Sports are important to me

I love sports.  I always played as many of them as I could when I was growing up.  I was never very good at them but I loved being a part of the competition and the camaraderie.  It was the hope of victory I think, the feeling that you could be the champion and be the best.   My husband played sports too as a kid and then we played on a few adult teams after we were married.  I also think that it helps develop leadership, teamwork, decision-making skills and a whole host of other positive character traits.  Yes, there is the potential to over develop certain attitudes like competitiveness, self-centeredness and aggression but I believe that happens less often than it seems.  I think just like with so many other things, the “squeaky wheel” gets the attention. 

Recently, the Australian Open crowned the first tennis champion of the season, last Sunday was the Super Bowl and Friday is the opening ceremonies for the Olympics.  It has been a good few weeks!  Add to the fact that I’m a born and raised Washingtonian and I’ve always been a Seahawks fan – it’s been a very good time! 

Both of my girls have also always been involved in sports.  Starting when they were both 3 years old they joined dance class.  Sydney set a goal to earn her 10 year pin and then move on, which she did, and Audrey lasted the entire 15 years until she graduated from high school.  Not what I thought would happen when I was just looking for a fun activity for Sydney because she was already an intense 2 ½ year old with a thirst for knowledge, but I’m so grateful for what it taught both of them.  They both ended up dancing competitively and lest you think that “Dance Moms” is all staged – no, it’s real.  It’s amazing really how easy it is to get caught up in all the drama and competitiveness when you are watching your children put so much of themselves into such a subjectively judged sport.  However, it is the parents that usually cause most of the troubles in all children’s sports.  Dads get just as crazy sometimes at baseball, basketball and football games.   But that’s not where my mind is going today so I’ll leave all of that for another time.

We never rested on just one sport.  Through the years we had basketball, cheerleading, horse riding, volleyball and tennis added to our schedule.  At one point we had practice 5-6 days per week and several of those were jumping between 2-3 different sports on the same day.  Not necessarily something that I would advocate unless you really like living out of your car and eating sandwiches.  But, those character traits that I mentioned earlier were definitely developed.  I never believed that someone was bound by circumstance to either succeed or fail at something.  There is always the hope and potential to succeed at anything you do.  I believe that it is our job to find our passion, find our talents, find whatever it is that God has enabled us to do well and do it with everything we have.  I firmly believe that He has given something to everyone that when used in His power benefits all of society in some way.  Many times we can find that through sports but also through school, church, our family, our neighbors, our friends – wherever, if we just look for it. 

When I hear someone complain about not being able to do something I often wonder “why not”.  Most often it really isn’t the obstacle that they’ve named keeping them from achieving the success they seek, but the doubts inside of themselves.  When you’ve been a part of some kind of a sport and you’ve pushed yourself harder than you thought you could either for the sake of your teammates or to accomplish your own personal goal, then you can put that experience to use in every other area of your life.  It’s always funny when someone becomes the best at whatever sport they learned to love and gets that trophy, medal or award - people start to call them lucky.  They aren’t lucky, there were just willing to fail more times than anyone else and keep on going.  Their teams lost, they didn’t make varsity exactly when they wanted to, they broke body parts, they lost sleep, relationships and money but they kept on playing.  I don’t want to ever forget the lessons I learned from playing sports and every time I watch others get out there and challenge themselves it makes me want to do the same.  Russell Wilson’s dad taught him to ask the question “why not me”, I challenged my girls with that same question as they were growing up and now I find that I still need to challenge myself with it too.  I have dreams and desires that I haven’t fulfilled yet and I need to remember to get out there and join the team, develop the skill and push myself to win every bit as much now as when I was a kid. 

Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock

Since moving so close to the Pacific coast it is imperative that we explore as much of it as possible.  At least to me!  There are so many waterfalls, canyons, rivers, antique shops, coffee houses, and beaches that I simply must experience.  For Christmas I received a book that outlines hiking trails for those with bad knees and I'm so excited to explore them all; I even have my first pair of true hiking shoes.

The little cultural differences of our new town are still funny to me.  In Eastern Washington it is perfectly acceptable and very common to go hiking with a good pair of tennis shoes, your jeans and a sweatshirt.  Apparently that is looked upon as a little "back woods" so to speak here in the Southwest side of the state.  Being just over the border from Portland we are highly influenced by its societal "norms" (the common and tightly held mantra for the area is "Keep Portland Weird" so norms is a loosely used term) and it is much more acceptable to fashion oneself in rather expensive attire for outdoor activities including waterproof hiking boots/shoes, water-repellent hiking pants, layered wiking-material tops/jackets and a slouchy knit cap.  However, it is also quite understandable considering that Eastern Washington experiences about 16.8 inches of precipitation on a yearly basis which includes the snow in winter yet the Portland area gets 37.1 inches per year and that is nearly 100% rain so needing the waterproof gear is a necessity.  When we talked with the knowledgeable staff at the many recreational clothing stores they unanimously agreed that being prepared to be wet was just a given at any time any where you go.  So, when in Rome, I suppose.

Our first official destination was Haystack Rock on Cannon Beach.  While it was a chilly day with some wind, it was entirely mild considering it was January.  It still doesn't compute in my brain that you can go to a trail any day of the year without snow tires, chains and 4-wheel drive to get you there, let alone walk on the beach.  But it is possible and we did it!  Of course Libby was along for the journey and it turns out that Cannon Beach is a very dog friendly place (as is so many places here) and

Looking backwards into the future

I've been making a list of topics that I want to talk about for a while now and it's getting long but for now it's time to wrap up the year and reflect on what has happened; yet, with an eye to the what the future may hold as well.  For me I have ended a lot of chapters in 2013.  I've taken my oldest daughter across the country to begin her adult life after college in her first "real" job, I've taken my youngest daughter half way across the country to go to the school of her dreams and take the next step to beginning her career, we sold the house we raised those same girls in and moved across the state — in the opposite direction of those same said girls — and left behind family, friends and all familiar things.  It's bittersweet on one hand, but it's also exciting and I'm ready for the challenge and the change.  It's easy to get into a rut and wrap up in the comfort of all we know and without realizing it, years have gone by.  I have been restless and stifled for quite some time and now I feel like life is an adventure again.  There are a lot of dog-eared and stained pages in the book of my life before this but now I feel I'm looking at clean blank pages that are ready to have a new story written on them.  I'm still me, my family is still the same and I'd do anything and everything for them, but I have the opportunity to do new things for myself as well.

I'm going to continue baking because I love it.  I'm still going to study my Bible and love the Lord fully.  I'm still going to be particular about the way things are kept around my house and make sure the bed is made without any wrinkles.  I'm still going to carry Libby around all the time and take her with me every where I go.  I'm still going to love, enjoy, worry about, talk with, love, miss, and did I say love, my girls.  With all of that I'm also going to work harder on my marriage but with the wisdom to know that I can only do what I can do and leave the rest alone.  I'm going to take my health more seriously while I still can.  I'm going to go on adventures outdoors even if it is just a couple miles from home.  I'm going to finish organizing my pictures and videos; finally finishing my scrapbooks.  I'm going to enjoy the crafts and projects that I do without feeling guilty about the time I spend on them.  I will learn new skills.  I will be stronger to advocate what I care about.

There are going to be challenges - I can already see one or two coming on the horizon that's like watching a storm rolling in.  However, I'm going to do my best to take a deep breath and walk through it knowing I'm not alone and "it will all work out for the good of those who are called according to His purpose" which is who I am.

Before I know it, 2014 will be over and I'll be reflecting back on all of what is about to come.  So I'm going to walk forward and make good memories on purpose!  

Downton Abbey and OCD

It's a joke in my house that we don't call OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) by it's proper initials.  We call it CDO - that way it's in alphabetical order of course.  No one in my family has the condition in a way that is debilitating, and I feel for anyone who does because I think I teeter on the edge of it some days, but all of us girls seem to be afflicted with a slight case of it anyway.  It's kind of funny that my "free-spirited" little one that everyone always assumed would just skip through life without a care in the world may have ended up with the largest dose of it as time goes by.

It's that feeling when the house gets messy, or the to-do list gets too long or the calendar too full - you have to do one of 2 things.  Either clean until everything is scrubbed and polished to perfection or completely retreat and become so absorbed in a project that you can't notice anything else.  Of course if you try to clean your way out of it

A little something about cats

Sometimes you just need to do what you've got to do.  As a mom, for me that means that when my girls need me, I'm on my way to see them.

Sydney has a little kitten, Albert Feleinstein (he has a hash tag on Instagram) that keeps her company since she lives all by herself in a city where she really doesn't know anyone.  He is a big part of her life and recently she found out that he has a disease called FIP.  It is a nasty thing that basically has no cure.  She ended up having him at the vet several times and had to draw fluids out of his abdomen twice and the prognosis was not good.

Moving and garage sales

I don't like to move.  That's pretty much just a plain fact of life for me.  I have lived for the last 13 years in an older home that my husband thought would be fun since it has "character" but that just means that it needs to be remodeled.  Don't let yourself be fooled!  We have spent the entire time fixing one thing or another and trying to get it to a nice place.  When we moved into our first home it was small and simple, but it was new construction.  With that however, it meant that we had to put in the yard, fence, landscaping, sprinkler system and finish the basement.  We also chose to build the garage ourselves as well because it gave us a chance to make it larger for less cost.  It was a lot of work, true, but where we spent the majority of our time was finished the way we liked it and when we did a project we just started it and then it was done.  With this house it has been, first tear it apart, clean up the mess, fix what we found that we didn't know we were going to have to fix and then finish the original project. When we moved in I saw all of that - my husband saw a finished basement, landscaping, sprinklers and fence that already existed.  In his mind it was just cosmetic issues and I would "have fun" painting and doing those things.

ouch!

I had the best intentions on our trip.  I was going to make a bunch of snacks ahead of time and I was going to look up restaurants with gluten free menus so we could stay "clean" the whole time.  There's a place I've heard of that has a road lined with good intentions.  Let's just say, it didn't happen.  First of all, I am famous for trying to pack too much into a day.  But this wasn't all of my doing this time.   It took so long to get all of the house projects done and to get all of the clutter out that by the time we got the house listed to sell it was right before we were going to leave.  We decided with the Realtor that we would actually wait until the day we left to list it so that we didn't have to deal with showing it while we were getting ready to go.  That was hugely helpful but it meant that as we loaded the car to leave I was literally going through each room making sure it was cleaned and ready for the open house happening that same afternoon!  At the very end I made sure I was the last one out the door and no one had touched anything.

Audrey's vine pretty much sums it up - you can see it here.  You just have to realize that she loves purple and I took great pains to paint that room just the way she wanted it :)

Any way, with the packing for a trip, packing for a year at college, cleaning and de-cluttering - I didn't get to the snacks.  I didn't really even get to the second half of the trip for Craig and I.  I was still making reservations as we drove down the road!  After 2 weeks of eating out and only some of the times being smart about it, my body was quite angry with me!  It took about 2 weeks to get back on track.  It doesn't help that selling a house is just plain stressful too.  But slowly and surely I'm getting there.  It was a good lesson that it's a lot easier to fall off the clean wagon than it is to climb back aboard!