Today's the Day

Happy Birthday to my wonderfully organized sister-in-law, Amy! She's so organized she's already sent Ben's birthday gift (which is next week ,OMG!) & has called about the kids Christmas gifts (I WILL call you back, I swear!) I'm so immersed into HS soccer season disorganized that I didn't realize what date it was until yesterday. I'm a bad sister-in-law, but you're a great one & a wonderful aunt to my kiddos! Hope you have a great day & we're all looking forward to seeing you guys next month!

Homecoming

Our Gator Girl came home this weekend...




...and it was just like old times.

Me and My Bright Idea

Some Both of my loyal readers may be wondering where I've been for the past couple of weeks. Have the Beth's Blog Bunch been struck by the flu of the swiney variety perhaps? THANKFULLY NO! Have Beth & Michael been off on an exotic trip? UNFORTUNATELY NO! Has Beth been on some sort of organizing/cleaning spree?! DEFINITELY NOT!

No, my friends, none of the above. You see, I, in my infinite wisdom had a bright idea! I decided to take on a project that no one asked me to. I decided to take something super simple and make it super complicated. I decided to ignore my domestic duties and spend hours and hours and days and days on something that will, I'm sure be eventually thrown in the garbage. When it comes to time management, I am, indeed, my own worse enemy.

So, it started simply enough. Back in the middle ages late eighties when I was in high school, on football game days, the cheerleaders sold "spirit ribbons" such as this... Maybe they still do that in some places (they must, I got this pic from a company that makes them...duh?!), but not at Jordan's high school.

They used to cost a quarter & were fun to wear & collect. I know you'll be surprised to know that my idea had nothing to do with football. Unfortunately, neither one of my daughters' high schools have winning football teams. Not like our EAGLES were back in the day! No trips to the State Championship for my girls' football teams. The highlights of Megan's high school games was always the band & most of the "fans" in the stands were actually band parents (have I mentioned that Megan was Drum Major?!) Wasn't she cute?!

I believe the band is also the highlight of Jordan's school's football games, but she's not in the band... Oh dear! Now I'm REALLY off topic...this is how my mind works, folks. This is why I can't get anything done around here.

Anyway, you may have guessed that my project has something to do with soccer. You'd be right. Jordan's senior high school soccer season started last week. I love, love, love the girls in her senior class. Even in their freshman year, these girls contributed greatly to this team, both on and off the field. They were honored to be part of the tradition of this team and really started planning how to be great senior leaders from the the first day of tryouts their freshman year. They are hard workers & really want to leave a great legacy behind.

(In the spirit of being fair to all of the Beth's Blog Bunch, I should mention that Megan also had a great team & a great senior class when she played HS soccer but I didn't have a blog back then to talk about them...)

Now back to the topic at hand... Traditionally, for big games, one of the upper classes make "Beat Tags" such as these for the team to wear to school that day...

See the pretty ones in the back? Those were given to Jordan her freshman & sophomore years. (some were made by her class) The half-a**ed one in the front was from last year. With few exceptions, the 2009 class were poor leaders with no team spirit.

Which is one of the reasons the Class of 2010 wanted to be outstanding.

Sometime over the summer (or maybe last spring) I started hatching a plan. Jordan liked the idea & we were going to start working on it over the summer when we had some free time. Didn't happen. About a week before the season started (about the time of my last blog post) we started working on a Sunday afternoon. We bought ribbon...LOTS of ribbon, muslin fabric, iron on transfers & plastic plates. Sunday evening was cutting & stapling ribbon.

Monday I spent all day cutting and stapling ribbon...

and designing and printing...

Monday night after practice, some of the girls came over to eat pizza, gossip, tape, cut & Mod Podge.

I love these girls. We've know most of them since they were 11. How can they be seniors?!

I love their school colors...

I love ribbon.

That Tuesday, I got to work. For some reason, I was thinking that Jordan would have time to help me. But honestly, she didn't. Once high school season starts, she has no life outside of soccer & school.

By this time I was starting to realize what I had gotten myself into. I hadn't talked to the other senior moms about it, so I didn't feel comfortable imposing my crazy idea on them. Besides, you know how it is, it's easier to just do it yourself rather than explain what you need. Plus, one of them might have an idea as to how to do it faster or more efficiently... you all know fast & efficient is not how I roll.

So I got to work designing...

and printing...

and more printing...

and cutting...

and more cutting...

and ironing...

and more ironing...

and then more cutting...

and stacking...

Hey look! There are those EAGLES! I want them to EXHAUST my alma mater? Heck yeah!

There are 22 girls on the team. 13 regular season games. That's 286 tags.

3 yards of fabric.

58 iron-on transfers.

Hot-glued between 44 plates. Jordan delivers them on game-day mornings before school, then collects them after school. I add a new tag for every game. At the end of the season they with have tags for all of the games attached to these plates.

And I will have 286 hot glue burns.

They're on their own for the post-season.

Picnik or Why my House Hasn't Been Cleaned in a Week.

It started innocently enough. I was playing around on Picnik & thought I'd "Ghoul" some of the kids old pics with their Halloween tools. What would the kids look like if Elphaba was their mom and we let them play outside in a storm? Hmmmm...


Then, I couldn't stop.











Oh so much fun!

Today's the day...

Happy Birthday Mom! And Aunt Karen! I love you!

Polls Schmolls

First of all, it seems like Facebook & I have kissed & made up. Whew! I now can keep tabs on all my friends again.

Now on to matters at hand. Ms. Amy C., was so kind to point out in my comments that her Crimson Tide moved up to #1 in the rankings, dropping the Gators to #2. Not so fast, my friend. Not so fast! The Gators are still #1 in the BCS poll. So BOO-YAH! Plus, can your Crimson Tide do this?!



I thought not.

Happy Monday!

Oh Facebook, why has thou forsaken me?!

Something is wrong with my Facebook account. As of 10:00 this morning, I hadn't had any status updates from my friends since 10:52am yesterday.

I knew they were all heading out yesterday morning to soccer games, garage sales, football games, Octoberfests & cheerleading competitions. I knew some of them had kids going to homecoming. I know many of them are Gator fans & would be posting updates about the sad state of affairs that was most of football game yesterday. I NEEDED TO KNOW WHAT MY FRIENDS HAD TO SAY!!!

I spent most of the last night & this morning obsessively refreshing & logging in & out of my Facebook account. For a few minutes about 1/2 hour ago, I had a breakthrough. I now know that Joanne's daughter's soccer team was playing on a short field & that the goalie scored a goal off of a punt. I found out that Debbie's daughter & Lori's son both went to their first homecoming dances (same dance, but not together). I learned that Kyra's son's football team lost their game but that the parents on the team really enjoyed the wonderful weather at the game. Ana's got a soccer game at 1 today (WAR EAGLE!), Kori's sons had a Halloween party. Such exciting lives my friends lead & I was getting to read all about it! YEAH ME!!!

After I looked at Lori's kids' homecoming pictures (gorgeous!)I went back to my Facebook "Home" & THEY WERE ALL GONE AGAIN!!! I'm so sad, I can't even explain. Was Laura's garage sale successful? Will I ever get to see Karin's football & Octoberfest pictures (I love love love her pictures!)? Is Shelly going to see her daughter at college after she makes breakfast, goes to church, makes lunches, does laundry, goes grocery shopping, cooks dinner & saves the world? Will I ever know again?!

Oh, I hope so! Or I may just have to join a self-help group.