Back home in Indiana......

Have you ever had that feeling of wondering if you are ever going to get home? I had that feeling yesterday.

On Tuesday I flew to NC to bowl in the women's national bowling tournament. All went well getting there. A side note though, I have never seen so many lazy people working at the airport. I want their job. I got into NC in the afternoon, my twin sister and her family picked me up we did some sightseeing then headed back to my cousins house for the rest of the day.

Before we got ready to bowl we took the her sprouts to the pool for a little cooling off in the 90+ degree weather. Off to the bowling center she and I went. It was the team event which started at 7pm for our squad. There were people at the bowling center that had serious issues with the dress code rules. People that should have got written up didn't and those that should not have gotten written up did. I have never seen that before. Then there were the rookie attendees that were mad because you could not drink beer or liquor while bowling in the tournament, so I had to listen to that the whole time, because the team we were bowling against did not like that rule.

The team did OK, my sister and I did well, all three of my games were over my 146 average that I had for this tournament so that was a good thing. I was happy with my scores for the team event.

Wed. we hung around my cousins place for the day, then got ready to bowl again for the doubles and singles portion of the tournament again at 7pm. In order for us to make the bowling center on time we had to leave at 4pm. Mind you this center was at the other end of town just off of the bypass that went around the town. Traffic in Charlotte, NC can come to a stand still for no apparent reason and does so, everyday. Had to factor that in.

So we endured the doubles and singles event. When the sixth game came along I was ready for the agony to be over with. I was actually to OK, not great but OK. The last game however, was my worse at a 112. I was not happy but you will have that from time to time. We had to hang around after it was over with to see if we won any money in the side events that we entered in. We won some the night before, but did not think we would be that lucky tonight, but you never know, everyone else might have had a bad night as well. Turns out we did win some. That was the only highlight of the evening. We got back to my cousins house at 1am Thursday morning and I have to be on a 7:55am flight for home. I got a lot of sleep...NOT.

I got up and ready to go, and woke up my brother-in-law and we headed to the airport. We got to the airport just after 6am, and was waiting in traffic to get to the departure area, I finally got out of the car and walked up to the doors, and we were not even up to the sidewalk at the start of the departure area. All I had to do was go up to the kiosk type in my info and get my boarding pass. I got into the airport around 6:30am and finally got my boarding pass just before 7am. The place was packed for of happy travelers that were stuck there over night because of the storms that went through over night. Now I have to find the end of one of the 4 security lines, as opposed to the lines of people for check in. I start to realize that making my 7:55am flight is going to take a miracle. The security line I was in went past two front doors of the airport before evening turning into the maze for happy travelers before getting to the security people. I made it through security at 7:33am and was not even near my gate yet. I finally made it on to the plane with about 7 minutes to spare. Otherwise I was going to have to call my sister to come and pick me up and I was going to have to ride home with her.

I land in Cleveland to discover that my flight to Chicago is delayed, and later discover that it has a maintenance issue, and by the time it makes it to Cleveland and ready to depart for Chicago my flight out of Chicago will have already left. I am screwed. There are people in Cleveland left over from the night before for Chicago so all flight to Chicago are booked on all airlines. They are correct if your flight is delayed or cancelled you are screwed for days or it is going to cost you lots of money for a new flight. Since my parents dropped me off at the airport on Tuesday I had no car to pick up. I called them and updated them on my status and they headed for Cleveland and picked me up. I was at my house by 6:30pm originally arriving around 3:30pm with golf at 4:30pm. I missed the golf but at least I made it home the same day. There are still people stuck at the airports.

The airlines have no plans to deal with mechanical issues, and they do not care either about that. The people that worked the ticket area in Charlotte, need a few customer service lessons as well. That was just by observing them.

I am glad to be back in Indiana today.

Weekend Ramblings......

For the first time this summer, I had the sprouts for the entire weekend. It has been a long summer so far, because I have only had them for a few different days. I decided to take them to the zoo. We had a great time. It was not very hot, or crowded. My went with us, but she just sat a read a book while we toured the zoo. The sprouts had a great time, so did I. It was nice just the three of us hanging out for the day.

On Sunday, after church, we went to my parents for lunch. The sprouts got to play with my niece's dog/puppy. It is the size of a puppy but full grown. I have no idea what kind of dog it is. They enjoyed throwing toys at it. He drags everything he can get his mouth on. Size is no problem for him.

Tomorrow is the start of the big tournament for me. I head to North Carolina to bowl in the big tournament with my sister. Now I can only hope that my ball will not get an attitude... LOL. It will be nice to get away for a few days at least.

A couple of tributes, and misc ramblings......

A little tribute to Dominoe. Dominoe was a cat of a friend of mine. This weekend Dominoe became sick, and had to visit the vet. Dominoe was very ill and finally had to be put to sleep. A final resting place under a tree and their new home is the resting place now. I was never a big fan of cats and still am not a big fan of them either. Dominoe was Ok though. When I visited, he made sure to make his presence known to me, and seemed to know when to cross the line and when not to. Eventually, he just move on to another room and call it an evening for awhile. I loved his name. I thought it was perfect for a black and white cat. I had never her of that name before for any animal as well. I know he will be truly missed.

Another tribute to my oldest sprouts softball team. They were runners up in the league tournament that ended tonight. We were the home team and the game was back and forth every inning. We just could not pull it off in the last inning. Tied going into the last inning, the other team scored two runs and we could not put any across the plate. But the real accomplishment of this team was the mear fact that they were in the championship game at all. Their first game they last 21-1. It was not until the forth game that they finally won a game, and putting runs on the board was hard then. They worked hard at hitting and that finally started coming around, but the fielding started to fade away. But, when it came to the tournament everything fell in place. We got an awesome draw for the tournament, and the girls played their hearts out. We lost tonight 14-12. But everyone was a winner. Four out of the five teams in the league received hardware this year. The league winners and runner-up received trophies, and the two teams in the championship game received trophies as well. Yes, the league winner and runner-up were eliminated earlier in the tournament. That in itself made this game great tonight.

Now ball season is officially over for the sprouts, this year. My youngest finished her season on Saturday. She just has a team party this weekend. I am hoping that her dad will take her to the party since he is one of the coaches, and the oldest and I will go do something for a few hours. I am not thrilled with him right now so I have not decided on that yet. The tournament game was switched from a Saturday night game to a Saturday morning game to a Friday night game. When it got switched to the Friday night game, I found out about it from the coach, only because when they called the ex to let him know his wife was apparently giving the assistant coach a hard time because he had to work Friday night. The assistant coach called the coach who then called me, because she wanted to make sure that the sprout was going to be able to be there Friday night. The league games were on Friday nights, and the ex only came to two of her game all season. He was either on vacation, or unable to get off work. Either way with his job there is not much I can do about that, nor can anyone else for that matter. I called the coach to see if the second game was going to be changed as well, because I had plans for that day that I could change if the sprout had a game, that is when she told me the game was going to be on Friday and the story about the conversation with the assistant coach. I told her yes because I had the sprouts that night anyways for my summer time visitation. I call the ex later on that evening, and asked him to drop off the sprouts softball gear on Friday when he drops them off at daycare, because her game has been changed to Friday night. Then he proceeds to tell me that his wife wondered if I got that message. I got that message because I talked to the coach who was going to call me later, but I beat her to the punch. I called her in the morning and she was going to wait until she thought I was on my lunch hour, because she knew I was at work and did not have that number.

My Twin sister and I have been practicing our bowling these last few weeks, as we head to the National Tournament next week. All I have to say is that I hope my ball performs better than it has lately. She kicked my a$$ this weekend.

My golf game on the other hand is getting pretty good. I am shooting better than I have in a long time and I have only been out twice. My friend and I have found this nice little course that has ladies day on the days that we can make it so we get to golf for ten dollars and that includes a cart. Perfect for us. Not a lot of people of the course and just the right price. Of course we hit the Ball so much in a round that we definitely get our moneys worth.

What a week! or two.....

Since my last post, I have been kind of busy. The sprouts had ball games on Friday night and Saturday morning. I missed the Friday night game with the oldest, that was the first game I had missed. The youngest had an appointment so I took her and the oldest went to the game with her dad. I met them at the game and got to see the last few innings. I did not get to see her bat though. Saturday morning I went to the away game with lots of hesitation again this year. The game was being played in the ex relatives back yard practically. I went with and open heart though. I did not run into anyone last year, but figured this year might be different and it was. I did chat with one of my ex's cousins and he and I had a nice chat. I gave him a pic of the sprouts to give to his grandma. She always did like to see pics of the girls. He was glad to do that.

I have fought with engine issues on my car, and finally got those taken care of. Two items I got replaced for free. Not bad considering the car has over 150K miles on it. I don't think the dealership was expecting to say that they put the parts in less than two years ago. He did some checking and I got a new part for free. So, my car is running great now.

I have been trying to get back into the swing a bowling since I am in a tournament in a couple of weeks. Thought it would be a good idea to throw a few games since I have not touched my ball in about a month. That showed. I am still trying to figure out my new ball. My sister beat me in four games twice this weekend. I have got some work to do yet on my game if I am going to keep up with her at the tournament.

The sprouts have been on vacation with their dad all last week. I finally got to see them this afternoon when I stopped by daycare to say HI! to them. I will not get to see them until my night Tuesday night. My youngest is not very happy with that either, but is dealing with it.

I chased a golf ball around for a little bit on Thursday for the first time this year. My friend talked me into going and we decided that we should do that every week. Hopefully the winnd will not be so strong and the temperatures not that high either. All in all we had a good time, considering the one club I was using. I had just taken the plastic off of it that morning. The margaritas afterwards were not bad either. :)

I had to go sit with my nephew and niece this weekend. He is just starting to be mobile. My sisters life is over with as she knows it. LOL. This kid is going to give her more grey hairs....LOL. He and I had a good time though. It was funny when I first arrived at my sisters. She and I were standing side by side and his eyes were just going back and forth between us. He knew one of us was his mommy, but was starting to doubt which one it was.