Recognition of hard work came L's way this week

 This week, recognition of hard work came L's way.  First, on Tuesday night, she was inducted into the HHS National Honor Society along with some of her friends.

This picture is of the ceremony where they came on stage after hearing their name read.

Here she is (2nd from left) with some of her friends who were also inductees that night.  The three girls on the right have been L's friends throughout elementary school and now into high school.  

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Then Thursday was the swim team banquet at DSC. First, a word about swim team.  The swim team is actually comprised of three high school teams:  HHS, DHHS and PVHS.  The combined team is called Tridents.  They practice together but they compete by high school. There were sixty-five swimmers on Tridents who finished the season.  HHS had eleven who finished the season, just to give a number comparison. Here are some of the HHS swimmers with three of the four coaches (not all team members attended the banquet and unfortunately the other two who attended the banquet left before this picture was taken).  Back row: KL, LS, LG, SF, and two assistant coaches.  Front row: LB, BB, and the head coach.

  L and others with better than a 3.7 grade point average received a certificate for maintaining good grades while participating on the team.  Here L is receiving her certificate from the head coach, and to the right is L's swim buddy B waiting for her certificate, too.

Here is L with her certificate (and to the left is her other swim buddy La). 

Then the happy surprise of the evening was that L received a varsity letter for swim!  The coach said that normally they give varsity letters to everyone who qualifies for the state finals, but this year there had been 51 of the 69 swimmers qualify for state, with 45 of them qualifying for state in individual events, which was an amazing accomplishment for relatively small teams.  However,  the coaches felt the award would lose its significance if nearly the entire team received a letter so they developed different criteria.  They decided to awarded them based on the highest cumulative point totals (practice points, meet points and meet scores). They awarded the top twenty percent (or where there was a natural break in points) of swimmers.  L (third from left) and K (second from left) were the only team members on the HHS team to receive their varsity letters, and of course, they were part of the overall top twenty percent of the Tridents to receive letters.  I was thrilled.   

The big 18th

We have had another birthday at our house and not just any birthday.  T has had his eighteenth birthday! He had very specific plans for his birthday which included receiving a particular Xbox game and playing that for as much of the day as he could!

Here are two novice parents and one great son about eighteen years ago.  B and I do not know a whole lot more about parenting than we did then, but we have had more experience--eighteen years to be exact.  I do not know if any child has been more anticipated than T.  A couple of old folks having a baby is a pretty big event.  If you cannot tell by the picture, I will tell you that we were pretty proud parents of that little guy.

I have been remembering some of the things T liked to do when he was small.  I remember when he was just a baby, he liked to study his hands.  He would spend hours just looking at his own hands, turning them this way and that.  I remember how fun it was that from an early age, T could get a joke and tell a joke.  I remember how he was more interested in playing with things found around the house like the TV remote and locks than playing with his toys.  I remember how he loved to have pretend arguments.  I was to say something and he would say the opposite (such as "Yes!" "No!" or "Go!" "Stay!" and a myriad of other "opposites").  I remember all the hours we spent watching big machines work and reading about big machines and watching videos of big machines.  I also remember that he loved to have me sing to him.

We have had a lot of good times watching T grow and learn. From the beginning, he has loved science and nature.  Unlike his mother (who always learned for the test and then promptly forgot everything), he can actually remember things he has learned about subjects that interest him and can give them back in detail.  I remember reading to him an adult-level book about rocks and minerals as bedtime reading.  It took us forever to get through that whole thing but we did.  He has always been very curious, funny, observant, intelligent, and quick to learn. He has a good heart. 

Here he is getting ready for a performance for school band a few years ago.  T has always liked school.

Now he is a senior and ready to graduate from high school.  Where did the time go?  Good luck, T, with all you do!  We love you and are glad you are in our family! 

Happy Birthday to Dad

Just checking in

Because I have not had much time to be online for the past while, I actually feel like I should be posting more often to this blog, although if I were honest with myself, I would know that I do not have such a huge following for this blog.  Added to the foregoing thought is the reality that much of what I am occupied with is not blog-worthy, or does not seem like appropriate blog material or the thoughts my activities prompt are not blog material.  I have even resurrected a couple of pages of blog prompts I have been keeping around for just such a time, but those prompts just seem so out of tune with what is going on in my life (although they were the best list I found online at the time) that I am not topically "prompted" by any of them.

A library image--not really a shot from where I work

My new part time job has occupied some amount of my busy time in 2011.  It does not seem appropriate to blog about jobs on the internet.  So although I love my new job at the library, this does not seem like a likely blog topic now nor in the coming years.

Photo from 1971

If you have followed this blog for a while, you know that I have been involved for about a year and a half in trying to (a) remodel a rental of my mother's and (b) dejunk and fix my mother's house.  This has been at times a full time job (just as an example, I worked 150 hours in October) but at least a consistent part time job (combined with being on hand for Mom leading up to her passing and the other things I do and have done regarding her and "business").  I had also been trying to close out my mother's estate before the end of 2010.  These items have just about occupied every waking minute that church, family and work have not occupied.  Well, that declaration needs to be rephrased.  These things have occupied every minute of my time and I have tried to fit church, family and work (and, admittedly, mental flat-lining at times of "overwhelm") around those items.  It has come down to crunch time and this is where all my time is going, all my time I can find to devote to these responsibilities.

Team @ the Greg Fernley Invitational--one of the first meets for 2010-11 season

State swim finals are soon here.  Because of the heavy parental commitment/involvement required by having a child on the swim team (read: part time job), I feel almost like I am "participating" in state finals because of my good association with the local high school swim team members.  I certainly wish them all luck.  We have had a good group of young people on the swim team this year.

That yesterday was the last practice of this swim season was bittersweet.  Of course as a person with plenty of other things to do, I was relieved to have the past three weeks of afternoon practices come to a close.  Although having practices every weekday at 4:30 a.m. is a bit . . . well . . . sleep-depriving, it is so far superior to the afternoon practices we have had since regionals (see how I say "we"?) that I am HAPPY to see the afternoon commitment come to an end for the season.

Overall, I have enjoyed the early practices.  Although they feel like "found time," I have found that what time you "find" at 3:55 a.m. to 8 a.m., you pay for the rest of the day in lassitude.  I woke up every morning with L to either take her to the carpool pick up site or to drive the carpool.  Well, we woke up every morning other than one morning when she and I--mysteriously--slept through our alarms.  Luckily I didn't drive that day.

We have been in an early morning carpool and some other parents and I cobbled together a carpool for the afternoon practices.  I have enjoyed being the carpool driver for any regular practices and nearly all extra practices and meetings.  I have especially enjoyed my time with my girl L, even if we were half asleep most of the time (well, I was awake--I was driving, right?!).

I was glad I was the carpool driver yesterday as a way to end the season, even if it did involve being on hand from 3 p.m. (pick up) until about 9:30 p.m. last night (after dropping off the girls who are in the carpool).  Ah, now you goodreads.com friends know how I can claim to be so busy and still read so many books--you can only take certain types of work with you to do away from home, days on end.

Original "Paint" Art by Yours Truly, copyright 2011

Speaking of home and the state of the house, well, just let me say that no one is home "minding the shop," nor has been for a very long time--like eighteen months, speaking generally and not speaking specifically of heroic but sporadic and brief attempts at cleaning on my part and other attempts by others, and not speaking of help rendered by my good husband.  Let's put this another way.  All the things I normally do, I am not getting to nor is anyone else.  They are still doing the things they do but no one is doing what I normally do.  Like Aunt Geraldine said to me one time, "You know all those things that just happen around the house by themselves?  [She yelled for emphasis:] YOUR MOTHER DOES THEM!"  So those things that "get done around the house by themselves" are not getting done.

There are only so many hours in the day and my other "part time jobs" are taking priority.  It also does not help that there is a steady stream of items coming into my house, despite my resolve to be particular in what I choose to keep as we empty my mother's house (and I think I have stuck by that resolve for the most part).  Once the dust settles in the remodel/dejunk/rental of the other two houses, then I hope to turn my attention to my own abode. Home, sweet home.

YW Logo

And then, to make the tableau complete, I need to mention my other part time job: Young Women president at church. Those who know what that particularly responsibility is like do not need another word of explanation and those who do not know what that particular responsibility is like could not comprehend through a mere written explanation.  In January, I put on a scripture reading party, "Minute to Win It," for the kids who read finished the Book of Mormon in 2010.  It was a lot of work but it was fun.  This month is New Beginnings.  Those are just the bigger events.  There is always something to do in this particular organization.

See, I warned you that nothing I have been doing is blog worthy but because I am so occupied with everything, these topics are all that I have on my mind. In summary, I need to share a quote I found:  "Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you how busy they are?"  Now, I guess I will get back to work!