Let the Games Begin...

Once every two years I allow myself to be a serious couch potato for a few weeks. I confess I am an Olympic junkie!

If you are from my generation, you have special memories of the international competition and the pride we felt as Americans watching the "Miracle on Ice" in the winter games of 1980. Remember speedster Eric Heiden? And let's not forget summer stars like Mary Lou Retton and Carl Lewis.

Go team USA!!

Actually, my favorite team after Team Austin is Team USA! Of course, I always applaud politely for Sweden and Norway in case they are relatives!!

Tonight I went over to my friend Becky's to have dinner, scrapbook and catch up on life. After eating and catching up a bit and discussing our upcoming Camp Crop-A-Lot plans (just two weeks away!), we scrapped the plan to scrap tonight and watched the opening ceremonies instead.

Well done, Russia. Not a fan of the Americans' ugly sweater contest, but maybe I have no fashion sense.

Some qualifying competition already started yesterday so things are a bit out of order. All I know is that if I want to catch any of tomorrow's action LIVE, I better sleep fast and be on that couch 3 hours from now.

Not gonna happen. I may be a fan, but I will take tape delay AND sleep in most instances.

Let the games begin... Or continue... Or whatever.

USA! USA! USA!

Fine Print

On one of the favorite TV shows in our house is The Big Bang Theory. We get a kick out of the very anal-retentive character Sheldon, who is book smart -- genius actually -- but runs a little low on tact and relating to other humans.

Before his roommate Leonard could "qualify" to live there, he had to pass several Sheldon personality tests and sign the dotted line on a very, very, very extensive Sheldon-authored roommate agreement, covering every topic from TV viewing and takeout meals to girlfriends and scheduled bowel movements.

Last night while Carter and I were eating at Culver's (after a double no-cavity appointment for us at the dentist), Carter suggested Dad and I have a roommate agreement. Apparently the day before, Dad had picked him up after school and when they drove past Culver's they saw the Flavor of the Day was Mint Avalanche. He said Dad was going to call or text me but they would have been past it by the time I responded.

So, Carter concluded, we need a roommate agreement. "That way Dad will know if you want Mint Avalanche or Mint Chip at Culver's every time they have it or just once a week or month and what size."

I like how he thinks.

I suggested it to hubby and he nodded with a huge grin on his face. He's all for creating one. What could possibly go wrong with that?

I could tell by the gleam in his eye I better withdraw my suggestion. I will NOT be signing on any dotted lines after the ice cream section!

Or I can always just get it myself.

Wake-Up Call

The morning routine at the Austin household goes something like this...

My alarm goes off at 5:44 and I consistently hit the snooze -- two more times. At 6:02, I am out of bed and in the shower. I get dressed and go wake up Carter, who is 2 feet from an atomic alarm clock that probably is waking the subdivision but not causing him to even stir. I tell him to get up, he acknowledges me and says he IS up!

I go back upstairs and eat my breakfast for 5 minutes before going back to his room for Round 2. At that point, I do not leave his room until he's at least sitting up with his feet on the floor.

Hubby has been getting up around this time, too, so he can get some steps on the treadmill before starting his work day. So some days I send him down for Round 2. On days like today, when I am scheduled to work in the home office, hubby lets me sleep in (yay) and he handles the wake-up call.

Today, that did not exactly go as planned.

Jim was up on time. He awakened Carter and even had a conversation with him while Carter was "coming to." So he hopped on the treadmill and, oh 20 minutes later, Carter comes out of his room and says he just got up!

At that point, he still has 20 minutes before he has to be next door to catch his daily ride to school. He doesn't need to fix his hair. He can splash and go in 20 minutes. However, teen boys actually like to shower (and primp) at this age, so instead of just dressing and grabbing a Pop Tart and heading out the door, he showered, ate and had Dad drive him to school.

I think the conversation on the way to school went something like this... Dad: "If this would have happened to me when I was a kid, my dad would have said, get dressed and get your butt next door or you're walking to school!" Shower or no shower, it was not his fault if Jimmy overslept.

As Jim was telling me this later, it was like getting yet another wake-up call about how many of us parents are raising (or not raising) our children. We don't want them to feel bad. We encourage them and support them but do our best to help them avoid conflict or pain (physical or emotional). They don't have to be responsible for all their mistakes because we step in and rescue them in some fashion many of the times. They don't often ask permission but tell us what they are going to do. They inform us what's on their schedule and we take them where they need to be as if we are their paid chauffeurs. (Right.)

How did it come to this??

I wish I knew. I'm pretty sure it stems from our need to make their lives better than how we had it in our childhood. Yet, we know now that we wouldn't be the people we are today -- loving, kind, honest, respectful, hard working -- if we hadn't made mistakes, hadn't overcome some serious challenges.

On our own.

It's pretty screwed up. I hope it's not too late to teach those valuable lessons and instill these characteristics in our kids.

I also hope Carter doesn't oversleep again. Because you know no matter what I WRITE, Momma's gonna cave and give him a ride!

Tuesday Tidbits

Just catching up on a few things....

Sprechen sie deutsch? We had a meeting last night for the families hosting a German student later this spring. We are getting excited to host Lukas, who is also a sophomore and just turned 16.

Although he will be here just under a month, he will get to experience Easter, prom (uh-oh) and Carter's birthday with us. Plus, there are numerous excursions planned with the other 21 German students staying with Assumption H.S. families that month -- and with the "host kids" and the Germans. They are packing a lot into his schedule plus he has to go to school and classes like a regular student. Unlike the "old days" of pen pals, Carter has been in touch with him via email several times and they are getting to know each other a bit. When Carter goes over to Germany in the summer of 2015, then he will stay with Lukas and his family. Very cool. Should be an interesting experience for all of us!

The Island of Misfit Readers: I have always wanted to join a book club but have not found the opportunity. Typically, the clubs are well established with women (mostly) who either have been friends forever, are coworkers or family or share some other tie. There's one group I'd have to "audition" for to see if they'd accept me. I'll pass.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands and see if there are other "misfit readers" or "book orphans" out there who haven't found a place to belong. My friend Christine and I have been talking about this for ages and I finally acted on it last night, sending out a generic invite on Facebook to any Rapids area readers looking for a home. Tentatively, I am calling it the Face To FaceBook Club, but you don't have to be on Facebook to join. I figured I better throw a note on here in case any of you locals love to read and talk about it! Let me know. I am happy to report we already have a "quorum" (ha) so we can get started ASAP. And we will!

What's Your Status? Today is Facebook's 10th anniversary. Who cares, right? Well, they made us care by somehow creating a brief "video" of our top moments since joining. Turns out I have been wasting time on there for 6 years.

The touching part was seeing the first photos. Remember this kid? His official photo from the Rapids Raptors. Carter's wearing #28 just like his football hero -- Adrian "All Day" Peterson! 

While his football career was short-lived, my desire to take pictures of him and share them has not lost momentum. He has warned me against that now that he is well aware of social media outlets and my blog. If you are not on Facebook, you're not missing much on my account. Most of my insightful comments and photos appear here, too. 

Ha. Don't lose sleep over that! In fact, just hunker down with a good book and have sweet dreams! G'nite.

Divine Vision

As we go through the typical rush of a Monday - trying to get up after a late football game, catching up on mountains of email from the weekend and meeting deadlines -- it's so easy to get bogged down in ourselves and our needs.

We are on a mission and can't deal with any person or situation standing in our way.

"Are they doing this on purpose just to ruin my day?" we sometimes ask ourselves. We know the answer is obvious, yet we still lose patience like the world is out to crap on our Cornflakes.

When I saw this video today, which I am sure has been "out there" awhile, it was a perfect reminder that no matter what we're going through -- slow lines at the store, too many red lights, a slow Internet connection -- someone is always going through something. And it is often worse.

Take a few minutes to watch this.

http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=0JMJBCNU

Even without a pair of "God's Glasses" and even without knowing exactly what someone is struggling with, we know we should do something to help. Ask yourselves: How can we love someone like Jesus today?

The answer is simple. Don't judge people. Be kind. Be courteous. And silence that one-sided snobby committee in your head and just listen.

God is always giving us clues. And we don't need special glasses to see or hear them!

Get it?

XLVIII (Xtra Lame Viewing !!!)

Some of us football fans watched the Big Game today not necessarily caring who won it, but hoping for a good game -- with end-of-quarter scores matching our numbers on our pools.

I've always liked Peyton Manning and hoped he'd put on a good show. But that did not happen.

Instead, I had to watch former Viking Percy Harvin have a stellar game and our reject QB T-Jack get to play a series in the end of the game. Both walk away with a Super Bowl ring. Sad to admit, but good thing they left Minnesota, I guess.

I was also a winner. We went to our annual Super Bowl party at a friend's and I won $20 after that oddly scored first quarter. The rest of the time, I just endured an almost boring blowout football game and few notable commercials.

We stuck it out to the end, though, just in case Lady Luck had anything else in store for us.

No more money but she did get us home safely AND my wonderful son already had my electric mattress pad turned on and heating up my bed when we got here.

Where's MY trophy? I feel like a winner!

Accent-uate the Positive

It's been a couple of months now since I started commuting to work with my new friend: the Audio Book on CD.

Listening to a good story really helps the drive go quickly -- and, surprisingly, it has been quite calming on some of the challenging winter-time drives. I've enjoyed a variety of stories, really liking most of them so far, and find the variety of voices intriguing.

Last week, the reader had to do several southern accents and just nailed them, giving me distinctly different voices for characters of all ages, both men and women. Made it seem like a movie instead of just a book.

This week, I listened to the book "Remember Me?" by British author Sophie Kinsella. Naturally, an "English" speaking woman read it and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The story itself was quite entertaining, as Kinsella's usually are, and I got such an exposure to British slang I now fancy myself saying something is brilliant or dodgy or bloody fantastic!

My new motto:

Smashing idea (or i-dee-er), don't you think, mates?

Don't worry. I won't overdo it. (I already have, haven't I?) I'll just sit here, sipping my nightly cup of tea (serious) and pretend these yummy peanut butter cookies I made today are "scones".

And when you tell me to "get stuffed," I will pretend it merely means, "have another."