Where did this month these months go?

I started this post in May and now here it is July! I had to take a slew of online classes because my employer decided very unexpectedly that I should renew my expired teaching certificate and do it immediately please! so I basically took a years worth of classes over this summer session and it consumed a huge junk of my time! Ugh - just a few loose ends for that and I'll be done and hopefully back in the swing of things! Hope everyone out there in the book blogosphere has been well. I miss the community and am looking forward to some time to particpate soon.

Here's where I was in May before the new craziness began....

Hard to believe I have let almost a month go by without tending to my posts! I always say "May is the new December" for those of us with school aged children. As soon as we get through Easter, the end of year festivities begin and it is one thing after another! I have been reading though so to get myself back on track I will make my list of books read here and see what I can get done as far as my thoughts later!

Homefront by Kristin Hannah
Uglies by Scott Westerfield
Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman
A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmell
She Got Up Off the Couch by Haven Kimmell
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillippa Gregory
The Lions of the West by Robert Morgan
The Paris Wife by Paula McClain
Ketchup is a Vegetable by Robin O'Bryant

And, since May, I can also add...
Very Valentine by Adriana Trigiana
Coming Out by Danielle Steele
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Night Swim by Jessica Keener
Off the Road by Jack Hitt
The Skinny Rules by Bob Harper
Autism At Hand by Lorca Damon
Just A Guy by Bill Engvall
The Cat Manual by Michael Taylor
A Quiver Full of Arrows by Jeffrey Archer
Evidence by Johnathan Kellerman
Say When by Elizabeth Berg
Staying at Daisy's by Jill Mansell
Your Two Year Old by Ames and Ilg

Where I've Been...

I haven't posted in almost a month! Have you wondered where I have been?

One of the biggest things that has kept me busy the last few weeks has been Relay for Life. I was a team captain honoring a dear, sweet friend who is in the thick of her cancer battle. Since January I have been coordinating meals for the family and things really heated up when it came time for the actual Relay event. We did great. We fund raised double what our goal was, we had great participation, and I know my dear sweet friend felt loved and supported.

The next thing that kept me busy was preparing to host Bunko. For years I was in a relaxed Bunko group; all that hosting involved was throwing out the card tables and opening the wine. We all had kids and jobs and pets and life was crazy so we ignored the mess and focused on the fun. But that group disbanded and I have ended up playing with a very different sort of crew. These twelve women are mostly retired or perhaps work part-time, they have grown children or no children, and their homes are big, beautiful, spotless mansions on the water. Bunko is preceded by a sit down dinner for all twelve - a lot more preparation! They are a lot of fun but they are used to good food and clean houses - those things require a lot of effort on my part! Our house was suffering from some neglect, the worst being where the puppy had chewed three holes in the wall during her chewing stage! So hosting Bunko involved painting both my kitchen and the hallway and getting some landscaping accomplished. There were a dozen other things that should have been done but those chores took up three solid weekends so we just ran out of time! Now we have until my turn next year to accomplish the rest!

We have also started Spring sports here at the RoundFile home. Youngest is playing flag football in a church league. That's not too bad, one practice during the week and a game on Saturday. Teen is a different story, rec league soccer is quite a time commitment. He has two practices during the week (sometimes an extra one to make three!) and a week night game and a weekend game.

Spring break kept me busy too. One thing about living at the beach, people do come visit! I had friends come from Maryland, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. Not all together - these were all separate visits. Only one actually stayed at my house but I did spend time visiting with everyone and organizing get togethers. There has been a lot of eating going on 'round here! I am almost to my pregnancy delivery weight - Lord, have mercy!!!

Yesterday was a trip to Clemson to bring BookTiger home for the summer. She has finished freshman year. I am now the proud parent of a college sophomore!

Other things this week - a funeral today and a wedding tomorrow and a baby shower Sunday! So...that's where I've been, probably more than you wanted to know! I have read a little bit, I hope to get those books posted soon. I have 300 posts backed up on my Google Reader but hope that I will get to those soon too! I miss my blog and my blogging friends - I'll be back!

September...already??!!

This is my new leaf...the one I am turning over to start September! I've been in "perfectionist" mode. It's those times where I immobilize myself with thinking that things must be prefect. It takes hold on the blog when I get behind on posting and then I want to try to post the backlogged books in the order I read them rather than just jumping in and writing about what's fresh on my mind. And with feeling like my posts have to be some great work, when really, my 10 followers (if they are still around, hello?) could not care less or they would never have started following my ramblings in the first place! It takes hold at home by my trying to do it all with chores and children so that it is DONE RIGHT! But all that does is wear me out and teaches the children they can get away with doing nothing because mom will do it. Unfortunately for the US Navy I haven't been in perfectionist mode at work but at least that means I am doing soemthing there rather than the nothing I have done here!

So what does this mean? It means I am almost finished with Mockingjay and when I get done, I'm going to tell you what I think despite the fact that I haven't posted Hunger Games or Catching Fire yet! Perfectionism is gone...let's get back to sloppy and fun. Maybee I won;t even spel check this...

Psst...universe, I'm still here!

I haven't posted in forever as things have been hectic in real life! Hectic in a fairly good way though. Made the trip home this past weekend to visit my mom and dad. It was nice to see with my own eyes that Dad looks good - he is tolerating the chemo well and we are hoping for good results when he has his new scan done soon.

The kids all had Spring Break so that kept me busy trying to give them a little fun at the beach and such without totally abandoning work. Because I am the only person that does my job, if I take off, the children I see just don't get seen. So I am hesitant to take time off knowing I want to be free to go to my parents if things there take a turn for the worse. (Just explaining - not complaining - I love my job and it gives me a trememdous amount of freedom when I need it!) The blessing of living by the beach - you can go out for an afternoon and feel like you got plenty of surf and sun. It was actually much too chilly still for my taste but the boys are like the Canadien tourists - It's Spring and they're going swimming by God no matter how blue they turn!

The other time zapper has been the start of Spring soccer season. Yougest is playing for the rec league. Tween is playing for both the school and the rec league. So six practices a week and only one momma to drive = harried mother. The school and rec league only overlap for a few weeks so things will only be busy, busy for a short while. Then they'll be back to just plain busy.

I've been reading - actually more listening than reading with all the hours in the car...I'll try to get posts up at some point but have finished - Are You There Vodka? It's Me Chelsea. by Chelsea Handler, Call of the Wild by Jack London, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, The Elephant in the Playroom by Denise Brodey, Middletown, America by Gail Sheehy, and Brick Lane by Monica Ali. I saw that Brick Lane has been made into a movie so may have to rent that one!

So that's life at the moment. I am reading your blogs but just not writing on mine!

Yes, it's been quiet...

I have a leadership role in our little Catholic schools largest fundraiser. It's taking up more time than I imagined! It's worth every minute as all proceeds go to the scholarship fund so that families with financial difficulties who want their child to have a Catholic education can still do so. And with the economy still slow - that includes a lot of my friends who are in businesses like real estate or sales. So...no blogging! (I also hosted Tween's 13th birthday party last weekend - that's a post all it's own! Boys, girls, dancing, Silly String...CHAOS!)

I read a great LOL book...The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Party - or some combination of those words - I'll verify the title before I write my review! And today, David Sedaris' Holidays on Ice came in the mail - woo hoo - or Ho ho ho! That's one I plan to read for the Christmas Reading Challenge if I ever get time to put a post up and join! I have also finished our Facebook Historical fiction selection for this month - The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran - a good one too. The selection next month is A Christmas Carol - that would work for the Christmas Reading Challenge too if...oh, never mind!

Tomorrow we pack our car and travel 8+ hours up to Northern Virginia for my husband's grandmother's 90th birthday. 90 is still pretty impressive to me despite the fact that I am over halfway there! Another impressive fact about the 90 year old Granny is that she had 13 children - different times! Since it's such a long trip, we are just skipping school next week and staying through Thanksgiving! So...the blogging drought will continue.

If over the Thanksgiving holiday, you're traveling on 95 too - wave!

Quiet here...noisy there.

I am a leader at Cub Scout camp this week. This means I am walking all day in the 100 degree South Carolina heat shepherding Youngest and twelve other boys through BB shooting, and archery, and songs, and skits, and fishing, and sports, and oh so much more. And when I get home, I am exhausted. Every muscle aches. And today my thumb is a bloody bruised mess from holding the nails as these thirteen boys (who apparently lack eye-hand coordination) made bird houses. So things here on the ol' blog are quiet. Camp...very, very noisy!

And he does it again...

We had a lovely Memorial Day dinner.. brats from the grill with sauerkraut, my famous potato salad (the homemade kind that takes all day to prepare!), steamed broccoli, and a red, white, and blue layered fruit trifle. Served promptly at 5;00pm; we all ate until we were stuffed. Then as we were cleaning, Ex-Marine looks at me and says, "So that was dinner , right?" Yeah, honey, that was dinner.

Is that better or worse than this?

Thinking positive, reinforcement

1. Sat in traffic waiting to inch up to the broken line so I could scoot past the other cars up to the empty left turn lane. Debated with self whether or not I should just ignore solid line and go. Car about five back from me decides to go for it. The state trooper in front of both of us, turns out of the line and promptly tickets him. An actual example of reinforcing good behavior by avoiding a negative stimulus. Those examples are hard to come by - I know because explaining the principles of reinforcement comes into play often when you are working with families of toddlers!

2. Went to the "nice" grocery store, the expensive one, but you go there because you don't want to deal with the riff-raff at the discount store. There was a drunk outside who at the moment of my approaching him decided it was time to turn and urinate against the side of the building and then look aggrievedly at me as if my presence was interrupting him. He was extinguishing my bad behavior (wasting money at the pricey store) with his introduction of a negative stimulus. Very negative. Very, very negative.

3. And there's positive reinforcement happening all over the place. You know how you just sometimes get on a good roll? That's where I am. I'm hitting my stride with some things at work, I've made some nice progress with Spring projects at home, it's just feeling like I have my act together (for the moment)! And the positive reinforcement would be... get your travel claim turned in to the government...you get paid! get your closet organized and your laundry done....you can find your clothes in the morning! plan the menu and shop....dinner is on the table! It's all the little things that add up to one happy mama! Ain't nothing gonna break my stride...

Happy Mother's Day

If all you want for Mother's Day is for your husband to take your three children far, far away for at least an hour maybe two or three so you can be alone - truly, absolutely, completely A-L-O-N-E, does that make you a bad mother?

And if you would spend the first part of that hour running through the house in a cleaning frenzy so that your alone time could be spent in a quiet AND clean house, does that make it better or worse?

And if by the end of the two hours, you're missing the children and wondering where they are and why they aren't home yet, does that just make you pathetic?

Don't you love holidays? Let's go cook and then clean-up a really big meal with lots of cream cheese.

Pity party over, time to work!

Discovered this week that a friend who is the young mother of six beautiful children has breast cancer. Another friend, mother of two young boys, is in the hospital as her third battle with breast cancer has taken a bad turn due to side effects during treatment. These are REAL problems.

My kid is on the path to becoming a juvenile delinquent - so what? At least I am here and healthy so that I can deal with it and hopefully live to see him come through the other side. Ex-Marine may be out of work - so what? I have a good job, he has military retirement - yes, belt tightening would have to occur but we would survive. We'll figure out college - Bookworm is so smart she will qualify for the scholarship for state schools - she just may not be going out of state - and in reality she doesn't seem to care. She's perfectly content to go in-state; it's probably me living vicariously through her more than anything else! These are WHINES - not real problems.

So I kind of picked myself up yesterday - shined my sink - and came back. I went out to dinner at the Outback with a group of old girlfriends. I had a Cosmopolitan, a steak filet, shrimp stuffed with lobster, and later, poundcake with strawberries and whipped cream. BUT...no bread. I gave up bread for Lent. (Yes, I am questioning the value of this sacrifice as I have to wear elastic waist pants today because I am still so full.) I got my ducks in a row for a training I had to conduct today for about 65 childcare providers....a tough audience at the end of the day; they have been known to fall asleep - but not tonight, at least not not during my portion!

I've made a list of all the book reviews in draft form in various stages of completion - I'm putting them here to hold myself accountable! Damn, John Adams is still not in the list.
Beyond the White House by Jimmy Carter
We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates (even after I said I would never read her again!)
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
The Constant Princess by Philippa GregoryBeach House by James Patterson

So Cryapalooza 2009 has ended.

How do we tell if it's clean?

In the course of my government slavery, I went into a house the other day that was home to a few kids and a set of parents and a small pack of assorted dogs. The house was dirty: piles of things on the floor, dishes unwashed, trash overflowing, and most unappealing - a pile of dog poo on the stairs. The stairs inside the house. The stairs that people would traverse from the first floor to the second floor - eww! So I am telling my friend, Mary Poppins (who really is practically perfect in every way) about this and saying, "How would you not know your dog had pooped in the house?" And there was this pause and she was like, "Well..." and then came the story about the time her dog had pooped in the house and how she was totally unaware but only figured it out later when he was cavorting with a piece of rock hard dried poo. So then she had to search every nook and cranny until she found the poop stash. And just in case you are wondering, Mary Poppins' house is immaculate - except for that one pile of dog poo.

So then of course I started thinking about my own pet poop story. Our cat lives in Bookworm's room. Sometimes the cat roams about the house just to nap in a new spot the way cats like to do and then gets shut out when Bookworm shuts the door and takes off for school or wherever. Shut out from her usual napping spots and from her litter box. Well the way our house is laid out all my places - my bedroom, my den, the kitchen, the laundry room are all at one end of the house. Bookworm is on the other end past the formal living room that gets absolutely no use. So one day there is a knock on the front door - no one uses our front door! I go to "the other side" to let in a dad that is dropping off Youngest. As we're standing there hanging out in the formal unused living room, I'm thinking, "Something (or someone) doesn't smell right." But we make our small talk, thanks for the car pool, see you soon, goodbye. I turn around and there right smack dab in the middle of the center cushion of my lovely leather couch is a pile of cat poop. That's what didn't smell right. And in case you are wondering, although my house isn't immaculate, I do have a housekeeper that comes once a week so it's pretty clean - except for that one pile pf cat poo.

So all of this just begs the question - if the presence or absence of a pile of pet poop in a home can no longer be a benchmark for cleanliness, what are we left with? How do we tell if it's clean?

I contemplated Googling "pictures of poo" to add a graphic but thought better of it...aren't you glad?

Hold onto this thread, please.

My life is unraveling. I've not posted lately. I've read and listened to several books. I've seen a few movies. I've hostessed a party. I've worked at home - laundry, dishes, bills, laundry, dishes, bills, and at work. But all of that pales - seems completely unblogworthy compared to the pain. Tween is falling apart. We've gotten a notice of possible expulsion from the school, we just discovered he's committed a grave act of vandalism with a group of other boys. Ex-Marine got notice today that his company is laying off twenty percent of the work force. Those that are lucky enough to stay will have to weather a five week furlough planned for this summer and another two weeks at the end of the year. Bookworm is all about college - but how are we going to pay for it? And Youngest just keeps plugging away being his angelic self despite the high emotions around him. I'm in a state of complete disorganization. When I am carrying around a Ziploc bag of bills and permission slips and sports schedules because I don't have time to deal with them, I know it's bad. And it's not even the gallon size - it's the two gallon size! So I've got several posts in varying stages of completion waiting patiently in draft status for me to get it together. I could maybe get it together for me but it is so much more than me that it just feels a little overwhelming. It's taking all I've got to hang onto this thread.

I guess I only notice when you don't...

Ex-Marine gave me a bit of grief the other evening about a meal he thought was less than five-star quality. So I look at him and say, "You don't need to be critical, I've had well rounded meals on the table for the last however many days." (This is no easy feat for a working mom with three busy children!) He pauses and says, "I guess I only notice when you don't cook." Yeah buddy, that about sums up the problem right there.

The One Man Band

Yesterday was a busy day. It was a classic example of me being "the one man band" and taking on too much. Not a single thing I did was very difficult - we had a Cub Scout function - there were some directions for the boys about what to do, ordering awards, preparing the food for the the Scouts and their families, printing off a few pages about upcoming events....nothing that was difficult, no rocket science. And with those little, not difficult things - I get into the thinking pattern that it is so easy that is just easier to do it myself rather than to try to explain to someone else how to do it. I think, "It would take longer to call and talk to Other Mom about ordering pizza, I can just stop by and order the pizza." "By the time I explain to Other Mom where to find the songs on the Internet and how many copies to print, I may as well just print them." The problem with this thinking is that it is NOT TRUE. There are only so many hours in the day, I cannot do it all even if it is all very simple little things. Every little thing takes time and I need to learn to ask for help.

Lawrence Welk explained.

A vivid memory of my childhood is the sight and sounds of the Lawrence Welk show. I can hear the man saying, "A one an a two" as he counted on the next number. I can see the set with  the blue curtains and the bubbles and the singers and the band. It was on PBS every night after dinner....my dad's passion or perhaps just his kindred North Dakotan spirit. Or so I thought.   Fast forward to my house. And every night on television is something like House or CSI or Seinfeld...entertainment everyone likes. So when bedtime rolls around, nobody wants to go. They want to finish watching the great show...just one more episode...just ten more minutes...just until the next commercial...please, please, please, PLEEEEEEZE!   But the other night I happened to have the clicker in hand and was flipping through a few channels making my selection and a show caught my eye. It was the Celtic Women special on PBS. I paused briefly with no real intention of spending more than a moment when my children immediately started to question this decision - no one it seemed wanted to watch Celtic Women except for me. With a flash of clarity I realized that I had stumbled onto more than just some Reubenesque women in flowy gowns who could sing and fiddle. I had found the antidote to the begging for more TV. As the show went on the kids showed only the briefest passing interest, both boys, Tween and Youngest, took note of the generously porpotioned size of the women (even at ages 9 and 12 stereotypes of female beauty are already firmly ingrained) and Bookworm inquired whether there would be any dancing Ala Riverdance. But that was it and then they just filtered out of the room off to other pursuits. I was left in peace.   And so now I wonder...did my dad even like Lawrence Welk or did he simply like that we didn't like Lawrence Welk? Hm-mm....I'll ponder that one while I Tivo a few more gems for the nights when I am ready for some peace and quiet even if it means I have to have my peace and quiet accompanied by big band music, or Celtic tunes, or Gregorian chants.

It's not easy being me...

I have always been one of those people who tries not to take an "in your face" stand about things that I think are right because before you can say, "boo", it will turn out I am wrong. There are those that will argue a point and there are those of us who just won't. I always agree to disagree.

Being this type of person gets me labeled as "nice". People say things like, "Oh Just Mom would never say anything mean about anyone else, she is so nice.". These kind of comments are made by acquaintances - real friends know I can be very catty. Nothing to be proud of but it is the truth. So all the periphery people who think I am the good fairy of sweetness and light are deluded. The real me is just a wimp who is so afraid to be wrong, that she won't stand up and argue when she knows she is right.

Yesterday I arrived home to no Internet. The Internets was gone and I was MAD! And it was gone because we hadn't paid the bill. But you see....we hadn't received a bill. Here's the story. In August we switched from a phone line Internet provider to a cable Internet provider - Hargray. Hargray came out and hooked us up by cable and the Internet worked just fine - speedy quick just like we wanted. But the cable lay across our yard for weeks and weeks and no one ever came back to bury it. So I finally called to complain and it turned out they had our house number wrong. They had sent someone out to bury the cable but they had accidentally sent him to the neighbors house and they had no cable to bury so he left. Then the neighbor came over with a bill, addressed to our name but with his house number. Yessiree Bob, Hargray had made a mistake. They had our house number WRONG!

We called and got it straightened out. They came out and buried our cable. But guess what, we still didn't get a bill. We were still getting great, speedy quick Internet, we had plenty of other bills to pay, so we didn't even notice that Hargray hadn't asked us for any money. Until they decided to cut us off. And that made me mad. Because they had our house number WRONG! They hadn't sent us a bill.

Off I went to the Hargray building checkbook in hand, righteous indignation at the ready, and I told the girl at the counter exactly how Hargray had messed up. She was apologetic, she accepted my payment, she put a rush order on the reconnect, and she just couldn't understand how it had happened because according to her records our address had been changed and the new bills (plural - 2 months worth) had gone to the correct house. I smugly sat and let her do her work and as I waited, I started looking around. And I started to notice not so much of the familiar red Hargray logo but lots and lots of an obnoxious bright green Cricket logo. All over the place, the same color bright green Cricket logo as that strange bill we had at home. The bill that I thought maybe was an old cell phone we had forgotten to disconnect and so had set aside to deal with later - for two months in a row! And I kind of remember reading something announcing a buy out or a merger or some sort of marriage of telecommunications that resulted in my Hargray account now being called Cricket. Oh, man, I was WRONG!

And the moral of this story is that I need to be exactly who I am - a non-confrontational wimp because there seems to be a proportional relationship with how right I think I am (and how insistent I am upon the fact) and how wrong I actually am. I do not need to grown a backbone because apparently I need to focus all my energies on growing a brain. It's not easy being me but I need to be who I am.

180 Minutes of Solitude

I. am. home. ALONE! Except for the puppy, of course, but.. NO OTHER PEOPLE! I have three hours of silence - except for the TV in the background and some random barking. What to do, what to do? Oh, I know exactly what to do...blog, blog, blog! I have been busy with my Fall Into Reading post updating the reviews completed by adding excerpts from the dust jackets and photos of the authors and links to related pages - wow! And, of course, every time I click on "view blog" and read what I have written I find a typo - ugh - I use spell check, how does this happen? Oh, who cares, I can sit here amd fix it all at my leisure! My blog is still a secret in this house so being home alone means I can blog openly - not keeping a game of Solitaire tabbed to quickly click over to if someone looks over my shoulder! I think I have a sense of how a closet cross dresser must feel with a few hours alone in the house - freedom to be who I want to be! The keyboard is my high heels, the mouse my silky stockings....now if I could just think of something to write about!

The Day I Forgot My Puppy

It was a busy day and I had it planned right down to the minute.
3:00 Pick up Tween and Youngest from school. Drop them at home.
3:30 Take Bookworm shopping for a dress for her friend's sweet sixteen party this weekend.
5:00 Pick up puppy at doggie day care.
5:30 Drop puppy and Boookworm at home. Pick up Tween and Youngest.
6:00 Drop Tween at soccer game - Ex-Marine will pick up after work.
6:30 Drop Youngest at soccer practice - Asst. Coach will take home.
7:00 Attend my Cub Scout Leader meeting. Go home to find Ex-Marine, Bookworm, Tween, Youngest, and Puppy all happily settled in for the night.
That was the plan.
Anyone familiar with teenage girls immediately saw the flaw in this plan and stopped reading right there at 3:30. Only 90 minutes to shop for a party dress? What was I thinking? Well, I was thinking that this is small town America. There are few choices here. There is one upscale consignment store "downtown" and three chain stores on "the other side of town". So I really wasn't too far off but when your plan is down to the minute and you are just a few minutes behind....that's enough to make it all go wrong. So Bookworm and I went to the upscale consignment store first - lots of cute dresses but no LITTLE cute dresses. Being a size zero is such a burden - I wouldn't know never having been a size zero in my life...straight from 6X to 9/10 - but Bookworm is petite. Then we went to "the other side of town" and hit TJMaxx and Belk - strike two and strike three. We were ready to throw in the towel but there was still JCPenney. And she said, "I don't think I'll find a dress in JCPenney." and I mentally agreed but said, "We're here, let's go in and just look. That way when we go across the state line this weekend to go shop at the mall, we can go guilt free knowing that we tried to spend our local dollars in our local stores supporting our small town businesses." And in my head, I said a prayer. I ask a lot of God and most of the time the answer is - no answer - the prayers float off into space to be considered but never seemingly acted upon. But this time, He answered and there was the perfect dress. Right there in JCPenney - who'd have thought?! So we paid for our purchases and off we went. But we were running late and I was thinking and thinking about getting the boys where they needed to be. So I drove from "the other side of town" right through "downtown" and over the bridge onto the island where we live. And as I flew down the island's main road I realized....I FORGOT THE PUPPY. My darling baby was waiting for me downtown at doggie day care - which would close in twenty minutes and I was across the bridge on the island. What a terrible feeling. And then I immediately had to prioritize my family members. Would the real children be late for all their human endeavors so I could pick up the new (but not human) baby? Oooh - bad mother however you look at that. So I continued home, dropped off Bookworm and took the boys with me to doggie day care. The Puppy was delighted to see us and to get to continue on to the soccer fields. Tween missed pregame practice/warm-up but was on time for kick off. Youngest got to practice just a tad late - late enough to miss running laps so he was not at all unhappy! And puppy was content to sit with me in the car and watch the boys play. Asst. Coach didn't have to give a ride home. All was well... until I find out I missed something important at the leader meeting. Or, even more likely, in my absence they appointed me to head some major project!