Happening around here

The bird count took a dive this past weekend. Five roosters went Boy Scout Camping. Instead of ending up in the dutch oven, they came home on ice. Herogian cleaned them for Saturday's dinner, but a hike took longer than expected and they didn't have time to cook the chickens. Herogian and Commander both cooked a meal Monday with some of the birds. I'm just loving the fact that the boys are learning to cook meat, and cook it well.

First workout with the team was Monday afternoon. (six attended)  I'll meet with them again on Wednesdays and Fridays. The Veteran's Administration Center has an empty park just across the road from the campus main entrance. It has a long sloping hill from north to south. The wind usually blows from the north or south around here. The kids will soon find that I love windy hill work in autumn. Can you say Repetition?

Coach has handed over the fund raising department to me. Yeah great. I'm thrilled. Can't you tell excitement is just oozing from my pores. Just knocked me out of my comfort zone with one blow. He wants me to come up with fund raising ideas that will bring in great profit so we can buy equipment, traveling supplies, and everything else we will need to outfit a team. Any ideas you want to throw my way would be greatly appreciated. Please keep throwing the ideas.

The marathon training has gone out the window. The right foot just isn't responding to treatment. At the three mile mark it starts screaming. Commander has started taking Taekwondo again, and with me coaching, we don't foresee a trip to White Sands next March. So nix that idea. It was fun while it lasted.

Tomorrow  Today will be crazy. Get the boys up to start homeschooling, throw them in the car for orthodontist appointments for the three of us. Rush home to pack all the fixings for a church meal into the car. Rush that to the church, unload, get the meat, cheese, lettuce, tortillas and topping all set up. Rush out of there for track practice and then back to church for prepping the rest of dinner and having it all ready to serve at 6:00. If you are hungry, come join us at Wyandotte County Christian Church for a gluten free meal. It's a 2-3 dollar donation.

Well folks, it is after midnight. I need to crash on the couch and read Judges for a while before I'll be able to sleep.
Finding God's word waiting for me in the quiet of the night is like having him wrap his arms around me as I cuddle on his lap of comfort and protection.

I'm finally official

Here's one of the perks. A T-SHIRT.
Now I can get out there and start recruiting athletes. We meet this Thursday to see which kids from campus are interested in joining the team (besides those in other sports right now). Once they have their physicals done, I can start working them out and setting up their weight lifting programs.
I come from a background where track and field training starts - well - it never ends. You back off a bit in August but by September you are into an eight week cycle of heavy conditioning. Please pray I don't scare these kids off. I usually do the workouts with the kids that way I can monitor my own weakness and know if I'm pushing too hard.
I'm excited.
We will have two indoor meets and a conference. Then we go into outdoor season. We will do most of our meets here in the Kansas City area since we don't have the budget or the numbers of athletes. Thank goodness for little starts.
If you know of any high school seniors with the grades that would like to still run track, let me know. If they have a 3.5 or better they get a lot of the tuition taken care of through scholarships.

Have a great week.

Archery League, underwear, and when I'm old and can't remember anything

I love this sport. Archery. It can make me feel so good. Then with the very next shot it can humble me down to my knees.
450 league started tonight. Herogian and I were competing against each other for a candy bar. My two practice rounds were promising, my sights were lined up, I was ready to take him on. 

First round, I shot three arrows at three targets on the page. I didn't want to look at the results until I had put the bow away. Herogian was standing there with his binoculars.
 "How did I do?"
"Well, the first and the third shots are tens, but where is your second shot?"
"What?"
"Oh, there it is? Nice one, Mom. You shot Dennis's target and hit a ten. But, you know, that's a zero for the score card."
Then we heard Dennis exclaim about his target. "Why are there two arrows on my number 2 target?"
This was going to be an exciting evening.
Herogian 375, Mom 386.  Dennis 403, and Dave 424. That was our score card.

T12-Northly Davis is pestering me while I blog. He wants me to smell his underwear that he found left in a string backpack in the back of his friend's dad's truck. That is such a boy thing! Really, he wants me to smell his underwear because "he says it smells like a "Minty Hotel Room". YUK!
He has been shoving it in my nose, not realizing I'm so plugged up there is no way I 'll ever smell it. I'll die first or snaught on his underwear.

"Okay Mom, I'll do it if you do it."
""NO. The last time I ever did anything when someone said,"I'll do it after you." I ended up going off a retaining wall on a bike with no brakes, hippy bar on back and wide handle bars that spun around and knocked my jaw out of line after the hippybar hit me in the back of the head. The neighborhood kids had to pull me out of the chainlink fence and rosebushes. The teenager who loaned me the bike, popped my jaw from the other side to get it back in place. The gang all ran off laughing at me, while the teenager told me not to cry or my mom would ban them from jumping their bikes off  the retaining wall in our backyard. SO.... NO I won't do it before you!"
THat is such a boy thing. Groce.
"Okay Mom, we are not in Back to the Future! We are not in your childhood. You don't have a bike! The retaining wall is gone, conquer your fears," he whispers in my ear while trying to shove the AWSOME UNDERWEAR (his doing) in my face. Guess I'll just blow my nose on it and send him to bed with it. WHat a hoot that child is. Favorit underwear. Never heard of that catagorie for boys.

Coming home from Archery, Herogian was talking about his future as a vet, then when he retires he wants to live in a small community close to Cabela's so he can work there. I told him that when he retired from being a vet - especially if he is one for the Armed Services, that he won't want to go from a high end paying job to a minimal paying job.
"Yes, I will when I'm so old that I can't remember what I'm doing.

I started laughing, "The store won't want you when you can't remember what you are doing."
"Oh I could work in the fly fishing department and make flies."
"Yeah, I could see you checking someone out. "How much change do I need to give you? One hundred. Didn't you pay with a credit card." Hand to ear. "What's that you say? Two hundred. Okay."
Good thing it is the weekend. I don't think I could do a day of schooling with these two boys this wound up with the giggles.

Herogian had a chance at a deer the other night and might get another chance next Tuesday. Pray for the hunter's safety,please.

Have a great one.

Happenings

Time out for a cold this week for everyone in the family. Ugh. I'm saying it all came from the Commander getting the flu shot and then getting sick. I'm not sold on getting flu shots.

I did get the coaching job and start Monday if the school has all the paperwork in order for me to sign. They did up the pay a bit, thanks to the assistant cross-country coach and coach convincing the administration to do so. Those guys are already spoiling me. We will start with around six kids to coach this fall, and grow to around 20 for outdoor season after football and basketball are finished.

Commander started a Taekwondo class. It is a slightly different style then what he did in the past (3rd degree black belt) that he has to be a white belt again in with the younger kids. He was stiff this afternoon when we went to T12's soccer game. We are still trying to walk together, but the foot is still giving me fits.

Archery starts this coming Friday for Herogian and I. We shot a few rounds in the back yard. I hit a 29 out of 30. Herogian wants to team up with me this year. Do you remember last year when he didn't want to team up with me? Tri-County's Rod and Gun Club Archery page on Facebook has Herogian and his shooting buddies as its image. Cool.

Cute an onery

What a look of devotion.

 What a look of oneriness. Attacking at the top of the stairs again.

Coach D.

I've been told I have the assistant coaching job for our local college. It is crazy how excited I get over coaching track and field. I thought I could walk away from it. I've tried not to get excited about the possibility of coaching again. I even told myself that the administration would hire one of their teachers just to give them the stipent and keep it 'inhouse'.  I guess the desire is still buried deep within my heart. I wanted to dance a jig last night when the assistant cross-country coach walked over to let me know.
 I'll find out more by the end of the week. I'm praying about the finances. They could up the stipent a little which would be a big help.

Thanks for stopping by this week. Hope you have a great one.

Done with the jungle - garden

A year ago we decided to put in a garden. Commander bought a rototiller. A big thing that could run away with him hanging on behind and eat fence at the same time. We put in about 100 feet of fencing to keep the chickens and dogs out of the selected area. The back corner was alloted for drying branches that would eventually end up as firewood, the extra dirt was piled back there and a composter was added to the area.
After two years, the only things left in the garden area are two blueberry bushes, two rows of asparagus on their second year, and every kind of  weed known to the Kansas plains.

Today, it just hit me that enough was enough. I'm getting rid of the weeds, the fence, and taking over the land again as easy-to-cut-not-fenced-in- backyard. I worked with the hoe, I worked with the riding lawn mower, I pulled with my hands. When T12 came outside, I asked if he would want to use the machette.
His eyes bugged out, he jumped up and down, then ran to the house to get the blade. ( disclaimer here) He has been taught by the Commander on proper use of a machette.

I pointed him to the back corner and asked him to cut down a buttercup -something -or -other kind of weed.
"Mom, look!"  He was standing on the willow stump. He withdrew the blade and thrust it skyward. "All for the Willow!"
What a character.

I bent over to pull crabgrass and heard him chopping. The only problem was that it sounded too close. I turned around and hollered. "T12 - that's the sunflower!"
He looked up over his head at all the yellow flowers, back at me, shrugged. "Oops! Can I cut it down anyway?"
After about 5 minutes he was done with the sunflower and the back corner. He wanted more. I pointed to the same kind of weed growing on the other side of the aspargus rows. I went back to work and he did a number on the weeds AND the asparagus.
"T12, that ASPARAGUS!"
"Oops! Will Dad get mad?"
"Just let me tell him."

Herogian had joined us by this time and wanted to use the machette. T12 asked to practice driving the mower, without blades. I showed him the mower, told him to drive a path around a large tree and I went to open the gate.
He didn't follow the path I gave him, he cut it short and ran right over a small sapling of an oak tree. Thank goodness the blades weren't engaged. The little tree at least sprang back and wobbled like a drunkerd.

It was time to call it quits when I grabbed something that slit the finger. OW! But the garden is almost yard again.
THis weekend should do the trick. Three of the four gone for boy scouts, Hawk and I should be able to get a lot of yard work done. Anyone else praying for rain over the weekend?