Stealing home

My 10-year old stole home yesterday. It was truly amazing to see him play aggressively. He was on third and his coach told him to lead off. He was a few feet away from the base and he was just staring down the catcher. The catcher was holding the ball and he was also probably about 2 feet away from home.

What happened next was a complete blur. I believe the catcher threw the ball to the pitcher and he was getting ready to walk away when my son decided to run for it. The pitcher threw the ball back to the catcher so that he could tag him with the ball. My son slid and everyone was on the ground at one point when the ump called him out. One of the ump called it safe because the catcher apparently dropped the ball.

Everyone cheered and it got everyone excited about playing. They got 5 people home because they were energized by that!

What was more exciting for me is that my child is learning how to play the game. He was thinking smart and he knew that he could make it. Perhaps it was all luck, but those few minutes made us all feel pretty special - like we could actually win (we were against the number one team in Minor A).

He is coming to his own.

He was the talk of the school today and that little stunt was heard all over my daughter’s school as well (middle school).

Wished he played like that all the time …

 

Sweets!

I was just checking out my blog stats today and it looks like everyone is interested in “cupcakes”. I had a post about Perfect Endings cupcakes versus Sprinkles and it’s been the most viewed post. 

Makes me wonder about the other crap that I write in here. Boo hoo, no one really cares about the rest!

Oh well, if you are interested in more cupcakes, treats and sweets - check out some photos on my flickr account!

life in general

It gets harder and harder to blog. Sometimes I wish that a computer was attached to my brain - because quite frankly the only time I have time to think about blogging is when I’m all alone driving myself to work! I can’t very well type and blog then. Certainly, there are a lot of things that goes through my mind while I’m driving.

I just have so much more time to “live” and enjoy my life. Right now I am sitting here, sneaking a few moments in while the kids are outside swimming and playing. Even this few entries are causing some guilt because they are out there having fun and here I am.

Thanksgiving is months away but if you look at the array of photos I have posted on my flickr account, I have so many things to be thankful for everyday. Healthy and happy kids, AB turning 13, 15 years of solid marriage, summer, cupcakes, parents, my sister getting in UC - Santa Cruz, good jobs, etc.

Life is perfect right now. I wish I could capture them all in a bottle and keep life like this forever.

Mediocrity

Three of our children play sports. They are not exceptional but they do okay. AB is focused on soccer and her music. She works hard for everything that she does and where she is now in terms of conditioning. She still needs to work on her skills but she is getting there. I believe that with more exposure and requirement to give her all - she will eventually get to the point where she could consider this experience as something that could open doors for her in college.

CD struggles in soccer but he had a terrible year last year and he was unable to push himself. He is venturing out in different roles with Baseball and he enjoys the game. He is naturally athletic and it doesn’t take much effort from his end to do well. He lacks motivation most of the time and you constantly need to push him.

My third child clearly is not interested in sports. His interest stems from his older brothers interest. If CD wasn’t playing, I doubt EF could give a hoot about soccer or baseball. We sign him up so he could gain some skills and to keep him fit through out the year.

As a parent, I am very competetive. There’s no doubt about that. I try to push my kids to their limits and I constantly remind them that both sports they are involved in are “team sports”. They need to do their part to win! Winning is important. I believe that you can go in there with the “have fun” attitude but you also need to push these kids to win. They will be competing with others all their lives be it at school or work - so it is important that you get them thinking about it.

I also hate seeing parents encouraging mediocrity. The world is full of mediocre people.

What we should teach our kids is that the world is great! There are wonderful opportunities and they need to seize them. They need to work hard and play hard. If they come up with great work — they will be rewarded. I am tired of hearing parents say “maybe next time”. Do it now! Make it happen now! Give it your all! Why postpone something you can do now for tomorrow? You could be off working on bigger and better things tomorrow.

Another thing that irks me is when parents don’t know their children’s potential (or lack thereof). I’m tired of parents pushing their kids to cover first base in baseball when clearly their children cannot catch a ball. I could understand that it’s recreational, but I pity the kids that are left out or benched because the coach wants to see his son “play”. If I was that parent/coach — I would be very embarassed.

Push present?

What the hell is that? This is why some men think we’re a bunch of idiots. I mean, do we have to make up occasions just so we could *hopefully* receive something.

Are there women out there who feels motivated to have children so that they could receive a “push present”? I don’t think anyone would consider that as a good reason to have children.

I was looking at flickr and stumbled women’s push presents …

Hermes bags, watches, rings, etc.

It’s just obnoxious and downright ridiculous.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Just got back from my neurologist and we had to go through that painful test. Yes, I am referring to the shock-n-stab-n-shock test. That wasn’t fun at all! After the test was done, she informed me that I have CTS (Carpel Tunnel Syndrome) but that it wasn’t severe enough to warrant a surgery. Whew!

In lieu of the surgery, I was told to see an Occupational Therapist (just what I need). I am not looking forward to this and would really rather see a dentist.  She also told me that I “must” use my brace when I sleep and have to work on my posture and working habits, blah, blah, blah. Whatever …

whining

My dear husband claims that all I do here is whine. Much to my dismay, he’s probably right. I told him that if it’s such a big deal to him, he should just stop reading it. After all, I do not write for him and I rarely write about him. I am not here to intentionally hurt his feelings. I am here to have some kind of outlet for my joy and frustrations in life.

It’s pretty clear that we’re built differently. I like to share my experience just in case someone can relate to what I am going through. My husband likes to keep that to himself. Perhaps he thinks it’s a sign of weakness. I don’t really care if people think I’m a mess or don’t have my crap together. We all mistakes and you just hope that you don’t mess up on the important ones.

So if you have the same sentiments, don’t read it. Go away and find another blog to read. Better yet, why don’t you start your own.

If I wish to whine or feel sad today - I will. It’s my right to devote myself entirely to whatever I wish to do. After all … it’s my blog.

alone again

My grandmother is leaving tomorrow. My heading states ”alone again” because she’s been a great help to me the last few months. Having her made me feel like someone is really out there helping me. With each passing day, my husband and I have come to the same conclusion - it’s difficult to try and juggle full-time work and four kids. We could barely get them to all of their activities on time and on the right day. This is not counting all the cooking, cleaning and washing clothes that needs to get done at home. My grandmother had been a tremendous help. I just can’t imagine half a year without her.

My grandmother who is 79 years old is heading back to Sydney and then she would travel to the Philippines for a few months to celebrate her birthday. She feels really old and tired when she is with me in California. She feels restricted to staying indoors because of the weather. There isn’t a real consistent public transport available for her too so that made her even more convinced that there’s nothing for her here. This makes me sad because obviously I’d be happy to drop her any place she wishes to go. Of course, my kids monopolize my days with soccer, baseball, basketball, etc, so she doesn’t even try to be an addition to my list.

My grandmother takes care of GH during the day as well and makes sure that all the kids get home from their individual carpools. Going forward, I need to call each time each child gets home so I know that they are home safe (and of course not burning the house down). GH is going to one of our neighbors who runs a day-care. We don’t know how she’s going to deal with this because she’s an indoor baby (much like an indoor cat). She sleeps in whenever she wants and she goes out to play once in awhile. Going to day-care is new to her so I hope she doesn’t put up a lot of fuss.

I’m not sure how I’m going to handle my first week without my grandma. I’ll be heading to work tomorrow then rushing back home to take her to the airport. The rest of the week is busy, busy with tournaments and practices. My dear hubbie is off to work as well so we just need to suck this up and deal!

heading back to work

It was quite difficult to head back to work this week. I wasn’t sure if I could hang in there and get through the entire week. I was overly anxious and didn’t know what to expect. Work is hard and it’s even harder when you have to deal with closed minded people. However, sometimes you just need to accept the things that you cannot change. In the big scheme of things, I am just a small factor in the big equation and I don’t think it would make any difference if I was really around at work.

We get so used to our standard of living and when you earn more - you spend more. That’s just how it goes. So my question is, how do you walk away? How do you go back to being a reasonable person? You know, the one who couldn’t spend more than $50 to purchase a handbag. It will be tough for me and at this time, I don’t even want to think about it because I am so far off from making the decision to stay at home on a full-time basis.

I look at my neighbors and majority of the women are stay-at-home moms. However, they do not have the same lifestyle that I lead. Luxury cars, music lessons, big flat TV, designer this and that, etc, etc. We are the “Joneses”, the ones that you’d love to hate. How do you get out of that cycle? Sometimes, I feel like I want my old life back. I remember when we moved into our first apartment. It was furnished with Ikea and most of the kitchen utensils, items were purchased from Target. I was happy with a $1 plate then and I wonder if I could get that feeling back … probably not.

I enjoy working but I enjoy being at home more.  So when the time comes, I hope I could easily make the right decision. Personally, the right decision for me would be whatever it is that would make me genuinely happy.

money

I was rummaging through my purse today while I was waiting for my car. We’ve been having some major problems with our cars. I don’t think that we’re horrible car owners but we’ve just ran out of luck lately. The service probably set us back another $1300 and we recently just spent $2600 for the Volvo. I guess you don’t realize how quickly money is going out when you don’t add them up together

I decided to clean up my purse while I had some time to kill. I was getting irritated because at this point, I’ve been waiting for over two hours and I have eaten two bags of popcorn. I haven’t had breakfast and I get irritated easily when my precious time gets wasted on things that weren’t part of my plans.

I found two lottery tickets and together they were worth over $200 mil! Yeah!  I took my Iphone and went directly to lottopulse.com. Of course it took awhile to go through all the numbers and between that and reloading - I began to imagine life with $200 mil.

I would definitely quit my job. It’s a long time coming. My kids needs me at home. The most persuasive and justifiable reason why I work now is because I spend too much and I just can’t burden my husband with all that. I am materialistic and I am not going to deny that. I want what I want and that’s that!

So I digress. Back to what I would do with $200 mil. Yes, I would share this with my husband. He could have it all, after all my money is his too. We’ve never really drawn a line between our finances. We started with nothing, we struggled together for all that we have. Even if this marriage don’t go the distance, I would be okay walking away with nothing. Of course, with the caveat that he is not leaving me for another woman

First thing on my list would be a trip to Europe. I’ve always wanted to go and one of my biggest dreams! I would really like to stay in Paris for awhile and perhaps learn the language. I would like to buy a few properties, perhaps one here in Northern Cal and one in Sydney, Australia (where I grew up). I would give some of my money to my parents and pay for my siblings education. Yes, I would give some to charity but I am more for building them homes and providing them jobs. I could start a charitable foundation that would help people get back on their feet and provide them housing that they will eventually pay for. I think people feel more respected when they work hard for what they have.  I think that’s a start. Where would you spend that money?

Of course, reality sets in. After much squinting, I realized that at the most - I got two numbers! It wasn’t even worth anything.

It was good to dream though and you know, dreaming is always free!