Play Ball!

Little League season has begun for the Welch household :) All three of our boys are playing this year. In the past, we have told the boys that they could only play one sport, and our two eldest had always chosen soccer over baseball. This year, we relented and told them they could double up.

And so, Matthew and Logan are playing baseball again after a 2-year layoff.  They are having so much fun!

Tonight, Matthew and Logan's team won 12-2.  Matthew and Logan both got on base, Matthew via a walk and Logan by getting plunked in the shoulder blade.  Both of them scored when wild pitches worked them all the way around the bases.  I was proud of the way Logan shook up the pain and ran the bases hard.

Ryan's team also won, 11-10.  I have not seen either of his games... Saturday I had to take Matthew and Logan to their soccer match, and tonight the games were at the same time.  I'm looking forward to seeing Ryan play this season.

I love my boys, and I love watching them play sports.  I'm so proud of them....

Random Thoughts while shopping at Walmart, 25 Mar 2011

1> Is Sue Grafton going to stop after she writes "Z"?

2> Do you remember as a teen, when you always *had* to look at the posters when you went to the store? When did we lose that? There were several in there today that I wouldn't mind owning.....

3>  Now that I've bought a new TV, am I going to suffer from "TV price envy" if prices continue to drop?

4>  What makes us choose which of the same brand of some item to pick when we take it off the shelf? (IE if there are 4 boxes of the same paper towels, which one do you grab?). It has to be in the same vein of science/mathematics as picking a urinal in the men's room. (You men understand what I mean... and the analogy only holds if all the urinals are unoccupied)

5>   Just saw a mom walk by carrying her 3-4 year boy. He was wearing a bright-red cowboy hat made of felt, in the "Woody" style. Greatness!

6>  There's a fine art to selecting bananas- getting just the right level of ripeness so that my boys do eat most of them but leave me enough at the end to make banana bread for Allison... :)

7>  We are no longer a single-loaf-of-french-bread family. Just the way it is!

8>  The last scene was the best. There was a young girl in the parking lot, putting the cart in the corral, and she was meticulously straightening and lining up the carts, as her bemused father sat in the their truck, grinning at me and urging his daughter to "come on, ...!". He was amused and yet wanted to go, but his smile told me one thing: this is a man who loves his daughter, and knows her personality. it was a great moment to end my "writer's trip" to Walmart: a wonderful little slice of this great and beautiful experiment that is the human race!

More time for the Muses...

It's been a long week at the domestic domicile... with my wife laid low by a respiratory infection, I've been working triple overtime keeping the train chugging along down the track, and by last Friday night, I was pretty worn out and frazzled.... So after Allison returned home in the afternoon, she ordered me to go out for a little while by myself. Groceries were needed, so I spent my "time off" at Wal-mart.

And then I decided something I'd never done before: I decided to pull my writing journal out and worked on it as I wandered through the aisles. I love writer's exercises, and one of my favorite to do is "lists", and one of my favorite type of lists is writing down the various nuggets of delightful oddity that my brain is capable of producing at the oddest times.

And this time, it was while shopping for peanut butter and other various sundry.

And guess what? It was refreshing! I had written down something in my writing journal for the first time in months. And that made me realize that I have been neglecting a very important part of myself... the creative half of my mind that needs to dabble in poetry, writing, art, and music.

This middle-aged dad and devoted husband needs the muse every so often to stay sane.

And so, somehow... by hook or crook, time must be made for these things, not because it is another task to cross off... but because it is almost as important as food itself for my well-being. I can play a little less Word Twist, or watch a little less TV... and spend that time instead with a pen, a pencil, a brush, a bow, or a piano.

And it begins here... this online vent for the mumblings of my life :)