Work Ethic 101

Extracurricular sports.  When your child is involved, so are you.  To an extent you never imagined possible.  My daughter played club/ HS soccer, club/HS swimming, HS track, club Lacrosse, played Violin in district Orchestra and participated in Art Club. Year 2009 added an American Foreign Exchange Student , my incredible girl, Inken who played soccer, diving and lacrosse.  All of which I showed up to participate in. And actively supported with my checkbook .

And I am not complaining. Some of the most important moments of my life happened on the field/at the game.  Winning goal against Madeira 2009...my daughter(assist). Alternate for State Swim team (she ended up having to swim because 3 members of the team got suspended).  She  received the Archie Griffin Sportsmanship Award and also the Warrior Award (most leadership oriented player) her 2009-2010 season. The Most Improved award for Inken who learned something like 17 dives to compete in the High School District meet (she had not been a Diver before).

All this time and energy and expense.  Is she a collegiate athlete now?  NO.  Do I care?  Maybe a little.  But very little. She loves college and she actually has 2 jobs and likes "working".  Imagine that, a young woman who says, "l would rather work enough hours to pay back my loans than take a partial scholarship, which probably wouldn't cover my time to run on the track team".  She still may decide to run track at some point - I know she misses the team effort - and if so - I will probably make the 3 hour trip to watch. I'm so tired of listening to politicians bitch about over-spoiled college students who don't want to work and slide through on loans. But the message any parent should take from this...extracurricular matters. Encourage it. Pay for it. Do it.

One of those Swimming Moments

 Driving somewhere with my daughter in Winter 2010, a song comes on the CD player and she starts giggling. She explains, "mom, I forgot to tell you about this, it was one of those true swimming moments". She swam for Mariemont High all 4 years and started her swimming career at 6 with our municipal pool in the Village. The song on the player was "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus.  She went on to explain.  At their Toledo Invitational meet she reminds me how the first seeded swimmer in the final heat gets to pick out a song to walk out on deck to.  It's the last race of the day - Boys 400 Freestyle Relay.  She says 4 young men saunter out onto the deck to "Party in the USA", then she says, "the most amazing moment happened...everyone in the natatorium stood up and started doing the "Miley dance" - hands up, swaying their hips...", she kinda sing-songed.  We were both laughing so hard.  When I caught my breath, I said, "you know that only happens with swimmers, no football player would ever be caught dead "swaying their hips".  She said, "I know, it was awesome, swimmers are so cool."

The photo above is a capture of the first time she broke a minute for her 100-Free - she was the swimmer in Lane 2.  Watching your child attain their goals is precious time spent. Few things are so gratifying.  The date on this picture is February 14, 2009. That's how a swim-mom spends her Valentine's day...at the meet.

It's Just Stuff and Things

passante

only hearts

church

it's green...

changeling

I am Danger Girl; where's my damn cape?

I had another little mishap with glass, my old nemesis, last night.  It wasn't very pretty and this time I decided to drive to the ER (I didn't last time; ended up taking massive antibiotics only to find out I was allergic to Penicillin which really messed my system up, it took months for me to feel healthy again). 6 stitches, a very sore ass and bruised ego.  Fun.

Am I accident prone?  I remember my dad having lots of these "mishaps" as I was growing up.  I'm a lot like him.  I think it comes from not paying attention to our own good sense and trying to do too much at one time.  Last night, I showed some of my photography at Arnold's downtown.  I drove home, stopped to get a bottle of wine (no, it wasn't the wine bottle this time), got out of my car and attempted to carry the wine, all 9 of my glass framed photos and my 25-lb camera bag into the house.  Common sense was dictating in my brain "take TWO trips" but did I listen?  Nah.  My front stoop is small, probably around 4 feet wide by 3 feet deep - with 3 steps.  I have a heavy old wooden screen door which sticks.  Pull on the door, lose my grip, step backwards - to nothing there - with a 25 lb bag on my back.  Physics apply here.  I go down backwards with a whole lot of glass following me. To the camera bag's credit - I didn't lose one lens or damage my camera (it's an Emera bag) and it broke my fall a bit.  But one of the glass frames broke and ended up lodging in my outer wrist.  It's been almost a year since my last encounter with "laceration" and when I looked into the cut, made an instant decision to listen to the inner voice screaming "Emergency Room".  See? I can be taught. I'm just stubborn about it.

So the packing will go slower today.  With a wee bit more deliberation in my thought process. Glass is sharp, flesh wounds bleed, bones can break.  I need to be more careful with me.

Just some awesome.

There's one advantage to being 102. There's no peer pressure. ~ Dennis Wolfberg

I like old.  Functioning, for sure.  But old. I guess that should translate to people as well.  But the population of humans that send me over the edge are usually those over the age of 75.. especially if they aren't functioning properly. This probably makes me sound mean. I'm pretty sure this animosity comes from fear.  I really don't want to be them.  But I guess it's just a matter of time.

My new/old oven is original to the house.  My landlord told me they tried to move it to their part of the house - but they couldn't get it through any of the doorways.  It's destined to be in my apartment.  Like me.  Matches made in heaven.  I like those.

"It's a good day when no one is shooting at you"

This piece of perspective was given to me by someone I used to know: "It's a good day when no one is shooting at you." He said he was a Marine, so I felt it was a relative statement.  I don't know if he really was, a whole lot of things about him turned out to be lies, but these words stuck with me.  And I have used them more times than I care to remember in the past 5 years.

Perspective is all relative. When I told someone that my move is taking place in February, she looked at me kinda horror-stricken and gasped "oh my god, what if it SNOWS?"  Really?  That's the worst possible scenario that comes to mind for her?  Wow.  She puts into perspective for me that saying about "we aren't given more than we can handle".  But then, I did move from California to Pagosa Springs, CO in February of 1993 during the biggest snowstorm the San Juan mountains had seen in a couple of years.  I'm pretty sure I drove into town as more than 20 inches of snow fell; as did my mover. I had a 1-year old and a 13-year old disabled child to care for by myself. I remember there being so much snow packed up in front of the front door that we had to enter through the garage, open the front door from the inside and dig out to clear a path for the movers. So, I've "been there; done that". I'm certain that snow isn't really an issue for me. I also remember that was the first time Ceeanna ever saw snow and she squealed with joy playing in it.  She still loves it. I can count this as a good memory.

I recently ran across a blog that linked back to this First World Problems collection .  I laughed so hard I cried the first time I saw it.  My favorite on that list is "My laptop is low on battery, but the charger is over there..." How many times a day do we say these things in our head (or some of us out loud so we can truly prove what whiners we are)?

In my favorite movie  the character, Richard from Texas says to Liz from New York (or as he called her; Groceries) "Groceries, you need to learn how to select your thoughts, just the way you select what clothes you're gonna wear everyday." I'm going to add that we can learn to choose our perspective as well.  You can see the world through a dark, grimy window or the beveled glass one that produces shards of beautiful refracted light.  It's a choice.