my soft spot

just a mom who plays hockey and knits

Monday, March 17, 2008

Whatever gets you going, you know?

My gorgeous new sink and faucet are being installed tonight or tomorrow night, so after the guy came through today and acknowledged that he can do the job, I looked around with a critical eye and decided that now would be a good time to do a thorough cleaning job.

I think I didn't realize it would take most of my lunch hour, but I swept and mopped the floor, sprayed and wiped the whole base of the toilet, sprayed and cleaned the tops of the baseboards, spot-cleaned places on the floor I couldn't reach with the mop, sprayed and scrubbed the toilet lid, spot-cleaned the walls (where do those marks come from???), and cleaned the toothpaste out of the sink, again. I have to admit, a sparkling bathroom is a thing of beauty. And that I need to drastically thin my magazine stand.

Yesterday was the M-Z Red Tryouts/Conditioning slot, and the five Green hopefuls really looked very good! They had good attitudes, too. We have a good turnout of Reds, about 3 per hopeful player. That also made for a nice bench for the scrimmage at the end, with our bench having 10 and the other bench 10 or 11. People were way too polite, which made setting up lines hard--"Where do you want to play?" "Oh, anywhere...". I chose to play D, since I haven't done that in a while, and found myself following the puck into the offensive zone without really thinking about it. It was super fun, and the hopefuls held their own pretty darned well, I thought.

I asked one on our team how many were trying out, and she thought a total of 9. Seemed kind of low, and she confirmed: there are several "old" players in Green who are just staying because it's comfortable. Yep, I get that.

Because the ice slot was so late (7PM), I was able to get to my Alameda Library knitting group that afternoon. Some groups, we have 2 or 3; this one had around 9! Including one woman who brought her beautiful spinning wheel and spun rather than knit ("I can spin and talk, but not knit and talk!"). I continue to be amused that this group meets around my hockey schedule. Hey, no one else arranged the groups, so... and besides, hockey does trump knitting. (but just barely)

G continues to have problems in the behavior department. His April 1 counseling date seems so far away, but I have now made contact with several people at my church who have experience as teachers to kids who have similar challenges, two of whom insisted I call them this week. I swear, this, to me, is God in action. Hallelujah!

I did set up two new things: for any day in which he hits/hurts anyone, he loses reading for 24 hours. (I know! Reading!) I did say that if he had a bad day on Sunday, his precious book from the Redwall series would get returned to the library. (He had a good day.) The other thing I set up is a calendar for good behavior. We bought a set of gold-star stickers and some rare-earth magnets shaped like farm animals. He gets a gold star for every day of no-hitting/no-hurting. After a week of stars, he gets a magnet (although I may surprise him by giving him one after 3 days). We also bought a pattern he'd spotted on Ravelry, and I will start the bear after a week of gold stars. I had planned to unravel it if he had a bad day after I'd started, but one of the teachers at the church said that the usual plan of action is not to take back something that's been given for good behavior.

Our church is having a Maundy Thursday supper Thursday night, and I've volunteered to make a lentil sausage soup. I've decided to prep tonight and have it ready to make tomorrow night. I love cooking with mise en place, where you have everything in little glass bowls, ready to dump in and go. I don't do it like on the cooking shows, where each ingredient is in its own bowl, but I tend to put things together that will be added together. It makes everything go super fast.

It's going to be a wild week, but I think it'll be a good one.

1 Comments:

At 4:28 PM, March 27, 2008, Blogger Dharma said...

Very cool about the knit group. Awesome that people are helping you suss out things with Graham. I agree about not unraveling.
Gorgeous sink and faucet - I'm jealous.

You always have busy weeks honey.
So as soon as I know my dates for California I will be contacting you!

 

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