Oakland Cobras

Emily is now an Oakland Cobra. We finally broke down and joined a travel team.

In August, Emily tried out for a few travel softball teams and after being invited to join a couple of them, we decided to go with the Cobras as they were the Rochester team (less travel time for practice).

So, now a month later, we have our first all-day tournament this Saturday. Unfortunately we do not have our uniforms yet (hence no pix to post). I'm still wondering if they have been ordered. I chuckled at one of the emails we received, indicated that they keep negotiating with various vendors and the uniform price goes down. I chuckle mainly because I'm thinking to myself "Hello, this isn't a new club, why hasn't this been done already." But then I think, bummer on the previous years, as no one ever called around for competitive bids on the uniforms. Works for me as the price goes down.

Now, I'm entering the how many fundraisers do we need to do stage. Can I have a choice between fundraiser vs. just writing a check to cover Emily's cost? So faced with our first fundraiser: Squares on the MSU vs UM football game, I'm wondering what happens when we don't sell our "allotment". Neither Richard nor I are in front of colleagues all the time anymore to push the Squares. Do we have to buy them if we don't sell them? I'd rather write the check to Emily's account versus write a check to have 1/2 the money applied to Emily's account. Of course if we win...the payouts pretty good.

Of course at the parent meeting, I made the fundraiser suggestion of Scrips, with which some people are familiar. This is a nice passive fundraiser. You purchase a prepaid card for Kroger, which Kroger gives back a percentage to your organization. Hey, a girl's got eat! No extra cost for me to just do the weekly (sometimes multiple times a week) grocery shopping and voila, my organization gets $$. For some reason, people didn't understand this topic & thought Football squares & Bowling parties are great!

So, needless to say, get your football square here ;)

And all she wanted to do is play more softball....

To Wii or Not to Wii

That is the question in our household. The kids want a Wii. Why, probably because their friends have one....well good, go visit your friends :)

As I was about to make that commitment, I started analyzing it as the pricey electronic toy that it really is & will we actually get our money out of it. While it would have been good during summer vacation as a part-time activity, now that school is back in session, there really isn't any time to even turn on the t.v., let alone play electronic games.

As I have been told, "at least the Wii encourages actual movement with the kids, based on the game." Isn't the better movement still playing outside?

Our Nintendo DS has paid for itself multiple times over. Not because my kids sit on their beds and play it, but as a car activity driving up north, driving to Atlanta, driving to sport games, it keeps the "are we there, yet?" down to a minimum.

So I'm looking for feedback from all of you out there that has one. Is it worth it? Since you purchased it, is it actively played or since the novelty has worn off, does it collect dust?

The deal I made with my kids is that we'd all buy it....1/3 from everyone. Funny how they quit asking for it once they realized how much would come out of their bank account. That's right, Bank of Mom is endless :)

Back to Routine

So, today was the first FULL day of school....time to get back into routine. No more loafing around the house twiddling my thumbs by exercise received from the remote control. Time to actually get out of bed & get moving.

Emily has decided she's going to walk to the bus stop with the next door neighbor that now attends Middle School. So, now I'm thinking, humm wonder if it's time for a cell phone so she can call me when they arrive too late and miss the bus. I'm sure tomorrow when it's raining at 6:45 she'll be more interested in the car ride :)

Andrew has decided he doesn't want to walk to school...it makes his legs tired. Mind you, he has NEVER walked to school before the past two days, when I thought it would be a good time for me to get some extra exercise as well as the dog. Of course when he told me this, all I thought was that it sounds like we need to walk to school more to strengthen up those little legs.

I went back to Lifetime today...with all the other SAHMs...which was self-evident in the parking lot. I did more leg work on the elliptical, don't want to jump in too much after being idle. Tomorrow I plan to hit the cycling class again...then Friday, back to Pilates.

Now I have to pull out my list of things to do that I didn't finish when summer started and get all the little odds & ends finished from the Spring projects, so I can start the Fall projects. I also want to start on my own list that I wanted to complete when I left the employment world. What a loser I would be if I did not get something checked off the list before I decide to go back to work.

Time to find that list :)