When my mom asked me what she could get us for a wedding present I told her unequivocally to go to www.Direc4u.com and look into getting us a sports package. My husband is huge into basketball and football and we hadn’t been able to afford cable so I knew it was something he could really get behind. I love how willing mom is to cater to our needs and so far it’s been the absolute best wedding present we received! She’s so generous with her time and money and Jared and I are talking about having her over sometime next week for dinner and a movie (on our satellite, of course) to thank her for the great gift. The wedding itself was a blast but we were so tired when it was over we couldn’t wait to get home and crash on the couch where we would watch our favorite shows! It’s been a great way for us to stay grounded as a couple and really reconnect after a long day at the office.

I just read about a stampede that happens in Colorado every June. They have everything for roller derby to monster trucks to concerts to roping. I would like to check that out some time. If I had known a month ago I could have planned to go this year, but I just read about it this morning and can’t pull it off that quickly.

Going to keep looking to see if there is a big one on a weekend when I can get away and get a cheap flight to see it. If you know of one toward the end of July or any time in August, please leave me a comment about it, and a link would be helpful. Thanks.

Because I grew up in a family where sports was emphasized so heavily, it was hard to move to a small town in Missouri where there are few professional teams to go see. The closest place to see any games is Kansas City to see the Chiefs play football or the Royals play baseball, but this is still about a three hour drive. That’s why I was so excited to spend several months in Chicago. Though I was there for business, I still made sure to schedule plenty of time to watch the Bulls play.

Since I was staying with one of my best friends from college while I was there, we would go to games together. To cut costs on food at the game, we would usually grab a pizza to eat at home before we left. Then, we would set the alarm systems and head on over to the United Center.

I loved being back in the atmosphere of professional sports, as seeing NBA games is something I’ve really missed the past few years. The NBA crowd is unlike any other group of sports fans — and Bulls fans are especially fierce. There is no excuse here for missed shots or bad calls. The whole stadium fills up with cheer and boos as everyone literally sits on the edge of their seats.

My mother has always been known for her green thumb. The house we all grew up in had the most wonderful window box planters that all the neighbors were very envious of, she really got a charge out of that. We also always had a nice vegetable garden in the back that we were known with sharing the harvest around the neighbor each season. The only indoor planter that I can remember back then was one that always held a nice and healthy mother-in-law’s tongue that ironically enough her mother-in-law bought for her shortly after my folks were married. My mother much preferred to be outside in the sun tending all of her beauties.

The Internet is a great way to find items, so it only makes sense to look for the perfect motorcycle or ATV or any type of transportation for that matter. I used to have a motorcycle but times got hard and I started running out of time for riding it and keeping it up each riding season and ended up selling it. That was before the Internet had made buying and selling items so much easier, I’m sure I would have taken advantage of it and probably would have made out much better than I did back then.

I just moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area about five months ago and was looking for an adult softball league for mixed genders. The search took me three days and I was on a team with other people in the restaurant industry. The games have been a lot of fun so far and the diamonds we’ve played at have all been top notch. One of the local semi-pro baseball team has even allowed our league to play games so long as we keep everything clean and sell a couple tickets to their games. I make sure to set my HOME SECURITY alarm from before I go play softball because the slum I live in isn’t very safe. I just started a new job and am making a lot more tip money so hopefully I’ll be moving next week to a house with three other people from my team! Eventually our team is going to move up in the divisions because of a fast pitch pitcher who will be joining us from Alabama. She is getting hired at the place where I’m starting. The competition is fairly high in our division but once we move up we’ll really be challenged. A couple of the guys on our team can knock it out of the park. Our DL actually happens to be a woman because she can rack up the base hits consistently, even when it’s a man pitching overhand to her! The off-season is here but the league has been fun.

I can still remember the last time I went to see Aunt Gertie, it was several years ago. There was quite a bit of snow on the ground and Beth and I went snowshoeing for a few hours around the property. Aunt Gertie fixed us a homemade apple pie, cooked in her old fashioned wood burning oven. It was delicious. We watched the local girls basketball game on her black and white television that only got one local channel. It was a throwback in time, and it was wonderful.

Thanks for the memory, Aunt Gertie. Rest well.

Tomorrow night is our first softball playoff game vs SEM. They are a team we have beaten on several occasions. One occasion was when I hit a walk-off HR with 2 outs in the bottom of the 7th. It was only the second walk-off HR I had ever hit in softball or softball, so it was incredibly satisfying. I don’t know what came over me, but I knew I was going to hit a HR the instant I stepped up to the plate. The next time we played them, they were prepared for me. They played their OF deep and pitched me outside. I counter-attacked by hitting the ball to the opposite field, which worked out well. The dilemma is that they now know all of my weapons. Since I’m a lefty, they will have one mad deep in RF, one man deep in RC, and one man hugging the line at 3B to take away the backside shot.

I do have one idea, which is to use a 30% swing on the pull side and then up the middle. I saw this done while at the Cherokee Softball Tournament. They only got 1 HR per game. These guys had mastered the 30% swing and could put the ball anywhere they wanted. I have never been so excited about placing the ball before, but it’s like artwork. Once I finish work tomorrow, I’m going to go home, grab a light snack, set myHome alarms home security alarm, and head to the field with new weaponry up my sleeve. I hope it works out.