Life has been busy. I have been on the usual roller-coaster of feeling like I can manage whatever comes my way with happiness and grace one day, then feeling... I'm not even sure what... Frustrated? Incompetent? Overwhelmed? the next.
I am so blessed:
with an amazing family
awesome children
a diligent, compassionate, spread-so-thin-but-giving-it-his-all husband
a comfortable home with food on the table
and access to divine guidance
(still learning to "tune in" to it as often as possible)
Today I'm trying to recognize the streams of mercy, never ceasing, despite:
back pain (going on a month now - thinking about seeing a chiropractor)
restless nights (hormones or anxiety? can't decide)
work (trying to help Bill out in the office - at home - not all it's cracked up to be)
a {tight} budget
whiny (at the moment) pups that need check-ups and shots (a hit to that tight budget)
a spread-so-thin (but-giving-it-his-all) husband
Recent mercies:
missionaries for dinner - they bring a great spirit into our home
two days off of school in the past week - we all caught up on some much needed sleep
Shilo welcoming Mar into Young Women's at New Beginnings - so sweet
temple sessions - especially with my dear friend and fellow bishop's wife, Marci
green lights
bargains
bursts of energy and days lived with zest - recollected during bouts of low points on the coaster
morning walks with Rebecca - few and far between, but the support and listening ear are oh-so-appreciated
a giving-it-his-all husband who allows me to be a wimp at least once a week
(You Lift Me Up by Josh Groban comes to mind)
Sometimes I am frustrated with myself. I know better. My heart is too often in need of tuning. I seem to be in constant need of a reminder.
I am so grateful that, regardless of my imperfections and the need for daily repentance and regular tune-ups, I have a friend in Jesus. It is through him that I CAN be perfected. I can keep trying.
Another swim post. At this time of year it's a bit all-consuming around here. And since I was up late last night shedding tears over it (not the first time I have cried buckets for one of my children - in fact, as I was blubbering away to Bill, I could clearly recount similar evenings spent for each of my oldest three), I thought it best to get it off my chest here and now.
The State Championship Meet was held at EPIC in Fort Collins. This is about an hour-and-a-half away in light-to-moderate traffic and good road conditions. Mar and I headed off with Shi and a couple of her swim buddies Friday at about noon (Mar and I had to sneak out of the funeral of a dear ward member - Bill's first to officiate - early, so as to leave on time; and of course, due to the timing of that sad/happy event, Bill was unable to attend the State meet at all).
I had stress and panic attacks the entire drive, worried about getting there in time. Shilo and her friends were following in a car behind me, making last-second maneuvers and speedy driving off limits. Once we arrived, the girls were not stressed in the least, as they had 5 minutes to spare before it was time to warm up. Thank heavens we didn't encounter any freeway delays or heavy traffic, something I had feared the entire drive, since we were cutting it so close.
Mar and I had front row seats here:
We discovered this to be a blessing and a curse. We were in a great spot in front of the 8 competition lanes, with some extra room to occasionally stretch out our legs, but we looked through these lovely bars the entire meet, and had oh-so-many people constantly walking in front of us.
Shilo was competing in the Medley Relay, the 100 Back, and the 400 Free Relay. (FYI, the Medley Relay is always the first event at a meet, the 400 Free Relay is always the last event. Shilo has competed in these two relays the entire year, necessitating that we be present before each meet begins, and stay until the very last heat of the last event. Phew! It's been a long season.)
Here is Shilo's 100 Back (she is in the silver cap in lane 3):
I am so proud of her!! She swam her best time, placed second in her heat, and placed 28th (out of 49) overall - only 12 places away from being in the finals. This is amazing progress considering that last year she came into the meet in last place, and left the meet in last place. A 21+ place improvement, in conjunction with the fact that the qualifying time had been adjusted faster this year, will not go unnoticed by this mama. She is AWESOME. (The program listed all the past State winners and times, and we giggled about how Shilo could have won State back in 1973-75 and 1979.)
This is her 400 Free Relay team, just before they were heading to the blocks.
Those girls swam fast, knocking three seconds off their fastest time, and made it back for finals. They are the first relay team from Legend to compete in the finals, and I was so excited for them. Finals were Saturday afternoon, and I hadn't planned on staying overnight, so Mar and I headed back home with plans to catch the finals live online the following day.
So why did I spend last night crying a river?
Yesterday Bill and I periodically watched the finals online as we waited for that final event. We cheered on the two team members that had made it to finals in their individual events. We watched Missy-the-missile do impressive swims, helping her team win the State title (which wouldn't have happened without her). Finally it was time for the final event. Legend was in the consolation bracket, having placed 15th in the Prelims, swimming in lane 2. My heart was racing as we saw them prepare to be announced on their way to the blocks.
Long pause.
We noticed the coach (OUR coach) messing with something on one of the girls' ears. The commentators started talking about how the official must have seen an earring, which is against CHSAA rules, and requested that it be removed before the race or a DQ would be issued.
Long pause.
I guess they only give a team 2 minutes to deal with sudden issues, so they began announcing the teams. Legend was going to switch up their relay order because the coach was still working on the earring. The three remaining girls got behind the blocks and the race began. The announcers thought that Shilo was perhaps the lead-off swimmer with the order-change, so she got a lot of name air-time, however, I knew it wasn't her :-) After the first leg, Legend was in the lead. Shilo swam the second leg, after which they were still holding on to 2nd place. The third leg took off. The girls were swimming hard and fast. When the swimmer finished, there was no one to swim the final leg.
Automatic DQ.
I felt sick. Angry. I wanted to yell. At the girl with the earring (a ring on the upper cartilage that could only be removed with pliers). At the coach. They both knew the rules. They chose to disobey. They thought they could get away with it, since they had all season. Even the commentators said it was a little bit of a late discovery - the last event of the last meet. And because of their choices, my daughter gets to pay the price. She doesn't get acknowledgement for her great efforts. Instead she gets humiliation. The only DQ given at the finals. Dashed hopes. Embarrassment.
Why couldn't the officials have seen the earring when that girl swam her individual race earlier in the day? Then she would have been the only to suffer from her poor choice.
I suppose it's a lesson.
Life isn't fair.
Bill caught the drama on his phone, which I will share once it's downloaded, hopefully in the next day or two.
Today I will be going to church with puffy eyes. I hate that.
Here's the drama. It's a bit long, but you get the details.... if you're interested ;-)
My last swim locker tags - I didn't get them posted (or did I? Honestly, I can't remember) back in January:
This is the tag I made for the divers:
The high school A-League meet was this past Friday (prelims) and Saturday (finals).
Here is how a prelim/finals meet works
(in case you didn't know - which I didn't get for a long, LONG time):
The prelims are barrel seeded. Swimmers are placed according to their seed time coming into the meet, but, unlike a single competition meet where seed times descend or ascend (determined by if it's a "slowest to fastest" or a "fastest to slowest" format), swimmers in the final three heats are mixed up, with the three highest seeded swimmers in separate heats. It's called "barrel" or "pyramid" seeding because when you watch the final three heats, swimmers are typically in a barrel or pyramid formation more pronounced than a regular time-seeded heat.
Regardless of what heat you are in, finish times are critical in the prelims because they determine whether you make it back for finals (which are seeded only by prelim times), and what heat you will be swimming in. If you qualify at prelims in the top 6 (or 8, depending on the number of lanes) in your event, at finals you place and win a medal (or ribbon), even if someone in a previous heat achieves a better time than you did. No medals for the consolation heats. Period. I have always thought this was such a complicated way to do things, but it's finally making sense. I'm a slow learner.
That all being said (whether you wanted to know or not), here are the results I cared about at the meet:
Shilo didn't make her State qual time in the 50 Free. We decided that this is a darn hard race, since even with her respectable 26.8 time, she placed 28th (52 swimmers in all). Just to show you how close the times were in this race, there were 19 girls with times between her 26.8 and a flat 26-second swim (the State qualifying time). Nano-seconds count! If she could cut off a mere second, she would be towards the top. Something to shoot for.
She placed 11th in prelims in her 100 Back with a 1:03:94 time, putting her in the consolation heat.
Here is her finals swim (she is in lane 1):
Her 1:02:30 time was the best she's ever done, placing her 8th overall. Her goal is to make it to the championship heat next year. Way to go, Shi!
Her 200 Medley relay placed 7th overall (seeded 9th), and her 400 Free relay placed 5th overall and cut 5 seconds off of their best time. We didn't have the best spot to grab pictures of the awards ceremony, since crazy parents from another-school-that-used-to-be-ours were being total spot hogs, because their team won League for the first time ever. Understandable, I suppose.
Overall, Legend moved from 10th place (out of 12 teams) last year to 5th place this year. Considering the schools that were in the top four spots, all of which have long-standing swim traditions with numerous State team titles (except for Chap, but they could win it this year) - and one even has an Olympic Gold Medalist on the team (I was bummed that Missy wasn't at League - possibly why her team placed 2nd instead of 1st - but hopefully we will see her at State this weekend), I couldn't be more happy.
I am so grateful for thinkers and writers and sharers and inspirers.
I'm heading off to take Mar to swim practice, during which time I will run to Walmart to purchase frames for certificates and licenses for Bill's office, after which I will return to the practice to observe and support Mar (she's been stressed lately because she is moving up a practice group), followed by a drive home to make my family dinner, read scriptures, and get to bed in time to have a decent conversation with my husband.
Drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, drop. Happy Anniversary to Britt and Austin. I can't believe it's already been a year!
I love Dr. Seuss' book My Many Colored Days. I think I've mentioned it before, but I'm too darn lazy tired to try and find where. Doesn't matter anyway. After all his crazy made-up creatures and words (I've always been a big fan - we share the same b-day, you know), this book is a healthy shot of reality. AND, after subbing for two weeks at a local elementary school, part of which time was spent in "flooding" sessions with kindies, I can make all kinds of connections to the text. Today, for example, has definitely been a brown day.
"Some days, of course, feel sort of Brown.
Then I feel slow and low, low down."
We know what he's really saying, right?
You know what brown is the color of, right?
And slow? I know what that means. Constipated (figuratively, btw). Stuck in a rut.
Yep, I'm feeling a little lot like that.
Probably because it's 4:08 am on a Thursday morning (I know... this won't post until Friday - I'm sure things will be much better by then), and I have not slept a wink. I tried until about 2 (I even listened to this talk on my ipod in hopes of encouragement or sleep - I'd take either!), then decided I had better be some kind of productive since the sleep fairy apparently skipped over me. I have to work tomorrow today. UGH.
The high school season is quickly coming to an end. It's been a good year. The A-League meet is tomorrow, and I'm excited to see how Shi will do. She's still chasing a 50 Free qualifying time, and this could be the meet to do it.
A couple weeks ago LHS had their final dual meet v Ponderosa. Here's the cheer that started them off:
Some things to note about this meet. Since it was at our local Rec Center AND it was listed as a home meet, I didn't think I would need to pay to attend. Upon arrival, I was told that it {mysteriously} changed to a Pondo home meet, and that yes, I needed $5 to get in. I didn't have any cash, so made a deal to time for the meet in exchange for entrance.
As luck would have it, I was handed the "pickle" for lane 4. A Legend lane. Most likely the one Shilo would be swimming most events in. I thought it was different, since at most meets everyone is very careful to control the margin of error in the cheating arena, if you know what I mean. Usually, in a non-touch-pad-timed meet there would be 3 timers per lane, with at least one parent from EACH team in every lane. This particular meet I was the only Legend timer, timing a Legend lane. I wondered if the times from this meet would even "qualify" for leagues and state, but was assured they would.
I felt that this situation put a weight of responsibility on me to be as exact as possible in clicking the pickle the moment the swimmer touched the wall. I did not want to click it a nano-second too soon, but, of course, wanted the best end-result possible. I took my job VERY seriously.
Why, you ask, am I expounding these details? I was next to a Ponderosa parent, timing a Ponderosa lane. The fast lane (like mine). The mother in the lane was friendly, and we chatted a little before the meet. She pointed out her daughter to me, a tall VERY blonde girl, and I pointed out Shi. Just a little pre-meet chit chat amongst friendly rivals.
When the 50 Free rolled around, I noticed that her daughter was in her lane, and Shilo was in mine. The starter went off and the girls shot off the blocks. I could tell this was going to be a darn close race. My eyes were on Shi's fingers and the wall. I didn't notice the exact location of the other swimmer's hand, but knew that Shilo would need to hit the wall hard if she had a chance of winning.
I clicked the pickle as soon as I knew she had touched. 26.6. Her best HS meet time of the season, but still .6 seconds away from the 5A State qualifying time. I didn't hear the exact time of the other swimmer, but knew that according to the pickle, she had won. There were cheers of excitement as she qualified for her 4A time. "Bummer," I thought. I was still happy for Shilo. That she got such a great time. That she finished hard and fast.
I felt a little uneasy, though. I kind of felt that Shilo had out-touched the other girl, but couldn't be confident because my complete focus was on Shilo's fingers and the wall. I congratulated the mom, and let it go (I'm really trying to do more of that these days). Later, as I talked to Shilo, she also felt that she had out-touched the other girl. She said, "I feel like I clearly saw both of our hands, and I totally thought that I had touched first."
On to another race. The 200 Free relay. Shilo wasn't in it, but was standing beside the block, cheering the girls on. It was another close race (lanes 3 and 4 again), with lots of cheering going on. I was taking my timing job very seriously as the final swimmers headed for the wall. The pickle was clicked, and the race went to Ponderosa. I could overhear the girls from the other team asking what their time was. A whole second faster than our time. NO. WAY. Both Shilo and I, again, believed that we had out-touched and won. At this point I felt very sure that there was some time-fudging going on. That mom was just a little too quick on the clicker, and surely everyone could see that even if they HAD out-touched (hardly even debatable), it was certainly not by an entire second. At this point I told Shilo that the times couldn't possibly be "official." She checked with her coach and it was again confirmed.
Shilo prepared for her 100 Back. She would be in my lane. I could tell throughout the race that she was swimming fast, since towards the end she had nearly a half-lap lead. I figured that Pondo just didn't have a good back-stroker, and carefully waited to click the pickle until her fingers had clearly touched the wall.
"What was my time," she asked.
I looked down at the timer and said, "102.6."
"102?" She looked shocked. It took me a minute (I was totally in timer mode and hadn't even thought much about what time Shilo was looking to make), and then the realization swept over me. She had taken 1.5 seconds off of her State-qualifying time. She had swam it faster than she had ever swam it in her life.
"You're sure these times are official?" I asked (for the millionth time). Suddenly I WANTED them to be. Funny how things can change.
SO, even with the drama going on in my head, the meet was a great success. Legend handily won, despite little-miss-cheater-pants next to me. Shilo did awesome, and I feel completely confident that her times were honest and accurate. I can't wait to see how things go this weekend (with touch-pads and immediately posted visible results). Regardless, I am so proud of her!
We celebrated several birthdays this month (it's still January, right?)
Mauri had a party, here are some of the highlights:
Invites.
Set up.
Party.
There's a Party at the Corner game.
Just dance.
Pizza and veggies and Cheetos and chips.
Movie: The Odd Life of Timothy Green
Intermission: Gifts, cake, and crepes.
Glitter nails after intermission.
A good time was had by all.
Bill's birthday celebration. On a Sunday.
Burgers and fries.
Flanked by two beautiful daughters.
Handmade card and gift.
BYU sweatshirt from Costco.
Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes with some homemade whipped cream and flaming candles.
Phone calls and hangouts with the distant fam.
Who could ask for anything more?
Lynnea had a birthday, too.
Since I don't have a picture of her fun party with yummy cheesecake, I found one in my files.
If my candle count is correct, she was 12. Perfect.
