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Senior Night

It was senior night for Goalielocks’ volleyball team last Thursday. Honestly, it’s hard to believe that he’s graduating high school. Time definitely flies by when you’re raising kids. We’ve all heard that old axiom and probably we’re super annoyed by it when our kids were toddlers, but it’s painfully true. Even if those toddler years seem to crawl buy with endless daycare and diaper bills.

All of the seniors played the first set, which was nice. Unfortunately, they didn’t play well. They were off and every bounce when the other’s team way. Also, let’s talk about officiating for a second. I’ve worked the penalty box for years and our ice hockey refs are super thick skinned. I’ve never seen an official hand out so many cards for hurt feelings before. At this point, I’m certain the ref would give the coach a ref card if she told them their shoe was untied.

We still can’t follow the rules for volleyball, but I’m not sure if that’s because we’re slow or the officials are uneven in their application of said rules. It’s a much different game from hockey, but fun to watch. The parents in the stands, bat shit crazy like hockey. People think I’m crazy for working the ice box that is the penalty box, but here’s the deal. I’d rather freeze my ass off in the box, then listen to some idiot parent wax philosophical about the play of every kid on the ice.

Senior night, as it always is, was emotional for all involved. The end of an important chapter of Goalielocks’ life and ours is quickly coming to a close. Its been fun to watch him grow and thrive even if some days, I’ve wanted to tear out my hair. His last day of school is coming quickly. I’m not ready for it, so buckle up folks because you’re in for weeks of sentimental blog posts.

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Climbing

So I did a thing today, I tried climbing for the first time. Admittedly, I was quite nervous as I don’t like heights. Moreover, I don’t have a lot of upper body strength and I sprained my finger a couple of weeks ago. Nevertheless, I gave it a go. It was difficult, but I enjoyed it. Well, I enjoyed it until I looked down. As someone who doesn’t like heights, I probably shouldn’t have looked down.

I climbed a couple of walls before hanging up the harness and heading for coffee. Meanwhile, Goalielocks and his teammates continued to climb. The climbing gym was pretty busy, which worked in of our favor as we could take a break from climbing without guilt. After all, who likes a wall hog?!? Nobody! Outside of the height, which I hate, the shoes were the absolute worst. They must run super small because my toes were smushed.

After climbing, we enjoyed a great team dinner in the party room upstairs. The team didn’t have the greatest season from a record standpoint, but they definitely had fun together. Goalielocks and his Goalie partner had the best time. His partner Brody is his absolute favorite. As luck would have it, both were ar Universal last night for Grad Bash. Grad Bash is pretty awesome. They shutdown the parks in Orlando for the high school seniors. It’s a great rite of passage for students here in Florida.

Goalielocks didn’t get home until 6:30 this morning, so I’m sure he’ll have a pretty low key day tomorrow. Meanwhile, the Mayor is at a friend’s house for a birthday party through tomorrow. Goalielocks left to go play some basketball with friends, so I’m watching the Panthers game with the puppies while my hubby snoozes.

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Whoops

Whoops, so apparently when you want to publish a post, you have to push publish. Good to know right. I mean, Mondays are tough and the elevator isn’t alway going to the top floor by the end of the day. Needless to say, I ended up publishing my “Monday, Monday” post on Tuesday morning. Whoops! Obviously, I was a little too tired and a little too preoccupied Monday night.

I was going to post last night too after my Monday mishap, but the Panthers game was far too engaging. I can’t believe they overcame a 5-1 deficit to beat the Maple Leafs in OT. These cats are incredible! And can we talk about Huberdeau for a second, he had another career night. This guy has flown under the radar for too long. It’s about time he gets recognized for the incredible hockey player he is and has always been. Meanwhile, the Wild shit the bed in a 6-2 loss Nashville. Hopefully, that’s just a blip.

I finished my two week Metabolic reset that’s a integral part of the Calibrate program. The challenge was actually quite manageable despite my worries to the contrary. Excitingly, my BMI is almost back to regulation and I’m starting to look and feel like myself again. It hasn’t been fun walking around like an inflated version of myself. After all, who wants to look like a puffer fish version of themselves? The answer, of course is nobody.

Work is incredibly slow today, which sucks. Although to be fair, it’s giving me the ability to finish my blog earlier in the day. This will make the second half of my day much easier. I’m back to my BBG program after a two week injury break. After shedding some weight, the running is getting easier. It wasn’t a cakewalk yesterday, but it went much better than anticipated. Working out has become my mooring buoy during this difficult season.

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Monday, Monday

Monday, Monday…. What a song and what a day. As my boss adroitly reminded us all in our noon meeting, we were now the farthest possible from a new Monday morning. Ah, it’s the little things in life. Work was still a bit slow, but I managed to be pretty productive. I’m going to call today a big win. There are some changes coming, which was expected given the state of the business and the lack of seasonal employees.

Happily, I was finally able to work out for the first time since I jacked up my finger and foot. It felt great, but I’m sure I’ll feel this leg day tomorrow. Moreover, it will be interesting to see how my run goes tomorrow since I haven’t run in a few weeks. There’s always a bit of a falloff when you take some time off running. Hopefully, the fall off isn’t too far.

On a brighter note, (see what I did there?) my sunburn is still red, but not quite as painful today. Fortunately, we have plenty of after sun care lotion. Obviously, I’ll be absolutely coated with sunscreen when I’m in Turks later this month. Did I mention I can’t wait for Momcation? The last few month have been an absolute shitstorm of a hell scape. I’d write about it here, but you might get confused and think I started writing fiction. Anyway, a few days with good friends in paradise will serve me well. And now this Monday, Monday is about to come to an end.

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Well Rested

I’m back and well rested after my annual post SAHOF (state tournament) blogging break. It’s been an uneventful two weeks as I recovered from my finger and foot injury. Thank you Anakin! Every year at this time, probably due to sheer exhaustion, I step back and chill. Hockey season is incredibly emotionally, physically and mentally exhausting. It’s good to take a break.

My orchids are continuing to bloom. I added another orchid this weekend. This one is potted and is currently sitting on our kitchen table. The passion fruit continues to bloom as well, but the flowers have a new mortal enemy. Anakin is obsessed with the flowers and insists on hunting them every chance he gets. Unfortunately, this often results in him eating the flower. Needless to say, I’ve started taking him out up front instead of in back.

Work was an absolute grind as we closed out March. It was absurdly slow, but I still managed to have a good month. This month the volume has already improved as we shedded our seasonal employees on April first. This month brings a lot to look forward to as I’ll be heading on Momcation at the end of the month and Purplestride is at the end of the month.

Speaking of well rested, we spent a beautiful morning relaxing at the beach with the Mayor’s team. It was a beautiful overcast morning, which I thought would help spare my skin. Spoiler alert, it didn’t. I’m absolutely fried in spite of a lack of sun amongst the cloud cover. Despite the sun burn, I’m glad we got a chance to hang at the beach with our hockey family. It’s nice to see everyone outside of a cold ice rink.

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Morning at Urgent Care

So I spent my morning at urgent care after I got hurt taking the dogs out. Anakin ran hard for the banana grove and tore the leash out of my hand. Both leashes went flying, so I ran quickly to collect them before the dogs realized they were free. Meanwhile, the pain from my finger made me absolutely nauseous. As I brought the dogs in, I caught a glimpse of my poor, injured finger.

I quickly took the leashes off once the dogs weee safely inside before heading to the bathroom to lose my cookies. Obviously, it was a completely miserable span of ten minutes. My hubby was kind enough to call the urgent care to check on the wait times. My boss gave me the green light to do whatever i neeeded. Consequently, I was able to see the doctor before starting my day.

By the time we got to the urgent care, the wait had grown from fifteen minutes to forty five minutes. Due to the extended wait gome, we went back home to wait it out. Fortunately, I was able to get some work done. As luck would have it, I was able to take one call that resulted in a great sale. Once I finished the call, we headed back to the urgent care. Our timing was perfect, they were ready for me as soon as we got back.


Thankfully, I don’t think I broke it. There was an area of concern that the doctor wasn’t sure about, so he was waiting to hear back from radiology. Consequently, we’re treating it as a severe sprain unless the radiologist says differently. Nevertheless, I had to skip my workout today, which is a total bummer. Despite my morning at urgent care, my day ended up being really productive.

The mayor is up in Buffalo and had two games today. They won their first game 8-1 and he had two goals. The second game ended in a 1-1 time, which isn’t a bad result. After all, this is the first time a lot of these kids are playing together. Tonight they’re out to dinner and I’m sure enjoying all that Buffalo has to offer. He has two more games tomorrow, which we’ll be watching from afar. I love watching him play!!

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Buffalo Bound

The Mayor was Buffalo bound this morning for a fun, spring hockey tournament. Due to work schedules, the hubby and I weren’t able to make the trip, which is a total bummer. Fortunately, he was able to go with his friend Ryder and his mom, our friend, Elizabeth. They left FLL at the ass crack of dawn to head north to New York.

My hubby was kind enough to drive them to the airport this morning. Due to a 5:30 am flight, they had to leave the house before 3:30 this morning. I kept waking up every hour nervous that they’d sleep through their alarms despite the fact I wasn’t going with them. Honestly, I should have known better. The Mayor was showered and ready to go well before 3:30. And just like that he was Buffalo bound.


Once they left, I was finally able to get some good sleep. Unfortunately, I may have slept too well as I didn’t wake up until 8:05. The main problem there, of course, is that I start work at 8:00 am. Thank god I work from home and am a top tier agent, so I can pop in late without issue. Naturally, I never take advantage of that flexibility. I can’t help myself and am always, except for today, ten minutes early to work.

My stomach has been bothering me, but I all still managed to get my run in. I may have, however, cut the cooldown short because I spent too much time throwing up. So there’s that fun. The run itself went pretty well. The medicine I started as part of the Calibrate program makes me super nauseous. Fortunately, the nausea lessens after a few days.

The highlight of the afternoon was hearing from Jake. He looks and sounds amazing. His job is keeping him busy, but he looked well rested. After we talked to Jake, the hubby grilled up some amazing steaks and roasted some sweet potatoes. It was a very yummy dinner. I love sweet potatoes. We definitely have plenty of steaks to eat for dinner tomorrow. In the meantime, I can’t wait to see all the pictures from the Mayor’s Buffalo bound trip.

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Time Change

The time change is kicking my arse. It’s a complete aggravation. I have slept through my alarms the last two days waking up right before my shift is supposed to start. Fortunately, my commute to the office is a matter of steps and not miles. Nonetheless, I do like to spend some time easing into my day by enjoying my Dunkin’ as I watch the Great British Bakeoff.

Now I don’t entirely harbor ill will towards the time change. As a night person, I love the longer days and later sunsets. As a person that loves to sleep, I love the darker mornings. It’s just that first week post time change that a disaster. I think it’s worse for us this year because the change came after a late night at the rink that was followed by an early morning at the rink.

We are enjoying our evenings off from hockey. It’s nice to have nowhere we have to go after a busy day at the office. Additionally, it makes it a lot easier to have home cooked meals at home instead of frozen pizzas. Unfortunately, there’s just not a lot of time to cook during the season. Tonight the Mayor cooked us chilli tonight, which was fantastic. The hubby and I are always happy to have someone else cook.

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The Season is Over

The season is over after the boys lost a hard fought semi final game to the Makos Sunday morning. It’s hard to put into words how hard each of them played during that game. Obviously, it would have been nice to win, but I’m so proud of their efforts. I’m also proud that our coaches didn’t resort to petty shenanigans in an effort to gain an advantage.

Now I’m sure you’re intrigued by that last sentence, so let me elaborate. The league requires that all players, including goalies, have stop patches on the back of their jerseys. Unfortunately, one of our player’s stop patches fell off during an earlier game in the tournament. The opposing coach approached the referee several times asking him to penalize our team for a missing patch.

When the referee basically told the coach to pound sand and take it up with the league, he sent his team manager up to the league director’s office to plead their case to the director. I mean, can you imagine anything so ridiculous?!! Who is that freaking petty? Literally, the other coach was trying to get the league to suspend our coach over a patch that had clearly just fallen off.

While the Makos manager was up there pleading the case, I ran off the bench to get a stop patch and tape. Once back on the bench, we affixed the stop patch as best we could to the back of his jersey. The league didn’t suspend or remove our coach from the game, so obviously they were less than impressed with their pettiness. Fortunately, karma was served rather quickly as the Makos lost their first game of the weekend in the championship game. You just can’t put that kind of energy into the universe and not expect any repercussions.

At any rate, outside of the kids’ first game Friday night. They had a good weekend. In fact, Saturday they beat the Flames for the first time this season. The boys lost to the Wolves, but it took four periods for them to beat the Hawks. My Mayor had a great weekend and I couldn’t be prouder. He always grinds and plays his hardest every shift. This weekend he blocked a ton of shots and had the bruises to prove it. Now that the season is over, it’s fun to look back and see how far he and his teammates have come since August.

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State Tourney Day One

State tourney day one, or should I say night one didn’t go our way. After an almost five-hour drive across Florida (including the cluster fuck that is I-4,) we finally made it to the hotel just before 5:00 pm. The drive to Wesley Chapel is always miserable. We were lucky, however, that the weather cooperates. Our hotel was allegedly fifteen minutes from the rink. That estimate of time is apparently representative of driving at midnight because it took us almost forty minutes to get to the hotel from i-75 at 4:00 pm.

While our hotel is closer to the Tampa airport than the rink, it is a great location. There are several restaurants, a beer garden, an ice cream shop, and even a liquor store, so I guess all is not lost. Consequently, we had a great dinner at Brick City. The hubby and I shared a Margherita pizza while the Mayor enjoyed some chicken parm. I loved the pizza! I’d definitely go back. After dinner, we stopped at the beer garden to enjoy some beers and ciders with some fellow hockey parents.

We finally headed to the rink around 7:30 pm. Their first opponent of the tournament was the Makos. All year, the teams have been pretty evenly matched, so it should have been a good game. Well, the first period was good. Our Hawks started the scoring with a beautiful goal in the first. They played a solid first period. However, The second period was an absolute dumpster fire. The hockey gods were not on our side after the first period last night. The squad gave up five unanswered goals in the second period as the Makos capitalized on small mistakes. They also had all the puck last night. There was no puck luck happening for the Hawks last night.

The final score was 7-1, which was obviously a disappointing start to their state tournament. Post-game, we got the Mayor some food before heading back to the hotel. Naturally, the only thing open at midnight was fast food. Unfortunately, the fast food wasn’t so fast. Once he finished eating, he took a warm shower followed by an ice bath. We finally headed to bed well after midnight. It was a long, exhausting day. We’re heading to the rink shortly for the first game of the day. Let’s hope day two of the state tourney is not as disappointing as state tourney day one.