MP3

For Mother's Day I received an MP3 player which I had asked for because I hoped it would make going to the gym less boring. Over the last few months I have not been going to the gym very reliably. It started when I came back from Mississippi with a really bad cold. One week led to the next and I am sure I had a lot of good rationalizations for not going but I finally buckled down and went twice in one week. Unfortunately I must have tried to do too much and I pulled or strained a muscle in my left shoulder. So, of course, I couldn't go back to the gym for several more weeks while that injury healed. I now have run out of excuses and have gone twice lately. The last time I had my new MP3. I like it, but it really didn't make going to the gym significantly more fun. The volume of the songs I loaded vary quite a bit. It can be jarring to be listening to a soft song and have the next song be REALLY, REALLY LOUD. Why can't the CD manufacturers make their Cd's with the same volume levels?

I have now put off the gym long enough and am going right now!!

Roland Garros

The official name of the tournament is Roland Garros but to you and me it is called the French Open. You know the tournament that is played on red clay, the one that no American man has won since the 90's. How we long for the days of Chang, Courier and Agassi. Andy and James lost in their first round matches and even though they both played pretty well they still go home losers. At least the Williams sisters are doing well. The big question is: Can Roger Federer beat Raphael Nadal for the title?

I would love to see that happen!!

Time Flies

I have been playing a lot of tennis the last few weeks. I am on three teams and even though I don't play every match for them I have been playing about 3-4 times a week. The USTA(not the polish word for lips!) keeps track of the scores for years. If you wanted to know how I fared in my matches from 2001 you could look them up.
I can't imagine anyone doing that but you could.

I can't believe that the school year is almost over. My girls are all very excited about summer. The younger two are planning on going to WLD Ranch, which is a christian horse camp. They are also going to girl scout day camp and swimming lessons. My eldest Daughter is going on a mission trip to West Virginia and is going to be working a lot to help pay for a trip to France next year. As of right now we have no plans for a family vacation. We have talked about maybe going to California sometime in the Fall or Winter. Still I would love to go to the beach,
preferably Emerald Isle and not Presque Isle. (not to be picky or anything)
The weather has been so beautiful the last few days it has me in the sand-between-my-toes mood. Anyone else feel the same?

Chair

We bought my youngest daughter a desk for her room. I did not buy a chair for the desk because it was $150.00 and I thought that was too much. My husband mentioned that we had an old green chair, so I decided to refinish it. This was a much bigger project than I had anticipated. I first sanded the chair to get off as much green paint as I could. Wearing some sort of face mask would have been wise because I inhaled green dust which when I blew my nose came out again.(eewww) I then thought, I hope the paint wasn't lead-based. I went to the hardware store to buy white paint. The young pimply-faced boy at the paint desk suggested that I buy oil-based paint. That was a mistake because it is hard to work with. It dries very slowly which leads to drips that I tried to remove and then repaint which lead to more drips. Oh well, The chair looks a lot better than it did, even though it took 6 days to complete. One good thing that happened is that I was able to get a chair cushion for $3.50 at Tuesday Morning and my sweet baby is very happy which makes it all worthwhile.

Tennis

I played my first match of the tennis season today. (I was supposed to play a USTA match last Saturday but we were rained out.) This was the start of Mt. Lebanon Womens Team Tennis season. The teams consist of 14 players playing 7 lines of doubles. Because of time constraints this league plays 15 games of no-ad scoring. The first team to score 4 points wins the game. I am very excited about my team this year. We have a lot of new players that are pretty good. We won the match 64 to 41 points. My partner and I won our match 10 to 5. This is definitely the best start I have had in this league ever. I hope that we will continue to dominate unlike the Pirates. My next match is Saturday for my 3.5 USTA team. Wish me luck!!

Chocolate

I went with my daughter to the state FBLA conference. (Future Business Leaders of America)Like all Pa. state conferences it was held in Hershey the chocolate capital of the world. We did not come for the first day of the conference because my daughter has missed a lot of school already this year and I did not want her to miss an extra day. She had a test at 8:00 on Tuesday for computer applications. The test took her about an hour and she didn't have any other requirements until noon so we went to Chocolate World.

Chocolate World was created to take the place of the tours of the chocolate factory that Hershey used to do. They have a ride like the Disney kind that goes through the process of how they make their chocolate so delicious. In the ride they have 3 cows sing about milk and how it is the key ingredient. It is really corny but kind of cute. The best part is that they give you Hershey Kisses at the end of it. Then of course you end up in a big store with all the candy that Hershey makes. We bought quite a lot of candy because you just have to being right there. I thought I had spent a lot (~$27.00) until I saw what the Japanese tourists in front of me in line spent.($111.00) I guess it is harder to get Hershey candy in Japan.

After Chocolate World we went to an outlet shopping area. Anyone who knows me well knows how much I like to shop for clothing. Since I have little money I have become an expert at getting a good deal, so the outlets are perfect for me. I think that this is the real reason that my daughter wanted me to come on the trip. We did buy some things for us but my husband made out better and he wasn't even there which is his favorite type of shopping.

We then went back to the conference so that L. could take the Hospitality Management test. This is what she wants to study in school so it was important for her to do well. At the awards ceremony that night we found out that she came in 4th place. I was very proud of her. We don't know how she fared at the computer applications test but wasn't in the top 10. I was amazed at the number of students at the conference. There had to have been at least a thousand. It would have been nice for L. to have had other friends from her school at the event. Although she would have had to go to more of the lectures and probably wouldn't have gotten the new clothes.

To make the trip more of a learning experience we went to Harrisburg to see the state capitol on our way home on Wednesday. I had never been to the capitol building and must say that it is very impressive. The rotunda is beautiful and the Government chambers are full of carved wood, marble, gold leaf and huge chandeliers. It is all very grand. Several years ago we went to the Texas state capitol in Austin and the PA building is a lot more ornate. Not everything is bigger or better in Texas.