No Margaritas, but Plenty of Baseball and Jesus

I have to get ready for my very last 2nd Grade Fiesta, so I have no time to write this morning.  Although, I do want to point out that in my past experiences at this event, I have not once encountered a margarita machine, so calling this little shindig a fiesta is a bit of a scam in my book.  Anyway, with practices and/or games every night for the next two weeks at least, there is nothing in my head except for God and baseball, so I'm copying and pasting from last year.  (By the way, there is a giant lack of paragraph structure going on here. Even if I knew how to fix it, I have no time.  Just deal.)

Have a bueno day, amigos!

He Sees You Out There

As I sit in bleachers at many a youth baseball game, I love to hear the various phrases shouted by parents and coaches as they try to encourage the players.  Some phrases are "old school" that we've all heard before.  "Good eye!";   when a batter lets a pitch out of the strike zone go by.  "Way to fight that off!";  when a kid hits a foul ball.  As a batter gets up to the plate:  "Whaddya say, #2?"  Pop fly to the outfield?  "You gotta run that out, kid!" for the runner and "Can o' corn!" for the outfielder.  (Like I said some are old school and I have no idea what they mean.)

Some phrases are unique to certain coaches and parents.  One of our parents likes to shout "Lay off that high cheese!" when a pitch comes in too high. (I've never asked where that comes from.)   One of Kyle's coaches likes to say "On the hop, boys!" (That means do it now or hustle.)  One of my favorites is when a pitch comes in a bit too close to one of our players, and one of Joe's coaches likes to joke, "You gotta wear that one!" (Hit by pitch gets you to first base safely)  We like to poke fun at my husband's very complicated advice to his batters:  "See the ball, hit the ball."  Mmmmhmmm.  That's it.  He claims it's a simple game.

Kyle had a coach this summer who had not coached him in the past.  How I loved to hear this coach's shout of encouragement to his players.  He had a unique phrase that I had not heard before and it made me smile and think.  And now I'm writing about my thinking...what a shock, huh?  Again, God meets me where I am (and we all know where I am in the summertime) and uses the game of baseball and a field of children and coaches to teach me of Him.

If my son got a hit and ended up safe on the base, I'd hear this coach shout, "Hey, I see you out there on 1st, Thunder!"  If he was pitching and struggling - walking a batter or two - I'd hear, "Hey, now, you're ok.  I see you out there battling, #2!"  He shouted this same encouragement to every child.  Maybe the player was consistently making good plays and his success had become almost routine.  Coach shouted out that he saw that boy.  Maybe the kid really blew it and made a big error.  Coach still shouted out that he saw that kid trying...he saw him get up, dust off and try again.  He let those boys know that, individually, he saw the effort, the hustle, the fight.  He saw them.

"I see you out there!"  Isn't that the greatest?  Isn't that what we all want?  For someone to see us out here?  To notice us?  If not to praise us, if not to thank us, if not to honor us, just to see us?  Child, adult, mother, wife, husband, father, player on the field, player on the bench?  In our lives, we wish for all of our coaches, spouses, parents, bosses and families to see us and to appreciate our work.  But we know that all of these folks are imperfect and they don't always see us.  We often feel invisible and unappreciated and forgotten.  But we are not.  God sees us.  He sees us whether we are on top of our game or trying to earn our way off the bench.

When you struggle, when you can't seem to find the strike zone, when you are disappointed or lost or confused:  God sees you out there.  When you've been consistent, when you've worked hard and earned the raise, when you've made the play:  God sees you out there.  When the laundry was folded perfectly again, the budget balanced and that dinner was nutritious and hot and everything was on the table at the same time(!):  God sees you out there. And when the laundry is piled in a stinking mess on the floor and you took the kids through that drive-thru again and you couldn't quite make ends meet:  God sees you out there.

Give thanks in all circumstances. Whether you got the hit and arrived safe at home or you struck out. Keep swinging.  He is there and He never looks away.  Hey, kid, do not let your heart be troubled.  He sees you out there.

For He looks to the ends of the Earth and sees everything under the heavens.
-Job 28:24

A Couple Days - book: Sunday/Monday May 26/27, 2013

 

Outside my window:
Starbucks parking lot.  Manassas, Virginia.  Bright, glorious, early Sunday morning sun and no wind today which is so very welcome because I could build my own baseball field with the amount of baseball dirt blown into my teeth, ears, eyes and hair yesterday.  Just down the road, Joe is warming up for Game 1 of four being played by Skinner boys today.
I am thinking:
about three boys, three baseball tournaments, three towns, three pairs of eyes scanning bleachers, one mama and one daddy in two cars begging traffic lights to turn green as they race through Northern Virginia trying desperately not to miss the heroic hit or the humiliating error.  Elizabeth is beautifully singing my song HERE as she writes about "showing up".  (Although her song has nine verses to my three.  She's a rock star.)
I am thankful:
for the brave men and women who gave us this blessed Memorial Day holiday and for all of the carpooling members of my village who help get my ballplayers to the field on time when I can't be in three places at once.
I am listening to:
Starbucks music and "DECAF VENTI CARAMEL MACCHIATO??"
I am wearing:
boots ( I know, in MAY, ugh!), jeans, long-sleeve navy and white striped shirt.  Hoping to change to short sleeves and flip-flops for Game 2.
In the kitchen:
lots of dishes in the sink from last night's dinner.  No time this morning to empty the full dishwasher and load it again although I'm certain my little ballplayers with later games will do that job.  Ahem.
I am going:
to three games at least today and a Memorial Weekend cookout or two.
I am hoping:
that the boys remember who they're playing for today.  Kyle has put the initials of Jackson, his team's patient ambassador from Children's National Medical Center on his helmet to remind him.

I am reading:
I finished The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach which I loved.  It's got great characters and baseball which is just a bit up my alley.  Now reading Carry on Warrior by Glennon Melton.
I am wondering:
if perhaps Kyle's English teacher is tiring of his book projects since they have been on Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson  and a book on a 12 year old pitching phenom.  This time he's moving way out of the box with a report on Roberto Clemente.
I am pondering: 
flowers and when I will be able to plant them.  I do still have some girly genes in here!
I am looking forward to:
It's Monday now and we had four games yesterday and four wins.  So I'm looking at one final and two semi-finals starting at 9:30, 10:00 and 11:00.  Looking forward to a win or three.
I am praying:
that a precautionary doctor appointment for a friend's child will be absolutely, positively a waste of time and that everything with this child will be absolutely, positively just fine.  Pray with me, please?
On my Ipod:
Just so much Taylor Swift that it is getting out of hand.  THIS is my new favorite.  If I turn it up loud enough, I am positive that I sound exactly like her.  I'm telling you, it.is.uncanny.
A quote for today:
"Before I got cancer, normal just felt kinda boring.  But normal now is, like, kinda special." - Gavin, a pediatric cancer patient.  Watch more about these wonderful kids and Children's National Medical Center HERE.
I am learning:
to give thanks for normal.
A verse for today: 
"You are the light of the world.  A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.  Instead they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." - Matthew 6:14-16
One of my favorite things:
My sister and brother and THIS ARTICLE that reminded me of what I gigantic gift they are to me when I read this:
My siblings have certainly seen me at my worst, and I’ve seen them at theirs. No one has bolted. It’s as if we signed some contract long ago, before we were even aware of what we were getting into, and over time gained the wisdom to see that we hadn’t been duped. We’d been graced: with a center of gravity; with an audience that never averts its gaze and doesn’t stint on applause.

A few plans for the week:
lots of end of school activities, Little League, a tournament in Yorktown, Virginia and sun, I hope!
A peek into my day:
#46, #33 and #10 and celebrating my country and the folks who have kept my people safe.




Daybook idea from http://www.thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/

{these moments}: Blessings Beyond Baseball

{these moments}: A Friday ritual.  Lots of photos - a few words - of moments from the week.  Simple, special, extraordinary moments.  Moments I want to pause, savor and remember.

Our boys will be playing in a special tournament this weekend - a tournament for which young baseball players have raised over $330,000 for Pediatric Cancer patients.  Here are photos of the Kyle's Kamp tournament's "Kick-off Event" at Washington Nationals Park on Sunday.  It was a thrilling time for our boys to walk the field and be on the big screen at a Major League park.  There were many lessons taught regarding hitting, fielding and throwing.  More importantly, there were lessons taught about the fragility of life, the tenacious work of a father turning tragedy into triumph, the gracious dedication of doctors and the courage of children faced with battles unimaginable.  This will be a weekend when a game they love to play becomes so very much more.  This will be a weekend when our boys will swing for the fences not for themselves, perhaps not even for their teammates, but for one of the most precious, most courageous little five year olds that they will ever meet.

Stealing the words of my pastor yet again:

When our obedience matches God's call, blessing happens.
 

 

 

Have a blessed Memorial Day Weekend.
For more moments, visit www.soulemama.com

Pray. Dance. Repeat.

"To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven."
-Ecclesiastes 3:1

I was feeling overwhelmed by the minutiae this morning.  By laundry and appointments and schedules and carpools.  So overwhelmed that I started to get jittery and panicky.  Take it down a notch, sister.  There are bigger things than your to-do list.  So many prayers to pray - anguished prayers of pleading and celebratory prayers of thanks.  Today, as I scratch my pencil through the details of my day, I will pause for pleading and praising.  I'm going to take many prayer breaks and more than a few dance breaks.

Pray.
For Gavin, Kyle, Jackson, Taylor, Chris, Reed, Mia and countless children fighting cancer.

Dance.
For a father and a boy and hundreds of young baseball players raising over $330,000 for all those brave children.

Pray.
For teenaged hearts bruised and battered and for parents exhausted and overwhelmed with love and fear for them.

Dance.
For finally answered prayers after scratching and crawling and math(!) and fighting for a dream.  For the blessing of YES, YOU'RE IN.  YOU DID IT.

Pray.
For accepting truth and letting go of shame and fear.  For grace from a forgiving and healing God.  For surrender to His help.

Dance.
For sobriety and wholeness and bravely stepping forward in obedience day after day after day.

Pray.
For children terrified and huddled under rubble and twisted metal.  For parents full of grief.

Dance.
For teachers and heroes protecting and pulling them to safety.

Pray.
To be one who shines light in the darkness.

Dance.
With Carlton.  It'll make you feel better.  I promise.




God Bless You, Oklahoma.

{this moment}: Sunset at the Stadium

{this moment}:  A Friday ritual.  A single photo - no words - of a moment from the week.  A simple, special, extraordinary moment.  A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

For more moments, visit www.soulemama.com

Happy Anniversary to Virginia and Me..

I have lived in Virginia for 21 years today.  Here's the post I wrote last year on my 20th year here.  Thanks for having me, Virginia.  I love ya.


I have made it fairly clear that I am from the great state of Texas and that I am quite proud of being a Texan.  We are rather obnoxious that way.  I love my Texas and I will always be proud, but today I'm going to write about a different state...a state, that sadly, I probably could not have found on the map, when I was growing up.  I mean, in my defense, that state of Texas takes up so much darn room on the map, you know, and it really does take forever to drive out of the state because it's so darn big, so we really can't blame that on my geography teachers.  It's just that lots of times we don't care so much about the rest of the country.  Like I said, we're obnoxious like that.  For example, I found this floating around the Facebook pages of my Texas friends (and maybe on my own page) on Texas Independence Day:

See, just a little obnoxious.  But, today, May 16, 2012, I have lived in the beautiful state of Virginia and right outside the beautiful city of Washington, DC for 20 years.  My mom and I rolled into town on this day in 1992 in my little white Volkswagen Cabriolet.  I was the child who never went away to sleepover camp, who barely ever made it through a one night slumber party and here I was driving across the country to get this dream of Washington, DC out of my system so that I could just get back to Texas to settle into my life.  My brain was filled with my degree in Government from the University of Texas and my heart was filled with visions of convincing the majority of Americans that one of my very favorite Texans, George H.W. Bush, should stay in the White House.  The plan was for me to stay for 6 months and watch this man be re-elected.  Both of those things didn't happen, but then, to be honest, I was stuck way down on the totem pole at the job I got at the Republican National Committee, so really it wasn't my fault.  In fact, I was so far down on the totem pole that I wasn't even in the basement of the RNC.  You had to push B2 on the elevator to get to the office large mail room where my desk corner of a table was.  So I was effectively below the basement and couldn't possibly have had anything to do with losing the election of 1992.  Still, I cried like a baby on Election Night anyway and felt like I had let down the entire country.  I was also sure that we were all going to you-know-where in a handbasket since President Bush was going back to Texas and Bill Clinton was going to be our President. Even more surprising to me was that apparently, I wasn't going back to Texas with President Bush because there was someone else working on Floor B2 at the RNC.  I thought he was awfully cute and funny and I was pretty sure that I could not leave and let him live his life without me in it.  So basically, I found a lot of things in Virginia and in neighboring Washington, DC.  I found a lot of things that I didn't plan on finding.

To be honest, this photo might be from West Virginia (but had I not moved to Virginia, I surely would never have traveled to West Virginia.)

In Virginia, I found four distinct seasons.  I found an autumn where the leaves changed to colors that I had only seen in a crayon box.  I saw some of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen, just driving down the street.  I found spring and summer at Lake Anna where it was green and peaceful and perfect.

Drew thinks deep thoughts at Lake Anna

I found winter, even though I didn't want to find winter.  I have listened to the TV reports during many winters when the weather anchors are breathless with excitement over the pending "storm of century". I am usually breathless with claustrophobia when those reports start. But, when I take a peek outside, I know it is beautiful. Even if I don't admit it often, I kind of like it when the world stops and my people are all snug together. (but only for a couple of days, max)

In Virginia, during those evil post-naptime hours of 4:00pm-6:00 pm, I found an alley full of mothers with young children.  We would plop ourselves in our lawn chairs and watch our little ones play with community tricycles, scooters, fire trucks and plastic balls.  I found friendship, understanding, laughter and support as we all worked through being in the trenches with young babies and toddlers together.

Snow Fort (Mommy took this picture by stretching her arm out the front door)

In Virginia, I found a job teaching 4th grade which happens to be the grade in which the Social Studies curriculum focuses on Virginia history.  I found Monticello and Mount Vernon.  I found Atlantic beaches and ridges and valleys and the Blue Ridge Mountains.  I found that in minutes I could be walking on the Civil War battleground of Bull Run and that 8 US Presidents were born here.  It was pure joy for a history/government nerd like me.
 

Mount Vernon, Home of George Washington

In Virginia, I became a part of my husband's family who had known tragedy and loss and as a result of that pain had not lost their hearts, but had grown bigger ones.  They treat everyone as a member of the family, no matter their genetics or bloodlines.  The term "step-this" or "step-that" is never used.  This family has been drawn together simply by love and compassion and they have loved me and welcomed me.  I am blessed by them.

In Virginia, I hit my knees on a bright, sunny September day in 2001 and asked Him to spare the man I had found here.  I begged His mercy as I heard rumors and reports of destruction and death just down the highway from me.  I felt guilty and grateful as my husband made his way through the traffic of downtown DC and back to our home and our family in the Northern Virginia suburbs.

In Virginia, I found that God threw lots of my plans out the window.  President Bush was not re-elected and I did not go back to Texas.  I found that God brought me a powerless job in the basement of a building in the most powerful city in the world and He sat me next to a Virginia boy:  a boy who would take the elevator all the way up to B1 where the vending machine was and would get me a Diet Coke just about everyday;  a boy who would help me to build a home in a state in which I never imagined I would stay;  a boy who would help me to build a life full of three more Virginia boys and blessings in abundance.  In Virginia, I found that God's plans are always better than my plans.

PS.  Dear Texas, You know what else I found out?  You know, Sam Houston?  1st and 3rd President of the Republic of Texas, US Senator from Texas, Governor of Texas and Iconic Hero of Texas?  He was born in Virginia.  So, you might just hold on to your cowboy hats because at least one of my little Virginia boys still might make a splash in the great state of Texas...just wait :)

A Coupleish Things

I'm warning you, now.  I've got nothing today.

Except that I'm sitting here waiting on the A/C guy which means that this will probably turn into me having a couple of things. 

Look.  If you have work to do or a child to raise or you just need to pluck your eyebrows, I would say just move along because I'm sort of in a mood.

Here are my coupleish things:

1.  When I came downstairs just now, I was trying to read a text and was not watching where I was going and I tripped over a baseball glove and it really hurt.  Maybe most people would just grumble about how irresponsible their children are even though they have told them 1,000 times to not leave their stuff on the floor, but what I do on a day like today is sit down and cry.  Then I go all the way to "no one in this family respects me or loves me or cares about me at all". 

Which makes me look at the calendar and go "Oh." 

And you think I wouldn't be surprised by the calendar because just about a month ago at this time I was leaving for Bible Study and telling my husband about how much of a failure I was and that no one liked me in the entire family and that with the Boston tragedy and all there was just no way that I could keep my kids safe.  I cried all the way to Bible Study and then worked in the nursery and cried again because we're not having any more babies.  Later in the day, my husband sent me an email asking how I was doing.  I sent him a photo of the cutest little girl from the nursery.  I had decided we should adopt even though she was definitely not up for adoption and I had previously told him that my children didn't like me.  

Later that night, I said to him, "Hey remember how everyone hated me this morning and the world was a terrible place and I needed to save all the orphans?  Well, it looks like I need to go to the store to buy tampons."

To which he said the same thing he says every month which is, "How is it that you never see that coming?"

And obviously, I'm not the only one who doesn't see it coming because THIS is hilarious.

2.  I've been watching The Voice because there is a fabulously talented gal on it named Amber who is from my hometown.  I don't know this gal or her family at all, but suddenly I've decided she is my best friend and I hold my breath and cry when she keeps making it through to the next round.  Apparently, I am not alone though because my hometown friend, Angie, pointed out on Facebook that Amber is from our hometown, so she suddenly feels famous.  I have also decided that because she is from my hometown and she is on Team Adam, it must follow that Adam Levine is in love with me.  Also, I wanted to point out that I loved Adam wearing the striped shirt the other night because it wasn't all rock-star-ish and could very well be from The Gap.  And I love stripes.  When Mrs. R. and I go shopping, just about every time I pick up a shirt, she says, "You have 10 shirts just like that."  If you don't believe her look at my closet.  It's a problem.

3.  Remember the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, our friend, Spanky? THIS is awesome. 

4.  My list of things to do today includes mailing two letters and a number of emails, taking a kid to the doctor AGAIN, the dry cleaners, 3 baseball games and buying MORE socks.  I'm not really sure how the world would keep spinning if I wasn't around.

Ok, now I have to go because the A/C guy is just about ready for me to pay. He had to replace some very small pump that is going to cost me an arm and a leg and I'll probably decide that he is charging me more than anyone else because just like my entire family, he doesn't like me at all.

I'm going now, for real.  Do you feel like you just won the lottery because this post is over?  Hey, don't blame me.  I told you that you should go pluck your eyebrows.