Monday, March 19, 2012

Somewhere Over the Rainbow.....

             **I first want to start this off by saying Dad’s birthday is this Wednesday (March 21st) so if anyone would love to surprise him with a birthday card feel free to Email me at MissySpangler22@yahoo.com for their address, I’d love to get a bunch of cards to fill the mailbox for him.

Another great weekend of basketball and running J It’s starting to sound like my high school days again!



            After work on Friday I had basketball practice with the kids. We are usually short a player to make the teams even with numbers so I get to play, which always ends up being funny (I tease them I was never the “tallest” player in a game before so sometimes I enjoy it too much). Somehow though the team I’m on always gets labeled the “old people” team. (I try not to take offense to it). It was a practice pretty full of laughter so I assumed we were ready for Saturday’s game. I got a little run in when I got home due to daylight knowing I’d have more time on the weekend to get longer distance in.

            Saturday’s game was great (we won). One of our little players made their first basket of the season so that’s always enjoyable to share in the excitement. We now only have 2 players left who need to score so its time I come up with a few special plays to see if we can help make that happen with the 2 games we have left in the season. I know I talk a lot about the kids, but I really didn’t realize how much I’d enjoy doing this once I got over my fear of being a competitive monster (I’m still not over the fear, maybe just containing it a little bit). We stopped by my friends Cupcake Shop (The Tasty Cupcakery) here in Ripley for lunch as it was her first day open at her new location. She has offered to help in this venture by highlighting a special cupcake dedicated to our cause with so much of each sale going towards the Team Fox NYC Marathon fundraising so it’s a perfect excuse to eat more cupcakes J
            I went home and thought it looked like rain appearing soon so I laced up my shoes and hit the pavement quickly. I wanted to run around an hour today since I had time and the weather was as nice as a runner could ask for. The trails were still pretty wet so I was back on the road, this time pushing a little bit further than usual. I have now gotten to a point in the running where my next little stretch of new road to tackle is a little gradual hill which my legs just love to discover. (Slight sarcasm there) I did pass a duck randomly who waddled next to be for a tiny bit and I was hoping I didn’t have any cars approach me soon because it would have looked as if I took my duck running with me this time.
            About 15 minutes after I returned home a downpour occurred with sunshine still consuming the sky, which only meant one thing. I went to sit on one of the rocking chairs on the porch and sure enough, there was not only 1 rainbow but a double rainbow. You just can't help but smile at a rainbow....(I’ll attach the picture, but the 2nd rainbow doesn’t show great in the picture).
            Sunday I logged into Facebook and saw an update from Team Fox highlighting that the NYC ½ Marathon was happening yesterday. They had around 60 runners participating in the race for Team Fox and it got me a little excited just thinking about it. Due to the rain it looks like I was back on the road for another longer run, I didn’t think I’d go as far as I did yesterday but I called mom when I got to the bottom of the hill and just kept on running and chatting. (I know it seems weird) I went probably 400 meters longer then yesterday before I turned around I felt decent and might as well go a little further since I have a day to do so. Mom was easy to keep on the phone today as she’s been stumbling around from twisting her ankle last week and still not able to walk very well on it. Don’t worry, I walked her through everything that dad would want me to tell her from all my past experience with ankle injuries. When I talked to her right after it happened I was telling her she had to “shock it”, she didn’t understand my lingo and I told her if dad wasn’t going to nag her about doing it I would because he made me do it no matter how much I never wanted to. I think mom said dad was chuckling when she told him that’s what I told her and was making her do it. Dad and I spent many times sitting on the edge of the bathtub with a bucket of ice on one side and a tub full of hot water on the other side going back and forth repeating to try to minimize the swelling.
            Another story I’ll share today since we are talking about “injuries” and it makes me look back and laugh. In high school I had fell on my hand wrong (left hand thankfully) in a basketball game and I knew it was bad, dad knew it was bad because I think I probably actually cried. (I know…no crying allowed) The secret he would say was if I went “quiet” then something was usually really wrong, because I’m hardly ever quiet. It was close to Christmas break and my hand ended up in a cast, apparently the doctor didn’t let us talk our way out of it. I sat out a game against Williamstown and by the end of the game there were little pieces of my cast all around my chair because I had picked layers off of it during the game. Obviously, I wasn’t good at sitting still.
            Thankfully Christmas break came which meant a little break in the game schedule, it also meant that mom was out of the house finalizing some Christmas shopping. Mom should have known by then not to leave dad and me alone together at the chances of who knows what happening. I can’t quit remember what dad and I were watching on TV but either we got bored or something inspired us that I didn’t actually NEED the cast anymore. I’d convinced him I’m sure that I was fine and it’s already healed. Therefore, we proceeded to the shower and began getting the cast wet so we could remove the layers….a saw came into play too at some point to finalize the removal of the cast all in nick of time before mom got home to see the finished project. If I do remember correctly I don’t think she was as “happy” as dad and I appeared to be. Dad convinced mom we were still going to be “easy” with it…we just didn’t think the cast was necessary.
            Our next game was a holiday tournament at Ravenswood and I knew everyone still thought I had my cast on and I kept my hand covered with a jacket prior to the game so our secret was still safe with the team. Dad later admitted to me that was one of the worst he'd felt when the other coach was speaking about him being sorry about my hand and dad knowing I was going to come out to play. I suppose at that age we really thought we had the biggest surprise ever and whatever made us pumped up for a game, a good coach wouldn’t ruin it for the kids. I think dad said he then just tried to avoid everyone prior to the game so he wouldn’t have to talk about it. We went on to win the game and the season was happily ever after J (Ok that might be a bit dramatic….but at the time that was all we wanted)


From one side of the house to the other on Saturday :) 

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