Well after a cold wet spring (ok, cold and wet on my scale here in GA), we have finally started ramping up softball.

The Drafted women’s team has played in 2 tournaments – we took 4th in our first tournament at Metro.  We played6 games — we were NOT ready to play that much in our first tournament! We were all soooo sore after that.  In our second tournament at Lovejoy we won 1st – yeah!  We play again this weekend.

Last weekend we played our first co-ed tournament at Conyers.  We played four games and came in 3rd – yay! Great outing for a co-ed team.

I’m playing in a co-ed league at Al Bishop, and occasionally at Hunter Park when they need me.  The Atlanta Advertising League will start up May 7th.

Having fun so far — it’s great to be back in the softball groove!

@loswhit asked on his blog:  Where Did You Grow Up?

We moved here when I was 3 1/2 in 1971, right before my little brother was born.

They paved the road some time around 2000 I think? And my dad had the driveway paved shortly after.  They still live there today.  About 5 acres of land.  The big area to the left of the driveway was the garden.  At one point, the “front garden.”   It takes a good solid day of mowing with a riding lawnmower.

We never had cable.  My parents STILL don’t have cable.  In the industry terms, it is a “home not passed.”  They’ve been talking about getting satellite for about 5 years now.

Seems like it’s out in the sticks, yes?  It’s about 25 miles SE of downtown Atlanta.

It’s Friday. I found this looking for something else. Not my original content – have no idea where it came from.  Enjoy!
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You have 2 cows…

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM

You have two cows.

You sell one and buy a bull.

Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.

You sell them and retire on the income.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM

You have two cows.

You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.  No balance sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.

You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

A CANADIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.

Your dairy operation is productive, and you sell 80% of the milk to the US market. The American government decides that you are taking advantage of federal subsidies to dump milk on the market below cost, and slaps you with 25% “countervailing” duties, to protect the interests of the above-mentioned American Corporation. Angered and enraged in typical polite Canadian fashion, you cheer on the Canadian hockey team to pound the USA team 5-2 and win Olympic gold. You let out a cheer, wave the Maple Leaf a bit, then apologize for the outburst and get back to milking your cows.

A FRENCH CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them Worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

A BRITISH CORPORATION

You have two cows.

Both are mad.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.

You break for lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION

You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you.

You charge others for storing them.

A HINDU CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You worship them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION

You have two cows.

You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.

AN ISRAELI CORPORATION

So, there are these two Jewish cows, right?

They open a milk factory, an ice cream store, and then sell the movie rights. They send their calves to Harvard to become doctors. So, who needs people?

AN ARKANSAS CORPORATION

You have two cows.

That one on the left is kinda cute…

I was my Grandma’s only girl and even though I wasn’t the best grand-kid to her, I was very special, and she was very special to me. She had 2 boys, and between them there were 2 grandsons and 1 granddaughter.  We gave her 1 great-grandson and 2 great-granddaughters.

The month before my son was born (over 11 years ago), we didn’t think Grandma would be with us much longer.  She had Parkinson’s and they hadn’t found a good mix of medication yet for her.  She was in a nursing home and not doing well.  We took pictures of her with my newborn son with the thought in the back of our head that she at least was able to hold her great-grandson before she died.

But then the right mix was found and she started getting better.  She moved into an assisted living home.  When my daughter was born we visited her there often.  Then a couple of years later, she decided that she was tired of the people there and tired of having everyone trying to know everyone’s business, and moved back to her house.

Last year they found that Grandma was developing fibroids in her lungs. No cure, only treatment for symptoms.  She was using a nebulizer with breathing treatments until a month or so ago and she moved to oxygen.  The last few weeks she has been on oxygen full time.

Sunday, we were all down at my parents’ for my Mom’s and my daughter’s birthdays — Grandma’s birthday was in August too, but she wasn’t feeling up to coming over.  So we all went down to her house and spent about an hour with her. 

Grandma passed away yesterday afternoon.  I love her so much, and I know she loved me just as much if not more.

She was the typical grandma — she let you do all the cool things parents aren’t allowed to — one time she took me to Tastee Freeze (the only restaraunt in town) to get me a milkshake.  I wanted the large one.  She asked once if I was sure that I wanted that much, and I assured her, oh yes.  So she bought it for me knowing I’d get such a bellyache.  And instead of saying “I told you so” took care of me and my silly belly. 

Here’s a picture of her at our family vacation in 2006 with her 3 great-grandchildren.  She loved the beach and loved Florida.  She and my Grandpa almost moved down there when I was still in high school, but they could never decide on a good place to stay.

I will miss you Grandma, but I’m so glad that you don’t have to struggle for every breath, or have to rest just from walking to the next room.

She just sees the world in such a different way, that I’m constantly amazed by what she says and the thoughts that come out of that not-so-little noggin of hers.

I had just bought a refill of my allergy maintenance medicine and I was opening the bottle in the car.  Buddy asks, “Why do they have so many different seals and plastic and tops and cotton on medicine bottles?”  And so we try to explain to them what happened with the Tylenol scare in 1982 (I had to look that up) and how the solution was to make sure if someone got into a product to change it, you would know.

Both kids then had a few questions about him*:  where did it happen? how many people died? will it happen again? etc…  I told them I was pretty sure he was never caught (he wasn’t) and they then asked me where I thought he was now.  I told them it was quite a while ago, and that he might even be dead by now.

Sweetie then piped up from the backseat, “Or…. maybe he retired from being evil.”

Oh heavens, I love that little girl and her left-handed angle of the world!

After we were sure the car was going to stay in the lane and not run off the road from us laughing, we heard Buddy tell her in his oh-so-11-and-wise voice, “No.  Once you go evil you can’t go back.”

Which was a whole other conversation.  Jeez Louise, kids ask the hard questions or bring up the touchy subjects as easy as they do asking “what’s for lunch?”  White House Press Correspondents have nothing on two kids sitting in the backseat of a car.

* I use the male pronoun for someone that was never identified or caught not to be sexist or whatever –  I’m just lazy and don’t want to say he/she, etc. everytime.

I love my Jeep – it is “the awesome.”  But gas prices have forced me to look at ways to lower my costs.

My daily commute is about 32 miles.  With the old me, that was 2 gallons a day.  At today’s costs, it would be $8 a day, or $160 a month just for gas.

CNN had an article about the myths of saving gas and mentioned that the best way to improve your gas mileage was to slow down.  What?!? Oh noes!

The first tank of the experiment wasn’t much of an improvement… I was still adjusting to my newer, kinder, gentler, “omg I’m going so slow!” way of life.  But the second tank of gas actually improved 3 mpg over the last 2.   That saves me $25 a month!  Think of all the beer that buys!

The weather has been nice — I think the top has been up maybe 4 days over the last 2 months.  I’m slowing down and smelling the gardenias… and the natural gas and sewage and road kill, but nevermind that… but it’s becoming nice.

I’m slowly getting used to going slow.  Now, if I look down and haven’t been thinking of my speed, I’m going about 62 mph, or about 10-15 mph slower than my old cruising speed.

I kind of like life in the slow lane.  Going 15 mph slower adds 3 minutes to my commute.  Three more minutes of enjoying the outdoors, the clear blue skies, and the bird song.  I definitely like that!

Driving back from lunch with Glenn’s cousin and his wife, my dashboard read:

My little girl looks at the world in her unique, left-handed way.  Here is a few examples, and I”ll try to add more as we remember them:

Last night while we were eating dinner she said:  “You know, your eyes are like little mirrors that only show what’s around you and you can’t see yourself…except what’s on your body.  But I can’t see my back, and that’s part of my body.  Momma, can you see your back when you grow up?”

Your pants… you know… two legs, button and zipper… well Sweetie calls the legs “pants sleeves.”

Her pillow cases are “pillow sheets.” 

Had a great time playing co-ed softball this past Saturday in Conyers.  I kind of gauge success by how late we stay — if you make it to dark and playing under the lights, you did ok.  We came in 4th and left around 10pm.  I hit the ball GREAT until the last game, and we all sucked that game… lost 6-3.  You can’t win many softball games scoring 6 runs, much less 3.  The score was 1-1 until the 6th.

This weekend there is a Jack and Jill (co-ed) tournament scheduled for Al Bishop which I kind of hope makes, even though our women’s team needs to play soon.  If it doesn’t make, we’ll play women’s at Metro.  Al Bishop is closer to the house, but Metro isn’t too much farther (compared to Conyers and Lovejoy).

No pictures – didn’t even take the camera.  Maybe next time.

We have played in 3 tournaments, and it’s rained in all 3 tournaments.

But, we only had one small delay and just a little rain on Saturday.

We started out with the Lady Rebels — great team, and they jumped out to a 10-0 lead on us early.  But we kept just chipping away and actually got pretty close at the end.  Final score was 15-11.  We were happy.

Next game was against the Lady Roadrunners, and my family came to watch!  My mom, dad, brother, his wife and their little girl all came to watch my game.  We won, but I can’t remember the score.  I know we scored around 15 again. 

Our 3rd game was against Birmingham Extreme – another really good team, and we won!  Again, forgot the score, LOL, but we really hit well and had a great time.

Our fourth game was against the Lady Roadrunners again, and this time they scored just a few more than we did… but that pushed them into Sunday.  And it rained ALL night Saturday night and most of Sunday morning, so I don’t think they had much fun.

We got our new shirts (pants should be arriving shortly) so we had to take a team picture… we look great!  We also have white ones with black letters lined in that royal blue, and a black shirt with royal blue letters lined in white.

Front row: Michelle (Scrappy), Amanda (A), Tonya, Stacey, Cindy, Tracey
Back row:  Anje (J), Amy (Amos), Shannon, Kristi, Sheron, Sherrie (Bear)