Getting ready for Nov. 2nd

Since this blog does not really have a character except as a place for random thoughts, I’ll run the risk of posting my political leanings and opinions – at least until I decide to start another page devoted to that subject alone.

I am looking forward to next Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010 with a great deal of anticipation. Although I don’t work for anyone’s campaign, I am hopeful that both Congress and the Senate will turn over to Republican hands, and start to roll back the destruction that Barack Obama’s socialist policies have done to our economy.

Further, I am hoping for a turn over to CONSERVATIVE Republicans, not the RINOs that are in the Republican National Committee. I do NOT want them to work with the Democrats and President Obama, I want them to oppose them at every turn and defeat them!

Still at it–Soccer Fall 2010

I’ve been really fortunate over the last ten years to be involved in coaching youth soccer, first with my son’s teams and then my daughter’s. I’ve stuck with it after they have both grown up and away from the sport.

This season is my tenth year in a row coaching, and I believe my seventh as a head coach. If I had known that I enjoyed being around kids this much, I might have made a different career choice!

This season, so far, has been really fun and rewarding. My U 14 girls team, the Wild Things, are 7-1 heading into the end of season tournament this coming weekend. The girls are fired up; they are the number 1 seed in the tourney, and are hoping to win the tournament as well as the regular season title.

I’ll post after this weekend about how we fared!

Parenting is hard, part II

I have posted in a general way about dealing with my daughter, who is a teenager with depression/anxiety disorder. She has been climbing out of a huge backlog that mounted up over the last school year, when she was unable to attend school regularly.
She has made a ton of progress, and is almost caught up academically. She has pretty successfully overcome her depression problems with counseling and medication.
However, we still face hurdles, like tonight. It is after midnight; I am out of town on business, and my 16 year old has “gone out with friends” promising to be home – but still away from home, and not willing to come home or let us know where she is.
We have had this problem before, but not for quite awhile. She has been warned that this would lead us to file a petition with the local police saying she is out of control, and making her subject to responsibility herself for her actions.
I hate to say this, but I fear we have to do this, for her own good.
I am incredibly sad.

Hello WordPress –

Since I mucked about with Windows blogging feature at Windows Live, I thought I might as well keep what little I’ve done breathing since Windows has killed their blogging there, and transferred everyone here to WordPress.

No problem – I think I might actually attempt to keep this blog up and running! We’ll see how that pans out…..

Parenting is hard

I’ve heard it said that being a parent is not for sissies, and man am I finding out that to be the case. Dealing with a teenage daughter is probably the hardest thing I have ever done, or ever will do. Lord, give me strength, and patience, and wisdom.
A little peace would be nice as well, Lord, if you could throw that in.

Soccer Victory

The U14 Wild Things finished the season in fine style, with an overall record of 6 wins, 1 loss and 3 ties.
We ended the regular season at 4-1-3, then won two tournament games to win the league championship for the first time!
In the final, the girls played about as good a game of rec soccer as I have ever seen; limiting our opponents (WYSA Strikers) to very few shots, disrupting their offense, while getting some good looks at goal for us, and finally punching one in to win 1-0.
On to indoor soccer for winter ’09.

More Fall soccer – good so far!

I am glad to be proven correct for a change! We are five games into the fall soccer season, and it is really going well. We are 3-1-1 right now, and the girls are playing very well. 

We’ve lost one player who moved who was a fine goalie and that is making things a bit tough on the rotation, but other than that the girls are playing about as well as any rec team I’ve ever seen. They are very organized, and are playing the game like it was meant to be played. One of the things working in our favor is the fact that we only have 12 players on the roster. Instead of cycling four or five more players in and out of the lineup all the time, messing up any real continuity of play, the girls have gotten really comfortable with each other and jelled as a unit. 

Last Sunday, we beat a team that we haven’t been able to beat for the last three or four seasons. I was really pleased with a 2-1 win. 

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the rest of the fall. If everything breaks our way, we could be 6-1-1 heading into the tournament as a first or second seed. Now that would be some serious improvement over last seasons 3-5, and first round loss in the tourney. 

Go Wild Things!!