First Week of Freshman Year...

was a busy one to say the least!! He has to be at football pretty much every morning by 7:00, so that he has time to get ready before having to be out on the field by 7:30. This is great because it means I am actually to work on time! I can't promise as much when football is over, lol!

Monday, he said he wasn't nervous, but I think he was. I was a little nervous to begin my new year as well, but we both had a great day. I will admit that I was sad if I let myself think about the fact that that group wasn't around. I started my teaching the year they were beginning sixth grade. So, for the last three years, those kids were the faces I saw everyday. It was an adjustment for me to say the least, but I do really enjoy my new bunch of 8th graders.

Every night we've been getting home between 6-7:00-ish. He's had a little bit of homework and then Thursday night was his first game. They won 28-20. Afterwards, we had the community pep rally, which was a lot of fun for the kids and the parents seemed to really enjoy it as well.

Friday night the Varsity had a game in Rio Vista, so he was one of the "water boys" and I went along for moral support. It was a long drive but well worth it. It was a great game with the exceptions of some very bad calls against Rice. But, the Varsity guys are a great group and fought hard! I have the fullest confidence that we will have a great season.

Today, I got to sleep in until 8am. It was amazing!! I went to Farmers Market with my mom and then ran some more errands -- came home around 12 and Ty was actually up! That was amazing as well!! I think we both also took a nap today as well -- it was a long week!

I have a feeling the next four years will not slow down much. But, I look forward to it!!!

First day of High School
August 22, 2011
14 yrs old

Ty's Practice Game

Last night, the JV and Varsity boys had their practice and a little intersquad scrimmage that the parents were invited to watch. So, naturally, I showed up even though it was 900 degrees at six o'clock in the evening. I was glad I got to watch -- as most of you already know I love football and I am super excited that my son is playing. He changed positions a little this year and right now is slated to be a defensive lineman (guard -- I think...he stands to the left of the center.) I love watching football -- that doesn't mean I know the names of the positions. However, he did teach me the sign for the Stack 2 play, which I was SUPER excited about. Now, I just have to pay attn at games to see if the coaches call it!

It was a little hard to tell who was who while they were out there, but I did manage to get some shots of him during their practice. I didn't take any of the scrimmage part.

It still amazes me that he is old enough to be in high school. He looks so big in the pictures and yet he looks so little...*sigh* -- my baby's not a baby anymore!! :(

Taking a water break.

They took break about every ten- twenty minutes so they wouldn't die of heat strokes.
It was ridiculously hot in the stands. I can imagine what it was like in full pads out on the field.

Waiting to get some more water.

He's the one to the left of the little guy!

Getting ready to do his guard thang :) He is two spots to the left of the little guy in blue shorts.

Taking another break. They really did do more than just stand around -- I just didn't get shots of it!

Next Saturday, he has a scrimmage and I am pretty excited about that, too. I can't wait for cooler weather -- big sweatshirts, gloves and hot chocolate under the "Thursday Night Lights" -- it's the stuff Texas dreams are made of!! :)

Granny's Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

This is a recipe handed down from my great grandmother to my mom to me. It has been a while since we made it, but it is very, very tasty!

1/2 cups margarine or butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 can pineapple, drained
walnut halves
maraschino cherries
1 package (18.5 oz) yellow cake mix with pudding

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Heat margarine in a 13X9X2 pan in oven until melted. Sprinkle brown sugar over margarine . Arrange pineapple on top. Decorate with walnut halves and cherries. Prepare cake mix as directed and pour batter over pineapple in pan. Bake until cake springs back when touched lightly in center, about 45 to 55 minutes. Immediately invert pan on heat proof serving platter. Remove pan; cool cake completely. Top each serving with sweetened whipped cream if desired.

Great-Granny!

I said I would post about my great-grandmother a while back, and I am just now getting to it. Apologies to those who were simply waiting on pins and needles! :)

My great-grandmother "Granny" was my mom's grandmother on her dad's side. She was born Bertha Jane Deathridge in 1893 in Iradell, Texas and three years later became big sister to Ruby Ella. At some point in their life, they moved with their parents to Louisiana. While in Lousiana, she met a man, whom she would later marry. Even though they had land in Louisiana, he felt that they needed to move to Texas and get rich in the oil fields.

When we were living in Denver City, my Saturday morning routine was to wake up fairly early -- maybe sevenish and turn on the cartoons (and this was back in the day of the good cartoons, not all the junk they have now), and eat my bowl of cereal and call Granny. At this point she was in a nursing home there in DC and was partially blind and mostly bedridden due to age and health problems. I would call her and tell her all about my week at school and she would in turn tell me stories about her life as a pioneer woman. She told me how when they came to Texas, she had to pack all of their belongings into the covered wagon and it took days for them to get here. I was always faciniated by this story because it was all very "Little House!" I used to also love the stories she would tell about owning a little cafe in Seagraves, Texas -- and I think that my love of cooking was inherited from her.

It makes me sad to say that I really honestly don't rememeber a lot of her stories anymore. I was only like six or seven when all this was going on. She passed away in 1989 when I was only 11. But, I do remember feeling like she loved me and I always felt safe around her. She never criticized or yelled at us -- which some older people tend to do. She was always so happy to see us and never wanted us to leave.

I can't wait to get to Heaven and see her again and hear all those stories one more time!! :)

"Have hope, believe and think positive..."

I just finished a book I purchased at the Dallas Holocaust Museum, which was written by the founder Mike Jacobs. It is entitled Holocaust Survivor and it is about 225 pages in length. I started it last night and finished it this afternoon -- it was an easy read. I mean to say that it was easy to read, not easy as in easy to sit with the emotions he was portraying through his words. Not easy to sit with the idea that humans can be so cruel...and cruel is not even a strong enough word to describe what the Nazis were.

Mike Jacobs was born Mendel Jakubowicz in Konin, Poland. He was 14 when the Nazi troops invaded Poland, and spent time in a Jewish ghetto (Ostrowiec) with his parents, three brothers and two sisters. Following a extensive journey in a railroad cart built to hold 12 cows, and stuffed with over 100 humans, he and his family ended up in a line of thousands of people, not knowing where they were to end up. Mr. Jacobs speaks of a gut feeling telling him to go to the right and his parents, two brothers and two sisters went to the left. He never saw them again, as they were sent to the extermination camp Treblinka. He and another brother were placed in a work camp. That brother, Reuven, became part of the resistance group, and was ultimately murdered. At the age of 14, Mike was the sole survivor of his family.

He ended up in Auschwitz-Berkinau in the work camp, and later survived the death march to Mauthausen. He lived in Gusen II until the camp was liberated on May 5, 1945 by the American troops. He weighed 70 pounds and was 19 years old.

He was taken to Germany and lived there, then he moved to Dallas in 1951. He met a woman, got married, became the father of four children, had four grandchildren and was a successful business owner. He began his public speaking in 1956, and spoke with colleges and universities, churches and gave multiple interviews for publication.

He was not bitter at all, but spoke of these atrocities so that the generations after the survivors would never forget. He adamantly believed that because, through those 5 years of suffering, he had hope, believed he would survive and thought positively about things, he survived.

His message is to all of us who think nothing of going to our kitchen for a cup of coffee or a piece of chocolate pie. It is for those who walk out their door, get in their car & go to a place of worship, freely and without persecution. It is for those who were never able to tell their stories and who died horribly inhumane deaths. It is for me, my son and the future so that we "never forget."