On the road again

I need a "slow down" button. Life is blazing past me and I can't quite keep up. A year or so ago I used to have perpetual anxiety about making my flights. I had so many trips piled up on top of each other that I was literally dreaming about the next trip as soon as one had ended. I deduced that this was likely my brain trying to prepare for the next event, but it just made me nervous all the time. Now I'm all lackadaisical about traveling all the time, and I find myself a bit unprepared for upcoming trips. This weekend I'll be busy. Tomorrow I'm working all day at the Soccerplex (or at least I'm pretty sure I am, unless they call and tell me it's been cancelled because it's under water), and then Sunday evening I fly out to KC for four days. I haven't been away for that long since I went to convention back in March. I've been trying to keep up with stuff around the house, and Brad has actually been doing his part (for the most part), by doing the dishes and then vacuuming periodically (oh, if only he'd do the stairs). I spent a good bit of time working on laundry (cause you can't very well pack for a 4 day trip without clean clothes), and then I try to tidy up daily (which is nothing new). I still find myself panicking when I think about having to go away. Like I'm completely unprepared, but actually I am prepared. Brad and I are both taking Sunday off, and I'll have all day to do whatever needs to be done before I take off that evening. I'll be back late on Wednesday, but then have to hit the ground running again as I'm working next Saturday and Sunday at the Soccerplex as well. At least the next week is Thanksgiving. I'd like to say it'll be a nice relaxing break, but my mom is coming and by this point you should fully understand that no relaxing will happen. I'd like to focus on going to Puerto Rico in late January, but I have to get through my trip to TX and annual leadership meeting first. That is also somewhat stressful, though the meetings always go well. I can at least focus on KC BBQ for next week and Root burgers after Thanksgiving.

Laughing, but perplexed

I'm grappling with the fact that people I know are at a stage in their life where they have kids who need to maintain a certain GPA in order to play school sponsored sports. Compound that with the additional fact that at least one of these people has decided that it is more important for their kid to play sports than to do well in school. Yep, that's right. I honestly thought that ridiculous idea went out of fashion (sadly, I had athletes in the high school where I worked a few years back who had similar parents). I just cannot wrap my brain around the idea that somehow it is ok to bash the school for requiring kids to maintain a certain GPA in order to participate in sports. I also cannot fathom how these folks seem to think it's ok to put sport participation over doing well in school. Please, someone, tell me where the train derailed here? Now, I will say that my life has been considerably different that this particular person's life. Nonetheless, she wasn't an athlete of any sort. She wasn't in to the arts. Hell, she wasn't in to anything extracurricular as far as I could tell. This perplexes me even more. I guess somewhere, I could maybe comprehend a bit of this sort of sentiment from someone who'd been a 3 sport athlete and had gone to college on scholarship. Maybe, just maybe, an argument could be made by THAT person. But, she's not that person. I have to laugh because I pointed out to this person that the school wasn't in the wrong. In fact, the school is struggling, struggling hard in recent years, just to get a half decent education to these kids. To my amazement, it seems they've started offering foreign language to kids at the middle school level. I think this is fabulous, because it's a huge step forward from what was previously offered. Sadly, the person I speak of thinks it's an aberration. She literally made the argument that the only reason Spanish was offered was because of the diversity in this country. Seriously? I couldn't help but put in my two cents on the issue. This only led to more laughs because others actually chimed in to support the crazy ideas she was spewing. Alas, I am now one less "friend" on FB, which makes me laugh even harder. Oh well, no more redneck entertainment for me.