Things that go Whoosh! in the night:

1) Me: Had I been standing to read my email, I would have gone whoosh right to the floor. I’d almost forgotten I’d entered the (redacted due to the company folding), and there in my mail the other day was a rather large email. Well, the attachment was large anyway, and at first I thought ‘They’re sending it back with LOL marked in the margins’. Umm. No.

I won! Well, there are fifteen of us in total, and they didn’t do the first place thing…does my ego get to type in here and say my name was first on the list on the site before they put up the new contest information? Apparently, it does.

So anyway, the attachment was a contract, cover design form and author/story info form. Look for “Fire and Ice” by Jodi Lee sometime in the near future, at (redacted due to the company folding).

2) Deadlines: My personal deadlines for two of my novels flew past in a rage, yelling and screaming with a definite ‘whoosh’ sound. I asked for and received an extension on the other..LOL So, dropping the two projects that aren’t sitting in my frontal lobe at present, I’ll be focusing on the first draft of Samhain’s Call to be completed by August 15th. I need three readers, so I’ll be bugging people soon. :) For July though, I’ll be pounding the keys for “Stealing Third”, a young adult novel for the baseball nuts in the family. Rhi and Care, this means you. I’ve just written to Softball Manitoba, and hopefully they cough up with some serious info. I’d ask Wally and Dolly, but it’d be better for me to have my own rule book, if I can get one.

3) Fun: The Godsmack concert went by way too fast; I could be that close to Sully every night for a month, and I’d probably be as happy as Rhi after a home run. Or something. They were DAMN good in Winnipeg, even if I don’t agree with the need for an opening act, albeit a relatively not-too-bad local bunch. *shrug* They just weren’t as good as Godsmack, and frankly – I got the ticket to see Godsmack.

Despite my saying I’d never stand for a concert again (ala Ozzy in 2003) I was right there from the moment the openers got off the stage, until Sully sang his last note. Thankfully, there was only a small pit this time (which Dobhailen took full advantage of, AGAIN). And, they had an area for people who were handicapped – so when I got home, I promised the girls next time Godsmack is in the city, if they play that venue again, they can go. Lots of excitement there, lemme tell ya.

4) Baseball: The ball goes whoosh, the bat goes ting, and the crowd goes wild. I was up at 5:30 yesterday morning, and although I blamed the birds incessant yammering outside the bedroom window, it was actually that I was that excited for the girls. A full day of tourney play, and they only lost one game of the four. Obviously none of our girls are that into playing ball first thing in the morning, but they better get over it before the Provincials. I imagine we’ll have at least some games in the early AM. Still though – these girls are all heart; lots of kids would have walked away from playing after the no-win season in 2004.

5) Ideas: Whoosh is the sound they make as they leave my tired and cranky brain today. Ah well…I have five days to write 30,000. Didn’t I do that before? Hmm.

Not a good day…

Today is June 8th. I suppose, since the date shows so wonderfully in this blog, that is rather obvious.

14 years ago, I gave birth to my oldest daughters. Today also would have been my uncle’s 59th birthday. My daughters didn’t survive their premature birth, and my uncle didn’t survive his 30s. I always spend every June 8th, since 1992, wondering why, on both counts.

I also wonder, wherever they are now, if they are celebrating their shared birthdays together.

Care did a picture of “Heaven” for me sometime last fall. In her vision of heaven, my uncle stands watching my grandfather teach my twins to play catch, while my grandmother bakes cookies and serves one to my other uncle, who is close by in his wheelchair. All of the various animals are running here and there, doing their thing too.

Happy Birthday – Brittany, Lori and Uncle Butch. Love you.

Take me out to the ballgame!

And since Minor Ball started after I last posted, here’s an update.

CareBear is playing again this year. Rhi is doing really well, and emotionally handling the letdowns (strike outs and out-at-firsts) much better.

The team in entirety is amazing. They’ve lost only one league game, and that was the very first of the year. The girls have wiped the diamonds since then, except for a tournament where the teams are slightly more advanced and the pitching is faster. Not that that one pitcher was any good – she kept hitting our girls. Ok, mostly Rhi and Care. Mostly Rhi. But she “took it for the team” as she put it, and some of those hits would have had me bawling. That’s my girl; chin up, temper in check and ready to face the next pitch.

The last tournament they played in was this past Saturday, and they won every game. All three, and by quite a gap in the scores too.

It amazes me how utterly disrespectful some coaches are. In league play, there has been one extremely arrogant and hostile outburst from a pair of opposing coaches, and the parents. The ump made a good call on their team, and it was one he’d called on our girls too. It was a fair call – and not only that – those damn coaches had made sure he’d called it on us! When this went on for several minutes, one of our coaches went over and told the ump to give it to them. That’s when one of their parents said the team didn’t need the charity. What is that teaching those girls, who stood right there, listening???

Frankly, that is pathetic. At least have the decency to teach the team you coach some sportsmanship and lose gracefully. I mean, come on; the girls won’t learn it if you don’t show it. Take a look at our coaches, ladies. They may be guys, but out of all the coaches I’ve watched in the last two years – they’re the best in this league. Our girls have compassion, team spirit and don’t rub their wins in the faces of those that have lost. And they take their losses as a learning experience, and a way to practice good sportsmanship.

As a final thought, here’s something for ya’ll to think about. At the last tournament, our girls sat and cheered on one of the teams they’d played and won, during that team’s final game. Who was the opposing team? One of the teams where the coaches and the players fought against ump calls and showed bad sportsmanship in their loss. The team our girls cheered for enjoyed themselves, you could see that…they weren’t just there to “beat the other team”. They were there to play.

And after all, isn’t that what it’s all about?