Three Things on a Tuesday

I am still working on Frozen Tundra pictures, and am hoping to have them done sometime this week. Things have not quite slowed down the way I had hoped they would, but I should have a little time this week to finish!  In the meantime I will leave you with a few goings on in my life right now.

#1 We won our first softball game last night!  We actually run-ruled the other team as we were up by 17 after 5 innings.  I am a bit anxious about the season because we have been moved up to the A League again this year.  This happened a couple of years ago and we bombed because we didn't have our "A" team available to play that year.  Luckily we have most of our summer tournament team playing this year, so we should be competitive against the high school baseball teams (literally).  The good news is we have our superstar girls who are not a guaranteed out every time we step up to the plate.  =)  There's nothing better than stepping up to the plate and watching the outfield come up (because I am a girl) and hitting a perfect line drive over the pitcher's head into center field. This might have happened a couple of times last night.  But I am pretty sure I need some infield practice because I may have missed a couple of balls that I should have caught...thank goodness we were up by 17 at that point.

#2 I cannot wait to start my new book!  I was on amazon yesterday and saw that Dan Brown (The DaVinci Code author) had a new book coming out today called Inferno.  It's another Robert Langdon book, and I am super excited to read it! I decided to go ahead and pre-order it so it would be in my Kindle Cloud first thing this morning.  I finished the newest Sophie Kinsella book Wedding Night yesterday and am on a reading kick right now, so I figured I might as well keep going.  I am debating on whether or not to start this new book before the weekend because I won't get anything done once I really get into it.

#3 Last but not least, it finally happened.  I got the facebook message that I have been anticipating since this past fall which officially cements my "being old" status.  It was the announcement about my 10 year high school reunion. DUN DUN DUN.  Honestly I still can't believe it's been 10 years because it certainly doesn't feel like it.  And I certainly can't be THAT old.  Right?  Please someone tell me I am not old enough to go to my 10 year reunion! The good news is that with my parents being back in Memphis it makes it a lot easier for us to get there.  Thanks for looking out Mom and Dad!  I guess this means I need to find some old high school pictures of me to put out on the interwebs.  Luckily this might be a little difficult since facebook (thankfully) didn't exist back in the dark ages. =)

no worries....there's more where this gem came from!

Weekend Recap: Dance Recital Style

And just like that it's Monday again and I am asking my self where the weekend went.  I forgot to mention after I got back in town last week that it was dance recital week, which meant I was going straight from work to the high school auditorium for rehearsals every night last week, and Thursday I went from work to rehearsals to our basketball banquet.  I guess saying I was busy last week was an understatement.  The good news is we made it through both recitals relatively unscathed.  I run the music which I love doing because I have the perfect bird's eye view of the entire show, plus I am on a headset mic with one of the girls backstage, so I know whats going on backstage, too.  It's the best of both worlds really.  I must admit I get really nervous because I am always afraid I am going to hit the wrong button or start the wrong song.  Between numbers I always check the cd player, my paper and the volume at least twice...call me anal retentive, I guess!

Obviously I get the most anxious when my numbers come up.  This year the number I choreographed was the opening. The first performance left a bit to be desired.  Before they started I asked the girl backstage why the girls had not gone to the other side like they were supposed to.  She told them to, and apparently several of them asked which side they were supposed to be on.....WHAT???? These are middle schoolers who have rehearsed this number MANY times....they KNOW where they are supposed to start.   I told myself it was going to be ok and that they'd get to their spot in time.  Most of them did, but then I realized that we were missing about 4 girls on one side of the stage because they forgot to come out on stage.  Then I see them rush out as the dancing starts, and one of them is supposed to be on the other side of the stage so she walks across in the middle of the dance.  I think it was at this point that I had my Abby Lee Miller moment and told the girl backstage to tell my girls to stay after the show so we could rehearse that number before the evening show.  In a nut shell I was furious!  They never really got it together and it was quite a mess, but they made it through and the show went on (as it always does).   I finally calmed down and toward the end of the show asked her to tell the girls to be ready to rehearse as soon as they arrived for the evening show.  We had a little chat and I made sure they knew where to start, and the evening show went off without a hitch! I was jumping up and down when they got done because they did so well.  I think part of the reason I was so upset with them that morning was because I KNOW how well they could perform the number.  Note to self: run the number with the girls pre-show regardless of how confident you are in their abilities!  I am kinda sad to see the year end because I love teaching tap, but it will give me some time to recharge my creative batteries and put some new stuff together for next year!

While I was doing all things dance on Saturday, Eric did all things fishing.  The boy went fishing 3 TIMES in an 18 hour period.  He got up at midnight Saturday morning and fished until I got up around 7AM, then he left to go fishing again when I left to go to the first recital around 8:30AM and got home about 20 minutes before I did.  He came home and took a nap and then went fishing AGAIN about the same time I left to go to the second recital.  I think the lack of sleep had gotten to him at that point because he walked through the living room and asked me what time I was leaving then he walked out the back door.  A couple of minutes later I heard his truck go down the driveway, so I called him to see where he was going.  He said he was going fishing, and the realized he hadn't told me good-bye, or that he was going fishing!  What can I say the boy loves to fish...I won't complain because I love to eat them, too!

Sunday I got up and attempted to go to church.  I say attempted because I got ready and drove to church only to realize I was half an hour late and church was halfway over.  And this kids is why you go to church every week!  I had missed the 2 previous weeks because we've been out of town, and I completely forgot what time it started. In my defense they have changed mass times in the last 6 months, but mass has never started at 9AM, so I am not sure what I was thinking.  I guess I will just have to be extra nice this week.

We had a very nice Mother's Day lunch with Eric's grandma and mom, I called and had a wonderful chat with my Mom and grandparents, and then I crashed for the afternoon.  I spent most of my afternoon curled up on the couch and on the pool deck with my book (well my IPad, but I was reading). No going to the grocery, no Sunday afternoon cook-a-thon to prepare for the week, just me and my favorite author's newest book all afternoon.  We did have some friends over for pulled pork tacos for dinner, but the butt had already been cooked and one of our friend's who is a fabulous cook, put the rest of it together.  It was perfect ending to the weekend.

I was glad to have a lazy Sunday because softball starts this week!  Tonight to be exact, and I can't wait to get out and play again! Hopefully we'll get out to a good start.  Eric and I threw the ball for a bit one night last week to make sure we still had it. =)

I'm Back from the Frozen Tundra

I'm back! I took a little trip up to the frozen tundra last week.....literally. My "little" brother graduated from Michigan Tech on Saturday so the family trekked up to Houghton to celebrate. I knew it was supposed to snow while I was there, but I had no idea it would snow for 2 days straight!  We are talking lotsa snow in May and this lil southern bell was a bit chilly! However I did not let a little snow get in my way of having the whole Houghton experience. My goal was to see what made my brother fall in love with this little frozen town in the very top of the U.P. (upper peninsula) and I believe I can say MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.  From beautiful beaches to complete wilderness and a quaint college campus wedged in the middle, I get it. I am still working through he 150+ pictures I took this weekend, but here are a few of my favorites!

The view from his apartment in a snowstorm....in May.

The graduate and I.  Is it just me or does he look like he's gotten taller?

Me on the banks of Lake Superior.  It was soooooooo cold down by the water!

The same spot on Lake Superior a few days later when the wind died down.  The water looked like glass! 

It's Pool Time! (Finally!)

How do you know that you have had a cooler-than-usual-spring?  When you live in Alabama and your pool is still not opened by the last week in April.  Crazy I know.  Last year we took the pool cover off St. Patrick's Day Weekend, this year we're barely getting it open before May.  Eric decided at the end of last week that it needed to be done if we wanted to start enjoying it soon, so off came the cover.  He did one round of vacuuming last week and then we got busy had had rain this weekend, so it sat for a couple of days.  Last night he got back to it and vacuumed it again.  It takes a few times to get it vacuumed out at the beginning of the year....it's even worse when a certain someone does not run the pool pump for a month in the fall and covers the pool when it's dirty...ahem....Eric...cough cough.  I helped by switching the pump on and off so he didn't have to walk back and forth from the pump to the pool 10 times.  It looked pretty good last night.  He said it needs one more vacuum, a good shock, and then we'll dump the salt in it and it will be ready!

It's looking a little less green every day!

Funny Story:
When I was manning the pump the other day Eric asked me to switch the pump from "Filter" to "Waste/Edgeout" to get the water to pump out of the pool instead of back through the filter system when he is cleaning it.  I thought that "Edgeout" was an interesting way to describe it, but figured it must be some kind of pool lingo that I was not aware of.  I looked at the pump to figure out how far to turn the dial to get it to "Edgeout" and realized that my sweet southern husband did not realize that the settings on the pump were written in 3 different languages......."Edgeout" was actually Egout, which is French for Waste. Gotta love 'em!