Tuesday, August 23, 2011

First Night of Football Practice

Last night was the first night of practice. Sam did great. The coaches kept asking him, "Are you sure you've never played football before?" Sam went in hoping to play running back and, after one night of practice at least, he is on his way. In the sprints against other players he was fastest. In the drills through the cones, he was the fastest. He worked hard last night in practice. Just nine more practices before the season opener on Saturday Sept. 10.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Furniture Shopping

Thursday afternoon and evening, and ALL DAY Friday were spent trying to find reasonably priced furniture for our family room. We didn't want anything "nice" because it is for a family room. Watching movies, playing Wii, laughing, and being together––with food. We had a budget, and we wanted comfort. Bang for the buck, value and coziness.

Friday we left our home around 8am with Jean driving the van with all of the seats removed, and me driving the car with Sam and Alina. We hit many garage sales and estate sales before the stores opened. Then, it was consignment stores, second hand stores and first hand stores. Stores with clearance sales and tent sales. Negotiating over floor model prices. Many stores––too many. The kids did well, but when you are 10 and 7 furniture shopping at dozens and dozens of places gets pretty old.

Around 3:30pm I asked Jean to take the kids home, and that I would keep looking. I went to 17 more stores, and ended up buying a sofa, two chairs, and coffee table at the place where I had parted ways with my family. It was the third time I had been there that day, including twice with Jean, Sam, and Alina. Now, we have comfy family room furniture and have been enjoying being in there together between activities and gatherings. Ahhh.


Saturday, August 13, 2011

Hooked on a Feeling

On our expedition home form Seattle to Michigan, the original version of the song "Hooked on a Feeling" played on the radio. This brought back amusing memories, and perhaps disturbing ones, of David Hasselhoff's music video.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

3 Stories of Wet

Story 1: Last Tuesday Johnny invited me to ride. I felt too embarrassed to accept. It is amazing what three years of sitting, studying and writing does to a person. I knew I wasn't close to the shape I was in three years ago. He was kind. "No pressure," he said. "We'll just ride." It was a good invitation. Saturday I rode with my two favorite guys––Johnny and my son Sam. It was SO humid. I was so wet with sweat. It was a good, good ride. And, it made me want to continue riding.

Story 2: There was a block party Saturday afternoon in our new neighborhood, and it went into the evening. The firefighters came in the late afternoon, plugged their hoses into the hydrants, and sprayed down from the ladder. The kids just loved it being doused with spray. Very wet.

Story 3: It has been nearly two weeks since I've done laundry. Late last week I realized that our house has an outlet for an electric dryer, but there are no electric wires to attach it to the electric panel. Normally, it is pretty simple to run wiring and install a new breaker in the electric panel. But, in this case, the breaker box is already full. There is no room to install another breaker. The person that owns the house doesn't want to update the breaker panel since there is already service for a gas dryer in the basement. I don't want to buy a gas dryer because of cost. So, today I finally did laundry. I had completed three loads of wash by the time I finally located where the clothes pins were. I went out, and started hanging clothes to dry. I had nearly 2/3 of a basket hung, and it started raining. A good, steady rain.