Sports

Thirty Days of Thanks, Day Eighteen

The sports nut in me was in full swing today. That’s because we were down­town Detroit today at Ford Field watch­ing our beloved Lions take on the Green Bay Pack­ers. And although we lost the game, it was a good game to watch.

Hubby & I are lucky to live in a sports town, being the sports fans we are. We’ve got great col­lege foot­ball and bas­ket­ball teams to fol­low (although I will always be a True Blue Michi­gan Wolver­ine). And we’ve got great pro­fes­sional sports teams to root for.

So today, I’m thank­ful that we’ve got­ten the oppor­tu­nity to watch many of our beloved sports teams live in action.

Now, if we can only do some­thing about the NHL lockout …

I Remember

Hi! How was your Thanks­giv­ing week­end, read­ers? And for my neigh­bors to the north, hope you were able to cash in on some of the US’s “Black Fri­day” deals … or do you even have any sales like that for the day after the US’s Thanks­giv­ing hol­i­day? Yes, I’m just being curious.

My Thanks­giv­ing week­end was good: Got to spend time with Hubby’s fam­ily on Turkey Day. And on the week­end, man­aged to eek out a few great sav­ings from Black Fri­day; both locally and at the “big box” shops. But the point is, I man­aged to check off a few peo­ple off my Christ­mas list.

More impor­tantly, my favorite col­lege foot­ball team man­aged to win the all-​​important “Biggest Rivalry in Col­lege Foot­ball” game. AND we got to watch the game at a bar & grill, hang­ing out with my two cousins.

These two girls — the youngest of my Dad’s nieces (and close to 20 years younger than me!) — have seri­ously been the sup­port I’ve needed this past year while deal­ing with my Dad’s pass­ing. Maybe it’s because, like me, Dad had played an impor­tant part in their lives; many times being the father-​​figure that they’ve needed. And as we talked through­out that day, I some­how man­aged to remem­ber how much my Dad’s pass­ing has affected them as well.

I for­got how my Dad would stick up for them if their moth­ers (my Dad’s sis­ters) gave them prob­lems. I for­got how Dad would man­age to sneak them some cash when he thought no one was look­ing. I for­got how much he loved to play with them, and as they got older, joke around with them. I forgot.

So to my two cousins, who miss my Dad as much as I miss him … know that I remem­ber and that I’m for­ever grate­ful that you two always man­age to check up on me when I need it most.

******

And Rain? Don’t worry, my dar­ling kitty. I didn’t for­get about today either. I can never for­get the day that I lost my first and most favorite kitty in the world. Hope you’re up there keep­ing Dad company .…

 

Hail …

Whew. What a foot­ball game! And I swear … that 4th Quar­ter nearly gave me a heart attack. But what a way to kick off the first-​​ever “Under The Lights” game at Michi­gan Stadium.

And I’m so glad we were there. Except …

Except on the ride home — while bask­ing in the after­glow of an under­dog win — I sud­denly felt a pang of sadness.

Today, Hubby & I decided to visit Dad. But before then, we decided to head to one of our favorite Detroit-​​area pizze­rias. As I “checked in” to the restau­rant on foursquare from my iPhone, I felt another pang of sadness.

While at the ceme­tery, Hubby and I had our usual “con­ver­sa­tion” with Dad; telling him about what has been going on, even though we knew he could see us from above. We told him about the amaz­ing come-​​from-​​behind Wolver­ine win. And we told him about eat­ing at one of his favorite pizze­rias for lunch.

And as we told him about these thing, I felt the tears roll down my cheek. Because I missed him.

I missed how we used to go to Piz­za­pa­palis for spe­cial occa­sions like Father’s Day 2010 … the last time I “checked in” on foursquare at that restaurant.

And I missed how Dad never failed to call me after such excit­ing foot­ball games (or any other sport­ing events) to tease me that he was there at the game … even though we both knew he was just watch­ing the game on TV while sit­ting in his recliner.

It amazes me how much one can miss silly things such as these … when you know it won’t hap­pen again.

Thanks for the Wolver­ine win, Dad …

Yada Yada … and Then Some

See? I don’t think my niece, Kairi is ready for Fall either!

Sad but true … tonight was the first night I stepped out­side my house since Labor Day.

It’s a good thing Hubby made it a Din­ner & A Movie kind of night, oth­er­wise I would have likely stayed at home in my paja­mas as I had done all week long.

What can I say? I love work­ing from home … well, at least when I’m not trav­el­ing for my job. And see­ing that I’ve spent the past few months “grounded” at home, doing all web-​​based “vir­tual train­ing” all day in my home office … some­times I see no rea­son to step out of the house.

I guess it’s also a good thing it was a short week.

But see­ing that the weather in Metro-​​Detroit has been pretty much crappy since Mon­day, it’s prob­a­bly best I stayed away from the annoy­ing dri­vers who can’t seem to fig­ure out how to drive in the rain.

I mean … really, peo­ple. We live in the Motor City, we should all know how to drive like mail car­ri­ers: Nei­ther rain, nor snow, nor sleet — yada yada …

As if I don’t have enough to whinge about, here’s my biggest gripe for the day: Today I put on a pair of jeans for the first time since May. Although I was (very) grate­ful that they still fit (whew!), I was more upset that this meant we were one step fur­ther away from summer.

Can you tell I don’t want the warm weather to disappear?

I don’t know why I’ve been feel­ing like this lately. I mean I truly love Autumn and every­thing that sur­rounds the beau­ti­ful sea­son … but it’s almost as if this year I’m dread­ing it.

I’m begin­ning to think that it’s not that I no longer like the com­ing sea­son, but rather I don’t like think­ing about what comes after the leaves fall from the trees and the bit­ter cold starts to set­tle in. After all, I’ve never been much of a Win­ter person.

Maybe it’s because Autumn means I’m one step closer to Thanks­giv­ing … to the week­end when my beloved Rain passed away. To when my Dad first entered the hos­pi­tal that first week in Decem­ber. To when he passed away.

It doesn’t seem pos­si­ble that it’ll be a year very soon. Yet it almost seems a life­time apart. There are some days I’m per­fectly okay with things; okay with get­ting on with my life.

But then there are those other days … days like this past week … where the emo­tions are still so raw; so painful to even think about. And although those moments don’t hap­pen as fre­quently any more … when they do, they seem so much more intense.

In any case, I know that time doesn’t stop for grief. If there is any­thing that deal­ing with the emo­tions of Infer­til­ity has taught me is that life keeps mov­ing on despite the all hurt and pain.

Too bad it only took me ten years to dis­cover this. <smirk>

So here’s what I plan to do to keep mov­ing on: Tomor­row I’m gonna enjoy going to the Big House for the first night-​​time Michi­gan Foot­ball game. (Woo-​​hoo! Go Blue!) And Sun­day we’ll go watch Hubby’s younger cousin peform with his HS March­ing Band at one of the small-​​town parades. And Mon­day? I go for my first gui­tar lessons.

So yeah … maybe get­ting myself (and keep­ing myself out of the house) will do me some good.

In the mean time … maybe this video will inspire me to embrace Autumn in Ann Arbor …

Sock-​​Her Match

Whew. It’s been a busy few days. Hubby & I drove home to Detroit last Thurs­day and just arrived back to Chicago tonight. Lots of fun things hap­pened dur­ing our trip home; of which I’d like to write in more detail. How­ever, I’m quite tired right now.

Instead, I find myself sit­ting on our couch watch­ing some World Cup soc­cer and enjoy­ing it immensely. The only thing I find highly annoy­ing are the darn horns; of which it sounds much like a non­stop remix of “Flight of the Bumblebee.”

Watch­ing the World Cup reminds me of when the tour­na­ment was played here in the U.S. back in 1994. And if you asked Hubby about that time period, he would no doubt tell you one of his famous “Emily” tales; one that usu­ally includes adding some embell­ish­ments to the actual story.

This tale includes a book bag, an impor­tant career-​​defining test, a Type-​​A gal (aka me ), and free tick­ets to see the U.S. play against Switzerland.

Back in 1994, I had just grad­u­ated from Nurs­ing School and was study­ing to take the Nurs­ing Boards (NCLEX) which would pro­vide me licen­sure to prac­tice as a Reg­is­tered Nurse. 1994 was also the first year that the NCLEX would be pro­vided to each can­di­date indi­v­d­u­ally on a com­puter. Prior to this, each can­di­date took the same stan­dard exam at a set date and time in an incred­i­bly huge room with the rest of the eli­gi­ble can­di­dates for that date. In addi­tion to tak­ing the exam on the com­puter, each exam would be unique; mean­ing that the test ques­tions would vary from per­son to per­son and … depend­ing on how you did, you could have a min­i­mum of 75 ques­tions, up to a max­i­mum of 265 ques­tions. Regard­less of how many ques­tions you ended up answer­ing, one could fail at 75 ques­tions or pass in 265 ques­tions. So need­less to say, I was quite ner­vous as I had no pre­vi­ous ref­er­ence to tak­ing these com­puter adap­tive tests.

This also meant that I took my study guide with me every­where so I could study at a whim. And back in 1994, lap­tops weren’t com­mon, iPhones weren’t invented with apps to assist in study­ing for these exams. Oh … and the inter­net wasn’t read­ily acces­si­ble to the gen­eral pub­lic; so for­get being able to google  for answers on WebMD or nih​.gov. Nope; this meant that on top of the study guide I’d take with me, I might just take one of 20 lb text­books for Pedi­atrics or Med/​Surg … depend­ing on what topic I wanted to study that day. And oh, did I men­tion that my study guide weighed about 10 lbs all on its own?

Any­way, less than a week before I was to take my exam, my then-​​fiancé called me up and told me that he had two free tick­ets to a World Cup match at the Pon­tiac Sil­ver­dome, com­pli­ments of his employer at that time. Ini­tially, I had told him that I wouldn’t go because I still felt I had so much more study­ing to do. Except, well … he wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Once in a life­time chance,” he’d tell me; fol­lowed by “you need to take a break from study­ing so much!” And, truth be told, he was right. I was THAT Type-​​A that I felt I couldn’t go a moment with­out study­ing for the NCLEX.

That’s how I found myself head­ing to the World Cup.  But because I still couldn’t let go of not study­ing at all, I also found myself tak­ing my 30 lbs back­pack filled with NCLEX study­ing mate­r­ial. I con­sid­ered it my “secu­rity blanket.”

Because of secu­rity rea­sons and traf­fic issues, the city of Pon­tiac required that all ticket-​​holders be shut­tled into the Sil­ver­dome from their down­town loca­tion. (And yet, I was allowed to take a huge back­back in then … Wow, life pre-​​9/​11!) So the day of the game, Then-​​Fiancé and I stood in line with another coworker and his girl­friend wait­ing to catch a 15-​​minute shut­tle ride to the venue. And once we got there, we were so enthralled with the inter­na­tional atmos­phere and into the game which ended up in a 1:1 tie.

After­ward, we found our­selves amidst 70,000-plus peo­ple try­ing to catch a shut­tle back to down­town Pon­tiac. Oh, and did I men­tion it was 90-​​some degrees out­side that day? It must have taken us more than an hour just to get onto a shut­tle and, because of sur­round­ing traf­fic, an addi­tional half hour to get back down­town. But the kicker of it all was … that entire time, I did not once open up my back­pack to study.

Stryker, the 1994 World Cup Mascot

Instead, the won­der­ful man (that I even­tu­ally mar­ried) ended up car­ry­ing my 30 lb secu­rity blan­ket the entire time … while I “absorbed” all the infor­ma­tion by osmosis.

He’s such a good guy, my hus­band … and even though he’d likely tell his side of this story by adding an addi­tional 50 lbs worth of study mate­r­ial, I am most grate­ful for all the won­der­ful things — big or small — that he does for me on a daily basis.

And reflect­ing back on this tale? Well it just reminds me that even back before our lives were immersed in the world of Infer­til­ity … that my won­der­ful hus­band was always there to let me know when I needed to come up for air and take a breather.

I guess you can say that I scored big by mar­ry­ing such a won­der­ful man. And that we make a per­fect match.

Okay, I’ll stop it with the lame soc­cer terms. More inter­est­ing posts com­ing soon … I promise. But for now, it’s nighty-​​night!

Split

Like the cur­rent Stan­ley Cup Finals series, the Apron­Strings House­hold is split.

For those that aren’t sports nuts like the two of us, that means that the Chicago Black­hawks and the Philadel­phia Fly­ers are both tied with two wins apiece after Game Four in the seven-​​game series.

Not that I mean to say that Hubby & I are at odds with one another … well, at least when it comes to our rela­tion­ship. Rather, we’re at odds when it comes to cheer­ing on which hockey team we think should win the cov­eted Cup.

I should start off by say­ing that, first and fore­most, I will always cheer for my home­town Detroit Red Wings wher­ever we live. But since they failed to make it to the finals this year … I had no choice but to choose an “adopted” team.

I should also add here that if I had my druthers … and if the Red Wings weren’t going to make the Finals … I would have absolutely loved to see two dif­fer­ent teams vying for the Cup this sea­son. And those two teams would have been the Van­cou­ver Can­nucks and the Mon­tréal Cana­di­ens. To me, it only seems fit­ting that the year Canada won Gold in a Cana­dian Olympics, then they should also deserve to have Stan­ley return home … at least for the year.

And yes, Mrs. Spit. I know this would have made you very very happy, also. :-)

Instead now, Hubby & I find our­selves — for the first time in our mar­ried lives — root­ing against each other. Him cheer­ing for a team, sim­ply because they’re con­sid­ered the under­dogs of the series. And me cheer­ing for a team, for the mere fact that this team’s town has become my adopted town.

Hubby cheers for his team, sim­ply because his oppos­ing team has long-​​been rivals of the Detroit Red Wings. While I cheer for my team because it’s been 47 years since this team has won the Stan­ley Cup.

Either way, it’s been fun watch­ing the series with Hubby. And it’s def­i­nitely made watch­ing the NHL’s “sec­ond sea­son” much more interesting.

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Meet Al the Octo­pus; the Detroit Red Wings mas­cot. For Wing Nuts, like our­selves, throw­ing octopi onto the ice dur­ing Play­off Sea­son is a long-​​standing tra­di­tion for the Red Wings Franchise.

As for how Al got his name … he was named after Al Sobotka, the gen­eral build­ing man­ager for Joe Louis Arena; and the won­der­ful soul that picks up every thrown octopi and twirls it over his head.

Mish Mosh

I think I’ve hit the prover­bial “brick wall” with my daily blog entries. I’m just not at all feel­ing cre­ative these days and I’m sure it has to do with the fact that I’m just 15 days away from fin­ish­ing up the promise I made to myself to post daily until the Mon­day after Easter.

Yeah, I’ve got me some writer’s block going on.

Oh, not that I don’t have things to say (when don’t I?), I think I’m at that state where I know I’m in the last stretch before the home front. And if I. Can. Just. Push myself. A lit­tle further …

Today was laun­dry day. And at the café next to the laun­dro­mat, there hap­pened to be this sign –>

How can you not laugh after see­ing that? Espe­cially now that I’m imag­in­ing a future bowl of soup take off on me in the midst of con­sum­ing it so it can save the world.

After­ward, it was back to the local cof­fee house so that Hubby can con­tinue to do some more work with­out the dis­trac­tions of the TV at home. Nope … instead we were dis­tracted by look­ing up scores for the NCAA March Mad­ness Tourney.

Of which, this is the first year I’ve ever did a set of brack­ets. While I’ve known I’m a sports fan(atic) for a while, I’ve never been too much of a col­lege bas­ket­ball lover. (Hubby blames it on the demise of Michigan’s Fab Five.) And I could never under­stand how peo­ple could become so dis­tracted on those Thurs­days and Fri­days of the NCAA tour­na­ment. Until now. D*mnit.

Oh, and I just have to send a quick shout-​​out to my alma mater, Oak­land Uni­ver­sity that did make the tour­na­ment this year. Unfor­tu­nately they lost in the first round. But that’s more I can say about Hubby’s alma mater. :-P

One more piece of bab­ble before I sign off for the night. And I have to men­tion it only because it is a rather his­toric day in Wash­ing­ton DC. I think any Amer­i­can would’ve had to be liv­ing under a rock these past cou­ple years not to know what I’m talk­ing about.

Hubby “rockin’ it” at the local *Bucks

Yes, I can’t believe that today will be the House vote on whether or not to pass the Health Care Reform bill. And see­ing that the key Demo­c­ra­tic  hold-​​out amended his deci­sion based on a last-​​minute Exec­u­tive Order from Obama, it’s sound­ing more and more like this Health Care Reform bill will be signed into leg­is­la­tion by the end of tonight or in the early morn­ing hours.

As a pro­fes­sional clin­i­cian in the Health Care arena … let alone one that specif­i­cally works for a health insur­ance com­pany, I’m hon­estly a lit­tle ner­vous about what this will mean for the land­scape of my immi­nent future. While I will be incred­i­bly relieved that this ver­sion of Health Care Reform means that every­one has access to qual­ity health care (because regard­less of whether a per­son is poor or rich, we should all have the basic human right of receiv­ing appro­pri­ate care), I’m a lit­tle wor­ried of the real­ity on how this will all be funded.

Again, not say­ing that I dis­agree with the con­cept that every liv­ing being should be able to have access to the basic human right of qual­ity health care … I’m just sim­ply stat­ing that if Health Care costs con­tinue to rise at the rate that they do, how will even the fed­eral gov­ern­ment pay for it?

My Mom made the com­ment this after­noon as a spoke with her that it’s because of rise in Health Insur­ance pre­mi­ums that have forced those pre­vi­ously opposed to the bill change their mind. She specif­i­cally pointed to my employer ( … you know, the one who pays my bills?) as an example.

WTF?! This is Sub­ur­ban Chi-Town’s ver­sion of the Lean­ing Tower

How­ever, what she failed to see (and what most peo­ple also fail to real­ize) is that the raise in pre­mi­ums is due to the rise in over­all health care costs. And rise in over­all health care costs is a com­bi­na­tion of mul­ti­ple fac­tors. One which can specif­i­cally be directed towards those phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies and high tech­nol­ogy com­pa­nies that pro­duce those multi-​​million dol­lar machines that can diag­nose can­cer just by stand­ing next to it.

I’m kid­ding, of course. There is no such instru­ment. But the truth is, it’s these com­pa­nies that charge US the con­sumers mil­lions of bil­lions of dol­lars in order to turn a healthy profit on their end. And when I talk about “con­sumers,” I mean any per­son that seeks health care ser­vices, the facil­i­ties that pre­scribe these drugs or pur­chase these instru­ments, and the health insur­ance companies.

Where else would these phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies get the money to adver­tise their med­ica­tions (A$$-effects any­one?) And how else would they con­tinue to make the prof­its by keep­ing the patents to these med­ica­tions for years and years (and years), and charge hun­dreds of dol­lars for their “Brand Name” drug when it could be made more read­ily avail­able for generic dis­tri­b­u­tion (and there­fore cheaper to the consumers)?

So yes, this is more the rea­son I’m con­cerned about the cur­rent Health Reform bill. Because, quite frankly, it really doesn’t dis­cuss any reform when it comes to health care spending.

Another Ran­dom Chicago Pic

And maybe it’s because I’ve seen both sides of the equa­tion … both as a Reg­is­tered Nurse work­ing in the hos­pi­tal and as a RN Case Man­ager work­ing for the health insur­ance com­pany …  try­ing to assist with find­ing resources for those un(der)insured patients in order for them to be safely dis­charged home, that I absolutely know Health Care Reform is needed.

I just hope that some­how with the pass­ing of this bill, that these other issues will also be addressed. Espe­cially now that those “bills” (as in the bills that typ­i­cally get sent to the indi­vid­ual who received ser­vices and/​or the health insur­ance com­pany, if they have any) would be the respon­si­bil­ity of our government.

Whew. Okay … this was a much longer post that I antic­i­pated. But hey … per­haps this means I’ve plowed through that brick wall?!

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In Ger­man today, here’s my Daily Lenten exercise.

Eine gute Tat des Tages: Uhm … I’m hon­estly not quite sure I did a Good Deed today. At least not yet. I guess I’ll have to do some­thing before the day is offi­cially over. Hmmm … per­haps walk our Kozzy-​​girl when we get home? So Hubby can con­tinue to work? Yeah. Think I’ll do that.

Gefühle der Dankbarkeit für den Tag: Well, today I’m grate­ful for Hubby who did a stel­lar job in help­ing out with the laun­dry today. Espe­cially since I’m not feel­ing a 100% today. I’m all achey and clammy. Uh-​​oh. :-(

Okay y’all. Time to sign off for now. Until tomorrow …

Freshly Laundered

It’s …  oh, 1 pm Detroit time. Hubby & I should already be in the car head­ing back to Chicago but alas, we’re still fin­ish­ing up the last two loads laun­dry here.

Cutie-​​Pie Kairi dur­ing this visit. Her bib says “Teething Bites!”

What can I say? If we had to keep our house here, we might as well get use out of our in-​​home washer and dryer while we can. Because laun­dro­mats are great for get­ting mul­ti­ple loads done at one time … but there’s noth­ing that beats being in your own house while your clothes are being washed!

Yeah, we should have spent all of yes­ter­day evening doing the laun­dry, but instead we did other things. Like … see “Alice In Won­der­land” in 3D. With our friend, J. Who came with us after­ward to grab some food. And well, next thing we know it’s close to mid­night again. And we’ve got an early morn­ing break­fast date with my parents.

Seri­ously, I love com­ing back to Detroit and spend­ing time with fam­ily and friends. But by the time the weekend’s over, I’m exhausted .

SO … since I’ll be spend­ing the evening dri­ving home, I fig­ure I’d post my daily Lenten “duties” for the day.

Good Deed of the Day: Not sure if this would be con­sid­ered a “good deed,” but Hubby stayed up later than I did work­ing on a cre­ative job. His good deed was to “fin­ish” doing the laun­dry while I slept, but some­how I knew that wasn’t going to hap­pen.** But since he climbed into bed pretty late (just after he was done with this job … while “wait­ing for the dryer to go off,” as he said … ) and we had to be up and out the door by 7:30 am, I let him sleep up until the time we had to leave to meet my par­ents for break­fast. And now … after return­ing home, I’m let­ting him nap some more while I work on fin­ish­ing up the rest of the laun­dry. Like I said, not sure if this is really a “good deed.” After all … he’s the one that’s going to be dri­ving us home, and I’d rather him be alert while behind the wheel.

Grat­i­tude of the Day: Well, since we’re still home … no sense in not turn­ing on the TV. To watch the Detroit Red Wings. Take on the Chicago Black­hawks. After all, it’s soooo much bet­ter watch­ing it on TV instead of try­ing to find a radio sta­tion to lis­ten to the game on the drive home. GO WINGS!!

Woops … well, there goes the dryer. Time to do more folding …

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** Espe­cially since both of us had been up late the night before and up early the next morn­ing. And he was work­ing on this cre­ative job.

Not Gold, but …

Goalie Miller, after the OT Gold-​​winning goal by Team Canada

Whew. I can breathe again.

What. A. Hockey Game!! Of course, it wasn’t the out­come that I wanted … but it was sooo excit­ing! AND, at least I got to prac­tice singing the Cana­dian National Anthem. And I’m sure that Lori­beth & Mrs. Spit are more than happy to see their National Team win. AND that the entire nation of Canada can now breathe a sigh of relief.

But still … would have been nice to see the US, the under­dogs in the tour­ney, win. Would have been nice to see the MVP, Ryan Miller (and some­one with Michi­gan ties, to boot) get the gold.

Well, at least Canada’s team was built and coached by all those Detroit Red Wing staff! ;-)

At least Canada can, once again, con­tinue claim that that Hockey is still *THE* Cana­dian sport. Next to Lacrosse, any­way. But just like hockey, that sport has his­tor­i­cally been more pop­u­lar in Canada than in the US (although it’s gained much more pop­u­lar­ity since Hubby played back in high school).

Yami doesn’t want the Olympics to end, either …

I guess … well, I guess it’s the Red Wing fan in me that just reaal­lly doesn’t like Cindy — oops, I mean Sid­ney Crosby. Don’t get me wrong, he’s tal­ented and incred­i­ble. BUT … this goes back to the whole “this is a team sport and not a Superstar-​​plus-​​Team sport.” And Crosby? Well, in the NHL, he’s that “Super­star” that the league seems to be bank­ing on; plac­ing all their prover­bial eggs in the bas­ket. I know that it’s not nec­es­sar­ily his fault that the media places him in such a huge spot­light, but yet I’ve never seen him redi­rect the empha­sis back on the team and team­work. Who knows? Maybe he has … and I just have never seen it.

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

With that out of my sys­tem, tonight is offi­cially the last night of the Olympics. But more impor­tantly, tonight is the last night for Feb­ru­ary’s NaBloPoMo.

Which means that I’ve offi­cially posted a blog entry a day for the past 28 days. While it’s not an Olympic Medal, at least I can put this “medal of honor” on my blog.

And well, hey; since I still am going to be post­ing daily until Easter, which is April 5th this year, I might as well just sign myself up for March’s NaBloPoMo. But before I do, let’s at least fin­ish up on this entry:

Good Deed O’The Day. This one is a “good deed” (if I can call it that) for myself; which, and fol­low me here, will ulti­mately be a good deed for those that I work with. And that good deed is this: I did NOT do any work today, or any day this week­end. In fact, I mostly relaxed this week­end (with the excep­tion of gro­cery shop­ping, of course).

While it seems like a rather “self­ish” good deed, I know that this is a deed that needed to be done. Quite frankly, I’ve been run­ning myself ragged since the end of Decem­ber and work­ing pretty much 7 days a week. And even though I’m not quite work­ing the whole 8 hours on the week­end, the fact that I am doing any­thing work-​​related on those days I should be relax­ing is a sign that I’m over­work­ing. SO … by doing noth­ing but things I liked to do these two days allows me to unwind a bit so that I’m charged up and ready for the next week.

I think Rain looks bet­ter in a tiara than Julia Mancuso

Grat­i­tude and Thanks: As I men­tioned before, things have been pretty tight with our monthly expenses. Hav­ing both a monthly rent and mort­gage pay­ment has been killing us. And see­ing as the hous­ing mar­ket in Detroit ain’t turn­ing around any time soon, we don’t see any res­o­lu­tion with this issue in the near future. SO … what I’m grate­ful for right now is that: #1, I have a job dur­ing these dif­fi­cult eco­nomic times; and #2, I have fam­ily that love and sup­port us. Because if it wasn’t for all that they pro­vide, Hubby & I wouldn’t be able to pick our­selves up and forge for­ward dur­ing this dif­fi­cult period.

So there it is. Last post of Feb­ru­ary. Look out, March! Here I come!

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More Cowbell!

Liv­ing in Hock­ey­town (aka Detroit), I’ve been to enough hockey games to know at least the first verse of the the Cana­dian National Anthem. It also helps that Wind­sor is lit­er­ally across the river (and south) from Detroit.

But after being addicted to watch­ing the 2010 Win­ter Olympics these past few weeks, I think I’m get­ting to know the whole she-​​bang.

What exactly am I going to do after this week­end?! And, more impor­tantly … what am I going to do with my new iPhone “Cow­bell” app? After all, I did down­load it specif­i­cally for the ski and bob­sleigh and snow­board events. And I know d*mn well I’ll be using it tomor­row and this week­end when watch­ing the men’s hockey event … But still!

A lit­tle more cowbell!

Ah … but accord­ing to my team, I was told I could use it to “herd” every­one together for our team meet­ings. Or use it to call order in the room. Or sim­ply use it to dis­rupt a tense sit­u­a­tion. In any case, it will be fun using them in other sport­ing events … like, oh say … Michi­gan Football?

Let’s see, want to hear the most girl-​​scouty good deed I’ve done thus far in my Lenten “Good Deed” jour­ney? Get this … I actu­ally helped a blind man cross the street. Not. Kid­ding. You. What can I say, the oppor­tu­nity pre­sented itself as I came up to the inter­sec­tion right by the El sta­tion close to my home. I saw him stand­ing at the cor­ner look­ing unsure as to which direc­tion he wanted to turn, so I sim­ply asked him. And even though I didn’t phys­i­cally walk him across the street, I at least pointed him (or, rather lead him) in the right direction.

As I sit here tonight watch­ing … duh, the Olympics, I’m actu­ally root­ing for 16-​​year old Mirai Nagasu from the US to medal … I just love her per­son­al­ity! But some­how, I think she won’t. And I really hope that Joan­nie Rochette gets to medal tonite. I think that despite the fact that her mother passed away, she had an incred­i­ble short pro­gram. Oh well, I’m just hop­ing for a good pro­gram tonite.

Wouldn’t it be great if Joan­nie won? Then I’d get to prac­tice my singing of the Cana­dian National Anthem. Ha!

Any­way, with the focus on Joan­nie and the loss of her mother … well, it makes me think of my own Mom, and how I’d feel if I lost her sud­denly. As it is, we’re com­ing up on the year anniver­sary of my Grandma Rose’s pass­ing … which I’m sure is prob­a­bly weigh­ing heav­ily on my Mom’s mind as well. I think it’s events like this, whether it’s my Grandma’s pass­ing or Joannie’s heavy loss, that reminds me how lucky I am that my Mom is still here with me.

I love this pic­ture of Mom & Me

So that’s what I’m grate­ful for tonite: I’m grate­ful for my own Mom. I’m grate­ful for all the gifts she’s given me, includ­ing my love of read­ing and my love of con­stantly learn­ing. I’m grate­ful for the fact that she raised me to be com­pas­sion­ate and — prob­a­bly much to her cha­grin — inde­pen­dent. Mostly, I am grate­ful that she’s still here with me in this world … because, despite what she prob­a­bly thinks … her love and sup­port mean the world to me.

Okay … time for me to buckle down and watch Women’s Fig­ure Skat­ing. And maybe … just maybe … I’ll break out that cowbell!

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

Well. There goes my chance to belt out “Oh Canada” … but hey, at least Joan­nie medalled! I’m very happy for her!!

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