Sunday, July 26, 2009

State Bound

Tomorrow we head west for the State playoffs with a 70% chance of rain waiting to greet us. The tournament is a little over 100 miles from home and 48 or so miles from my younger sister's house . . . so . . . we will be staying with her for the week instead of a hotel.

The only thing the boy will miss out on is swimming with his team-mates on Tuesday morning - the only day that their coach will allow them to swim.

His cousin is his age and playing with him during the day before his game will be more fun than sitting around a small hotel room.

My sister has a pool, so as long as 12 year old doesn't swim too long, he should be okay for . . . sitting on the bench during the game! (Ha!) But seriously, I have tried to encourage 12 to embrace the bench and mentally be prepared in case he is called into the game. He isn't alone. After his team won the league, they had to draft three other players from the 3rd place team. The coach warned us that the boys that will be drafted will be starters. Their team went from 11 players to 14 so 5 boys are always on the bench.

Well - lots of lightening happening - so will sign off until next week!

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Busy, Busy, Busy Bees

Would you believe my son is still playing baseball? I know. I know!

His regular season ended at the end of June. The team came in first, so they went to the district playoffs last week.

They won. Ugh.

Now it's off to the state playoffs next week.

Though he did play a bunch in the regular season, he was a bench warmer during the playoffs and I know the same will be true at state. Grrr.

My parents were gone for two weeks, taking care of my 94 year old grandfather (don't worry he is doing fine - he fell after being dizzy).

Did I mention we were in a drought? Did I also mention, that my mother has landscaped acres of flowers, bushes, trees, fruit trees, roses and various other plants that have to be watered? Did I mention we had no rain for two weeks and temperatures as high as 104 degrees? I knew my mother would be MAD if I let all her plants die . . . so every morning I got up, walked the dog, brought in the newspaper and set up the hoses and sprinklers.

Who knew hoses were heavy?

Yards and yards and yards of hoses.

I also was feeling ambitious and started cleaning the mold off the white fence along the pasture and driveway. I felt like a dental hygienist, cleaning teeth.

Every muscle in my back ached.

But I have a nice light tan. (I used 70 SPF and applied every hour.)

I only managed to get the driveway portion of the fence (31 panels on each side of the driveway) so I still have a lot more work ahead of me washing the pasture panels.

And the fire ants loved the taste of my feet!

***
The boy's Xbox 360 died. He wants to try the towel trick where you overheat the unit. Supposedly it works. I'm a little peeved that this happens all the time to the Xbox and it costs $140 for Microsoft to fix it, when it clearly is a problem/bug/design flaw on their part. Looks like we will be trying the towel fix.

Don't feel too bad for him, because he and his sister also have a Wii, so he is still playing videos.

***
Looked like the boy's PLEVA (remember he was diagnosed with that after his chicken pox never went away) was coming back in May, so his doctor sent us to the dermatologist. They took a few biopsies of his sores and it turns out, he doesn't have PLEVA, just itchy skin that he scratches way too much. After a round of antibiotics and some cream for the sores, his legs look almost normal.

I took him back to the dermatologist on Friday for his return appointment and he was telling the physician assistant (a man in his 30's) about staying up late playing video games. The PA asked him if he played Mario Kart and what was his handle because he will race him on line.

And that is a good example of why I have never let 12 year old play "Live" on the internet. Ha!

Gosh, I hope I'm not always going to be like this.