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The Universe

Does it ever feel like the universe is conspiring against you? I was intent on having a great day until the universe threw a wrench in it. It never fails to amaze me how out of touch some people are with reality. Are they even on the same planet? Now, some days the universe conspires to aid you. That, however, hasn’t been the case lately.

I would like to share with you some of my universal truths. First of all, the Minnesota Vikings or any Minnesota sports team will only win if they turn off the game in disgust first. JJ McCarthy, I’m looking at you. Secondly, it’s absolutely traumatizing to realize the starting quarterback for the Vikings is the same age as your middle son, not the oldest one. When did I get so old? Thirdly, an 8:15 pm start date for any sporting event is way too late for anyone born before 1990.

Outside of sports, wherever you work and for whomever you work, you’re just a number. Corporations, especially public ones, only care about the stockholders. No more was this apparent when one of my associate directors died, and the C-Suite and senior management couldn’t even be bothered to address his team. The message that the employee learned nothing from them couldn’t have been louder if they had said it out loud.

Another example is when they told a long-time employee they were firing him while he was on long-term leave for cancer treatment, that he’d be rehired once he finished, and he was only losing his medical coverage. I know what you’re thinking: the medical coverage is the most important piece when someone’s battling metastatic cancer, and you’d be right. The moral of the story, do your best, but don’t sacrifice your nerves, health, or family for a job that sees you as replaceable.

Since it’s hurricane season, here’s another weather-specific truth. If I prepare for the storm, it won’t come. I’ll leave you with a couple more gems. I don’t bet on my sports team as it is a guarantee that they will lose. If I wear a white outfit to dinner, I will stain it before the night is out. My kids will not hear a word I say until I’m gossiping about something from the rink. Then their ears work perfectly.

2025 Goal Tracker:

  • Run a 5K: still training, signed up for a 5k on 9/20!
  • Complete Kayla Itsines program: finishing 2.0 this week!
  • No afternoon Starbucks (except for travel/vacations): I made it into September and haven’t buckled!
  • Top performer at work: on it!
  • Travel: went to Vegas, but lots of work to do here. I’m tickled pink that we’ll be going back there in October to see Paul McCartney
  • Eat to lower inflammation: in progress
  • Read daily: in progress. I’m reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  • Get out of debt: in progress, but still poor
  • Financial independence: in progress, but still opt
  • If you’re not already following me on instagram, give me a follow!
  • ’Check out my newest partner, Zulay Kitchen. You can use the code Welcome43 to get 43% off.

What personality trait in people raises a red flag with you?

A major red flag for me is people who make work their whole personality. If you have ever worked for someone like this, they fail to understand how work isn’t everyone else’s whole personality. Another red flag is someone who is always looking for ways to write people up. I had a boss like that. It was so bad, I was waiting for her to start writing us up for dress code violations even though we’re remote.

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Great Weekend

We had a great weekend around these parts. Our patient continues to heal nicely even if he is a bit cranky and annoying. Fortunately, he is not experiencing a lot of pain. Unfortunately, the lack of pain makes it harder to keep him compliant with his activity restrictions, icing the finger, and taking his medications. It’s been a constant battle for the hubby and me to get him to ice and elevate the injury. No matter how many times we tell him these things are designed to facilitate his recovery, he ignores them.

Thankfully, both Friday and Saturday nights provided a respite for me. Friday night I had the house to myself as the Mayor was at his girlfriend’s house and the hubby had a hockey game. I cooked a nice dinner, courtesy of HelloFresh, watched TV, and cuddled with the dogs. By the time, the Hubby got home dinner was waiting for him, but I had already fallen asleep. I was still exhausted from being ill earlier in the week.

I worked Saturday, but it was completely dead. It was an absolute waste of time. I would have been equally productive as an outfitter. Nevertheless, I spent the day counting down the hours to dinner and a show. After work, we headed to HardRock to have dinner and see Seinfeld with our besties. Dinner at Cipresso was outstanding. I had the best veal parmigiana I have ever tasted and our appetizers were equally as tasty. Afterward, we hit the slots before heading to see Jerry. The slots were kind to us, which was a bonus.

The comedy show started late as people came in to find their seats. Honestly, it probably got off to a late start because the concessions (aka alcohol) were closing once the show started. I didn’t mind the late start as it would have been disruptive to start while people were still finding their way to their seats. The opener was Mario Joyner, who was fantastic. He had us laughing throughout his entire set.

And then came Jerry. I’m a huge Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm fan, so seeing him live was a big deal. He lived up to, nay surpassed my expectations. His set and material were so relatable. We can all relate to going on a family vacation just to “fight at a hotel” instead of at home. His take on marriage, cell phones, and water features in Florida neighborhoods was hysterical. We didn’t stop laughing the entire time he was on stage. He is so incredibly talented. I’m glad we had the opportunity to experience it in person.

Naturally, we stayed up a bit later Saturday night than we are accustomed to doing. Consequently, we slept on Sunday. I had grandiose plans of baking cookies, and bread, planting herbs/tomatoes in terracotta pots for the patio, and trimming the hibiscus. Regrettably, fatigue prevented me from making my way outside to engage in any gardening activities. On the other hand, I found plenty of time to bake cookies and bread. It was my third attempt at a sourdough loaf and it turned out pretty good. They say practice makes perfect, so I’ll keep working on it.

What are your favorite sports to watch and play?

This may surprise all of you, given the name of my blog, but my favorite sport to watch and play is hockey. I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to get back on the ice someday. I had to retire after tearing a tendon in my ankle and the whole thyroid thing. Nevertheless, I enjoy watching hockey whether it’s youth, high school (MN,) college, or the NHL. Each level of hockey brings something to the experience of being a hockey fan. It’s the greatest sport and community in the world. Our hockey journey has blessed us with the opportunity to meet some incredible people.

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Super Bowl Memes

So the Super Bowl memes have been killer since Sunday. Especially the super bowl memes involving the halftime show. Like most folks my age, I absolutely loved the halftime show. It brought me straight back to the late 90s-l and early 2000s. Consequently, I decided to compile some of my favorite memes from the Super Bowl. Your welcome.

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Obnoxious Hockey Parents

Obnoxious hockey parents come in all shapes and sizes, but believe it or not we’re not all crazy. Unfortunately, those that are crazy just stand out a lot more than the normal folks. Of course, their obnoxious in their own unique and special way. P.S. If you’re both a sensitive and obnoxious hockey parent, you should probably stop here. Consider that your trigger warning.

  1. The Bragger. Listen buddy, nobody and I mean nobody wants to see 50 pics of your child playing hockey on a statewide youth hockey forum. For that matter, they don’t want a recap of their performance at summer camp either.
  2. The Timer. We’ve all seen that one parent that always brings a stopwatch to the game and times everyone of their kid’s shifts. God forbid little Johnny doesn’t get enough ice time. Because this parent will hunt down the coach and demand to know why Princess only played 5.234 minutes in the game.
  3. The Suck Up. This is the parent who’s nose is so far up the coach’s ass it smell like ish. You know the one, they’re hours early for games and practices. Moreover, if the coach gives private lessons, they’ll sign up for every session to assure their kid’s ice time. (I totally forgot about this one until my hockey players pointed it out.)
  4. The Chronic Complainer. You simply cannot please this person. No matter what happens, it will be wrong. In fact, this person’s kid could win the Stanley Cup and they would complain its not gold.
  5. The Aspiring Golf/Tennis moms. First year bantam moms, I mean u-14 moms, this one is for you. Hitting is a part of the game and even a clean hit can result in injury. It’s a risked we all assumed when our kids hit the ice. If it’s too much for you, its time to sign the kid up for golf or tennis. Because frankly I don’t want to hear you screaming at the ref every time a kid gets checked
  6. The Coach. This one’s self explanatory, but I enjoy listening to hockey dads that have never skated strategize about the game. It’s amusing.
  7. The Perfectionist. This one is sad to me because this parent is always ragging on their kid no matter how good they play. For some reasons, these negative nellies have blinders when it comes to their kids’ achievements on the ice.
  8. The Anti-Ref. Similar to the coach above, the anti-ref is the parent who every game screams and yells at the ref despite not understanding the rules themselves. In some instances, they’ll even follow the refs to the ref room because their complete losers. Unfortunately, this asshole’s antics sometimes result in a bench minor for their kid’s team.
  9. The Uncommitted. When you sign your kid up to be a part of a team, you better make damn sure you’re upholding the commitment. Hockey is a team sport and a lack of commitment from a player can be a team killer.
  10. The foul-mouthed, broadcasting penalty box mom. Oh wait, that’s me.
  11. The Tailgaters. Just kidding tailgaters aren’t obnoxious. Tailgating pregame over the last decade has given me some of my best hockey memories.

I’m sure I’ve missed out on one or more of the obnoxious hockey parents archetypes, so this list could be updated. Obviously, this list is not representative of the majority of hockey parents. Most hockey parents I know are there because they love, like me, watching their children play the game they love.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I’m reading Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel.

*11 days until I’ll have all my boys in one place!

*I still can’t run because my toe. Honestly, I’m going to try running on it on tomorrow.

*We’re tracking the Tropics here in Florida. Fortunately, it looks like none of these waves will be impacting Florida.

*I made leftovers and cookies for dinner tonight.

*The word of the day is goodbye. Honestly, we are all struggling to say goodbye to Maya.

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a. I put on his harness every morning. In spite of the harness, he still managed to get a toad before I could pull him off. Fortunately, it was a small toad and he’s a big boy.

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Mid-Week Slump

I don’t know if it’s the weather, but I’m kind of feeling l like today represented a mid-week slump. After crushing it the last two days at work, today I hit a brick wall. I gotta be honest with you. I don’t understand how people could function using only money orders and cash. Honestly, I just don’t get it. I was hopeful that today would have been a continuation of the momentum from Monday and Tuesday, but it wasn’t in the card.

It didn’t help that I skipped my run and the weather was blah today. I got dressed for the run, but my knee is still achy. The last time I pushed through this knee issue, I tore the tendon in my foot. I know what you’re thinking: how does that even make sense? Well, the problem is when your knee locks up or you have pain in your leg, you start to adjust your gait to compensate and take pressure off the hurt area. Unfortunately, when you change from your proper gait to some weird variation of it, you end up hurting yourself, which is exactly what I did. Nevertheless, I’m going to try running tomorrow. If it doesn’t feel good on the knee, I’ll walk two miles instead. At least then I’ll get some steps and adrenaline going.

While I excelled at mediocrity at work, Goalielocks and his friends took advantage of breaks in the storms to fish our lakes. Despite their relatively small size, the lakes in our neighborhood provide really good fishing. While the fish weren’t biting a lot for the boys, they did manage to pull in a big bass while out in the kayak. Unfortunately, the rainy weather seemed to dampen the fish’s appetites and they saw little action. Hopefully, they’re able to come back and fish when the weather is good.

The Mayor spends his days chilling with the dogs. He went with Coach Matias to work out at Wolf Pack fitness in Boca. His coaches just opened a new gym that focuses on training athletes. It’s an amazing place and they’re amazing coaches. Sadly, he inherited his mother’s lack of coordination and he sprained his ankle on the drill. Consequently, he’s been icing it on the couch since he got home. He did, of course, make an exception for making dinner. I promised him he could make chili tonight, which he did (it was amazing) in spite of his injury.

As for the rest of the night, it’s the Stanley Cup finals baby. I can’t believe I didn’t mention it, because this is a hockey mom blog, but there were two huge developments for MN Wild hockey this week. First, it was announced that the Wild will be hosting the Winter Classic at Target Field. Obviously, the boys are already begging for tickets. Secondly, Kirill Kaprizov won the Calder Memorial trophy last night. The trophy goes to the rookie that has made the biggest impact. Kaprizov has certainly made an immediate impact for the MN Wild and he’s fun to watch.

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*I read Demons, by Dostoevsky. I am really enjoying this book so far.

*I thought about running, but my knee said no. Instead, I ran to get my morning coffee and hung out with the dogs.

* Zachary made dinner for the family tonight. We enjoyed home made chili and Brazil bites.

*I played with the puppies before, during and after work. I was hoping they could lift me out of my mid week slump!

*We checked in with Jacob to see how furnishing his new apartment was going. Tonight my folks ordered him a desk/coffee table to help furnish his living room.

* The dogs started a new dental treat this week. They seem to like the treats, but it makes all of their poops green and extremely smelly.

*Today’s word of the day is erogenous. I’m not sure even a big word like that would alleviate my mid week slump.

*I took my puppies including sweet Anakin for a walk. Did I mention I hate gnats, flies and mosquitos?

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Monday Eve

It’s Monday Eve and boy did it come fast. I’m already dreading my long commute to work tomorrow morning. The whole five steps I have to take from my bed to my desk is entirely too long. Admittedly, I have gained a lot of time back in my day with working from home. Gone are the days of spending two hellish hours on the turnpike in Florida’s awful traffic. Nonetheless, the commute kay be shorter, but Mondays are still Mondays.

I spent the day chilling at home with the family. I did test out my new spot cleaner on the couch. Apparently, when Athena has to vomit, there’s only one place where she likes to do it and it’s our couch. I upgraded from the little green machine Bissell to the Bissell Spot Bot. Spoiler alert, the upgrade was worth the money. With the Spot Bot, I can set it on the stain and let the deep clean setting work its magic. Oh, it’s lovely. Between that and my Roomba, I’m loving being passively involved with the cleaning. Like my new commute, it’s a huge time-saving.

Sadly, I didn’t run today as my knee didn’t love the run yesterday. I thought it would be best to give it a rest. We shall see how it feels tomorrow morning. I intend to restart BBG tomorrow, but we’ll see how the knee feels. If the knee is no good, I’ll have to pass on the BBG workout.


I spend my Monday Eve watching binge watching Thirty Rock. The hubby grilled some great burgers, brats and potatoes. Dinner was awesome. We had a great time reminiscing over our trip to Norway. It was an awesome trip and we can’t wait to get back. Lastly, hats of to Jake and his adult league team, who were crowned champions this afternoon! Unfortunately, I couldn’t watch the game since the arena doesn’t have LiveBarn. And now, I’m off to bed!

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Overwhelmed?

Does this whole quarantine situation have you feeling a bit overwhelmed? If you answered yes, you’re in good company with the rest of us. Since this is a situation we have never been in or lived through, the experience of everything is emotionally taxing. Not only are the dynamics of the workplace changing, but those working from home are now tasked with teaching their children. Okay, maybe we’re not teaching our children, but we’re trying to manage their schoolwork, project, odd and even day schedule and Zoom meetings.

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Honestly, it’s a lot. In the couple of weeks, I’ve noticed people starting to buckle under the pressure of this virus. For example, our neighborhood Facebook group has always been a source of entertainment. People liked to complain about driver’s inability to navigate the round about properly or the snow birds driving 20 miles under the speed limit. Most of the time, the quarrels on there were mostly benign.

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However, the virus has brought out the crazy. To be honest, it started pretty early on when a guy from our sister neighborhood came through ours and saw kids playing basketball on our courts. (Our neighborhood kept its courts open.) This particular neighbor felt that it was totally cool to take pictures of the 12 year old boys playing basketball, so he could post them to the group and shame them. Moreover, his approach was probably the most pathetic aspect of his post. Why a grown man would post on Facebook that he didn’t know how to explain to his son why they kids could play basketball and he couldn’t is beyond me. I don’t know dad, but grow a pair and tell him you’re not comfortable with him playing basketball right now.

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Flash forward to the last couple of weeks and things have really gotten unhinged. Perhaps the funniest is the lady that took to Facebook to complain about a man that spit into the grass while he was walking. Now said lady wasn’t on the path or near him, she just witnessed the act. I’m guessing she’s not a runner or she would know people have done a lot worse on the path. Logically, I can see how she’d be upset if she was planning to lick the grass or roll around it. Otherwise, I don’t get the need to complain on Facebook about it.
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Oh but this week brought in sheer Facebook gold. First, someone distributed a letter about the tribulation and the rapture anonymously via mailboxes. While I agree that this person was wrong to use mailboxes in the distribution of this letter, believing in the rapture and end times does not make you a religious zealot or mental health patient. Nonetheless, this poor kid has been compared to the criminal that mailed anthrax to people post 9-11 and school shooters. Clearly none of these people have spoken to my grandma. I guess believing and sharing tenets of the Christian faith in this manner is terroristic. Fortunately, they’ve called the police and the postmaster general. I’m sure both officials will be anxious to throw the book at this perp for sharing their religious beliefs.

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But perhaps the most egregious and offensive post came at the expensive of a mom and her child at the local grocery store. This resident was horrified that this child felt the need to touch things in the laundry aisle and wasn’t within an acceptable distance of their parent. Now it’s okay to have your opinion, but to publicly post it to shame the other mom is awful. What if the child had sensory issues or special needs?! What if the mom was feeling completely overwhelmed and let her kid have space? Why the judgment?

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This pandemic sucks, undoubtedly, but we have a choice in how we respond. We can choose to be a light and extend people grace. We can choose to support our friends, neighbors and small businesses. Moreover, we can choose to take this time to make our lives better by improving connections and improving upon ourselves. Or we can choose to be assholes. I don’t know about you, but I choose to be kind, positive, the best virtual teacher I can be and to give people grace during these difficult times. And most importantly, as you may have guessed from all the memes I’ve posted, I choose to laugh.  Rant over!

 

Here’s a list of our day’s activities:

*Reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and loving it!

*Cleaner Anakin’s cage after he experience some nighttime, explosive diarrhea. 

*Completed BBG day 5 week 8 – full body workout 

*Took Anakin, Maya and Athena on multiple walks

*Picked up dinner from J. Alexanders 

*Pulled my hair out (again) managing my teenagers virtual schooling.

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Hurry Up And Wait

As I write this, I’m sitting at the DMV playing the hurry up and wait game. To be fair, I only got here thirty minutes early, which wasn’t nearly early enough. Apparently, my early arrival was not sufficient to spare me from a 2.5 hour wait in the beautiful DMV office of Delray Beach.

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I had high hopes that the rain and fears of Coronavirus would be sufficient to dampen the crowds, but alas I was wrong. Thankfully, my phone will help me pass my time in purgatory. Thankfully, once this renewal is complete, I should be able to do the next couple online. Can I get an amen?!?

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So while I wait, I’m going to book some travel, play some games and satisfy my social media addiction. Hopefully, they’ll be some entertaining people watching as the DMV usually provides great material. Here’s hoping your Friday is off to a great start.

 

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Monday Memes: NFL Playoffs

Monday memes might just be the best way to start the week. Fortunately, the NFL playoffs this weekend gave the internet plenty of fodder. As you may know, I’m a life long Vikings fan. Thus I am used to disappointment this time of year. They’ve conditioned me well over the last 39 years. Nevertheless, their pathetic performance Saturday did boggle my mind.

Thankfully, there’s still hockey and plenty of time for the Wild to break my heart as well. As daylight broke today, I thought a fun topic for today’s blog would be NFL playoff memes. Sadly, the Vikings provided a lot of material for today’s post. So without further ado here are my favorite playoff memes. Enjoy!

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Just Like That

Just like that we’ve made it to Sunday evening and are now staring down another Monday.   Sunday evening shares an odious border with Monday morning.  No matter what is on the weekend docket, it seems to fly by!   Friday ended late with hellish traffic on the turnpike and 441.  By the time I picked up Goalielocks from his friend’s house, it was well after 7:00 pm.   When I finally got home it was after 7:30 pm.  Friday night was such a blur, I can’t even tell you what we had for dinner.

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Saturday brought a busy schedule with a stretch session at Massage Envy in the morning and two games for the Mayor in the afternoon/evening.  Since my injury and diagnosis, I haven’t been able to do much at all.  Consequently, I’ve been quite stiff.  Teodora is a gem, thought, she gave me a nice, easy and effective stretch.  It would have been great to have an hour session, but I wasn’t sure how I’d tolerate it.  Simply put it felt amazing to stretch and be stretched.

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No sooner had I gotten home then we had to head up to the rink for the Mayor’s games.  Thankfully, his two games were local this weekend.  After coaxing with a trip to the Apple Store, Goalielocks joined me for the games.  The first game, against our organization’s 07′ team, was quite close.  The Mayor opened up scoring with a nice shot in the first period.  Fortunately, I not only had the goal horn queued, but it worked almost immediately.  That contest ended in a 2-2 tie.   Bottom line is we needed at least a point out of that game and we got it.

Between games, my plan was to go home, relax and have my groceries delivered, but with a little coaxing I quickly changed my plans.  We headed to the Brass Monkey, our favorite dive bar/restaurant near the rink with some of the Mayor’s teammates.  Fortunately, for me and my sparkling chardonnay, Jake was home to receive the grocery delivery (#crisis averted.). The food at the Monkey is quite good, but the service is less than stellar.  Saturday’s performance was no exception to these rules.  I think my favorite part is when the server charged all of the bills on the wrong credit cards.  Unbelievably, our bill and the family whose bill we paid were within cents of each other. It was, however, quite entertaining.

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Post dive bar dinner, we headed back to to rink for game two.  I was hoping it would be a good game, but we didn’t play our best.  We ended up giving up two short-handed goals due to silly errors.  Again I had the goal horn queued, but sadly wasn’t able to use it for our boys.  I wish I had more photos and videos to post, but I was playing music at the Mayor’s request.

Today Goalielocks and I endured iPhone warranty hell courtesy of Best Buy and T-Mobile.  The process to get it handled by insurance takes entirely too long.  While going outside of the insurance process costs entirely too much.  Ultimately, I ended up paying out-of-pocket, so Goalielocks could have a working phone.  Last Friday his school had a gas leak and his phone stopped working.  Fortunately, he actually knows my phone number, so he called me from his friend’s house.   After more than two hours, his phone was finally ready and operational.  He was ecstatic and I was exhausted!

Before venturing into iPhone repair hell, I made some blueberry muffins, as part of my meal prep, for the week.  Sadly, they didn’t make it past 12:00 pm.   Fortunately, I wasn’t the one that ate them all.   After fixing Goalielock’s phone, I came back to prep my meals for the week.  This week I made butternut squash noodles with lemon chicken sauce.  I adapted the recipe from a great recipe I saw on Facebook using spaghetti squash.  To save time, I opted for the pre-packaged butternut squash noodles. This saved forty minutes of cook time and cut down the work.  Here’s the recipe: Lemon chicken with butternut squash noodles.

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According to Myfitness Pal, with the butternut squash noodles and no added cheese, this dish has 229 calories with 16 net carbs, 20 grams of protein and 8 grams of fat.  Lastly, it is 3 Weight Watchers points.   If you try it, let me know how you liked it.   The meal prep containers came from Amazon and are available for purchase here.  Their top and bottom shelf dishwasher safe, freezer and microwave safe and free of BPAs.