Change of plans

No tournament for Alex. We fell short of players. Not surprising given that it is the weekend before Thanksgiving and we did not find out we needed players until late Thursday. I spent a lot of time on the phone last night and again this morning trying to sort this out. I’m first of all frustrated with the league president who *insisted* that every team enter a tournament a month from Oct-Feb. When we all met to pick our weekends, the team mom and I both avoided November because we knew it would be a problem. Many of our families travel out of town for this holiday, and there were still some football teams playing. We received a bit of a tongue lashing regarding expectations of parents when they sign up for the league and pay their dues, etc etc so we went back to the calendar and rolled the dice choosing this weekend thinking it was our best chance. We thought we were fine. We have 12 players. One was out of town all weekend. 11. One leaves tomorrow so we would have been down to 10. One had football in the middle of the day today but would be back tomorrow. So, really back at 10 for each day. One had a makeup football game at 8:00am meaning he would miss the first game. 9. Phew, we are OK, right? WRONG! And here is frustration #2. Two kids found out *this week* that their soccer league had a tournament too! A Fri-Sun affair! Well, Ok, but we’ve had this one on the calendar for 8 weeks so baseball should trump soccer, right? NO!!! When did they tell us? Thursday evening. GRRRRRRR. Even though Alex has had times when football and baseball conflicted, he has never let a team down with his absence. Shoot, two years ago Erik drove up to Orange County for Alex to play in two baseball games in a tournament, then high tailed it down to Murrietta so he could play in his first Chocolate Bowl football event. 3 games in one day and lots of driving. I know those two families were conflicted. They’ve never had this happen to them before. But knowing as they did that we were barely fielding a team, I am disappointed at their choice as it meant us pulling out of the event, the coach and I spending hours on the phone trying to pull something together, the league losing that entry fee ($450) and also letting the players down who *could* attend. I was going to include disappointment from our potential opponents for games not played, but they were most likely pleased to get free passes!

On the bright side Alex ended up with a playmate from 7:30-1:30 since I was taking one of the other players up to the OC if we had played while his parents went to his older brother’s game. So the boys consoled themselves with video and computer games 🙂

Once all the phone calls were done, I ended up with something miraculous – TIME!!! I must tell you that my downstairs has not been this clean EVER. My plan with staying home this week was to get all those little odds and ends from the floor project cleaned up and I got a head start today. Laundry is done too. It feels nice! I will tackle the upstairs tomorrow morning and then take Alex to a movie for a break. Oh here’s a sad one – he is transitioning away from cartoon movies! Waaah!! I want to see Little Feet, and he didn’t say outright that he didn’t want to see a cartoon or that he did not want to see it, but he was not terribly enthusiastic and requested that we check the paper to see what else might be out 😦 Poop! Who is going to watch cartoon movies with me? I love those things!

What I really want to say though is – I love my floors!!! I love cleaning them. It takes less than an hour to vacuum and then polish them with a laminate treatment and microfiber cloth mop. I am very much a homebody. I totally believe in the whole home as castle thing and it being the place you feel the most secure and at peace and I so my best to create the environment that works for me. The paint colors I chose, the lack of clutter, the floors, the fall decor on the mantle – it all creates my perfect surroundings. I love to sit here in the living room and look around and soak it all in.