Back to the grind, and not happily, I might add.

Vacation went well. The weather was better than it was supposed to be, though we had some wicked storms
and possibly a small funnel cloud as soon as we got there. We had another storm the next night that turned the sky coal black in 5 minutes and I thought for sure we were going to have a full blown tornado. But the days were mostly nice. The dog had a blast. She swam for the first time at the lake and met lots of animals. Got stared down by a llama. She jumped back from that. She also ran across the yard back by the house when the heifers across the street mooed loudly. Got attacked by another darn Chihuahua though. Made best friends with one on the ride up at our lunch stop but she gets attacked by the next one she meets. Go figure. Some of them are just nasty.  By Monday night, Lacey hit the wall, she was so exhausted from all her puppy fun. Then we got home yesterday and I have to say, it's been a rough trip back to reality.  I found out from my cell phone on the way home that I have to go for an ultrasound. Been having gall bladder-like pain and my blood tests showed slightly elevated bilirubin. Of course, I am worried and catastrophising, as always. We got home at 5 and had to be at Olivia's induction ceremony for the National Junior Honor Society by 6:30. (Tim always says she has my brains. I'm glad to know where the hell they went anyway.) It was a mad rush of trying to get ready to go and start getting our air conditioners in. The house was an oven when we got home.
Apparently, a facebook announcement must have gone out in the "antworld" that there was a party at our house too because we came home to ants all over the 1st floor. I guess the heat wave had them looking for cover. They picked the wrong house 'cause it was HOT in here too. We get to the ceremony and then come home to finish the upstairs a/c's and continue our offensive on the ants. This morning, Tim did not want to go back to work. He was tired and just not feeling right. The dog was not right either. Would not go to the bathroom, was laying around mopey, and had not eaten at all, not even yesterday. Then, I procede to flood the basement. I took something out of the basement sink( it was the area rug the dog PEED on before we left for VT), and hit the hose from the washer out unknowingly. I then started my wash and the wash water emptied all over the basement floor. Tim came down and got so ticked at things going wrong ever since we got home, that he threw his hands up muttering the he just couldn't deal with this now. I said, "I'll take care of it, don't worry." Well his mutterings
must have gotten pretty colorful with cuss words cuz when I came upstairs, Liv, who was getting ready for school and tries to get us to pay her a quarter for every curse word, said, "Daddy owes me like TEN BUCKS!!!" And no, we do not pay her for curse words..... usually. I've got a bad habit with the sh** word and can't afford to. When we were going to Lancaster, I was catching up with Tim in the car and telling him about something frustrating that had happened that week. Liv admonished me several times for cussing and I handed her a $10.00 bill and said, "here, let it ride!" So, I get most of the flood sopped up, move our dehumidifier over to that area and turn it on high. I go mow the lawn at the rental and come back dripping in sweat. Tim wound up being home because the customer he had to do was sick as heck. He then found a tick on the floor in the kitchen. We don't know if it came off Lacey or me from mowing the grass. GREAT!!!  We then had a softball game tonight. I did not want to play this team again. Their girls
are all in professional pitching lessons, like Liv, but these girls are hardcore. Every year, they beat every town
they play and they beat us once already 2 weeks ago. We get to the game. It is hotter than H- E- double ski poles. I wished for it to be rained out but the bad storm we were expecting stayed south. Well, a bunch of girls blew off the game for other sports they're in and their parents never notified us. Others, still, are so afraid of facing
these pitchers(they throw crazy hard and fast) that they bailed out of playing and didn't show. Liv was our only pitcher and she was hot, tired and stil having problems with her knees. She did not pitch her best, and we had to borrow
3 girls from the other team to even play because we only had 7 out of 15 girls show up. Then, the girls on our team were ridiculous. Our head coach is SO laid back, I swear he's on something, and these girls fool around so much, and he just lets them. Tim and I try to stop some of it but they don't listen. Well,
they got their butts handed to them tonight. They didn't pay attention and clowned around and made errors
all night. It was nuts and downright embaressing. I am friends with the coach from the other town and he was going as easy on us as he could but our girls looked worse than the "bad news bears" out there. They just didn't care and they are irritated with me for pointing that out. Our other coaches started getting pretty ticked too. Liv and 2 other girls were the only ones that were trying at all. It's hard when the adults are tired, dealing with health issues, a few
are serious, and we work like crazy with them and then these girls put no effort into things. Out of 15  girls on this team, we're lucky if we have 5 who even care about what they're doing enough to pay attention during a game. What a waste. I don't care that we lose a game. I knew we were going to get pasted tonight. What I hate is these girls putting no effort into it and clowning around to the point
that other teams are actually laughing at their foolish antics. I had a talk with the head coach tonight. Tim talked to
him a week or so ago. These girls have got to get their heads in the game. Their ridiculous behavior is an embaressment and they wind up totally unprepared to make plays because they are goofing off. It's not fair to the coaches, who volunteer SO much of their time, or the girls who come to play.
Some of the girls on this team are ones I have avoided coaching for several years because of their goofing off. I'd rather have a team full of kids with less talent but more heart than these girls, some of whom do have talent but don't care about the game
and come just to cut up with their friends. Oh well, gotta get my mind off this. I've got WAY too busy a week to obsess about it. What a shame though. There is one girl on our team that is SO great at sports that her mother actually put her in boy's leagues when she was younger because they were serious about playing ball. Too many times, the girls are in it just for social reasons and couldn't care less about winning or improving.
She switched her daughter into girls sports when she was in about 4th or 5th grade though for social reasons but I totally get her reasoning. She is so above all these girls and she caught for Liv tonight and I really felt like they were the only 2 girls in the game tonight. The others did more for the OTHER team than their own.
Tonight was one of those nights when I hate coaching and if Liv said she didn't want to play softball anymore,
I couldn't blame her. Oh well, off to bed. Tomorrow's another day. Gonna put a smile on my face and make the best of it.