You Are Loved by The Light Parade

I started out listening to Storyhill today and the playlist led me to a couple new artist/songs that were balms to my day - in case anyone else could use it too...

"The Stable Song" - Gregory Alan Isakov with the Colorado Symphony (offi...

Unusual Soccer Move

 These are my soccer strengths

• I have a good sense of where other players are on the field
• I pass well - accurate and the right intensity
• Fairy good defender

These are my soccer weaknesses

• Almost zero dribbling/ball skills
• I can not kick it hard - as in corner kicks or goal scoring
• Therefore I'm almost useless as forward except to pass to someone else 

This is why it was so remarkable today, when I somehow got the ball past a person or two, and even then pulled it back (almost a ball skill) and then passed it to my teammate who has beautiful footwork skills. Even my team knew how unusual it was as one of them on the sidelines yelled out, "Tammy going down the alley!" or something like that.  (I really wanted to remember what he said, but alas I do not.) Anyway this brief moment of feeling like a skilled soccer player was very fulfilling and also led to me quickly call a sub as it tired me out.

In fact my entire team passed and played together really well today and it is so fun when that happens, when a group of individuals works well together.  And it's only the 2nd week of the session and they have all paid me - which also doesn't often happen.  (I sign up the whole team and then they reimburse me.)

When I was explaining all this to Michael I realized that one of the reasons I may think I'm good at passing the ball is that people on my team always expect me to pass it.  With the more skilled players on the field, you might not be ready for a pass from them, because if they can take it down the field past people they will.  But with me, 95% of the time you know if Tammy has the ball she is going to pass it, so they are always ready for my passes, which means it makes it look like I am a good passer.

So maybe my passing skills look better than they are...oh well...

On a different topic, Michael printed out a spreadsheet with a budget and estimated home costs for me to review and spend some time with.  I find this whole home ownership prep quite perplexing and difficult to understand.  I think this will be helpful. 

And I got some late season raspberries at the Farmer's Market that were delicious.

Disorganized or Perfectionist?

Michael signed us up for a, I'm not sure what you'd call it, a virtual 5k?, thru his work.  Basically you run/walk and then send in a photo.  I'm not really sure the details. We did the jog/walk this AM.  We did a little sprint at the end and a woman said, "I think she won," which is at least the 2nd time we've been jogging and an older woman has cheered me on :).

After that we did our attempt at a weekly money discussion trying to get on the same page with buying a house etc.  (I say attempt as we have been doing it, but last week I was camping and the week before he was camping, and a couple other weekends in Aug we were on camping/trips as a family.  So we are trying to get back on schedule now.) Anyway our discussion today went really well.  At one point it began to go sour, but we just paused for a moment and were able to redirect in a positive manner.

We are both going to consult some resources to try to find someone who knows more about owning property as tenants in common (which allows for unequal ownership).  I know about it in general, but I would like someone with more expertise to consult. 

When we were talking about the inheritance of a home, say if we both died in a car accident, Michael completely heard me backwards about what I'd like to happen with my "share".  Fortunately I restated it in a way that made us realize the misunderstanding which put him at ease.

Then another thing that has been on pause the past month and a half is going thru the house. I want to go thru the house, before, we move to get rid of things we no longer want or need.  We were making good progress in July and then the aforementioned camping trips etc happened so that has been on hiatus.  Today I pointed out to Michael (because I am the nag on this), that he likes the results of this work and to remember that. He agreed.  He was describing me as disorganized - because for example in the tool closet/area in the basement, I just want to get things on the shelf and he wants to think it thru.  I showed my file cabinet/closet etc and said I am not disorganized, however I definitely am also not a perfectionist.  I think both he and my parents were/are perfectionists.  They either can have something be a disaster or be perfect, and will let their need for perfection prevent them from making something better. I don't care if it is perfect, so I will hastily clean something up to get it to a level of acceptability. This made sense to Michael and he ultimately agreed with me that this was a better description.

 

The Old/New House

 If you happen to peak back at my post from July 10th, you'll see this home is looking much happier now!

I stopped by about a month ago as my dentist is still near my dad's to take some photos.  Habitat was working on it so I hesitantly approached the house and the site manager, once I told him who I was, was so happy to talk to me.  He spent an hour giving me a tour of all the work they'd done. 

They were clearly having some fun with it as they'd framed this old wallpaper with a "Save" sign written on the wall.

I asked if I could bring my brother's family sometime and he said, "Monday - Friday 9-3 I'm here."  So we waited a few weeks so we could see the next phase and visited today.

 

 

 I was crying when I posted those photos of the dilapidated house, and now I'm crying because I'm so grateful for all these people and all the work that they have done.  They are taking such good care of it and putting in an immense amount of time and energy.

And somehow, despite the fact that they've been working on this house for a few months.  Today of all days, while we just happened, to be there, they pulled out the bottom drawer in the the hallway and found STUFF STORED UNDER IT!!

Do you see this pile of crap in my backseat?  I am going to start having nightmares again about finding more stuff that we had left to clean out in that house!!

While we were looking thru the house I threw the pile in my old bedroom to take away. My old high school comforter is one of the things in that pile.  It is going in the trash.  I don't even want to think about any of that stuff anymore.

After we left my brother's family was going to the nearby thrift store (which is the best).  I went too and ended up getting caught up there.  I haven't shopped for clothes since before Co-Vid with the exception of a raincoat for the Boundary Waters camping and new underwear.  Anyway, I found a tennis skirt - which I never had interest in until I realized they have spots to hold tennis balls which could be useful - so I'm going to try one.  I also found a dress that I wasn't able to try on, so who knows if I'll like it, and a few other things.

THEN I went to the grocery store, hungry and on the way out saw a key lime pie.  I remembered back in high school when I was dogsitting for my friend's family and I got an entire pie at Baker's Square and how luxurious it felt.  Not because I want to eat a whole pie, but rather because you knew NO ONE else was going to!  There was no hurry!  And I am home alone this weekend and that sounded so great, just to have it in there and if I want to eat a piece great, but for the next 72 hours I will not think, "If I don't have a piece it will be gone."

And THEN I came home and saw the theater 4 blocks away from us, which has been closed for a year and a half, sent a flyer.  I haven't had any inkling to be in a space like that, but I saw a couple things that interested me, so I looked up their Co-Vid policy and it said vaccination or a negative Co-Vid test was required to enter.

Then I saw that the show tomorrow is a comedian.  I have wanted to go to a live comedian for years!  I am hesitant though as I don't want raunchy comedy, I want G rated comedy.  Well the opener for tomorrow's show I recognized as someone that went to my college, so I looked up the main performer and listened to about 4 minutes of her show.  Her first joke was about Costco, I'm in.