Call Me Old Fashioned

I suppose I should start with a few acknowledgements: I acknowledge that I am single and have no children. I acknowledge that I cannot actually speak from experience on this matter, and that all I have are my opinions. If you don't want to know them, you should probably just stop reading now. That being said--

Call me old fashioned. I really don't mind, because I actually am quite old fashioned. I didn't necessarily think I was, but the older I get, the more I realize I am. So, I have noticed a disturbing trend in the world lately. Now, I should probably preface this upcoming rant a bit. Generally speaking, I am not a huge fan of most peoples' kids. I am largely put off by kids who have no respect for...well, anything. Their parents, other people, the world in general. I recognize that there are children out there who have been raised well and still have some respect and a limited sense of entitlement. But I digress....that is  a different rant for a different time, and is not really where this particular rant is headed.

The rant begins here. Despite the fact that I am not the biggest fan of all kids, I am completely confounded by the increasing number of women who are abandoning their husbands, children and wifely responsibilities to reclaim the single life. It is beyond my comprehension how a mother could just decide that she is tired of being a mom and walk away. Maybe it's because I was raised by the best mom a girl could ask for, but I have to ask-are we really living in a society so selfish that we can just decide, on a whim, that the vows we made can be cast aside as if they never were? Not to mention the fact that, at some point, you made the decision to bring that life into the world. Where is the sense of responsibility? Why is it suddenly acceptable to simply decide that getting married and having kids is not what you really wanted so duty and obligation be damned?

Aren't women supposed to be caring and nurturing by nature? When did it become okay to just walk away from a family? What ever happened to working on it? My parents are coming up on 53 years of marriage in a few months and they never would have made it that far had they not been willing to work together through the difficult times. I am certain that on more than one occasion, one or both of them thought about how much easier it would be to give up, but I am thankful they had the determination to make it work. It hasn't been perfect. Real life rarely is. But it has been good. Very good. And the older I get, the more thankful I am for parents who committed to one another then continued to work on it, even if they didn't always want to.

I am a firm believer that a woman should be able to take care of herself, and she is certainly not defined by the man in her life, but when did it become expected for us to behave as though we don't need or want anyone else? Human contact and relationships are important for our health and well being. It's admirable to be determined and self sufficient, but it's equally admirable to recognize that we need help and support. It makes me incredibly sad that the only thing that seems important anymore is sex. Quite frankly, you can get sex anywhere. It's the actual caring that is hard to find.

Perhaps the time has come for us to get back to our old fashioned roots. We should put aside our expectations of perfection and our selfish tendencies and get back to the days when hard work and dedication were important. In work, in relationships, in life.

Okay, I'll step off my soapbox now. But I reserve the right to reclaim my position without notice :)

"The Old Lady Team"- revisited

If you missed the story, you can read about it here. But, after last week's games, it's official. You know you are the the epitome of "the old lady team" when you fail to get your hands up fast enough to pass the ball, and as a result, take a spike off the top of three of your fingers. Luckily, they aren't broken!

 

 

This past week has definitely been a lesson in patience and gratitude for me. Have you ever tried to button up a pair of jeans using just one hand? How about put on a bra?? I always joke that my left hand is only around for aesthetic purposes-- it just makes my body look balanced. Well, after hurting it, I am here to tell you, I use it A LOT more than I thought. Being injured in such a way has made me incredibly grateful for my health and fitness. I think it is something I take for granted far more often than I should.

 

I would have posted this earlier, but I really don't type well when I can't use three of my fingers. Luckily, I seem to be healing well. They are still SUPER sore and kinda get swollen sometimes, but at least I can type again. Yep, I'm grateful for what I have! Hopefully I move a little faster tomorrow night. Otherwise, I may have to start pricing walkers, and I just don't think my fragile psyche could handle that this week!

When life hands you bananas...

Make bread...er....muffins! Cause let's get real here, banana juice just isn't practical! Today I got bananas. Which is not to be confused with going bananas, though I have been on the verge of doing just that for the last several days! For those who don't know, my job is to plan and carry out races and other special events for the City of St. George. It is a really fun job, but takes a lot of time and energy. Today we had our Save A Sister 5K, 10K and 1 Mile Walk to benefit breast cancer research. It was a lot of fun, and quite possibly the best organized race I have yet to help plan-and that's saying something, cause I am a little bit CDO (which is similar to OCD, except the letters are in alphabetical order, as they should be!) 

Anyway, at the end of the race today, we had some bananas left over at the finish line. And being the girl I am and raised by parents who never throw ANYTHING away, I couldn't bring myself to trash the left over bananas. So, I brought them home. But, ya know what? When you have that many bananas that have already been cut in half, you can't just deal with them tomorrow. You pretty much have to take care of them right now. So, what did I do all afternoon and evening? You guessed it, I baked banana muffins!

 

 

But there were SO MANY bananas, there was no way I was going to be able to bake all of them. So we sliced some for dehydrating, and froze the rest. I figure I can use those ones for smoothies, or later on for making more muffins! And I gotta tell ya- it's a good thing my mom and my sister are so awesome and helped me out with this undertaking, because without them, this project may have gone on forever!

 



 

When all was said and done, we had made somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 muffins. We also put 4 or 5 trays into the dehydrator and 2-3 cookie sheets in the freezer! We are gonna have bananas with everything for the next few weeks! :)

 

 

And I'm happy to report that as of the time I typed this up, I had only eaten 2 of the muffins. Unfortunately, I am about to head to the kitchen where I can exponentially increase that number! Happy Eating!

 

 

That moment when...

I play city league volleyball on Thursday nights. I played ball in high school, and I have kept with it, on some level, since I graduated. It's fun! Granted, my volleyball obsession isn't nearly close to what it was when I was in high school. Back then, there was a group of us who played religiously. Every Tuesday and Thursday night at the local recreation center from 7:00 till 10:00 pm. When the rec center closed we would go across the street and play until 2:00...3:00...sometimes even 4:00 in the morning. It didn't matter that I generally had to be at the school by 5:30 the next morning for madrigals. We were playing volleyball. And that was the most important thing! We usually played on the weekends, too. Once the sun went down (cause it was too dang hot to play when the sun was out) we automatically drifted to the courts at Vernon Worthen park. I have a lot of great memories from that time in my life.

But that's not really the story I meant to tell.... What I was getting at was this. I play city league volleyball on Thursday nights. And this past week, something dreadful happened at our games. It wasn't that we lost our first match. That happens. The dreadful part was that, at the end of that first match, I commented that I was proud of our team for how well we played. I said (and I quote), "Good job team! I am proud of us for keeping up with that team of seven foot tall, 20 year old girls. We played really well!" My older sister (they're all older, cause I'm the youngest in the family) agreed.

And that's when it happened. From behind me, Tayleigh said the saddest thing I've heard in a long time. She said, "It's happened, hasn't it? We are the "old lady" team in the league, aren't we?" We stood in the gym and looked across the 2 courts of girls playing volleyball, and her statement was confirmed. We are, in fact, the old lady team in the league.

I gotta tell ya, I didn't see this one coming at all. In my head, most of the time, I am still a seven foot tall, 20 year old--even though I'm only 5'9" and I haven't been 20 years old for a decade, now. I recognize that there are things that hurt now that didn't hurt when I was 20-mostly my shoulder. But somehow, I didn't realize that there were other girls out there, coming up behind me, turning me into a member of the old lady team.

I guess it's a good thing I have the wisdom of age on my side. Otherwise I might really be upset about this realization!