Odometer

The first Mathews High School girls' basketball game of 2015 was Tuesday night at home against King William.  In spite of an ugly first half, which was painfully sluggish likely due to the two-week Christmas break, we came out fighting in the second half and WON.

This is my neighbor Ann, who lives at the home known as Clifton.  She hails from South Africa and brought along some fans who currently live in Australia.  It's a little known secret that Mathews County girls basketball games attract a diverse, international crowd. It's the hottest ticket in town, and at five bucks a pop, what a bargain!  That five-dollar ticket includes musical entertainment in the form of a cow bell, which is fervently rung whenever MHS ties or comes ahead in the score.  

Here Daughter stretches to steal a pass.

Here, Daughter styles and profiles her new Game Do.
One of her BFFs braids it for her. I lack that skill set. 

Here, Daughter gives me the look that says, "Are you done with that camera yet?" But she'd actually say it more politely, as in "Hey, thanks, Mom, but I got this.  You can relax with the camera now. Also, I'm not so sure about that cowbell you've been bringing to games either.
Love you though!" She's nice like that.

In any case, both the JV and varsity teams have been on fire recently.  We also won against formidable Charles City Thursday evening, by a wide margin.  The games are hard-fought and more than a little stressful for those of us in the stands, but the girls are playing a really good game of basketball, and there is lots of potential ahead.

They do need a Chesapeake Bay Woman Rebounding Seminar, because they don't seem to want to jump for a rebound, to fight for a rebound, to go after a rebound like your life depends on it!  And because they stand flat-footed waiting for the ball to magically jump into their hands on the rebound, it makes me do insanely crazy things like holler instructions from the stands as if they (a) care and (b) can hear and (c) see (a).

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In other news.

Last night on the way home from Charles City, the odometer on my Saturn hit 200,000 miles.  This weekend, my personal odometer will hit 50 years of age.  Both of those numbers are absolutely shocking to me, but both of us are chugging along just fine in spite of the numeric horrors.

My sisters have concocted some sort of 200,000th birthday celebration that hopefully will take into consideration the fact that I really need my weekend afternoon nap will find us all safely preserved and intact by the time Middle Sister returns to Georgia Sunday afternoon.

If there are pictures to share, I'll post them here next week.  Knowing my two sisters, however, it's probably best if there isn't too much photographic evidence of whatever it is they're scheming.

In any case, I wish you a wonderful weekend.

Juggling

This was Queens Creek on Thanksgiving evening, as seen from my parents' deck next door. Gwynn's Island and the Islander are in the middle, farthest away.

Although I took advantage of the Thanksgiving break to sleep all day, every day rest up, a mere two days back to commuting and work have negated it all.  Not only is there plenty more work and commuting to do this week, but Daughter has basketball games--one at home on Thursday after work and another at Lancaster Friday night.

I'm awaiting delivery of a new refrigerator this week.  I'm still researching new cars.  (For the record, CBW lacks time and patience and despises shopping for just about everything except vacations.  The prospect of purchasing a car by herself is especially daunting. Can't the Car Fairy just make a practical, fuel-efficient car magically appear in the driveway, already financed and ready to go? No haggling and no loan applications? Is that really asking too much?)   Personal property taxes are due.  Spring tuition will soon be due for Son.  Daughter takes SATs on Saturday.  Son has surgery December 16th.  Last but not least, I've done absolutely zero Christmas shopping, unless you count the soon-to-be-delivered icebox a Christmas present to myself--and I don't.

I think it's time to start playing the lottery.

Let me know if you can recommend some lucky numbers.

Yellow

This gorgeous tree lives in my front yard.

Most of the time, it goes unnoticed. 

It's just one of several I pass 

on my way out of the driveway every day.

Once a year, though, this tree gets all dolled up.

She puts on quite the show for about a week.

These were taken at her peak Saturday morning.

As of Sunday, the leaves were already starting to drop.

Friday I FROZE TO DEATH cheered on the Mathews cross country teams at the state meet outside of Warrenton.  Both teams came in third overall, and we had two individual runners place in the top 15 finishers.  Click here for pictures from that successful event.

Now Daughter will be flung head first into basketball, which means the time I spend on the road will quadruple, once the games start up.

My car currently has 195,000 miles on it and is absolutely begging me to retire from the daily trips to Williamsburg and beyond.  As soon as I identify a logical, affordable replacement, the old Saturn Vue will be bequeathed to Daughter, who gets her license in December.  The Saturn won't mind shuffling Daughter to and from high school. Not one bit.

It's hard to believe next week is Thanksgiving--which means December really isn't that far off.

Time continues to fly by in spite of all my requests that it not.

Community Store

Today we continue with the theme of  Places I Visited On My Drive Down Mobjack.

This senescent structure sits at an intersection in the middle of a neighborhood 

of many houses no doubt filled with people simultaneously tending to their lives

while keeping a close eye on the wild-haired woman hanging 

out her car window taking pictures on such a cold day.

There are many old gas stations/stores like this sprinkled throughout the county.

If I ever get a break from life and a chance to catch my breath,

I'll have to go around and take all their portraits. 

But, as best as I can tell, I won't get any sort of break

until the summer of 2016

for months to come.

The regional basketball game has been moved to Wednesday night at Appomatox Regional Governor's School, which means lots of driving will be involved. That's OK. Luckily I've had lots of practice working long days and driving miles and miles into the night. It's all worth it.  Somehow.

But I would like to state for the record, however, that even though I have a whole third season of sports to get through with Daughter's soccer, and even though Son will be graduating this year, Lord knows I cannot wait for school to be out and for there to be some sort of a break and/or vacation to look forward to.

For now, though, I'll just have to be content with the occasional outing to take pictures--in this case of a quaint little store in a quiet little neighborhood that appears to be extremely tolerant of strange people strangers.

Snow

Once upon a time in a week otherwise known as Way Too Overwhelming, Mother Nature decided to give us a snow storm.  And before this story advances any further, on behalf of my car with over 175,000 miles and my cardiovascular system with borderline high blood pressure, I'd like to take a moment to thank Mother Nature from the bottom of my heart for the gift of a few days of NO DRIVING!!! rest.

It all began Tuesday night, a night that was supposed to be spent at King and Queen High School watching a basketball game after a day of work and then physical therapy for my aching back.  Instead?

Game cancelled.  No need to drive anywhere. Instead I worked on the federal financial aid forms that are due for my son's college experience.  A trip to the dentist might have been an easier task to complete but would have required driving. Anyway, I got that hideous tedious task completed early.

The next morning I awoke to the glorious gift of no work, no school, college financial aid forms complete and no place to be, nowhere to go.

This boathouse was built by my father in the 1970s. That discolored section along the bottom length marks the high tide from various nor'easters, tropical storms and hurricanes over the years. During a good storm, you'd have to wade in knee-deep water to get onto the dock.  If you're asking why you'd ever need to do that, you're not the only one, it's to save something that might be floating away, such as a boat. (For example.)

(Notice the footprints in the slush in the foreground.)

Back when herons were called pterodactyls I was a kid, the creek froze over often.  We could walk directly across here (aka Miller's Cove of Queens Creek) without any fear of falling through.

.

Those footprints are from Son and Daughter. It's extremely rare that the creek 
freezes over these days. They were hoping to kill me with worry that they'd fall through the ice
for some good slipping and sliding but instead realized that even at low tide the ice wasn't strong enough.

So they shifted their Let's Kill Mother With Worry activities to the John Deere gator, which they used to pull their sled.  No teenagers were harmed during their motorized sledding activities.
Their mother's cardiovascular system also seems to have survived, just barely.

Taken from my dock

Taken from my back deck 

Mother Nature's gift keeps on giving, because school and lots of things that would otherwise require driving long distances are also on hold today.

And for this I am eternally grateful.


The End.