Unexpected

I love when your expectations are exceeded, I think sometimes in order to achieve that I purposely set the bar low in preparation, last night was definitely no exception.

This softball season has gone relatively well, before last night we'd won 3 games and lost 3 and we'd generally felt good about our performance, and then I saw on the schedule which team we'd be playing next. The team had won all 6 of their games and in those 6 had only given up a total of 43 runs (to put it in perspective we've given up 123).

I was very prepared for us to be absolutely clobbered. I made sure I was clear on the mercy rule (if the other team gets 20 runs ahead the score freezes and you just play for fun) and in the weekly email to the team I was very open about how much better this team seemed than us and that we should be prepared to lose but still have a good time.

My team completely surprised me… our defensive fielding was much better than it has been, our runners were aggressive and paying attention so that going into the 7th inning (our last) we were last at bat and only two runs away from winning the game. Sadly it was not to be and the score ended at 14 to 13 for them but we scored 13 runs and nearly won against the best team in our league! I'm so proud of our little team for stepping up.

I think that part of our success came from the lack of pressure. We all knew we were going to lose so we could just play and not really care about the score. It felt good to make the other team sweat and everyone had an awesome time.

I've really enjoyed this season of softball and even though I've been demoted to scorekeeper I'm still loving every week. I'm sad we won't be in Calgary to play next year but heads up Lethbridge, we'll be looking for a team down there come the spring.
L

The Disabled List

This last (very quiet week) may be foreshadowing as to what will happen when I'm no longer chained to my desk and working; this is something I've been expecting as I only seem to blog from work. It's highly likely that when I stop working to go on mat leave (only 46 more work days!) then the blog will cease to exist. I'll try to do a little better and I think a proper office in our new place will be helpful with that goal. It's hard to focus while you're lying on the couch with a laptop balanced so carefully, a game of Settlers underway.

So why haven't I been at work you ask?

As I've mentioned before Brad and I formed a softball team again this year and we've been having such a great time, we have a fun team and besides one crummy week we've loved every game. On more than one occasion when I mention that I'm playing softball and I'm nearly 6 months pregnant the general reaction is surprise. My philosophy has been, when it hurts I'll stop. When I start to develop unusual muscle pain then I'll quit but until then you'd better believe I'm playing, this only comes around once a year after all.

The one thing that I did not count on was that the pain wouldn't be gradual, that it would smack me like a ton of bricks and leave me motionless on the couch for two days. I stood up from the bench to head out to the field and thought, "Oh WOW! That does not feel good!" Apparently my baby, and my muscles were ANGRY and they were going to make sure I knew it.

So your pelvis muscles, you know what you use them for (I'm real clear on it now)? You use them for everything! Lifting your leg to walk, lifting it higher yet to put on pants (lets not talk about the unfortunate time I put them on backwards and had to do the whole thing over), rolling over in bed, getting up off the couch, slightly re-adjusting to get more comfortable and possibly worst of all, getting into the car… all of them were painful in a way I've never felt before.

Thursday consisted of a tearful, emotional phone call to the Mom (why do you always cry more when you talk to your mom?), Brad waiting on me hand and foot and as little movement as possible.

Even now on Monday, 5 days later I'm still in pain.

So I'm officially benched. I just became the official score keeper / umpire. I refuse to give up entirely and will still bat, I'll just have a pinch runner. At least I made it through 3 1/2 games out of 9.
L

The Grass Hoppers

This season of softball has been a little discouraging for me. We've played some teams that weren't very fun, there have been arguments and I've had to find subs often so I wasn't really looking forward to playing yesterday. The weather was gross and I was worried people wouldn't show up on time.

Turns out this game was exactly what I needed. The opposing team was a lot of fun, everyone had a great time and we even ended up winning. I generally don't mind when we lose but I sure enjoy winning.

It's been interesting how quickly my energy level decreases, by the end of the game I'm completely wiped but it's a good kind of exhaustion and I'm glad I'm playing, I'm crossing my fingers I'll make it through the season though.

Hopefully the rest of our games will be as much fun as last night (even if we did get rained on).
L

We Won!

We actually won a softball game!

It's that time of year again, softball season! Like last year we organized a team and have now played two games. Our first game seemed very much like last season as we lost badly. We were a little worried that this was foreshadowing but turned out we just needed warm-up and a few regular players there, our second game went great and we won by a run. We still have lots of room for improvement so it should be a fun season but it's great to start off so early with a win.

It's fun to see such impressive plays by our team, we had some leaping catches, some deep home runs, a 9 run inning and I even managed a double play on my own. So here's to the rest of the season with hopefully more wins and some improvement on my swing (it's a good thing I organize because I'm kind of bringing my team down… it's pretty hard to kick the captain off the team though).
L

Double Booked

There are a few things I look forward to every summer
Softball
Stampede Breakfasts
Time at the lake
and possibly the most important one, the Global Fest Fireworks competition.

I really love fireworks. I love how the sound is so intense you feel it all through your body, I love the way the colors never cease to amaze. Sitting, on a blanket beside friends and family is my perfect summer activity (well okay, so there may have needed to be some softball earlier to really call it perfect). I had planned to link to previous posts where I'd mentioned fireworks but I discovered that there are 10 different entries, far too many to link too.

Today I made a very sad discovery.

Brad and I made our summer plans in January and we're spending a week out at Shushwap lake in August and we've been really looking forward to it, dreaming about it even. Today I realized that our week at the lake happens to also be the week of the fireworks.

Time will tell if the draw of the fireworks is enough to bring us home early from lake paradise.
L

Afterglow

I am in a seriously great mood. I even initiated a conversation with Betty (my really awkward co-worker) that turned out to be very normal. The cause of this mood? Well today's my birthday so to celebrate last night all of my Calgary friends and family got together for a game of softball.

Brad and I put a lot of work into this event, we scoped out baseball diamonds and debated about treats and we even officially booked the diamond. It was the perfect plan until the torrential downpour started yesterday at 4:00! The clouds were dark all day but started getting worse and worse and darker and darker so by the time it started to rain it looked like twilight. The rain came down in these heavy drops and sheets of rain blew all over... it took mere minutes for large puddles to form. It may sound a little silly but I was fairly devastated; I'd really got my heart set on softball.

We quickly made sure plan B was in place, games, treats and cake and then could only wait until it got closer to game time. We headed up to the field early to see how bad the damage was and couldn't have been more surprised! The outfield was sort of damp, not even squishy, it was game on for sure!

It really couldn't have been better. We had enough people for two teams and played a great game, my team even came out victorious! My birthday present this year was a new baseball bat and a pair of cleats and both were great purchases. We ate cake and lots of treats and were eaten alive by mosquitoes, no matter how well we coated in repellant.

Thanks to all who came, it was quite possibly my best birthday yet.
I have a few photos but they'll have to wait until a bit later.
L

Softball Season

So the Softball season is over, we ended up performing kind of pitifully but can at least say we won our last game. Most importantly we had a great time every week and Brad and I will definitely organize again next year.

Some photos of the team


L

Finally

I talk to my Mom fairly often and since I've started the softball games she often asks how we did. She almost always follows that with a second question, "did you go for ice cream after?"

The answer has always been no but last night after we lost we decided to drown our sorrows in some yummy ice cream. I'm not sure why we haven't done this earlier.
L

p.s. we finally took our camera last night so I'll have more softball pictures to post soon

The Sluggers

We played a double header last night and were lucky enough to not get rained on, that was a nice surprise.

The first team we were set to play was a couple spots ahead of us on the standings so it was an important one to win. The second team was a little below us.

Well the first game didn't quite go as hoped. We lost 10 to 6 but they were a great team and we had a lot of fun playing them. We probably would have had a chance at the win but we had one really bad inning where we let them score 6 runs.

We must have been nice and warmed up for the second game because it went very well in our favour, 23 to 6. In our league the maximum number of runs allowed per inning is 7 and it was exciting to reach 7 and have to stop. They were also a great team to play against, lots of fun. They really had some stand out performances too. The shortstop didn't move at all and the ball went right into her glove, no one was more shocked than her. The 3rd baseman did these incredible dives and one runner was great at sliding, all very impressive.

The best part of the night was my own performance which I've been pretty disappointed with the last couple weeks. My hits were solid this week and overall I played better this week.

Hoping for sunny skies next week
Laura

Humph...

I am ridiculously grouchy today.

The last couple nights have not included enough sleep and the discouraging softball loss didn't help either. Today I'm unfriendly and grumpy. I recognize it yet seem helpless to change my mood.

A few words on softball. We try to be a fun team to play, we try not be too picky about calls and in general we're happy to let things go because we're all in this to have fun, but when you start making up rules and then try to enforce them we're going to be cranky. When you give yourselves 4 outs in an inning we're not going to happy. We gave up a bunch of plays just to avoid confrontation. Looking back, as the team captain I really should have gone over and cleared things up, so I learned a lesson for future games.

So here's to surviving a very long Thursday.
I hope your day is going better than mine.
L