I Am Thankful For My Warm Bed on Black Friday

I typically shun "Black Friday" figuring there is no way I'm going to let some retail marketing firm succeed at their mind games. I'm a psych major after all. It's done me no other tangible good, but it may keep me from falling for that crap.  I saw a report that Sears had exactly four, yes four of their black Friday top billed items. I don't know what time you have to be lined up in Sears parking lot to get the ridiculously cheap washer/dryer set, but I'm guessing it's going to interfere with Thanksgiving dinner. Then I remind myself of the year Wes got up way before the sun to stand in line at Best Buy. He returned mid day exhausted, war torn, and with a regularly priced digital camera. He waited in line over four hours to check out, because once your invested you can't quit. It's genius really. It happens that way all the time. Who gets the Barbie Jeep for 80 bucks? Somebody I presume, but I've never met them. And gosh darn it, if you are up at 4 AM, you are going to buy something.

I happen to roll over and glance at the clock at 5AM, (way late by Black Friday standards) and briefly considered heading out into the cold. To say I'm not a morning person, is an understatement as my family can attest. (I'm still a little bitter at Jake for the 2AM wake up call on the day he was born.) So predictably I rolled over into my warm bed, and slept for another heavenly two hours. I still don't feel like I missed out. I went to Fry's at a more reasonable 9:00 and scored myself a half priced fire pit, and a couple cheap ottomans. And the best find of the day was the 19 inch TV for my kitchen that Cheryl grabbed for me at Walmart for 99 bucks. She did get up at 3AM and was armed with two girls old enough to wait in lines, so I guess I should take back everything I said. Success can be found if you do it right.

It has finally cooled off enough to justify some marshmallow roasting in our new fire pit.

In other Thanksgiving weekend news...

 Cheryl and I ran in the 5K Turkey Waddle  Thanksgiving morning. It was to benefit Breanna, a 13-year old friend of Ellyse's that is fighting Leukemia. If her situation doesn't make you count your blessings, nothing will. She'll be embarrassed that I even mention this, but Cheryl has taken on a huge role in helping Breanna's family through this ordeal. The three siblings eat, play and sometimes spend the night at her place and you can tell by the numbers we were giving in the race, that she was one the first volunteers to show up Thanksgiving morning to help make this race possible. Cheryl's capacity for quiet charity has always been an inspiration to me..

 We took the boys to see the Sun Devils take on UCLA. It was picture perfect weather and a huge victory in an otherwise mediocre season for the Devils. Maybe we should have gone to some earlier games. It seems we are good luck for them...55 points later.

And we busted out the fake tree for another year. Looks like we won't have an angel up top this year as our ceilings have shrunk in the new house.

And last but certainly newsworthy, Wes neglected to shave over the long weekend only to discover that his facial hair has sprinkling of grey in it. How is it that we still feel 20 when the mirror keeps telling us otherwise? He shaved before I could take a picture... I guess he won't be playing Santa this year.

Props To My Middle Child

DB is a funny kid with a funny name, but it just suits him. He would have you believe that there is not much going on upstairs. In fact he has this gift/curse of appearing mentally disabled in nearly every single picture we take of him. I strongly suspect it is done on purpose, because he knows it aggravates me to no end, and that pleases him so. But he has quietly risen this year and is becoming an excellent student, an avid reader, and is growing up right before my eyes. I guess this is on my mind because of the perfect straight A progress report he brought home today. Jake's you ask? Good, but let's call it less than perfect. You see school is merely a nagging nuisance that interferes greatly with his football time. But don't get me wrong. Jake is no dumb jock. In fact, he is bright enough to do "satisfactory" with barely lifting an academic finger. The good and bad thing about having same sex siblings so close in age is that inevitably, they will be competitive. This would be an understatement for my boys. Let me tell you - it is under Jake's skin big time that his kid brother smoked him on their grades this time. Bring it on, DB! No motivational speech in my arsenal could possibly be more effective.

I couldn't be more happy for Dylan though. Getting a fresh start at a new school with no one that knew that he had 77 warts all over him last year has truly been a God send for his self confidence. Having said that I will share some of my favorite photos of Dylan and you will quickly see what I mean.

This is a common pose. I have dozens just like it. 

It started at a young age. He couldn't have been more than three in this pic. 

No comment. 

You can't tell me this wasn't intentional!

In case you can't find him, fourth from the right. Yep the classic mouth breathing blank stare. 

Love you, Deebs!

Boys of Fall

My boys live for sports. We don't force it on them, but they sure get immersed in it plenty with Wes and I for parents. It was telling that we met playing softball considering the amount of time our family spends in sports related activities.Sometimes I worry that we are getting out of balance with all the practices and games that quickly consume our free time. But then I consider that we are bonding, laughing, strategizing, talking and generally having fun together during this time. I had a fellow mom make the comment recently that.."Wow you are a good mom to sit through all those games."

Truth be told, I love the games and get just as excited as the boys. Wes is an amazing coach and has gathered quite the following. He takes it seriously and make no mistake, he wants to win. But he is fair, and makes sure that every kid gets a chance regardless of skill. I've seen him sit down his superstars with the game on the line to let a less athletic kid play because it was his turn. It costs us the victory a lot. He is dedicated to teaching these kids about sports and the countless life lessons that mimic these contests.  He doesn't put up with any crap, and I've cringed on more than one occasion when he has put a kid, parent, or official in their place. He never berates or embarrasses kids that are athletically challenged, but he does demand respect and expect that they will listen, pay attention, and always put forth their best effort. He has zero patience for coaches who use tactics that he considers to be against the spirit of the game. You know the guys who have ten kids on the football team, all of whom paid the same amount of money to have a chance to play and learn, but only the best five get any meaningful time on the field. Or the coach who technically is within the rules when he instructs his defense to blitz the quarterback every single time forcing him to pass, full well knowing that very few seven year olds can pass that quickly. Is it effective? Yep. Does it teach them anything at all about the fundamentals of football? Nope. Or my personal favorite, the coach who has cherry picked only the best of athletes for his team, plays only the best of his best and wins every single game by a landslide. Congratulations jerk, your son has scored four touchdowns,  the score is 67-0, and you are still out there with your superstars running up the score. What about that kid at the end of your bench? How about giving him a chance to have a story to tell for the next two years about his touchdown. There have been a couple of times when I knew it took an enormous amount of self restraint on Wes' part to not lose it with another coach. We've been married long enough now that I can always tell when he's about to boil over. He's a passionate guy. I knew what he was when I picked him up, as the old seminary story says. And for the record, it did not skip a generation. Wes Whittaker.. you are Jake's father. Thanks for another great season of football.

Social Networking Land Mines

I love Facebook. I love that I can have such a convenient venue to connect with my friends and relatives. I do have a confession to make though. Part of the entertainment of Facebook and the blogosphere is the opportunity to witness the exploding social land mines that people create for themselves. There is something about the anonymous nature of your keyboard that emboldens folks to write things that they would never in a million years say at a dinner party.  I shudder to think about what it would have been like to have Facebook in my life during my dating years. Even given the relatively stable (boring)  life I have now, it still  is a dicey world to maneuver through. It requires skill and insight that I've noticed lately that few people actually possess. For the record, I'm not claiming to be good at this game, just a willing (naive) participant. So it is only a matter of time before creating your first land mine. You post what seems like a completely innocuous statement and then you wake up at 4 AM and think of that one person you probably offended OR your comment is just fine, but a the resultant comment of a "friend" completely takes your comment to another dimension that you had no intention of going.

The problem as I see it is this. Safe is also uninteresting. Edgy will entertain, but usually at the expense of offending others. Crude will get you some laughs, but you will lose the respect of others. Funny can work, but to truly amuse you usually have to mock. Candid is refreshing but makes you vulnerable. Marketing will get you blocked. Emotional/spiritual/personal/political are all chock full of aforementioned land mines. So what is a person to do?

You can do the theoretical "check please" and get out of the game all together. You can stay in but invisible and just stalk everyone else, but this is not satisfying or fair for your cyber compadres. You can go mundane and tell everyone about what kind of sandwich you had for lunch and how hot/cold/windy/rainy it is out today. You can go private and create enough extra steps that you might as well have checked out because no one can find you. Or you can do as I have done and bravely (code for stupidly) charge forward, and keep walking into the land mines in exchange for getting to witness other's explosions as well. See ya around cyber suckas, until of course I get too maimed to continue.

"I Voted" Now Give Me My Diet Coke With Lime

So it's election day and I kept my streak alive of not missing a chance to vote in an election since my 18th birthday. I won't lie, the fact that Sonic was offering a free 44 ouncer for showing up with an "I voted" sticker was a huge motivator. In my younger years I was more optimistic about the impact that my vote and subsequently my representatives could have in our nation. I fancy myself on conservative principles of fiscal and personal responsibility, and the preservation of freedom through minimal government intervention. I realize that is overly simplistic, but I still make an effort to put my vote behind the candidate that I think will defend those principles. I've been around enough election cycles now, that I now see that most politicians, with the rare exception are liars and will turn on his or her constituents if the money or other motivations suits their aspirations. And frankly, they take way too much credit and get way too much blame. Everyone is up in arms about this economy...I'm out of work, my home is underwater, gas prices are too high.....yada yada. You're kidding yourself people if you think that voting in a bunch of republicans are going to magically fix all that. We are just  birds riding on the back of an elephant. Flap your wings all you want, but it's not going to have much effect on the elephant. It's just bigger than that. It's not happening overnight and their are no easy fixes no matter who is in charge. Our current policies are completely unsustainable. Somethings gotta give. We'll see. I hope I'm wrong.

Speaking of politics, did I mention Wes was on the primary ballot? (See the last name on the third row.) The good news, he won. The bad news, it was just in time for us to move out of the district. Perhaps his unpaid political career was not meant to be.