StressBall: It Has STARTED already!

Little League Softball. . . HOOOOOOLY Coooooooww!

The crap has started and there have been no tryouts yet !!!!!

I coached the team that took 1st place last year in the MAJOR league softball.

Guess WHAT????????

I found out tonight that I don't get to coach this year,
cause I wasn't one of the first people to call up to get on the coaches list. . . . . . . 

. . . . . . . . . . . 

????????

Yes, you read that right.
The guy in charge this year decided that it was a 1st come, 1st served to get to coach.
And,
since his buddy called him before I did,
his buddy gets to take over the team
that I put together.

AS IF !!!!!!
.
.
I made a phone call.

I knew it wouldn't do any good,
but I phoned up the League President "B" anyway.

I was just calling him to let him know how I felt about this injustice that
has been committed, and how wrong it was that the fit throwing, GD swearing coach
get to keep his spot,
but I, who took first place,
and didn't swear or pitch fits at the umps,
lose my spot because I had no idea the reigns had changed or know who to call or that
I had to be first to do it.
.
Yep,
the crap has started, and I had no idea it could even happen like this.

.


I had called 6 people on the "softball board" that are new since last year that are listed on the washingtonll dot com website,
and the ones I could get a hold of said that they had nothing to do with
the softball portion of little league. I needed to call A.S.
Every time I tried to call A.S. (phone number posted on the "website"), I got sent to a
"full mailbox leave your number."
AS told me later that he switched jobs and he hasn't had that phone number for
6 months. (Like that was general knowledge.)

AS told me the coaching assignments had already been made, and I
was not one of them.
I asked why, and he said because I was not one of the first to call him.
I asked him where in the rules or written info anywhere did it say he could pick coaches
that way.
He asked me where it was written that he COULDN'T do it  that way.
Okay, I thought, You can't argue with an idiot !!!

He told me I had ample time to tell him I wanted to coach,
cause I saw him every Saturday since our daughters played on the same
basketball team.
I told him that I thought Matt was still in charge clear up until the last basketball
game. Then someone nonchalantly stated that the baseball board had taken over
the softball board.
I had NO IDEA there had been any changes to the softball board.

I told AS that it had NEVER EVER been done this way.
How was I supposed to know that there was all of a sudden a race to the
entrance fee table to see who gets to coach? That whole idea is asinine.

I asked if there had been a lot of complaints against me which would be the only
real reason I would lose my spot.
I told him I highly doubted I had a lot of complaints since I played each girl equally:
 every girl got to play infield of every game.
He repeated that back to me.
I could tell that was a new concept to him
to play everyone like that.
I know for a fact that my little tiny cousin
played right field of every single game if she wasn't sitting the bench,
 and batted 12th
of every single game on his team.

I asked how this new coach got to take over my spot,
and he said that AS knew him from last year, cause he coached the Minor
league team and he's a buddy of his.
Then who is coaching the team of the player who just moved up to the
next level, since her dad is done with this age.
Another player on the team's dad will coach that one.
Is Jericho coaching?
Yes, he was one of the first to call AS.
Who will coach AS's team.
His assistant from last year will coach for him since AS lives in Salt Lake, now.
What do you mean you live in SL?
He was calling me from his trailer in SL, cause that is where his new job is.
His family is at their home down here.

KIDDING ME? right?
He is going to try to run this 20+ team softball program by himself
FROM 300 MILES AWAY?!!!!!

I could not reason with this guy.
I accused him of being against me for some reason.
He denied that.
I accused him of not voting for me to be the Allstar coach last year,
cause he was mad at me for some reason.
He denied that and asked how I would know that he didn't
vote for me cause it was
anonymous.
I told him it was easy to figure out.
Jericho wasn't going to vote for me, cause he hates me for beating him,
and the pink team coach was going to vote for himself.
I voted for myself, so if AS had voted for me, then it would have been a tie.
HA
He assured me that it was nothing personal, but strictly a 1st come, 1st served.


I hung up with him and made that call to the league president.

I explained how I felt I had been unfairly pushed out of a position
 I had clearly earned.
I reminded him that it was general knowledge that unless a coach has some major
complaints from parents, then he gets to stay the coach of that team as long as he has
a kid on the team.
I reminded him that the rulebook states that the "board" shall vote on the coaches,
not just a single person.
I told B that 4 kids had chosen not to sign up for softball last year,
cause they did NOT want the pink team coach to stay their coach.
I took Kinzie off his team cause he did such a lousy job.
I told him that the coach wouldn't even teach the girls to steal 2nd on a passed ball.
Then, that coach (3rd place) was voted to coach the allstar team over me (1st place).
So, how am I now getting gypped out of a spot if no one has those
sorts of complaints about ME?

I told him that I had no knowledge whatsoever that there had been a change in the
softball board. No one had sent me and email notifying me of the change, and
that Matt had asked me last year over and over again if I was going to coach.
I had told him over and over that I would do it.

I told B that AS had never asked ME at the basketball games if I intended to coach.
And why was it up to me to ask him.
I told B that AS should have given up this position on the softball board as soon
as he took that job in SL 6 months ago.
I told B that I know I am the only coach that let the little tiny girls have their
fair amount of time playing, especially on the infield,
and I was careful with their self esteems.
No one else can say that!

I told both men that a courtesy call to the previous coaches was not an outrageous
expectation. Especially, the 1st place team. HELLO?!!

The pres. said he could see my point and that he needed to do a little
fact gathering and talk to AS about it all.

It would be a huge stress relief for me to not to have to worry about it all.
Kinzie, though, was really stressing about the news.


About 20 minutes after I got off the phone with B, the league pres,

I got a phone call back from AS from Salt Lake.

He simply stated, "Danette, you're coaching. Be there for tryouts Sat. morning."


: )

(I think)

Koby's Trip To the Beach with the Cheerleaders

(and to Disneyland)

Is this COOOOOL or what?!!!!!

                                                       Koby and Jentri

Testimony Times.

Hubby cried all the way through ward conference combined RS and Elder's so you know this is a good one. Our Stake President told us a story today of a girl who called his secretary and got an appointment (which rarely happens) and she wanted to sincerely ask him why miracles don't happen anymore.

He told her they do and told her this story:

He had just graduated from a University in Arizona and had just gotten accepted into a law school that he had really hoped to get into. 

He and his wife were stressing about where they would find a place to live and how they would pay for anything in LA.

They knelt down and prayed about it together and when they had finished their prayer, his wife had a look on her face like she knew something and he didn't. She said she knew where they would live in LA. She remembered a guy named Brother Ty had recently been called to be a mission president in Hong Kong and he was from LA.

They would rent his house.

They were visiting in Northern Utah at the time, and his wife and his mother in law went to the church office building to find the article that would tell the name of the guy who had been called to be the MP.r

The woman at the desk just happened to have the back copy of the magazine on her desk, that never happens. She gave the copy to her.

They found the phone number of the MP and she made her husband call him. He was embarrassed and didn't want to. He called and there was no answer. His wife sat there in disbelief, and called again.

This time the guy answered the phone. She told him who she was and that she wanted to rent his house while he was gone on his mission.There was silence, so she repeated herself. Her husband was still embarrassed.

They could hear heavy, labored breathing on the other end of the phone.

The man explained that they had tried to sell their home. They had put it up for rent, and there had been no takers. The economy was hard back about 27ish years ago. the MP had just had a yard sale and was supposed to be leaving the next day or so. He put a call in to Elder Kimball to seek advice for his situation. Elder Kimball told him not to worry and someone would call him that day to rent his house.

That was the day my stake president's wife called him.

The MP got to Hong Kong and found that the very corner where he was to serve was the exact same spot where the communist Chinese govt. had forced him as a young boy and his family to watch the torture and execution of his father for standing up against them.


Years later, he met with Pres. Kimball to discuss a temple in Hong Kong. They traveled together for days looking at properties with no luck. Pres Kimball stayed up most of the night and drew out plans for a building that would have a church on the bottom, offices on top of that, and a temple on top of that.

The architects changed the plans up a bit before they tried to submit them to the govt for approval. They did this several times and were running out of time for them to be approved before the Chinese govt took back the control of the city. (They shared it with Britain and Hong Kong at the time?)

Pres Kimball looked over the plans and saw the changes that had been made. He had the architects put the temple plans back the way Pres. Kimball had them in the first place and the plans were approved within the next two weeks with no opposition.

My Stake Pres told all this to the girl in his office. Years later she was impressed by the Oct conference in which the age of girl missionaries was changed. She submitted her papers and was sent to serve in Ecuador.

Years earlier, she had had a vivid dream. She had dreamt of a building and large groups of people she did not know. She wondered where they would be staying.

She drew pictures of the building in her dream. even the inside of the building.

Her MP picked her up as soon as she got there and took the new missionaries to the Ecuador temple. She recognized it as soon as she drove up. She wrote to her mom telling her of the building in her dream and of the drawings she had kept after all those years. Her mother compared the two, and the pictures her mom found of the temple were a match to the building she had drawn years earlier. The groups of people were all staying at the temple hotel where she stayed that night.

I am not doing justice to this story, but kinda close enough to get the point across.

My neighbor... we already knew it.

Judge finds murder suspect Benson mentally incompetent, ordered to state hospital

Written by Mori Kessler on February 19, 2013 in Local News, News - No comments

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ST. GEORGE – A man accused of killing his wife with a hammer last year was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial Tuesday.

David Keith Benson, 76, of Washington, is charged with killing his wife, Madelin Benson, on Oct. 31, 2012. According to court documents, the cause of death was due to multiple blows from a blunt object which was determined to be a hammer. Benson contacted a family member after the incident, who in turn called police. When the police arrived on the scene Benson told the officers he didn’t know why he had attacked and killed his wife, and said he had “continual homicidal thoughts towards others and himself.”

In December 2012, Benson’s attorneys filed a motion for a mental evaluation of their client. According to state law, two mental health professionals need to interview the suspect and issue letters to the court with their findings.

Benson has since been interviewed and the letters have been received by the court and reviewed by Judge John Walton. Walton said both evaluations found Benson currently incompetent to stand trial, though there was a difference of opinion on whether or not he could be “returned to competency.”

Attorney Douglas Terry, one of Benson’s lawyers, presented the court with a letter recommending Benson be sent to the Utah State Hospital for treatment in order to determined if he could regain competence or not.

There were no objections from the Washington County Attorney concerning the matter, and Judge Walton signed the letter ordering Benson be transferred to the hospital.

Flipping a Blonde. Closest guy to the camera.

Teletubbies!!!!!!! Ingenius.

rio Chicken tacos for Kyson

this is a reprint so he doesn't have to go searching my blog for it clear back in August's post.

Frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts, as many as will fit in the crock pot.
A cup or so of picante sauce.
A large can of green chili enchilada sauce. or a bottle of salsa verde
Half teaspoon of cumin and one teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
1 T lime juice
a handful of chopped cilantro or 3-4 cilantro cubes or both. haha I like cilantro!

I cooked it on high till church was over. 3-4 hours cause we were in a hurry.
Otherwise, I would've cooked it on low for 6-8 hours to make it even more tender.
(maybe a few shakes of season all if  you have it.)

If you want to thicken the juice: corn starch or flour and water,1/2 cup of water and a couple of handfuls of flour mixed in a cup then stirred into the chicken; boiling makes the thickener work.
My crockpot recipes always have me add the thickener at the end. I don't know why, and I never cared enough to look it up.

We put it on "cook it yourself" tortillas.

Cheese
Shredded lettuce (I like Romaine cause it's crispy and it's what Cafe Rio uses.)
Ranch dressing
Olives
Tomatoes

Make enough tortillas for seconds.

Oops, I forgot to add salt....
okay, so it tastes good with salty tortilla chips, too.

Praying For Unemployment

I am a delusional person. Irony makes me laugh.

While Hubby was praying in Sacrament meeting today, he prayed for more rain.

I asked  him later why he would pray for unemployment, and he didn't understand my question.

Why on earth would a concrete man PRAY FOR MORE RAIN?

It's not like he's had enough days off already,
cause concrete men can't work on 'freezing' days either.

If the ground is frozen, you can't dig it.

If the air is too cold, you can't pour concrete.

(Well, you can, but you risk hours of your life breaking up the frozen concrete
 and hauling it off,
not to mention the cost of replacing the concrete
and the second batch of time you have to invest
to pour it, work it, and baby it all over again.
As we just recently were reminded of because
the "pool man's" grandsons
took the "concrete blankets" off the concrete on a freezing cold day so they
 could get access to work on the pool, then they never put
the blankets back on the concrete,
so now WE have to pay to replace the concrete since we can't prove it was them.)

A concrete man praying for rain, would be like a dentist passing out toothbrushes for Halloween.

Or an emergency room doctor praying that we will all get home safely.

Or a weight loss expert asking for the molecular restructuring of donuts:

 "bless the refreshments to nourish and strengthen us." :)

 (has anyone ever wondered about that one before?)

Or someone with depression saying "thank you for this day..."

haha

I'm gonna hafta listen more carefully, I need more examples.

The old red Dixie College school bus

That is just a funny picture I found online. It has nothing to do with this story.

I recalled a memory from my high school life that made me smile, so I thought I would write it down so that my kids can know about it.

There was a program that I did in high school called Upward Bound. It was for kids who were in a household with parents who had not graduated from college. It was a govt. program that paid for college classes for high schoolers during the summer.

I made some lifelong friends during Upward Bound. One of which married my brother.

The old girls dorm was called the Dixiana. It is now called Elderhostel. It is at 140 E Tabernacle.
I was a junior in high school when I started UB. I did it for 2 years. During the summers, all the kids in UB from Hurricane, St. George, Washington, Enterprise, and Mesquite would live in the dorms and go to 3 college classes and earn college credits for free. The UB would get us a job and we would live like college students for the month and a half during the summer. My job was cleaning the dorms after the youth conferences and after the football camps and basketball camps. Another of my jobs was working in the college book store. I can't even remember what I did there.

But, part of the deal was transportation to and from the college that was on 700 E. Tabernacle Street. The college owned this really old school bus that had been painted red, the college colors. They had a driver of the bus whose name was Bob. Bob was kind of an eccentric kind of person. he scared me a little. I was always on my toes around him. I didn't know if he was a creep or just weird. A lot of times there would be just a few kids on the bus, so we could sit where ever we wanted.

There was an intersection on 400 East and Tabernacle that had bigger than normal dips. The 400 East street was called "Flood Street" for a reason. When it rained hard on rare occasions, most of the water would run off the Red Hill and flow down this street, and the street would be a big beautiful mesmerizing mess. The big dips were to help accommodate the larger flows of water.

Bob would watch in his big passenger view mirror as he carefully drove over these big dips several times daily. He would time it just right so that the back wheels of the bus were just about to go through the dip just as he would gun it.

Those of us in the know, would bounce on the back seats as we went through the dips, cause we knew if we did it just right, we would bounce clear up to the ceiling of the bus and sometimes get so much air that we could hit our head on the ceiling.

We all had a great time on Bob's bus going through that intersection.

Delegation:

My kid made a funny and he doesn't even know it.
The more I tried to explain it to him, the more he got confused....

I told Kamarie to go put her panties in her drawer. she turned around and immediately told Kauri to go put them in Kamarie's drawer. hahaha

I pointed out how my kids do that to each other so much that our 3 yr old even tries to do it.

Then, my son says, "yeah, every time I give Kauri something to take care of, she always tries to give it to Kamarie to take care of." lololol

He can't see that the first delegation began with him handing off to Kauri, which is exactly my point.

Reffed some basketball games

last night since I am the assistant stake sports person.

And also since the guy in charge of 

getting the refs

 went to Texas for 6 months and didn't tell anyone.

But, here's the deal: I substituted coached for Kinzie's

basketball team last week.

I subbed at practice and scrimmaged with the 12-14 year old girls.

What's wrong with me?

I tried to act like I was still 14,

and now I am paying the price.

I pulled a muscle in my calf (didn't stretch first...).

It hurt really bad for a couple of days.

Then, on the day of the game,

I jumped up to cheer for a girl who scored that doesn't usually get to 

score, and I pulled it again.

Then, I favored that leg and pulled a butt muscle cheering again

during the same game.... hahaha

I'm too old for this.

I took it easy for a few days, it quit hurting, and then I finally got in the mindset

for my treadmill again.

Then last night while I was reffing

(running up and down the court lots and lots and lots of times for a couple of hours)

my muscle in my calf got tighter and tighter and tighter.

Finally, it was time for me to play MY game.

My muscle was so sore, that it was basically pointless for me to be

on the court.

I just now looked on the internet for advice for a pulled calf muscle, and

it says that I should stay off of it for 48 HOURS!

Even use crutches if I can...

OOOOOPSIE.

The advice also says that people tend to under estimate a pulled

calf muscle. hahaha    AS IF!!!

Okay, so forced laziness for a couple of days....

Now, for the back story of why I was chosen to sub for Kinzie's team...

I complained to the rec center about her coach...several times.

:)

So, I think it was a "so you think you can do a better job? then do it" deal.

There's a little rule all coaches are told that each player has to play at least half the game.

Kinzie should get 20 minutes per game.

Her team only has 7 players, so it should be EASY to get each player 20 minutes.

It never happened, not once.

The most she ever got was 15.

(that is half of each quarter, and none of the last one)

The straw for me was when she had played 6 minutes before half time,

then the coach put her in the last part of the 3rd quarter, 

then took her out again during the same 3rd quarter.

For a total of 9 minutes!!

I couldn't sit quiet any longer. I complained to the rec. sports director.

Then, I went to the coach and informed him that I knew she was supposed to 

play 20 and NEVER has.

He blamed it on his other daughter that was his "time keeper".

Not good enough for me.

I told him that Kinzie has only been in for 9 minutes so far and there was only 10 minutes left in the game.

He played like he didn't know, blamed it on the fact that his daughter wasn't there to tell him.

(It wasn't any different when his daughter WAS there...)

He put Kinzie in for the last quarter for 9 minutes,

THEN TOOK HER OUT!!!

Oh, my holy heck, it's not rocket science.

The rec sports director said he'd call the coach and talk to him, and he did.

But, the next week, the coach was doing the same thing he always did.

He'd put Kinzie in for the last 4 minutes or last 2 minutes of each quarter.

So, I complained to Kole, the head sports director who just so happened

to be Kinzie's Sunday School teacher a couple of years ago, so I knew he would

look out for Kinzie even if I didn't. 

He talked to the coach again, and said enough was enough and to resolve it and get it right.

So, the coach texted Hubby so see if I could sub for him the last game while 

he coached the border league team elsewhere.

Might I mention that Kinzie has a few super good players on her team and most games

were creaming the other team by 60 or 70 points, and Kinzie still sat the bench for the whole

4th quarter, AND the coach was allowing his players to full court press, steal the ball, and not let the

other younger teams have a chance to play all while they were 60 points ahead!!!

That added to my "can't keep quiet frustration level" as well.

The coach happens to be the Border league coach for one of the middle schools.

That might help you understand the "I could care less about the kids' feelings" 

attitude he displayed. "win at all costs"

I jumped at the chance to sub for him.

"Put up or shut up," I always say,

so I "put up" like I did for softball.

It was SiMPLE SIMPLE SIMPLE to get each of those players at least 25-30 minutes each.

AND

new concept coming:

we were 16 points ahead at half time.

We let the other team play and didn't hammer them to get the ball.

We did not run up the score.

We tried to let everyone on our team score. Even the ones who have never scored before.

AND IT WAS MORE FUN FOR ALMOST EVERYONE,

not just the 3 best on my team.

(funny side note: Jay Don Blake, the pro golfer, has a daughter on Kinzie's team and he 

even came up to me at half time to ask that we 

show sportsmanship and not run up the score like we always do. 

Ha, I am not the

only parent to be annoyed at the coach for his "kill them" attitude.)

Funny thing about that day was the stars aligned or something to allow me

to get the most of my day (coach AND go to swim meet)

Kort's game was at 8 am. They were usually at 9 or 10.
.

 That allowed me to go to Cedar to watch Koby and

Kashton in their events at the Region Swim meet at 10 am.

The swimming was done by 1230 and that allowed me enough time to get home

and get Kauri to her game by 200, then coach Kinzie's game at 300.
Kinzie's games were usually at 1 or 2.

Okay, I gotta go. I gotta hobble in and get some ice to put on

my super sore under estimated calf muscle.

: )