Showing posts with label driving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label driving. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Don't Tell My Mother

Look what the kids came up with this time....






Just don't tell my mother I let them do that.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Holy Sports Weekend Batman

I must be nuts. That's the only reason I can come up with for why I would say yes to two kids playing soccer and two kids playing baseball all in the same weekend. Here's how my weekend looked:

Friday 6 PM Ty had baseball at our home field
Saturday 7 AM Ty had soccer 30 minutes away
11:20 AM Ty had another game - same field
1:30 G had soccer 1.5 hrs away - 1.5 hrs back to...
4:20 Ty had another soccer game - same field as before.
Sunday 7 AM S3 had baseball 1.5 hrs away.
12:30 PM Coaches for S3's team decide to play a double header
5:30 PM Ty had another soccer game 2 hrs away.

I put somewhere around 250 miles on my minivan iin two days. That was a lot of running, even for me. And now onto the pictures...

Ty is the one with orange sleeves and black socks.


I'd forgotten how much I like to watch him play. He really focuses on the game and plays hard and even though they usually lose, he's always in a good mood afterward.



Waiting to sub in.


She hasn't been terribly aggressive with the bigger girls but when the ball comes near her, she wins it every time.



I've decided I must need to invest in some catcher's equipment because look who else decided to give the position a try...


Honestly at first I was a little disappointed because he's so good in the 2nd base/short stop position plus I really felt like it was cool that Ty had something kinda special by being catcher but once I saw S3 play I stopped being disappointed. He was fantastic.

It must be genetic. My dad was a catcher too.



Poor E. Doesn't she look totally worn out by all the sports?


The girls were driving me crazy by the end of the day so I let them play with my camera so they'd let me watch the soccer game. G accidentally caught a generational pic. It's not a great pic of any of us but I thought it was kinda cool.


So that was my crazy weekend. Now I'm going to go crash. If you need me, I'll be in bed.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

10 Things I Learned Today



1. When the moon is full, it will rain the minute you step out of the car to change a flat and stop raining the minute you are at the repair shop. Also it will be the one day of the month that instead of wearing your typical black, you will be wearing white and powder blue.

2. Monroe doesn't put the lug nuts on so tight that a girl can't get them off.

3. Dummy tires don't have a label on them that says, "This side toward car," but there really is only one way they'll go on.

4. Camera phones and email come in real handy when you can't figure out how to lower a jack and your dad is and hour away but sitting in front of his computer.

5. When you lower the car, do it slowly or you might startle yourself and the kid strapped in her carseat inside the car.

6. My husband (it's his car) is a slob. Or a pack rat. Or maybe both. Either way, there was a lot of junk in that trunk. On top of the spare.

7. I realized if I ever planned to murder someone, I couldn't risk putting their dead body in the trunk of the car.

8. Tires are heavy.

9. If you are wearing eye make up and changing a tire in the rain, you have to look carefully at all your fingers to decide which is the cleanest one before you can lick it and clean the mascara from your cheeks so that the repair shop guys don't think you were crying.

10. After 15 years (half my lifetime) I can still change a flat tire.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Insane Soccer Mom You Say?

Look, S3 is not the world's best basketball player. It's not that he can't do it; it's more that he's not sure what to do. I have every confidence that he will improve mostly because it really makes him mad that he's not the world's best basketball player so he has a basketball in his hands every possible moment he can. However he is not getting a lot of actual game time.

During his last game I was unable to attend and my friend Joann told me the coach played S3 for the entire second half. Doesn't that just figure; the one game I miss. I had that in the back of my mind and then S3 asked me not to miss his game last night in Lansdale, so how could I say no?

So on a little less than two hours sleep, I loaded up the van with a bunch of kids who don't really enjoy basketball and drove 1.5 hours in heavy traffic to the middle of nowhere because my son asked me to do it. He did indeed get to play last night. In the last minute of the game. Literally. He had a terrific steal (or whatever they call it in basketball) and started to get the ball back to his basket and the buzzer sounded.

Hey at least I got to stop at a Boston Market on my way back home.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Brilliant!

Last night I was running late for work because of the kids' concert at school and when I got about a block from my house and saw a lot of cars and some flashing lights I thought there had been an accident. Reasoning that I was late and that they'd probably be making us all turn around anyway and watching the guy in front of me turn around and head the other direction brought me to the decision to make a quick U-turn in the middle of the road.

It was not one of my better decisions.

The police officer who pulled me over said, "You do realize you made an illegal U-turn right in front of me?"

No wait, it gets worse.

He says, "When we're doing a DUI check and cars start making U-turns we tend to get a little suspicious."

No wait, it gets worse.

We'd just had the van in the shop a while ago and I'd taken out the registration and insurance papers.

He says, "There is a $300 fine attached to not carrying your registration papers with you in the vehicle."

I'm not sure if it was the soccer mom van, the nursing scrubs or the copious tears but he said it was my lucky day because I seemed like a good person and he was really just looking for DUIs tonight.

Note to self: You are an idiot.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Idiot Mom Strikes Again

Ah it's been a while since I've seen Idiot Mom (a.k.a. I-Mom). She used to make lots of appearances but I really thought I had managed to banish her. Apparently she's stronger than I thought.

I-Mom is infamous for her idiocy. She forgets school activites. She burns dinner. She has poor judgement (sure you can drive the van!). She gets lost driving a block away. She messes up appointments. Yes, somehow I managed to royally screw up the kids' dentist appointments. In my defense it was really only half my fault this time.

I made the appointments last week for this morning and I even made all the arrangements for the kids' school activities that they'd miss while they were out this morning. So we all piled in the van and took off for the office which is right around the corner. There was a sign in the door that our dentist has retired and the doctor who is taking over his patients should go to a building one block down for their appointments. Well even though it's only a block away I got stinkin' lost so I called the office and told them I was their 8:45 appointment but I was lost.

Turns out there was some issue with our insurance and I had to check into our coverage for the cleanings vs. our coverage for cavities and they were expecting me to call back to confirm that I wanted the appointments. I thought I had the appointments and I would call back if our insurance would not cover the fees and I needed to cancel. They had cancelled our appointments and didn't have a hygenist in the office so basically I kept the kids home for nothing. If only there were snow on the ground. I could have called it a two-hour delay.

The good news is, I had a thought this morning so I threw my camera in the van on the way to take the kids to school and sure enough my feathered friend was hanging out on the side of the road again. He had his girlfriends with him today and either he is a chicken or they are birdbrains because when I pulled up next to him, he dashed into the weeds but the girls hung around wondering what the heck I was doing.


Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Impromptu Country Drive

A little while ago I got a call to work tonight and while I was checking my schedule to see if it would be feasible I noticed one of the kids has their Christmas shop at school today. I happen to know for a fact that none of the kids took money with them to school today and I know for a fact that that kid would be terribly upset. So I called the school and it turned out I had just enough time to run money over to the school before the scheduled time (btw, it was G that forgot her money).

On the way there I was cruising down this little back road that twists and turns around a creek when up ahead on the road I could see flares and flashing lights. I know because of the windy road that people tend to have lots of accidents and I was worried the road would be closed (I only know one way to school really well. The others I tend to get a teeny-weenie bit lost sometimes).

As it turns out there had been a water main break and around one of the turns the road had frozen and turned into a pure sheet of ice. Some guys had gone out to set up flares until PennDOT could come and salt. I asked the guy if I could still drive through, explaining my direction predicament and he said I could give it a shot so I slowly started up the twisted incline. There was a guy standing just off to the side of the bend in the road and I thought, "Boy that guy is brave," and I started going around the bend. I wasn't near him but he jumped out of the way anyway and I laughed. Brilliant!

On the way home I spotted a couple of interesting birds on the roadside and grabbed a pic with my phone. It's hard to see them but they're pretty little Ring-Neck Pheasants.


Friday, November 10, 2006

Phew!

Wow, I suddenly and surprisingly became very busy these last few days. It's amazing how these things pop up so quickly. Tuesday was the last day I posted. Wednesday morning I drove to KOP to meet a friend who had flown in from Ohio for a business meeting. She and I had breakfast at the Corner Bakery (and I burned the stink out of my tongue!) but wow was it expensive! On the way home I stopped at a couple of stores including the grocery store to pick up a few things I'd been needing when my phone rang. Nancy, the scheduler at work had a call off and asked me to pick up that night.

When Steve is gone typically I don't like to work. It's just hard on me and the kids to schlepp all our things for bed and school and etc all the way to someone else's house and then all the way back home the next morning, not to mention the imposition on that person. Four kids tends to make a large crowd but it comes down to money doesn't it? When I am called in at the last minute like that I am paid extra for the inconvenience. So I figured if my parents were available to babysit I'd do it and if they weren't then that was a good reason to say no. They were ready, willing and able so I agreed to pick up even though I'd been up since 5:00 AM to be able to get to KOP and my friend that morning. It was a looooong night, let me tell you. I have some stories about work I could tell, oh my!

Anyway after all that it took me most of the day Thursday just to recover. I think I could have slept for the rest of the week, I was that tired. We had the craziest dinner Thursday night because I didn't have the energy to plan anything so the kids ended up eating BBQ chicken wings with garlic bread.

So here it is, TGIFriday. Steve is home but he and S3 are going to a 76ers game tonight with some friends. Saturday T has a candy making party for his Sunday school class and then a pool party for a kid on his soccer team. G is going to Lancaster for a Build-A-Bear party. I promised S3 I'd take him to GameStop to trade in some PS2 games and then after that I think I can breathe again.

Phew!

Friday, October 13, 2006

S3 vs. Calvary


Had another game out inTimbuktu tonight. The boys ended up losing 2 -1 in the 37th minute (keep in mind they play 25 minute halves). It was tied most of the game but lost due to a penalty kick. The kid from Calvary had a beautiful shot. Unfortunately my camera batteries gave out around the 30th minute. G & E's bladders gave out around the 23rd minute.

Only one more game and S3's season is over. He tells me he has signed up for basketball.











On the ride home, someone asked for the light to be turned on. In the rear view mirror out of the corner of my eye I saw E coming up with a very handy little trick to reach the overhead light.














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