Wishing upon a star

Saturday night after getting home from dinner with the Carstens, Kate wanted to wish upon a star (I was thinking it was more like procrastination). Since I was in an accommodating mood, we stayed outside a little longer. She picked her star, one just above the moon and most likely a planet instead of a star, and said "God, please make the star move."

How could you not love that?!?

Little things

There are 2 phrases that come to mind when thinking about "small stuff". The first is "Don't sweat the small stuff". The second is "Sometimes it's the little things".

I'm in a "Sometimes it's the little things" phase right now. Why is it that we can look objectively at someone else getting bent out of shape over a little thing, but it's much harder to apply the objectivity to ourselves? I find myself getting overwrought about what most would consider a stupid, little thing and struggle to break free from it. Then one thing leads to another and I become an emotional, irrational person.

Why, oh why?! I shouldn't care that much since it feels like what I obsess about is society-driven and I like to think I don't go for that. I feel embarrassed to say anything to anyone because it sounds very petty or "Real Housewives...".

Admittedly, my ability to nitpick at words/phrases and obsess about them is partly what keeps me off social media. It's something of a defense mechanism in an attempt to not feel badly about myself.

While it feels that knowing God loves me should be all that's necessary, I'm human and struggle with having "just" that. In an effort to change my mindset, I'm starting the book Me, Myself, and Lies: A Thought Closet Makeover by Jennifer Rothschild. I'm not yet sure how I'll handle watching the videos, but I'll get started and see how it goes anyway.

Something needs to change, so I'm looking forward to redoing my closet.

Boat ride!

Labor Day weekend resulted in a trip to Waverly to spend time with Joe's parents. The extra long weekend made it easier to find time to meet up with our friends Liz and Kurt who live about 20 minutes from Waverly. We headed over there Sunday night for supper. They live along a river and have a pontoon boat docked nearby, so we went for a boat ride up river shortly after arriving. These are some of the pictures from that trip. It was Zach's first time wearing a life jacket and he handled it really well.


Joe and Zach


The girls (Lexi, Kate, Erika)


Love the wind blowing in the hair!


That driving bug starts really early!


Zach was always trying to keep up with the girls. There's something really cute about this photo because of that.

After our visit, Joe commented about getting a house on a river. Sounds great to me, but then rivers have one drawback that lakes generally don't have...Floods! A couple summers ago, Liz and Kurt were 2 inches away from having a flooded house. Yikes!

More than a Game!

While flipping through the TV channels tonight, I happened upon a program about 6-on-6 girls basketball in Iowa. Oh the memories!

Pause now, and if you are in the Twin Cities, go Tivo or record it. I saw show times for Thursday, Sept 2 at 3 am and 3 pm on tpt-mn (2-2 or 243).

I played 6-on-6 through my freshman year in high school. The girls' state tournament was a really big deal (it also guaranteed a bad snow or ice storm that first week of March). I was an 8th grader the last time my school's team went to State for 6-on-6. School shut down the day of the game. T-shirts were sold, pep rallies held, posters put up all over school. My 6-on-6 days were way past the "hey day of the game", but it was still a really big deal.

Two years into 5-on-5, we went to State. I was on the team and we were losing our first game in the tournament so badly that the benchwarmers got to play (including me!). While Vets wasn't packed that day, it was quite a feeling to be this little person with a basketball on a wood floor in a big auditorium. I still have my t-shirt I bought at the tournament with my school's name on the sleeve. It's not really wearable, but I can't see getting rid of it yet.

Before you start knocking 6-on-6, did you know that Iowa girls have been playing basketball for over a century? Did you know that it's a very high scoring game? Did you know it's more of a passing game? Did you know there were no Classes, so winning the tournament meant you were the best team in the whole state? Did you know it was common for there to be over 5 million TV viewers of a tournament championship game?

Here's a link to the program on the Iowa Public Television website.