a little trash talk

Things that I learned this week:

---I will never, ever be able to keep track of the chargers in my life. Chargers are like shifty creatures. They seem to just disappear. If I had to graph this in some type of pie chart I would say that 30% of my chargers I lose because I absentmindedly leave them places. 50% of the chargers are absconded by my offspring in covert operations that result in them always having charged things and me looking for the chargers and having my phone charged sometimes. The other 20% of the charger related disappearances are just like the twilight zone and where all the socks disappear to.


---In a similar vein.. I am on my devices too much. I have decided that especially when my kids need to talk/ we need to connect.. I need to PAY ATTENTION and put down my phone. I need to hide it. I need to be present. This is a big goal of mine. I tried really hard the last few days to put this into practice. It made a difference. I was the last person in the whole universe to get a phone and the last person to get Facebook but somehow I have succumbed and now I am truly an iphone user and I need to reclaim my life. I think the main reasons for this dependence on my phone is that the ways I deal with stress are to check out. Kris and I share this love of checking out. Some people check out by watching TV. (I am not one of these people)... I usually check out by reading. It is fun to read a book about a different time, a different land, a different family and get distracted from the day to day crap and forget your worries temporarily. Or I check out by looking on my phone at peoples pictures. Anyway.. Note to self. Rein it in.


---I like to worry. Somehow I think I feel that by worrying I prevent myself from experiencing the thing I'm worrying about which this week is ---the amount of snow on the roof. Did you know that snow is heavy, heavy water? And after lots of snowfall it can damage structures. The snow on the roof can cause it to collapse. A school in Bend last week had a gym roof completely collapse. After reading this, I worried about it every day. I also worried about carbon dioxide poisoning from the snow blocking the vent thingies. I asked Kris about this and he reassured me we are fine . Which I'm not sure we really are but he is obviously not worrying. I have actually worried about our roof for the last 2 years . Just from a shingles / leaking/ need to be replaced sometime in the future standpoint. But I think my worrying is helping because so far it is holding up. I discussed worrying at length with one of my patients the other day. He said it is a woman thing. So there you go.


---I learned that Brookie earned a spot on the Varsity team and is happy to be amongst her friends on this squad in addition to her regular JV gig. She got to go in for a few minutes on Saturday and the crowd cheered loudly for her and she beamed from ear to ear.


---And the other thing I learned this week is that the youngest daughter is a little bit feisty. She made her basketball debut this week. Playing in a game she showed off a spin dribble, some behind the back stuff and also shot a 3 pointer and some really awesome lay ups. Kris and I were so entertained. She also brings some serious energy to the game. She looks like a bouncy, coiled spring. She traveled to a tournament and at the tournament a girl from the opposing team started a little trash talk. Amanda apparently was not intimidated and began a little trash talk campaign of her own. We talked a lot about good sportsmanship and maybe not making trash talking a regular occurrence. But secretly ... we chuckled.