Love/hate

Most things in life have positive and negative aspects to them. Take soccer for example, I love that the kids get exercise, get to experience being on a team, can improve some physical skills, etc. It was also a lot of fun for me to watch Ian's games last year when he was scoring lots of goals. I also am enjoying being able to walk or run for an hour on Tuesday and Thursday nights during their practices. But there are also moments when I cannot wait for the season to be over such as when we are rushing to eat dinner and get cleats, shin guards, etc. on by 5:00 so we can head out to practices on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Saturdays also can be a bit crazy  now that we have three kids playing and only one driver. Yesterday morning I had to have all the kids dressed in their soccer gear and out the door at 8:45 so I could take Oliver to a teammate's house, as I had arranged a ride for him to his game. Prior to our departure packed drinks and snacks for all the kids on Ian and Oliver's teams. I gave Oliver's team's snacks and drinks to the mom giving him a ride. I also made sure the kids all had umbrellas because it has been very rainy the past few days. Their soccer practices were cancelled on Thursday because of the rain, but they decided to go ahead and have the games today (I thought they'd also postpone the games due to the rain).

After dropping Oliver off we came back home, and I packed lunches for the four of us. Not long after that I drove Nadia and Ian to our home field for Nadia's soccer game. We had to leave Nadia's game a little before it was over so we could pick up Oliver and get to another field for Ian's soccer game. The nice part of yesterday's schedule was that I actually was able to see almost all of Nadia's game and all of Ian's game. Most weeks I won't see two games in their entirety because I'll be driving back and forth between fields during the games. To be honest on a rainy Saturday, I would have liked to have just stayed home yesterday. They did end Ian's game after the third quarter because it was raining so hard. Well half the fall soccer season is done. Just four more games to go, and then we'll get a break before switching to basketball games which are easier because #1 they are all inside (we won't get rained on), #2 they are all the same location (12 minutes from our house), and #3 Oliver is too young so we only have two games each Saturday during basketball season. He'll be old enough next year.

I think the thing I have the strongest love/hate relationship with is Facebook. I have at times deactivated my account, and many other times I contemplate doing so again. For one thing it can be a time guzzler, and time is a precious commodity. Secondly, for months people have been posting a lot of political stuff, and I find the presidential race to be extremely depressing to think about. I have to keep reminding myself that God is in control. I have tried not to discuss politics on my blog for a few years because once someone I really cared about whom I met online about 13 years ago stopped reading my blog because I talked about politics. So hopefully I won't offend anyone this time, but the bottom line is that I have a VERY low opinion of both candidates running for President this year.  I feel like we have ended up with two of the most unworthy candidates possible. Never in my life have I been so utterly repulsed by both candidates. I have never been a fan of Obama's political views, but to me he is a far more decent human being than the two current candidates. It saddens me. So posts in favor of either candidate make me want to stop using Facebook because I try to think about it as little as possible. Also, on FB people post about a wide variety of activities, and it's easy for me to start being overly critical of myself because I don't (for example) have a garden and/or make my own spaghetti sauce. The last two years I purposefully deactivated my account around my birthday because in the past I used to get together with friends for lunch or whatever for my birthday and now that my "in real life" birthday feels like a non-event it bugs me to be inundated with happy birthday messages on Facebook. I am sure most
people love the annual deluge, but I don't as bizarre as that may sound. Of course there are things I love about Facebook. Through FB I have learned about upcoming events that I have taken my kids to, have learned about coupons and other ways of saving money, felt more in touch with friends and relatives I haven't seen in many years, been encouraged by others in hard times (such as the passing of my mom), learned more about what is happening in friends' lives (ex. my neighbor posted yesterday that her mom passed away), and the list could go on. The election will be over in less than 2 months so hopefully at least the amount of political content on FB will decrease.

I am finally almost  caught up with pics. Many of these are from our vacation 2 weeks ago. The two soccer pics below are from Oliver's first game. I forgot to bring my good camera last week, and yesterday I purposefully didn't bring it because of the rain. Hopefully later this month I will get some good soccer pics of all three kids in action in their games!