One Night: Two Trophies

The Sheilas:  we have been second place too many times to count.  We make it to the championship game, just to be in second place.  This year it changed.  We won.  We won the trophy.  We won all the bananas!  The Sheilas had won a championship while I was on the team, I had not been rostered for that game, so it wasn't my championship.  It wasn't my trophy, it wasn't my win.  This one was. 

The Usual Suspects:  This is four years in the waiting.  We have built our team up to a strong, unbeatable team.  And we won.  We were the underdogs.  For three years, we had our asses handed to us.  I am one of the three remaining founding members of the team.  Now, I can "retire" from coed with a happy heart. 

I got to hold two trophies!  I am one of two people in my league that won two trophies that night with my teams.  Such a long time coming.  Hard work and determination.

My friends from work came to watch!  :)

The House of Cats

I have three cats living in my house now.  My friend needed me to take her baby for a little while.

This is my Maggie.  She's the queen of the cats.  She lets them boys know it also.  She rules the roost and they know not to mess with her.  The tortitude is alive with her.

Here is the middle child, Jaeger or Kibben.   He doesn't know his real name because we just call him Kibben.  He likes boxes.  In fact, I set up a bunch of boxes in one of the bedrooms for the cats and THEY LOVE IT!  I don't need to spend money on expensive cat toys.

This is our visitor, Freddie.  He has already received the nickname of Fredward.  He hated me at first.  I mean, I would hate me at first too.  I was the one that took him from his home and brought him to a strange place.  He bit me.  I've never been bitten by a cat.  It's healed now and didn't get infected, thank goodness.  He loves our family now.  Him and Kibben play all the time.  It's a black cat wrestling match.  He's gigantor.  So big.  He's so cuddly and sweet though.  (And yes, I know I need to have my table redone, I will get there...eventually)

Here is all three of them enjoying the lazy, rainy day.  My couch has lots of blankets so they can lay on them.  Kibben is staring out the window. Mags is enjoying the comfy part of the couch and Freddie is sprawled on the table.

Come over and meet the sweet babies sometime.

Open Spaces Kansas City

Kansas City is just rainy now.  The possibility of tornado weather this afternoon.  Tornado weather in October, for real?  The sun did peak it's head out yesterday for a short while.  It warmed up and it was quite a change from the dreary.

Kansas City has an art experience going on, it is called Open Spaces.  On Saturday, Alli and I, along with one of her friends ventured out in the city to explore the places.   They are in five sections.  We visited everything in the Swope Park area except the pink tree.  We couldn't find it.  We visited the 18th and Vine area and saw the three non performance pieces there.  We ventured over to the Crossroads area and went to one of them and the other one was closed.  I'll have to go after work one day.

It's all free.  It's interesting. And it is worth the time to go and find these places.

This is not actually one of the exhibits.  It is a pavilion high on a hill.  You can see it from the primate area of the zoo, far below.  I always wondered what it was and we found it.  It's worth the short drive up the hill.

The pool is filled with flowers, stuffed animals and candles.  It looks as though people are borrowing with no intent to return, some of the flowers.  People are silly.  Leave things where they remain.

This one is one of my favorites, hard to get a picture of though.  It's an abandoned park shelter.  They have homeless bird persons living in it.  They have a barrel for fire and their nest set up across the way.

This was one experience that is hard to describe.  It takes a good five minutes to even get orientated in this building.  It's hard to walk because you feel like you are trying to walk against water.  I have a few videos of it that I will try to post on Instagram.  The hashtag to follow is #openspaceskc

Happy Caturday!

Maggie and Jaeger weren't having it.  This morning, we didn't want to get out of bed.  The old cat was drooling all over me.  

I finished my last actual class for my Master's program.  I am on to the final project.  This is my last semester.  By this time next year, I will have a science teaching job.  I enjoy my job now and I'm good at it, but I need to move to something that doesn't grate on my soul every day.  I think it's just because our office is so busy and the population of people we work with.  I went to a rural office on Friday and worked and it was completely different.  People liked me...they were polite and appreciated what I did for them.  I've never been called sweetheart and thanked as much as I was on Friday.

Facebook memories sometimes bring a smile to my face.  This one did.

One of my favorite survival activities is from NASA.  I'll post the link below.  You should try it out and let me know how you fair.  

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/166504main_Survival.pdf

When I start teaching, this will be one of our icebreaker, beginning of the school year activities.  The first few days are tedious, we might as well make it fun.

It's been a while....

I took a little blogging break.  Not so much on purpose, but it just happened. 

Tanner turns 19 today!  I cannot believe I have a child that old.  We celebrated his birthday earlier this month as Tanner is now at Boot Camp for the Army.  I miss him, but I know he is making a future for himself.

The fam took our cruise to Alaska and it was amazing.

Alli and I survived Girl Scout Camp and it was the bee's knees.

Peyton played baseball and he is a great pitcher.  I can't wait to see how far he goes with it.

Alli is at cheerleading camp this week and she's just about the cutest little button.

My office moved downtown and I love it.  The office is bigger, newly remodeled and there are great people here, one in particular.  The clients are still the same and 20% do not speak English. 

I have played roller derby in both Omaha and Lincoln for the KCRW Travel Team.

I won an MVP for best blocker in the last coed game.

Life is good.

What's been going on in your life?

#atozchallenge : Y is for Your Bed

Y is brought to your by Your Bed! Since I can't see your bed, I'm going to show you mine. My bed is old.  Not antique old, but old as in I've had it for a long time.  I can't seem to part with it or get a new bed.  I love it.  Why fix what's not broken?  I've been tempted a few times, but quickly talked myself out of it.   My bed has a lot of pillows and a lot of blankets.  The soft, warm and fuzzy kind are my favorites and I don't care if they match or not.   I have two comforters and a top sheet (gasp!) on my bed.  I didn't know eliminating the top sheet was a thing.  Do you still use a top sheet?  I recently replaced the lights on my bed because Jager Kibben broke the last set.  He shattered the glass all over my bed.  That was a fun night.  

Tell me about your bed, it is one of the most comfortable places in the world? 

#atozchallenge : V is for Violence

This isn't going to be one of my normal blog posts.  It's a rant of sorts.
Yesterday at work, we hear over the intercom "Children can do gross motor in the gym".  There is a Head Start Preschool in the building we work in.  I figured they were outside doing work or a strange dog was wondering around.  An hour later, we hear an announcement "School is on Lock In, Nobody is to come in or out of the building.  This is not a drill" and my coworker and I didn't know what was going on.  I text my boss and she finds out from the school district that a guy had been shot and the suspect was at large.  She calls me at the same time people walk into our office.  I ask them how they got in as the school was on lock in and she said security let her in.  I went down to security and asked them why they let someone in our office during a lock in.  They said they figured we would be conducting business as usual.  The answer was no, we aren't.  Why should we let people in our office when there was a shooting suspect on the loose?  And the lady they let in...well, she's threatened to beat me up personally many times.  They didn't let anyone else in until the lock in was over and after the two security let in, we locked our own doors to ensure no one else would be able to enter our office.
So, what does this have to do with violence?
A man was shot around 8:15 am a block from my work.  He was shot because a random man walked up to him and asked him for a cigarette and he didn't give him one.  The man asked him 'why he was lying to him?" and that he "knew he had a cigarette for him".  The man that was shot was fixing a gas main in the area.  The man that was shot was 23 years old, had a good job and a family to support.  The man that was shot died.  The gas company pulled all their other crews off the street.  The police searched for hours for the suspect.  The man got away with taking a life because he didn't have a cigarette to give him.
Since I have worked in this building, there have been two bodies found across the street, a man stabbed in the middle of the street and our office was broken into and destroyed. 
I was walking into work at 8:15 am.  Children were walking into the school at 8:15 am.  A random murder in broad daylight in front of so many people.
And the description they got of the murderer...a blue hoodie and gray pants.  Half the people we see in the office were blue hoodies and gray pants. 
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article209764894.html
The second picture on the surveillance picture was outside of the parking lot that I parked in yesterday. 
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article209733594.html


This is too close for comfort.  I have no solutions.  I do not get into political debates. But I am shaken and I am scared and it takes a lot to get me that way.