Saturday, June 22, 2024

Last game for Harper

 

I was laughing to myself about my husband. He is truly one of the most softhearted people on the earth.  He had all the dogs outside working.  They were moving dirt into some holes around the yard and he had all the dogs helping him.  He was teaching Norma to ride in the truck.  He was taking them for rides down the road, which our old dogs love and he is hoping that Norma will love to “go for a ride” as well.   He is already in love I think.   The man loves dogs.  He would never admit it, and honesty, he wouldn’t ever be the one to stop off and buy an Amish puppy - he has more self restraint than some of us.  But when these things drop into his life, he just makes them part of his world.  It makes me happy.  I might add that he had the neighbor’s dog helping as well.  He is quite popular among canines.  


You might also notice that there are fake flowers in the truck.  We have been battling squirrels eating all my flowers in the pots at the end of our driveway.  I had them really looking nice.  They have disappeared one by one.  I tried putting out other types of food, hoping the darn squirrels would eat that instead.  And they did.  But then made dessert out of my plants!   I read online that they won’t eat geraniums, but it’s getting late enough that the plants in the stores are fairly picked over. For this year, I am resorting to fake flowers.  Squirrels are jerks.  ;)


It is hard to stay mad at squirrels when I get to wake up to this though.  I guess I will decorate with fake flowers and stop hating on the wildlife, because every day I get to live here feels like a blessing.  


Harper played her last regular season games last night.  The games were against West Franklin.  (The same team that run ruled Saige’s team twice).  Now I am not one who gets overly emotional about ball games.  I will freely admit that even after having kids play ball for the last 25ish years I still do not know all the rules.  I love watching my kids have fun with their friends, I love people watching, and I absolutely love a good ball park nacho, spitting sunflower seeds, and seeing people I haven’t seen in a while.   My girls like to play, and they are having fun but neither of the girls we have left playing are overly competitive people.  They play for fun.  And I’m happy to go watch.  My husband - he likes rules and order.  So when rules are not followed, he tends to get a little grumpy about it.  And last night, there were multitudes of things to get concerned about.  What started out as a couple of softball games somehow escalated into their coach storming into our dugout, 15 year old umpires trying to keep them from fighting, a mom jumping in to push her husband out - and parents on both sides gettin a bit mouthy.  Jim didn’t get into a fight with anyone, but he did point out each rule that had been violated, making some people in the crowd around us even more mouthy.  Nobody was hurt, their coach was ejected,  I sort of sat there wondering how things went from 0 to 75 in such a hurry.   Harper got in the car afterwards and was like uhhh mom how do people get so mad about something that really isn’t all that important?   Good question kid.  Good question.  It is likely that one or both of the girls teams will play this team again next week at the tournament.  I hope it isn’t quite as rough!   Harper’s team lost both games.  Losing to that team isn’t a real bad thing, they are pretty good.  I’m ready to wrap things up and reclaim evenings, I can make my own nachos at home.  Maybe I should add here that there are things nobody tells you about having a big family.  Or things I never really thought about.  I love having my big family. I wouldn’t trade a minute of any of it.  However, we have quite literally been doing summer ball, school stuff, 4-H, religion Ed, and whatever else for over 20 plus years.  Mallory and Madison started tball 24 years ago.  That is a long time. We have seen some stuff.  We know some folks, including ones to avoid.  We are now not only watching our kids play, but have started watching our grandkids play.  We are getting old. And grouchy.  And perhaps a bit jaded.  I am trying hard to be as enthusiastic for my younger crowd as I was for the older ones, but it is hard sometimes.  My prayers will always include that I can raise all of my kids to be good, happy, productive people.  I saw in Harper last night that we are being successful.  It made me proud of her.  Ok she’s a sarcastic, somewhat smarta$$ but she’s smart, and knows how to keep a level head.  She is good people.  

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