his people. Sure, he has a lot of friends, but as time progresses, it is important to have that group of people you can just hang out with. I know this all too well. He said Dax was more than welcome but he declined saying he wanted to get a jump on his homework and he didn’t think that the people Bobby would be playing with would want to play soccer.  In some ways this was good, too, since it gives Bobby some independence and Dax did have a fair amount of homework. Bobby was also great about calling me as soon as he found his friends, and he called me when he was on his way back. I didn’t even tell him to do the call before coming home. I was very pleased with the whole thing. It is a little sad to know he is growing up, but I am pleased that he is friends with so many different people.

My week thus far has also been better what with multiple books found as PDF’s. I read The Martian this week, which I highly recommend. I am now reading a book called All the Bright Places. Total YA throwaway style book, but still good enough to entertain. Buzzfeed continues to release lists of books that everyone should read and I couple that with Goodreads and voila! I have a list of books to hunt for. I would be curious to make a list at the start of the new year of every book I read for 2016. I could also do the same for movies. Might be a fun project.

Work is trying to be busy this morning. Bleah. I suppose I should get to it.  

muscles

9-21-15

Ouch.

Sometimes you don’t realize just how many muscles are in your body until you start using ones that don’t normally get used. I found myself in that boat at the end of Saturday.

Saturday was a standard soccer day with some modifications that made for an ever longer day. Bobby didn’t have a game, which meant we were at Hull much of the day. We got there around 7 to start the set up procedures. I lined field one due to how faded it was. I still like the painting process, which must be due to how nice it is to kind of just zone out. I would have done more, but I ran out of time what with the first game of the morning needing me!

I did my first AR duty of the season. It was a girl’s game, specifically Rachel’s game which made it I think even more fun because I got to say hello to many of the girls I have seen at Adams or in the spring league. But if I was hopeful that it would be an easier game to referee simply because they were girls, I was sorely mistaken. Man those girls are fast! The second half was a ton of sprinting on my part, but I did ok, even catching one off sides that I was kinda proud of. The only real issue with ref duty was just how freaking miserably hot it was! It actually made me a little ill. I could have probably helped out with another game, but I opted to sit and hydrate. Besides, I would have missed the start of Dax’s game.

Dax’s game was much better if only because it wasn’t one sided. Final score was 4 to 2 in our favor, which is good since I am happy Dax is on a winning team. Dax was frustrated due to him needing to bein defense much of the game. He is truly better in midfield since it allows him more flexibility in terms of being able to score and prevent scoring. The coach felt he really needed Dax’s defensive ability, though, so he was the go to for that. Dax didn’t even play goalie, so they really did feel he was a good plan for stopping their offense. Dax also was the go to guy for goal kicks and all the throw-ins. His throw was never whistled for leg lifting and let’s face it, that kid has some power in those throws. So all in all, Dax was a huge part of the win, even though he seemed off. He was I think a combo of frustrated and hot. Hopefully this week he has another opportunity to score a goal.

Bobby had a day of independence. Since he didn’t have a game, he was incredibly bored. At one point it occurred to me that I had forgotten Salizar, Dax’s stuffed snake and unofficial mascot for his team. So I suggested to Bobby that he walk home and get it. He loved this! He got home and called me when he got there. The smoke detectors were beeping, so I ended up having to go get him. 

Luckily it was just a low battery alert. Bobby ended up walking home with Dax after Dax’s game. He also walked around the track once during half time with Matt. He was very active considering how hot it was.

We got home from Hull around 2:30 or so. We headed up to Adams about 3:30. We needed to measure and mark the field for the U12 Extra game that was taking place the following morning. Look, I am not thrilled with how few people step up. In all reality, the people from that team should have been there. Not a one was there. We did get one volunteer show up for about an hour, and another who showed up late but stayed the rest of the time. Ken and I managed to get the field done between the two of us. It seems like marking a field shouldn’t be a big deal. Holy hells bells, it is exhausting! You have to wind up string and measuring tape and walk the length of the field a dozen times or so. You use muscles you didn’t know existed. On top of this, we had to build the new goals. Granted, I didn’t actually put together goals, but the place we got them from felt the need to wrap every inch in tape and cardboard to the point that I spent a lot of time picking it all up for the trash. It was crazy. By the time we got home, it was about 7 pm. Yes, we had spent 12 hours doing soccer related activities. The four of us were sore, tired and starving. Sure, we had breakfast when we headed over there in the morning, and I am pretty sure the boys snacked when they got home, but Ken and I had not eaten anything else. The evening was spent on the couch, thankful for delivery of Chinese food.

Sunday was busy for different reasons. I worked on the house much of the morning, concentrating on the kitchen and the laundry. Ken went to go ref Ally’s game. The boys and I did manage to hit up Savers, picking up a couple new pair of shorts for Bobby and we looked at Halloween stuff for ideas. Both boys are not 100% sure of costume choice. We ended up hitting up 3 Halloween shops in the afternoon, hopeful that they would see something good. We did find this awesome monkey costume at Savers that fit Dax perfectly. However, he pointed out how hot it was so it was not purchased. I didn’t blame him one bit. Dax was tempted to do one of those all over body suits in just one color. He ended up trying on one, but one that made it look like he was a jaguar. He was not comfortable. I tried to convince him to be Dash from The Incredibles, but he didn’t like it. Bobby is leaning towards being an orange cat like Lucy. Let’s hope we have a breakthrough on both costumes soon.

The boys and I also played in the pool a bit in the afternoon. It was certainly hot enough to warrant it. Sadly, I am not happy with the amount of bees that seem to think this is their personal watering hole. I already don’t like bees and am not interested in an accidental stinging. This is especially true after last week I was stung repeatedly by this black wasp/bee thing. It got stuck between my arm and my boob and it got me several times. I did not enjoy this. It didn’t hurt as bad as honey bee stings have hurt me, but the pain was enough that I certainly didn’t want to deal with the possible pain.

I am pretty sure today should be easy when I get home. There is still some laundry and housework to tend to and I really need to get to the bank to make a soccer deposit. Thankfully with homework being pretty light, I should be able to continue my new approach which is letting them do their homework without hovering. I can work on my things while they work on their things. Yay! I figure in the coming weeks it may get more intensive, at which point I will be busting out my coloring or something else to do while they work. I am hopeful this doesn’t happen for a while.

Now I am going to try and make my work day go by quicker. Happy week, y’all.  

Oh my god, it's raining!

9-15-15

I love this rain!

That being said; I hate my car. I swear I was gonna die on the way in. I ended up taking surface streets much of the way for fear that my car was going to hydroplane right off the freeway. I am hoping it is less slippery on the way home, but I have a feeling I will be continuing to only drive maybe 40 mph.

As if the fear of careening off the road wasn’t bad enough, I find myself with the most epic cramps known to (wo)man. I am sure my body decided that if I got to have 6 weeks between my cycle this time, it said I was going to get cramps for one and a half periods. Sigh. I feel horrid. I will need to dig out some Tylenol in a bit.

On a positive note, Trusty took the day off. This is good because I was pretty sure I was going to need to take a bat to his head. His stupidity is leaking out in epic proportions these days and it’s one thing to slip around on a rain soaked freeway, but to slip in his idiocy is not tolerable.

I am distracted this morning as well since I made the mistake of starting a new book last night. I had downloaded an e-book from the library and realized I only had another 5 days with the copy. It is Armada by Ernest Cline, the same dude who wrote Ready Player One which was tremendous. This one has started strong, chock full of 80’s nostalgia and video game references that make one yearn for a simpler time. Sadly it isn’t like I can sneak in much reading with it being on my iPad. Sure, no one comes to my little corner of the office, but I don’t need to take any silly chances what with my desperate need for transportation not bucking to kill me.

I am sporting my AYSO Board shirt this morning. It’s AYSO’s birthday which means big things on social media happening with the hashtag of WearYourAYSO. It is a testament to my loyalty to AYSO that I wear this shirt. It isn’t comfortable and it has sleeves. However, I decided this was more official than the t-shirt emblazoned with our region of the year logo. I will most likely wear this or said t-shirt to practice simply because I am a good representative. I am hoping to take some pics of the kids out there in uniform as well.

Homework day one was not bad at all! Both had small amounts and finished with little to no supervision. I know that every homework day has reading to do, but for the most part I don’t enforce it. I figure on Mondays, what with there being no soccer, it is more than possible for them to do the amount needed. I set the timer and had them pick a book and they sat down and read. Dax chose book two of the Captain Awesome series, which caused him to laugh hardily many times. Bobby chose Little House in the Big Woods. So far he is enjoying it, so I am anxious for him to continue and that he chooses to read the sequel as well.

Is it bad that I am sitting here, considering ways to place my iPad in front of me to allow me to read while looking like I am working?

Apparently Miss Arevelo, Bobby’s teacher, doesn’t want things in the kids’ desks or even on them. It means Bobby has to lug all the supplies she wanted him to have around with him in his backpack. Such a pain in the ass. I am sure there is some kind of reasoning, but it doesn’t make me happy either way.

I suppose I should try to find something to do lest the day go by even slower.

soccer!!!!

9-14-15

I made someone happy today.

This actually made me super happy. I know how much Nicole loves Nightmare Before Christmas and when I had the opportunity to call into KROQ to win, I was excited! Not as much as when I got through! WOO!

My weekend was busy, as expected. Soccer was so much fun. Bobby’s game didn’t go great what with them losing like 7 to 1, but they played hard and the other team was just fantastic. Dax’s game was on the other end of the spectrum with us slaughtering them 11 to 0. I felt so very bad. I was happy that Dax got himself a hat trick in the game, but I look forward to him playing other teams to see how he does. Don’t get me wrong, he was amazing in the game what with his communication with other players, perfect placement and amazing passing. But you don’t want to see that kind of blow out, and I would like him challenged a little more.

The actual day of soccer was less good if only because I was overwhelmed with not only getting the boys to the other field on my own, but also transporting all of the items needed. Ken had the wagon, which meant I had to lug the 5 gallon Gatorade dispenser, a cooler, chairs and soccer bags. Oh yeah, and snacks. It wasn’t easy. Then during Dax’s game, Bobby didn’t watch, Matt talked my ear off and Ken was reffing so I didn’t have him to talk to. In some ways it was kind of a lonely game to watch. Thank goodness I loved watching both the boys play.

I did enjoy chatting with Bobby’s teammates. I was pointing out to a couple of them which players were good on the other team and giving them strategy. They didn’t look at me like I was nuts! They understood and I felt like I was respected, which made me super happy. Those kids are really awesome and I liked being a part of their soccer world if only for a few minutes.

It’s amazing how quickly a soccer day goes by. Of course, it helped that I swear I was doing something almost every minute of the day. From 7 am to 3, it was soccer! This Saturday, Bobby has a by so I won’t have to go to multiple fields which will be nice. I may even ref if the shorts I ordered get in this week.

Yesterday we went to get more school supplies. It’s really a shame we don’t get a list of supplies needed when places like Target are doing back to school sales. I noted several Torrance moms at Target this weekend with their list in hand and trying to find the items needed in the heavily picked over school section. I almost couldn’t find colored pencils! Bobby needed a bunch of specific things like a three ring binder with 5 pocketed dividers. Not a big deal, but it was hard to find when they clearly had not restocked. I am pretty confident we got him everything he needs, so hopefully he will get the credit for it today.

Dax’s practice has been changed this week from Thursday to Wednesday. I would be stressed but luckily it is only the one practice and hell, it gives me an excuse to walk 3 days. Ha!

Today is the first real day of homework. I am crossing my fingers it goes well. I will get home and will hopefully continue the adventure that is a ton of laundry. The boys and I made the house all nice on Sunday so truly that was all that was left. It is truly amazing how much laundry needs to be done.

It’s now lunch time so I suppose I should eat. I really am now counting down the last 2 hours, hoping it flies by. I have too much to do elsewhere. Ha!

Stupid Heat Wave

9-9-15

Happy birthday to my Pop!

It has been a goofy morning what with it being kind of busy, but not super busy. I haven’t had a chance to do the things I would like to do, but I have accomplished a lot. See, I told you it was goofy.

Yesterday’s painting adventure went well. I got most of the fields re-marked. I had to weave in and out of practices, but most of the teams were quite understanding. The whole thing took so much longer than I had hoped, especially since I couldn’t finish. That was partly because I was putting the paint on rather thick and I spent a lot of time talking to random folks who had questions. I felt all important with my standard issue straw hat, walking the field like I owned the place. Sometimes it is quite nice that I am recognized for my soccer stuff.

It is crazy stupid hot this week. I woke this morning drenched in sweat. The plan is to head to Lowe’s when I get home to see about getting a portable air conditioner. Of course, they are probably all sold out what with this heat wave. I may need to do as the animals do, which is to sleep directly on the floor. I had to wade through multiple cat piles this morning. The floor is much cooler.

Sadly, the heat has also made sleep impossible. I can feel the fatigue.

I am hoping to get a decent request from the children today. I am letting them choose dinner what with it being their last meal of summer break. I am offering them breakfast options as well. I know they will appreciate it.

Is it bad that due to how freaking hot it is, I am tempted to drive the boys to school in the morning simply so I don’t have to walk home in the heat?

School and Soccer start this week!

9-8-15

Such a shame that the last night of my 3 day weekend is the one I can’t get any dang sleep.

This is my crazy week in terms of just how much is going on. Today the boys are at the beach with my folks, which means they will be wiped out tonight after soccer practice for each of them. I will most likely be working on pulling soccer financials for the upcoming audit, which doesn’t sound pleasant but it is a necessary evil. If anything, it will be good to have the time to work on it with no kids in the house.

During practice my intentions are to line the fields. We spent much of Sunday morning measuring the three fields at Hull and getting the initial paint down. I figured since I am there anyway, I might as well do the second coat to ensure they are visible for marking on Saturday morning. I have a busy morning that day, too, what with a 10:30 game for Bobby and a 12:45 game for Dax. I don’t have the rest of the schedule yet, but hopefully soon.

On top of lining fields, I have a meeting at 7 at the house to go over some more reimbursements for our travel team. It hopefully will not take too long, but it is still a process. Hopefully now that we have already done a batch, this will be easier.

Yesterday I kicked some serious ass on the house. I did a lot of clean up throughout the weekend, but yesterday I rearranged some of the catio along with cleaning the side of the house by the garage. It had a lot of weeds and fallen leaves that needed sweeping up. Also we had some more of the items pulled from the garage needing to be disposed of. I was finally able to get the rest of it in our cans. YAY! I still have a box of spray paint that will need to go to the hazardous waste place, but that is minor.

I even managed to do some barbequing yesterday! I hadn’t planned it, but we smelled someone else’s food and we thought why not! I made some nummy teriyaki chicken. I now have that for lunch. Super yay! Really, yesterday had a little bit of everything going for it.

The boys and I have been having way too much fun with the Playmobile in the pool. Of course, much of this is my weirdness kicking into high gear. I named several figures and gave them elaborate back stories. Yesterday I found Captain Von Trapp, Maria and all the children. We also have baby Lieutenant Dan who is a kid figure with no legs. Oh, and there is Salty, the sea captain. Found one that looked like Marty McFly, too. Seriously, we were all laughing a lot with the silly.

Oh my goodness, why must my coworker in the next cube over feel the need to bathe in perfume?

I took Thursday off so I can keep from stressing  about getting back in time to walk the boys to school. I would normally just work in the morning but I also want to make them breakfast and have time to go up early to see what classroom they are in. I will then have the rest of the morning, early afternoon to do as I please, which will be nice. Not sure what my plan is yet but I would bet it has to do with soccer or cleaning. Ha!

I am really starting to worry about the hells of homework for the next 12 weeks specifically. If they boys are getting home at 3:30, homework will only have maybe an hour and 15 minutes to be completed. Mind you, this is a lot of time if schools and teachers adhered to the 10 minute rule in which its ten minutes per grade level. However, as we all know, there isn’t a teacher alive these days who uses that as a guide. It means Tuesdays and Thursdays could be crazy. Hopefully Dax has Mrs. Van Wie since I know her homework wasn’t too bad. I have heard there is one 5^th grade teacher that assigns very little, so maybe I will luck out. Perhaps Karma will pay me a visit and allow me some stress free homework for one year due to my diligence on calling out the system.  

In a shocking bit of complimentary data, I was told that the Area director for our area in AYSO would have liked me as the area treasurer. Apparently he thinks I do a good job in the region and thought I would do well in Area. Now, I had heard this before, but chalked it up to someone just saying something nice, not necessarily true. I figured if he really liked my work he would have asked me. I found out this weekend that he didn’t ask because he knew I didn’t want to move up to Area and that I still am needed in the region. I guess I am one of the best treasures in the area, so that is pretty cool! And I still don’t know that I do a great job. That’s me second guessing myself.

Sigh. It occurs to me I really want to color my hair before this weekend. I wonder if I can go get color on Wednesday and have it done then.

Of course, the one game Ken has on Wednesdays in which Dax can play, too, happens on this Wedneday night at 9. Sadly, he will not be attending. Really, the only games I have let him go to is if they are at 8, but during the summer he always went. He normally just watches, but this one team Ken is playing is one that doesn’t have enough players so it ends up being just a fun game of all ages. I know I shouldn’t feel too bad since ultimately these boys need to go to bed a little early on Wednesday what with a full day of school ahead of them and soccer practice that night. Sometimes the stars don’t align.

Damn. It’s gonna be crazy hot this week, including Thursday. Bleah. The reason sleep was impossible last night was due to the heat. It may be time to break down and get one of those air conditioning units.

make the work day done!!!

9-4-15

The three day weekend calls to me!

I only have 4 and a half hours left of the prison I call my desk. I am hopeful that the pace picks up a tad, but knowing the light is at the end of the tunnel is happy making.

Tomorrow we go to Hull to work on fields. We need to measure the three fields out and then mark them. It is tedious, but it needs to be done. If we can get some help, which I know at the very least Jerry will help, we can get it done in no time. I like the painting. I feel all helpful and I like that Ken trusts me enough to paint his fields straight. He takes a lot of pride in his duty as division coordinator so I am a proud first lady on stuff like this. Plus, I too have been appalled at how many failed field sobriety tests these people have. I have looked at lines that aren’t straight even if you are drunk! We want to get started in the morning so that it isn’t too hot. We have lunch plans at 11, so we may head over around 8. We shall see. Ken still has schedule madness so a lot depends on these things.

In a strange moment of good at the board meeting last night I was told that my new financial report is good! This comes from the one who criticized it before, so I am going to take that as a win.

I am really just looking forward to this afternoon. I have nothing scheduled which means I can mostly just melt into my couch.  I may go in the pool if only because that tends to help the relaxation process. Plus, I love the joy on Luna’s face when I let her swim with me.

success!

8-31-15

Another successful weekend under my belt.

Friday afternoon, about an hour before we needed to be working on team parent folders, I got a Facebook message from Kathy at Manhattan Beach Animal Hospital. She told me this friend of hers was interested in the kittens! She provided me with a number and I saw this same woman had just commented on the picture of the babies. Ken called the woman and 10 minutes later we are driving with Spazzy and Moody, taking them to their new home. The lady has two children, who looked to be about 8 and 11. The little boy had apparently been asking for a cat of his own for some time, and then spent the last 2 weeks researching everything cat. The little girl really wanted a little black kitty. They were actually hoping for 2 kitties and this couldn’t have worked out better. I watched these kids light up when they saw them and it warmed my heart.

Our family, although pleased at our ability to get them adopted out, was a little sad about the exchange. When we told the boy we were taking the kittens, Moody had been curled up with Dax while he played on the computer. Dax was pretty devastated, which was tough to handle since I also had some attachment to the kitties. I was getting used to Spazzy being part of my welcome entourage in the house. All 4 of us were fond of these babies and noted if we weren’t already a full house we would have considered keeping them. As if the rest of the house understood our sad, I felt like every one of the other cats was full of affection for us the rest of the weekend. It certainly made everything better.

Speaking of cat activities, we performed surgery on Monarch. His jellybean tumor on his head finally started to drain, which allowed us to remove the gross from it. He is now left with what looks like a bellybutton on his head, but you can tell he is so happy it’s gone. He isn’t in pain anymore and it looks very clean and healthy now. We will keep an eye on it, but overall he is doing great!

Our team parent folders took very little time. It ended up being us, Jerry, Nicole, Jimmy, and Denis all hanging out eating pizza and talking for much of the time. The boys and Ally all played video games and watched tv. We didn’t stay too late, especially since we needed to get up in the morning. The meeting went smoothly and overall I think well. I felt like I was able to help a handful of team parents which made me feel good.

After the meeting we headed out to Buena Park to the Farrell’s there. It was not crowded, although when we left it was pretty busy. We clearly came at the right time since there was no wait. It was a lot of fun and Dax really enjoyed the hoopla made for him being the birthday boy. The food was fine, but I gotta say, man, the ice cream was yummy. And I am not just talking about the giant crazy servings. The actual just plain vanilla was the perfect texture. I almost wish I had only had a bowl of that. Either way, we had a ton of fun.

The evening was mellow. The boys and I went swimming, which also meant I did my exercise walking in the pool over the course of 2 hours. It was excellent! We did this again yesterday and I did a ton of swim-walking. I did slip at one point and twist my leg, but thankfully it feels ok today.

Part of the fun of the pool is some of their wacky. At one point they decided it would be cool to fill their goggles with water and wear them like that. Never you mind this is counter-productive to the point of goggles, but whatevs. During this time they kept saying how strange everything looked, which allowed me 20 minutes of not speaking and only spending time freaking them out, which they loved. It was all around a goofy time, which certainly makes the exercise better.

Yesterday morning, Dax and I did a Target run. He used some of his gift cards from his birthday. He was quite pleased and we had a lot of fun. We then got Ken and Bobby and did the Costco run for the weekend. Both places were well equipped with air conditioning which certainly made it an ok errand. Thank goodness it’s supposed to cool off this week.

The boys are going to the beach with my folks today. I wish I could go, but really I have a couple of days off coming up what with a 3 day weekend along with time I need to take for the first day of school so I will just be excited for them.

My week looks pretty basic. Practice both Tuesday and Thursday, with Thursday night also being the board meeting. On Wednesday I leave work early to take Bobby to go get his retainer. I figure I will take the boys to lunch that day, too, which will be fun. Maybe Ken can join us depending on when we are done. Other than that, it is nice to see a 3 day weekend at the end of this week with no real concrete plans yet. WOO! This means we want to use the time to work on some projects at Steve such as putting in some shelves in a closet and clearing out the catio. I also need to work with the chick from work to see if she is going to get these desks or if I should just donate.

I need to go through a bunch of soccer stuff this week, too, to prep my report. I will hopefully be able to get everything entered tomorrow and then I will be ready for Thursday. I may try to work on some of it this morning, too. I just want to get it done.

Ok, so let’s get this party started!

Yay Friday!

8-28-15

3 miles!

I actually counted my laps yesterday as opposed to just the steps. The iPhone has this health app that counts steps but I am not sure how accurate it is, and I don’t like how it tracks the steps. If you aren’t super active, it tracks steps per minute. If you are walking a lot, it seems to understand this and groups it different. You would think it would then track for like 20 minutes or something like that. Instead, its every 5 minutes. Lame. So when I was walking for 45 minutes I had to add all the sections up which is so silly. For the first time, I am considering the idea of an Apple Watch. It might be better for tracking these things. Either way, I am pleased I managed 3 miles.

I walked 4 laps (the laps are only a third of a mile) with Bobby, which was wonderful since I got to talk to him about life and other random thoughts his old soul might have. I walked only a lap with Dax, but that is because he got bored. I had played some Frisbee with him, too, but I got bored. Ha!

My new consideration is I may end up walking during Dax’s practice. It’s only an hour and I can most likely walk for that long. Once he is done, I may walk with Dax back home where he can get showered while I cook dinner. Yes, we will end up eating later, but it will probably be ok in the grand scheme of things. Plus, they can have a good snack during homework so they should be ok to wait until a light dinner. It means I can probably walk with both boys for a chunk of time. Bobby can walk with me during Dax’s practice, and then Dax and I can do the walk home. I think this is a good plan.

I have been concerned about getting in walk time daily, so for now I am planning on doing at the very least squats Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. If I set out to do at least 50 for this first week, I can increase as I go. I can do the squats at work, which will be nice. I am hopeful to add a walk or two during the week, but I also know chores and other crazy things come up, so I don’t want to plan just yet. If I just try to do something active each day, I will increase my stamina and be good.

Dax’s team is the Blue Pythons. He came up with the name and it had the most votes. This is especially awesome since the stuffed snake Dax got in Salt Lake is a giant blue python. I already have my accessory for the games! YAY! Plus, they already have two team moms and an assistant coach so all I will have to do for his game is cheer. I am very happy. I like being team mom for Lou, so that will be good. Even though the boys are on different teams this year, it seems like it will be all good.

It’s not even 7:30 and I have already drank a gallon of water. I am working on gallon number 2. I really would like to go to Target this weekend so I can get some of the yummy tea that I got while in Salt Lake. Gold Peak tea was shockingly yummy and cheap for a pretty good sized container. I can prep it while its in the bottle and probably drink that when home. I know I can make tea, but I really make too much and it ends up sitting in the fridge. I think I will be better with the bottles. We shall see.

I have to go to Target anyway since my newish purse is already breaking. Clearly the straps on the backpack were not anticipating the quantity of crap I lug around. I will need to look for something new. I also need eyeliner, so clearly a Target run is in my future.

We have team parent stuff tonight and tomorrow morning. I think tonight should be cool what with Jerry and Nicole coming too, so it means we will be with fun folks and I expect lots of laughter. I need to write up some notes for what I need to talk about tomorrow. I am a little nervous, but really I don’t think I need to do much. My main thing will be discussing Shutterfly, but thankfully it is such an easy site to use for team communication it does most of the work for me. I figure I only have to be up at the podium for maybe 10 minutes? So that isn’t too bad. I also get to take a picture of us all up there so that will be fun for me.

I anticipate a good weekend overall. Now to just get through this crazy work day. In all fairness, the work day has started well. I had a colleague get all bent out of shape this week because I had to deny his vendor request due to lack of information. He sent another one late yesterday and shockingly, my other colleague actually looked into it and stood up for me and told him that I wasn’t trying to be mean. He was much better because of this so I take this as a total win! YAY!

I kind of hope we get home not too late as I have a hankering to jump in the pool tonight. I could totally do this when I get home, of course. We don’t have to be at the folder stuffing party until 6:30, which gives me 5 hours of do as I want. We shall see.

All three boys got hair trims this week. Dax had his trimmed yesterday, and I shaved the back of both Ken and Bobby’s heads earlier in the week. I feel kind of left out! Ha! That being said, I am considering having Ken put a round of purple in my hair this weekend, so that way we all had hair adventures for the week.

I also would like to go get some new walking shoes this weekend. The ones I have are nice and all, but they are worn and I feel like blisters are about to kick in on the heel. They are the old style step ups from Sketchers, and I have had them forever. The main thing I would like to look for is shoes that aren’t as heavy. These are pretty bulky, and I think just some simple ones would be better overall. Hopefully I can find some that aren’t too pricey.

  

internet sad

8-27-15

I may have been online too much yesterday.

Early yesterday morning I saw the breaking news. I watched the broadcast of the reporter and cameraman being gunned down by a disgruntled ex-employee. I watched the video the gunman uploaded, read his tweets and stalked the Facebook profiles of the people killed in this horrible tragedy. I couldn’t turn away. I found myself frustrated when there wasn’t enough info or when it was no longer trending on social media. I couldn’t accept that people were already moving on. I didn’t know these folks. I don’t live in their state. Yet for some reason their deaths hit me wrong all around and it consumed me much of my work day and beyond.

I feel a little less crazed this morning. I know I have a full day ahead of me and I can’t get sucked down that rabbit hole again. I found other things to research and was able to drag myself away those, too, since they were more tragedy. It started with innocent research on Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor. I didn’t know about this 1972 plane crash in which this plan smashed into a location in Sacramento that killed so many people, including a family of four, and most horrific in my eyes was this one 8 year old boy lost his parents, grandparents, 2 siblings, 2 cousins and an aunt that day. Yeah. That freaking happened. I need some happy, people.

I was looking into Farrell’s because I have now convinced (it didn’t take much) to go there for his delayed birthday dinner instead of Hometown Buffet. We will go after the team parent meeting on Saturday which will be super fun. There is one near Knott’s Berry Farm, so it isn’t too far away. I am hopeful they enjoy it.

Tonight is Dax’s first practice with his team. We have the team meeting right after practice, which means I won’t get to my walking until closer to 6:30. That’s ok. I walked on Tuesday for 45 minutes, which is what I am aiming for in these first few weeks. I already have people wanting to join me, which is kinda fun. Kathy has mentioned meeting me there and Alissa has said she should at the very least try to walk a little with me since she is already there for Rachel and Nick’s practice. I like the company, but I also do like my alone walking because it allows me to get into the groove. I am sure I will have both to look forward to.

Ken is now a paid employee at Mira Costa! He started this week and it is 3 hours a day. He will still be able to do some afternoon classes, but for now we are unsure which ones will happen. If Ken starts work on getting his degree, he can eventually be put on full time, which would be the ultimate goal. Hopefully he is able to get his transcripts from his schooling from back in the day and hopefully they still count so he won’t have nearly as much to do. Either way, it will be a busy time.

The boys only have two more weeks of summer. I am anxious to get them back in routine. Tuesdays and Thursdays look to be rough. Practice from 5 to 7:30 on those nights. I still want to get in 45 minutes of walk time, but I don’t know that I will need to stay at the field the whole time. I may bring Dax home after practices after I walk and work on a light dinner for when Bobby and Ken get home. I have also considered coming up with light, cold meals that I can bring to the field in which Bobby can eat while Dax does practice and Dax can eat while Bobby practices. None of these options are ideal, but I am still happy at the practice times being all at the same field and same days since it means less travel for us overall. I just hate the boys eating too late.

How odd! It looks like Labor Day weekend is from plans. I may actually have some down time. WOO!

Trappings

8-24-15

I hate it when I sleep on my neck wrong.

Dax didn’t get to do soccer on Saturday. Sadly, he was the only one who signed up for the goaltender clinic so they ended up canceling the class. Of course the other bummer was that we didn’t find out until after we were down at Hull. It worked out ok if only because of multiple things being done down at the school. I met up with our registrar who brought me money for registration. We had to check the cat trap (more on that in a bit) and we helped get things set up for the coaches training.

So on Friday, while Ken was getting out the canopy for the last day of camp, he noted a tiny kitten running around near the bin. He and Bobby then ran home to get the cat trap. It didn’t take much to catch the little one, who looked to be around 4 or 5 weeks old, if not younger. They came up to get me for an early lunch so I could see said kitten before taking it to Carson Animal Shelter. She was tiny and adorable which means she would adopt quickly or be snatched up by the evil rescue groups. Either way, she had a good chance at life.

The trap was re-set with the hopes there were not more kittens, but assumption there might be. Instead of a kitten, it was mama! Yay! Ken ended up taking her Saturday morning down to the shelter to get spayed and ear tipped. She was released back where we got her so that she was back “home” and no more babies. We set the trap one last time and ended up with a different mama in the form of a possum with multiple babies hanging from her belly. We released her up by Sur La Brea since the park was probably better than the school. All in all, a pretty successful animal weekend!

Now if we can only get homes for Spazzy and Moody.

Our UK coach ended up staying through last night. Ken is taking him to the airport, actually, as I write this. I am glad we hosted him, even though he was so soft spoken and I still worry we were boring. It was interesting and hell, we even got some financial credit towards Dax’s camp fees which was kinda cool.

I managed to go through the toys this weekend, too. The boys helped and we got the shelf into the corner of the room perfectly, which made me super giddy. We got rid of probably one large box’s worth of stuff. The rest of the toys fit just fine into the shelf and it looks fantastic. Today when I get home I will move the end table and tiny dresser back up to the guest room. The two old desks need to go, and I am honestly considering moving them into either the catio or the side of the house where I can cover them up while I wait for my coworker to come get them. I need to move one more item out of there and then the downstairs is crazy ready for school. YAY!!

The boys are going to Universal Studios today with Gramma and Poppy. I am a little jealous if only because I love seeing them get excited. I also would like to go some time in the near future in general. That being said, it looks to be quite warm today so I will just be excited for my boys and parents getting some fun time together today. It means when I get home I won’t have to worry about them or anyone staying at our house and I can get things in order, which always makes me super crazy happy. Woo!

It looks to be a little less hectic of a week. Dax has his first practice on Thursday, and it happens to be at Hull which means I will be at the school from 5 to 7:30. I hope to use at least 45 minutes to walk. I know there is a parent meeting with Dax’s coach, so that will be at like 6.

I have to use some time this week to put together the fundraiser paperwork. I didn’t know I had to do this until Saturday. I don’t think it will take too long, but I need it done for this Saturday which is the team parent meeting. I have to talk at that, too, which isn’t happy making. I will be fine, but man if there isn’t a big chunk of anxiety forming in the pit of my stomach.

Wednesday night we are going to the Comic Bug since Chris’s artwork is on display there. It is very cool that he gets a night to have people out to see the cool super hero drawings. I love all of them. I don’t know if they are on sale. I suppose we will find out when we get there.

The great news is that it looks as though most of the weekend aside from Saturday morning is free. I have reports this week which also helps make my week go by quickly. All in all, I see good things in the near future. Woo!

Retainer

8-21-15

It doesn’t bode well for our hero if the WiFi is down at work.

Bobby will be rocking a retainer starting September 2^nd. He was measured and photographed yesterday at Dr. Trotter’s office and the retainer itself should be ready in two weeks. It is only the bottom one at this point. It will start to straighten out his bite and make his mouth hopefully ready for a top retainer which will straighten his top teeth. I am just hopeful that he doesn’t lose the damn thing. You hear of kids tossing their retainer out in the trash all the damn time. Let’s hope he isn’t one of those kids.

We attended Bobby’s first practice last night. The whole team was there and they seem like a great group of boys. They did a lot of running, but this is expected over the next few weeks. They will be mostly working on conditioning, which is good. Bobby did pretty well considering he hasn’t been running nearly as much as his brother. He wasn’t the last one in on the jogs around the track, so I will take that as a win.

I used my time at the field wisely. I spent the first 45 minutes walking the track. It was good and I am kind of glad I ended up stopping when I did. I am not happy about why I stopped (stupid coach from one of the extra teams wanted me to take some paperwork and a check, and the check was wrong, and it took for freaking ever which is why I just opted to stop) but it worked out. I am hopeful to use Tuesdays and Thursdays for this since those are Bobby’s practice nights. It will most likely be at Hull. It is supposed to be at Madrona, but Ken told them they could use Hull. I worry that it is not going to be as easy to do this once all the U10 teams start setting up practice times and technically they have first dibs.

We haven’t heard from Dax’s coach yet, which is frustrating. I would like him to start getting to know his team ASAP. The season starts on the 12^th so it seems like they should have already met by now. Although that being said, this week would have been tough for Dax. He didn’t even practice with Bobby last night. He is so exhausted from camp all week he opted to stay at home with Chris playing Playstation. He has one long day left and then the goal keeper clinic tomorrow so hopefully he has a chance to rest come Sunday.

We are taking Chris to the airport super early Sunday morning. He has an international flight, so security takes a bit longer and his flight is at 7. It does mean no sleeping in Sunday, but we don’t have anything super pressing on Sunday aside from that. We may come back and go back to bed.

Oh, side note, Bobby’s team is named the Silver Wolves. I need to find me some wolf stuff. I may just need to borrow Dax’s hat.

I am crossing my fingers today goes by quickly. 

projects

8-19-15

There is some massive stupid leaking out of folks this morning.

However I feel pretty good considering. I am a little tired since we went to the Galaxy game last night. Really, it wasn’t too late, so it could have been worse. Our UK Coach, Chris, seemed to enjoy himself and on the way home he was a bit more talkative which was nice. We found out he is from Scotland. He also owns a cocker spaniel he hasn’t seen in 3 years since he hasn’t been back home in that time. I would be going bonkers! Hopefully he can get back there soon.

Today my mom is spending the morning with Bobby watching Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix. Bobby is quite jazzed. Dax of course will be rocking his soccer camp. When I get home, my mom and I will head over to watch the last couple hours of soccer. It sounds like a good way to spend the day if you are gramma!

I am looking forward to this evening as I will get to just hang out a bit with Bobby. Ken and Dax will take Chris along with another coach to the soccer games Ken plays. It means they will leave around 7 and I can just chill, which will be nice. I know Bobby is happy since it is a double header tonight which means he can stay up later to play GTA. I suppose I could use the time wisely, too, but I know I won’t.

It’s bad when I get all excited about a couple of reconciliations I had to tend to just now. It took up a good hour of my time, which was nice because I was starting to get crazy bored around here. The few days before month end close can be everything from crazy busy to super slow. It doesn’t ever tend to be in-between.

I will be happy once Ken is done doing all the damn soccer stuff for teams/schedules. I gotta say it is getting super frustrating that his entire day is spent working on that. I find myself being the one doing the chores and really, even though my job is dull most of the time, it’s still my job that I have to be at 5 days a week and I would love more help.

Ok, found another project. Yay!

Happy birthday to my darling Dax!

8-18-15

Spazzy figured out where I sleep.

At about 3 o’clock this morning I had a fuzzy face tickling my nose. She was insistent in her attempts to get me to pet her. She then took the next 30 minutes to attack my feet, walk all over me, purring loudly and she kept attempting to curl up with me. The problem was she wasn’t looking to sleep so much as she just wanted attention. For such a little cat, she was a big pain.

Mr. Dax is 9 today. In some ways I have already come to terms with him already being 9 since he has been saying he is 9 for a few weeks now. He has soccer coming out the wazoo this week what with camp during the day, a Galaxy game tonight, Ken’s soccer tomorrow night, Bobby’s practice Thursday night, and his new wardrobe of Messi shirts and a new playstation soccer game. Clearly there was a theme this year.

Thursday Bobby goes to the orthodontist. After that, we will go to his first practice. He technically has practice/team meeting tonight but with us having got Galaxy tickets for Dax, we won’t make it. I feel bad but I suppose things will happen like this from time to time. Now I just wonder when we will hear from Dax’s coach.

I need to figure out the quickest way to get from Hull to Madrona. If I am going to be traveling between fields, I want the most time efficient route.

I am really not as excited about the game tonight. I know how much it means to Dax, though. I really prefer watching he or Bobby play as opposed to the professionals. I was able to watch a bit of Dax’s camp yesterday. I was planning on bringing cupcakes to the camp, but based on how everyone kind of left quickly at the end, I may not. I will see how I feel later. I have plenty of time when I get home to go get a dozen cupcakes and maybe balloons to take to him. We shall see. What with how much has been done already we may be fine without the extra hoopla.

I am anxious for next week as I will have more time to spend on the toy project. I don’t like having the shelf downstairs out in the middle of the floor. This week is too chaotic to start going through the toys so I will need to just be patient. I just want to get the room ready for homework time.

Soccer is about to be in full swing

8-17-15

It’s going to be a long and interesting week.

Our house guest arrived yesterday afternoon. He is a nice guy, but incredibly quiet which is a little awkward. Of course, he could have also just been tired. He had been traveling for a bit which would wipe anyone out. Hopefully it is all a little more comfortable over the next couple of days.

Tomorrow is Dax’s birthday, which means that I would like to take cupcakes to kids at his camp. I am hoping to get the count of kids when I go today. I am considering even surprising him with balloons when I show up. I think he would love all of that. The coach mentioned something about trying to see a Galaxy game tomorrow night, which if that worked out would be super fun. Sadly, when I looked online this morning it looked as though the game was already sold out and from what it sounded like, we would need to get tickets (it wasn’t like he just had some) so it doesn’t look like that will happen. It means instead we will be going to his restaurant of choice, which is apparently Hometown Buffet.

The weekend was once again jam packed. Friday night we were at the Zagala’s much of the evening working on the coaches binders. It was actually pretty fun despite being hectic. I wish I could say the same about the following morning. The coaches meeting where teams are handed out seemed slightly off and even though I felt I brought my A-Game, a handful of volunteers didn’t seem to be nearly as chipper as I felt they should be. I am going to just chalk it up to a bad day for everyone, but I am keeping an eye on it. I worry we portrayed our region as very angry in some ways when really, we should have been really chipper about all these people taking time to coach a team. In addition to that, once again there were those “secrets” that didn’t need to be which made me feel like an undervalued volunteer. Even in all of the best days of doing what I do, I am once again wondering if perhaps I should start looking for a replacement so that I can step back and work on only the social media aspects. We will see.

Happy happened when Costco still had the shelf I wanted! Yay! I haven’t started loading it yet but it is built and ready to go. I don’t anticipate working on it this week what with soccer camp happening, but I am jazzed to get to work on it next week, or maybe even Saturday afternoon. The quicker I get downstairs ready for school the happier I will be. I also need to re-do the catio and rid ourselves of the desk pieces we are not going to be using. This weekend can probably be the time in which this will take place.

Yesterday we went to the Lomita Train Museum with low expectations for Harry Potter Day. It started pretty slow but in the end it was awesome what with the boys being able to play some Quidditch! Holy crap that was fun to watch. Bobby played beater and he was really good. He outran one kid to the ball at one point and it was awesome! Dax played the golden snitch which I wish I had filmed the second run. The announcer was in awe of how fast he was and how he was outrunning the two seekers. The whole thing was fantastic and it would be really cool to go watch some of the colleges play. I hadn’t laughed that much in a while.

We got the uniforms for the boys’ teams. Dax is blue and Bobby is this grey with a bright green on the side and green socks. Bobby needed new cleats and we happened to find bright green ones that will match perfectly. Super fun. I am betting we start practice next week with both teams. So starts our busy period!

Now to just get through today’s work day. 

Trusty's Magic 8 Ball

8-14-15

Breathe in, breathe out. Find your Zen or the idiots will consume you.

Yeah, that’s been the motto of the week. This morning I found myself in yet another perplexing exchange in which a customer has been requesting a return authorization for a part for about 2 months. Said customer has indicated that the Parts department was supposed to get him this a couple weeks ago with no reply. The communication with him has been through email so I responded and cced the parts department rep who should be able to get this for him. I ask them to work together since truly I can’t do much for him and communicating through me is just inefficient.

Parts emails me back and asks me why they want to return the item.

**Face-Palm**

Look, how hard is it to go direct to the person who is returning it and ask them??? I not only provided an open line of communication via email, but on said email was the guy’s direct land and cell line. Fucking talk to the customer! Don’t make this more complex than it needs to be.

Sadly, this seems to be the SOP around here. As my ball-less manager continues to accept responsibility for all items to be handled by our department despite our lack of resources to properly help these customers, I find myself more and more in a position of customer service instead of allowing for time spent collecting money that all of our bonuses and technically our paycheck is dependent on. I am embarrassed by my company in so many ways. I continue to do my job description to the best of my ability, and truly I exceed all expectations by kicking ass and taking names with my results. This does in fact leave me with gobs of free time (which provides hours of blog writing and book reading while still shattering goals). I could use said free time to be an outstanding customer service rep, yet my paycheck doesn’t increase and yet my stress does. I have to clean up so many errors from other departments, including my own, so taking on additional stress that accomplishes nothing seems repulsive.

I also am becoming increasing disgusted with my boss. I determined yesterday that the way he must assign credit lines is all based on some kind of magic 8 ball he has at his desk. Sure, the credit report for Joe Blow Construction shows 3 bankruptcy filing over the past 6 years and slow pay tendencies, but Magic 8 Ball says, “Outlook Good” so we give that guy a 50K credit line.

I am actually considering purchasing him one of the novelty items and just leaving it on his desk for the hell of it.

There was a job posting for our department I discovered for a position that is just below Trusty and above his right hand man. Ken thought I should apply, but I am glad I had the smarts to not even consider it. It entailed gobs of travel and talking to customer at their yards, which all sounds mind numbingly boring and not something I can handle with kids at home that require homework help and soccer transport. The Right Hand Man even turned it down, recognizing the stress of what they were asking was not worth the amount of pay being offered. It speaks volumes for the direction this department is going in and I must admit I am now at a true point where I want to start considering a new job once the boys are safely in middle school.

Teams for soccer are mostly made and it appears that Bobby will have an incredibly fun group of boys, most of which I know since they all go to Adams. Dax’s team is good simply because the coach he will have will be able to truly add to his skill level. In addition to this, this is a coach that often does a travel team which presents a possibly opportunity for Dax to be included on a travel team come the end of the fall season. This would yes, decrease the number of free weekends for us, but it will add amazing soccer time for Dax which is very happy making. We find out team colors tomorrow, so my fingers are super crossed that the boys are matching in order to make my cheerleading aspects easier. I don’t have to do any coaching this year so I am quite thrilled. With Dax I will truly get to sit back and enjoy watching him play, which is heaven for me. With Bobby’s team, I know many of the parents, who are great folks and I am betting the atmosphere will be quite jovial which sounds divine. I may end up being team parent for Bobby’s what with Big Lou being the coach, but I am not 100% opposed to team mom on Dax’s team also. I would prefer not to if only to allow myself a little less stress over those 16 weeks but I can manage either way.

Our evening is filled with binder creation, which sounds daunting but at the same time probably fun. There are a fair amount of people showing up tonight to work on these so I am betting the evening will not be completely crazy and in reality spent with some good people. We have to be at Hull tomorrow morning at 9, but it is way less hectic than the registration events. In fact, I am only going because I love my region. In reality, I don’t need to be there. I am dragging the boys along if only to allow Dax to kick the ball around on the field.

Sunday looks to be fun what with the Lomita Railroad Museum is doing some kind of Harry Potter event. Not sure what it entails, but we have been saying we should go check out the museum anyway just for the hell of it, so this gives us great incentive.

We meet up with the UK coaches Sunday evening. I am unsure if one of them comes home with us that night, and in reality they probably do. It means Saturday afternoon I will working on prepping the guest room.

This afternoon when I get home, I think the plan is to go get boy boys new cleats. I think there are a couple of other errands before we head to binder land, but really, I think it will be mostly painless.

Now I need to make the rest of today’s work agenda happen. 

Good morning!

8-12-15

I made it to Wednesday!

I am always amused when I have sort of random celebrity dreams. I don’t tend to lust after the standard actors. You won’t see a Brad Pitt or Ryan Gosling in my head. The man last night was none other than Bradley Whitford. I had a mega crush on him specifically when he was on the way too short lived show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I was not only obsessed with the show, but his character in particular was quite appealing to me. I suppose based on that I had a crush on Danny Trip, not so much Bradley, but still. That show went off the air 9 years ago, so it was strange to have him pop up. I don’t recall having watched any shows or movies with him in it recently. You could make the argument that I had been watching Friends when I fell asleep so perhaps Mathew Perry triggered the images what with him being the co-star on the show. I also didn’t do anything with Bradley. I was on some trip to Italy with a group of other people I didn’t know. He happened to be sharing a room with me. This wasn’t the strangest part of the dream, especially because I recall crashing a prom and there was something about an orca in a canal, so I don’t know what was going on. I also spent most of the time gushing over his role in Studio 60 to him, telling him I adored him in that show and he was so incredibly kind about it. And all of this was brought to you by a completely sober Gena mind.

The work day yesterday was super chaotic. You would have thought it was the Monday after my vacation return, but for some reason all of the errors and issues from while I was gone seemed to pop up on Tuesday instead. It wasn’t bad, but it was super busy at many points through the day. I also had to spend a lot of time convincing people of said problems. I had an invoice that didn’t get charged with the credit card it was supposed to and the department who should have handled this didn’t believe me that there was an open invoice. Yeah, stuff like that. I could tell I was fairly well rested in terms of nerves because I wasn’t nearly as annoyed as I could have been. Instead, I just spend a lot of time herding ducks into multiple rows for each situation that came up, and then deployed them to get things fixed.

Sadly, another hiccup took place outside of work that caused the postponement of movie day with my mom. Not a big deal, but Ken called me to tell me the fan belt broke on his car and I may need to go and retrieve him from Costa. I took the 3 minute downtime I happened to have at this point to cancel the afternoon viewing of the Contender and get back to chaos on my desk. I heard back from Ken when I was already walking out the door (10 minutes after I normally leave work) to say all was well. I could have probably had my mom come, but by that time it was already done so I just opted to reschedule for 2 weeks from yesterday. I was able to get a bunch of soccer paperwork together and scrub the kitchen thoroughly which needed to be done, especially with our upcoming house guest.

Speaking of soccer, I finally figured out when Dax’s goalkeeper clinic is. I know, that makes it sound like I was clueless, but in reality it was just ignorance. I hadn’t truly read through the emailed confirmations. It looks as though Dax has M-F, 9 to 3 next week of skills. On Saturday the 22^nd from 9 to noon he has his goaltender clinic. 6 days of soccer is heaven for my child. I think this weekend, or maybe just later this week, we will need to go get both boys new cleats. I figure it works out well for Dax to break his in next week.

I am expecting a call today from MBAH to tell me that hopefully the kittens are negative on their set of tests. Ken took them yesterday to get tested for Feline Leukemia and the panel of bad things. If they are negative, they will be introduced to the general population (Insert salute here) for the week so that I can get the guest room ready for the UK coach.

My hopes for this afternoon, aside from some basic cleanup downstairs will be to continue paperwork organization for all my soccer stuff. I had plans on scanning all of this current fiscal years check request forms so that I could have them up on a public drive in order to help facilitate not only transparency but also to hopefully make upcoming audits easier. I also need to make sure that FY paperwork from July 2014 to June 2015 is in order since that audit starts soon. I am also at a point with the registration payments this past couple months, to implement a payment policy for next year. I have had too many families ask to post date checks or have contacted me asking me to hold checks they just gave me. As much as I want to be kind to these families, it isn’t exactly easy to keep track of all these multiple deposit dates, plus I don’t think that the child should be set up on a team until the payment is deposited. Of course this means I need to write something up, so that will take some time.

I find it humorous that Jennifer Anniston got married last week and Jimmy Kimmel was invited but the guys from Friends were not.

Tonight is an early soccer game for Ken so he and Dax will be gone at like 7:30. It means Bobby and I have GTA ahead of us. I am going to attempt to stay up as late as I can with him, but I know that I will end up going to be a little after 8. I sometimes wonder if I will change my hours when the boys hit JR High/High School. I mean, it isn’t going to be as crucial to get home when I do. Hell, it isn’t super crucial now being that I get home a full 2 hours before they do. Sure, I will be helping with homework for a few more years, and chores still need to be done, but I am betting being home that early isn’t going to be the most important thing to me. I also have to decide if I want to be around this office after 1. Ha! Time will tell. I could easily come in at 5 instead of 4:30 and still leave pretty early at 1:30. It would give me a full half hour extra which sounds nice. I need to evaluate some things.

I need to go to Costco. I have decided I want to get this shelf with the soft drawers for downstairs. I fear I have waited too long, though.

It is time to face my day. Happy morning to you all!  

The Trip

8-10-15

Back to reality.

All in all, it was a pretty good trip. It could have been all kinds of bad what with the two hour delay on the flight leaving or even the fact that a little kid threw up on the plane before we boarded on the way home. But ultimately, I found myself enjoying just about all of the time I was there.

I could go day by day, but honestly that sounds pretty dull. I thought I would hit on the key points throughout the week.

First and foremost, the boys I can honestly say thought that the hotel was fantastic. Both of them declared housekeeping to be a favorite, which cracked me up. However, the pool was probably the key point of interest, which was occupied by Brenans pretty much every day of the stay. I will tell you, too, it was exhausting! We played many a game of some random version of volleyball which included the boys, Ken and myself, Uncle Andy and Aunt Lyn. Every now and again other hotel guest used the pool, but ultimately we had it to ourselves much of the time. Bobby in particular took advantage of the 10 PM closing time. We would often get back from our daily outings and dinner around 8:30 or 9 which meant a good chunk of time was still available for swimming. It was especially nice since most people vacated the pool by 9 so it was empty. It was also entertaining to test the motion sensors for the lights. They didn’t seem to note activity in the pool so if no one came into the pool room for about 15 minutes, the lights went out, which was super fun for the boys.

There was only one real family drama moment that took place about mid-trip. After several outings in which we were checking out Grandma’s old stomping ground, there was frustration on our end due to the lack of communication. Specifically, we were in two cars. Ken, myself and the boys were in were  in one car, while Ken’s folks and sibs were in the other car. It made for frustrating reminiscing since we were not privy to any of the stories that were being told in the other car. We tried speaker phone, but truly that didn’t do much for the tales. On top of that, Papa Brenan wasn’t exactly good at leading and often we had to race to catch up when he would run through a yellow light making it difficult to know where we were going. This then all turned into anger when dinner time came around that night.

We spent a great deal of time looking up places that were not a normal chain restaurant that we might go to at home. We also all had booze for a criteria what with most places not having any form of spirits. It was actually pretty comical overall. Finally we came across a pizza place that was in downtown. We all set out, ready to eat. We got there and it was a cute little hole in the wall place (with a full bar I might add). It smelled great but Grandma decided she wanted to sit down some place else. We all then walked a couple of blocks worth, looking for something more suitable. Ken, the boys, Lyn and I ended up walking a couple of extra blocks, still unable to find anything that was both boy friendly and oked by the elders. We got word that they opted for Olive Garden, which although didn’t sound great, we were ok with it. That was until we arrived back from our search. They had opted to sit in the bar, which consisted of horrible seating that had our group spread out over 3 tables, which totally defeated the point of the search. Plus, the pizza place was nicer!! Ken was pissed. So he gathered me and the boys and we walked back to the pizza joint.

I gotta say, I was super impressed that he took a stand. Normally I am the one who gets annoyed, but it seemed to be an accumulated lifetime of feeling left out as part of the family. I certainly didn’t mind as the pizza place was going to end up being better for the kids anyway. Nothing more was discussed about the evening aside from Andy feeling really bad. Over the course of the rest of the trip, it was obvious more care was spent to include everyone, which I think helped. I had even considered at one point telling Ken to go ride with his parents and I would follow in the other car. I certainly didn’t mind and I really just wanted him to enjoy the time with his family.

We did have one other outing in multiple cars, which was a full day of driving. It was quite dull overall, but we made the most of it. Lyn rode with us this time and despite the mind numbingly boring driving in a no service zone, the boys were amazing. They really were so incredible considering us grownups were not even impressed.

We went through some little mining town that Papa Brenan had once had his own church in where he was minister. The buildings were cute and quite abandoned, but it was fascinating to see. It would have been nice to have a large passenger van if we ever did another trip like this since I really feel like we didn’t visit as much as we could have.

On one of the days, we went with Andy and Lyn to the Salt Lake island. That was a lot of fun. It was raining, which actually made it more enjoyable in certain ways. We drove around, and went to the visitor’s center which had gobs of these giant spiders. They were awesome. We even walked out to the lake itself and Bobby went in despite the cold. But the water was warm and he loved every minute. We came back a couple days later when it was warm out so we could all go in the water. Dax loved the fact that he could actually float! A kid with his muscle mass doesn’t get to do that all too often. Ha! We also got to eat at the little burger stand on the island that had buffalo burgers on the menu. It had to be the best food we had there, which was not what we expected at all. We also found the large herd of buffalo and even had one pretty dang close.

The reason we went, which was the graduation, was good. It was a fairly short ceremony and a great time for pictures. Holly looked great and you could tell how excited she was that we had all come to celebrate her accomplishment. I also got to see Evie and Daniel, which made me quite happy since I don’t see them in person enough. I made a point of taking a picture of Daniel and Bobby together with their long hair, which was awesome.

The days were long. We usually got up fairly early if only to take advantage of the breakfast the hotel served. I gotta say, although it was a pretty good spread, I tired of it after 6 days of eating it. I was grateful to the one morning in which I was able to eat left over Chinese food from the night before in which we used the evening for down time. We watched Forest Gump and ate delivery while Ken’s folks went to dinner with a couple of old friends who happened to be in town. It was quite awesome.

I thought I had overheard talk of next year’s trip being Scotland, but I can say with great certainty I don’t want to go unless the boys are included. I know I ended up going to Ireland without them, and although I had a fabulous time, I still regret leaving them behind. I am hopeful that this situation doesn’t come up.

I am sure I am forgetting multiple things that took place on the trip. Of course, I am trying to recap while going through all of my work. I did manage to get caught up in only a couple of hours, but I still had a week’s worth of emailing customers I wanted to accomplish before spending too much time on this. I am doing my best to try not to get annoyed at folks around here. I can tell I had a fair amount of downtime since it is much easier than it was just a week ago. That being said, I am thankful that I only have a little over 90 minutes left of my day.

I also had other fantastic goings on that I don’t think I want published. As cool aunt, I like that I got to chit chat with my niece and I don’t want to break that trust. I don’t really think this is a popular read amongst the family, but one doesn’t want to take that chance. Ha!

Ok, time to get back to work. Hopefully I spend some more time this week covering some of the time spent.