Friday Inspiration #1

"The minute you start enjoying yourself and the person you've become, when you walk into a room with your head held high, the minute you wake up and are glad to be you, the possibilities and opportunities will come knocking at your door." ~Author Unknown

This is going to be some quick randomness today...because as you know, I'm currently on a plane headed for Chicago for a little mini-vacay! See ya Monday, friends!

Today I'm linking up with Sarah for Inspiration Friday!

1. How proud am I of my dear Baby Cousin? And how darn adorable is he?? He's currently 21 years old and in Arizona pitching at Spring Training. Not bad, huh? He's with the Giants organization and he has been working really hard in the off season. Word on the street is that his pitching has really improved over the winter! (Probably thanks to pitching to me over Thanksgiving!) Two of my friends are headed out to watch some ball this weekend and I may or may not have sent a sign for them to hold up and instructed them to cheer like maniacs for Baby Cousin. He may or may not be excited....

2. For over a year now, it's been one of my goals to write something that made my friend Crazy Canadian's quote ticker on her blog. Well, over 500 blogs later, I finally accomplished my goal. Check it out...I made the ticker!
The quote comes from this blog all about responses to people asking me my all-time favorite question.

3. As much as I love blogging, sometimes it can sort of make me depressed about my life. You know, when you see people with their perfect husband and amazing house and dream job and vacations all over the world, you can think, "what the heck am I doing with my life?" Well yesterday Jenni posted the following quote that I absolutely love: “The danger comes when you look around and see everyone else’s best and think it’s their always.” Um...wow. It's so true. We look at other people's lives and we see what they put out there for us to see--their best. We don't see their always and realize that they go to work and some days that sucks and sometimes they are too tired to hang up their clothes after work and they leave them in the middle of the floor, and they eat wheat thins for dinner some nights...just like me!

4. I've been loving everyone's photos of State Tournament that have been posted on facebook all week. I thought I'd share one of the craziest ones with you:
What a disaster that was huh? Please note the ref calling no foul. As I told someone yesterday, the upside of this was that my friend #13 didn't foul out of this game...so on balance, I'm okay with the no call!

5. Y'all know those "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters that are everywhere? Well there is an amazing story behind the posters. They were created during World War II by the British government to try and keep spirits up in the face of such a horrible time. Apparently the poster was saved for invasion or other very serious events and was actually never used during the war. It was not until a few years ago a bookstore owner found an old box of the posters and hung one up that they became known. And now they are all over the world. So goes that "one man's junk" saying, huh? To see the whole story, click here.

6. Yesterday, my friend Blonde Oklahoma Girl wrote a beautiful blog about why she participates in Relay for life. As I've mentioned before, I met the Oklahoma Girls through our mutual friend, Pink Boots. Four years ago yesterday, she lost her battle with cancer. Blonde Oklahoma Girl is out to make a difference...for our friend and for all of those who are battling cancer today. If you want to be inspired today, read her blog.

Throwback Thursday #60: Thanksgiving 2011

“I always knew looking back on my tears would bring me laughter, but I never knew looking back on my laughter would make me cry.” ~Cat Stevens

Well I'm only a month and a half and two holidays later, but I'm finally getting around to blogging about Thanksgiving. As we do every year, we had my mom's entire family at our house for a huge Thanksgiving celebration. Think 30 loud, sorta crazy people all in one place eating enough food for 300. That's the mental picture you need.

The celebration started off with a little shooting practice. Why? Because we're totally redneck apparently. Last year we did a little shooting before most of the family arrived and, in doing so, apparently started a family tradition. No one discussed bringing guns or anything, but apparently everyone had packed one (more more) with them in the cars. We all piled out to the field behind the house and this was the scene. My favorite part was when a couple of neighbors drove by.....and just waived like everything was perfectly normal.

After shooting we all headed out for dinner. The restaurant has learned after several years of this to put us all in a back room for the sake of the other customers. The kids did the cracker challenge (they say it's impossible to eat 6 Saltines in 1 minute) and Baby Cousin was about 2 seconds from making history. Of course, I kept thinking I wasn't sure what we did if he made that history----who do you call in that situation?
The next day the wind was blowing literally 60 miles an hour and it was miserable. That means that all 30 of the crazy people were jammed in one house. Yea. We had to get creative.
We ended the day with a little game of baseball. Listen, folks, you don't have a family member who was drafted by the San Francisco Giants and not play some baseball. Mostly I played catcher. I mean, someone had to tell the pro what pitch to throw. I did, however, bat once. And get a hit. Off of a major league pitcher. (Ignore that it was with a padded bat and foam ball.) Thank you, thank you.
Family Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. Nothing like getting all of the family together in one place and stuffing our faces full of food. It doesn't get much better than that! And I'm particularly nostalgic about 2011's gathering. We had no idea at the time, but it would be the last one with us all together; the last one with Uncle David (he'd be the guy front and center). Something like that happens, and you appreciate family traditions and time spent together so much more.

Meet the Cast Monday #3: Baby Cousin

If you've read the blog for a while, you've read before about Baby Cousin. Baby Cousin is the son of Cousin Kevin (for those of you who may be keeping a family tree). He solidified his place as star athlete of the family when he was drafted out of high school by the San Francisco Giants. Lucky for us, he is in the off season right now and had time to answer a few questions.

Introducing Baby Cousin......

Describe a normal day of playing minor league baseball:
A normal game day when pitching includes grabbing lunch (Subway) at 12:30, show up at the stadium by 2, throw on your batting practice jersey and shorts, head out to the field and go through team stretch and play a little catch, then head back up to the clubhouse to grab some pre-game food, rest, and get your head right, for a 7:15 start usually be back on the field at 6:30 to stretch again and get your arm ready for the game, at 7 start getting ready throwing to the catcher in the bullpen, National anthem on the field and Gametime!!

What has been the coolest baseball-related experience you've had?
Having the opportunity to visit the childrens hospital in Los Angeles. I was there for the Aflac All-American game and one of our afternoon schedules included a visit with the kids downtown L.A. It was the most eye opening event i've ever had. One of those memories i'll always hold on to. {Seriously, how sweet is this kid??}

If you weren't playing professional ball, what would you want to do?
Well at this age I'd be in college still, but other than that spend my fall/winter slaving at a certain company called BigLittle Fudge! {You might remember BigLittle--that is Cousin Kevin's fudge company that was featured as my December giveaway}

What's your favorite food?
Midge and David's chile relleno casserole, mmmm or David's ribsteak with queso and Lemonade Pie for dessert.

What's the fastest your pitch has been clocked at?
96 or 97 not too sure
Have you ever had your heart broken?
Fortunately, have not. {My guess is that Baby Cousin is the heartbreaker!}

What's one (or more) item(s) on your bucket list?
Top of the list is skydiving, Going to have to sneak it past Kevin as he has informed me it better be after he's dead. {We should talk about this....I may be interested in joining you...over Cousin Kevin's dead body, of course.}

America's Favorite Pastime

"If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base." ~Dave Barry

I don't particularly like baseball. Cousin Kevin, try to refrain from calling and yelling at me. Read the whole blog first.

I never watched it growing up as a kid on tv. My school had a team, but no one really went to the games. Even now, for me, it's just something that is on ESPN when I'm running at the gym to fill the horrible gap between the end of March Madness and the start of college football season. To me, America's favorit pastime should be college football. Hands down. I realize this probably comes as a shock to no one.

Well, times are changing, thanks to the Salem-Keizer (Oregon) Volcanoes.

Oh, and my super-star relative, Baby Cousin.

Who is really not a baby anymore!

So Baby Cousin was drafted last year right out of high school by the San Francisco Giants. It was super exciting for the family....he's our first pro-athlete.

During the draft we were all glued to our tvs and computer screens. When he was chosen, I was sitting in bar review class, in the back row, with one earphone in listening to the draft while Epstein drawned on and on about Contracts. When they said Baby Cousin's name, I slammed down my pen and ran out into the hall to get on the phone. I never did understand the contracts material I was supposed to learn that day. Thank goodness I didn't fail the bar!

Anyway, last week was Baby Cousin's first minor league exhibition game. He started as pitcher for the Volcanoes. He pithced for 5 innings. I'm excited to report that he had 8 strike-outs and didn't give up a single hit! That's right--he's a super-star! Here's a picture of him at the game.

So fair warning for my non-sports enthusiast followers. You and I will probably both be learning a lot about baseball in the future. Keep following the blog....I have no doubt that one day down the road, I'll be blogging about watching him pitch for the Giants at AT&T Park! You can bet I'll be in the stands.

We are talking about America's favorite past time and all.

Throwback Thursday # 17: The Next Chapter!

"She came back from California, full of life with no regrets." ~Cross Canadian Ragweed, Jenny


Well, first it's Cousin Kevin complaining when I write anything he considers "girly." Now it's my Little Brother complaining about Throwback Thursdays. He informed me he's sick of hearing stories and seeing pictures that he's already seen. It's hard to please everyone!
But, since this is my blog, I'm going to continue Throwback Thursdays. :) The next chapter will be......Summer 2008 in San Francisco. I've blogged previously about how this summer changed my life, and have already told one of the crazier stories of the summer.


I won't be giving you a day by day account of the summer....becuase it was a long time ago and I can't remember everything, and because everyone would get bored and complain like Little Brother.


Instead, I'm going to blog about some of the highlights---my favorite people, places and experiences from the summer that changed my life! Hope you enjoy....

Correction for Cousin Kevin

"There are three kinds of people in this world. Those who can count, and those who can't."

Oh my dear Cousin Kevin. He has informed me that my blog last week about our family Thanksgiving was misleading. I didn't tell the truth about the quantity of meat he cooked in his smoker. In his words, "If you can't get the truth from your blog, where can you?" In an attempt to try and make him happy, I have decided to blog all about Cousin Kevin on Thanksgiving. I hope to provide enough detail that he approves.

Meet Cousin Kevin and his family. He has four of the coolest kids you will ever meet. He's okay too...

When he arrived at my parents' house on Friday night, he prepared the meat for cooking. Here he is glaring at someone in the kitchen. I do not know who he was glaring at or why he was glaring. Don't want to be misleading about that, so I won't speculate.

So here he is on the big day with the cooker. He shows up at the house at 5:15. AM. Yes, AM. What does he do? Calls me for coffee. I'm not some Starbuck's barista, yet I get out of my warm, comfy bed, but on three layers of clothing, get his coffee and go hang out with him in the freezing cold. Anyone feel like I should be the one getting more of the attention for being such a great cousin?

Finally everyone else showed up and Baby Cousin was on Kevin-sitting duty. You see Kev here, thinking. I believe he is doing the math to figure out how much food to cook. So, here is the grand total......mind you, this was what I was incorrect on the first time, so I was sure to be right this time: 3 briskets, numerous sausages (jalapeno and otherwise), 7 (yes, I said SEVEN) racks of ribs....

......and two chickens. You can see why I tried to gloss over the actual amount of food. It's embarassing. My family has an eating disorder....it's called being pigs. (Mind you, this is the same family that mocked me endlessly the night before when I ordered a salad for dinner because I was trying to save room for the next day).

Now, some of you may be thinking, "Poor Cousin Kevin, he had to work cooking, slaving over the cooker all day." Don't feel bad for Cousin Kevin. He says that in order to make good ribs, one must drink a lot of beer. The ribs were excellent. You do the math.

And because he was not full from ribs and beer, he had cake. Not only his piece, but mine too. Again, I'm the giver. It's in my nature. He should blog about that.

So it is my sincere hope that this blog has corrected any misconceptions that Cousin Kevin merely cooked 5 racks of ribs. Indeed, I would hate for anyone to have the impression that our family ate such small amount at the yearly Family Dinner.

P.S. ~ I love you Kev....don't be mad anymore. :)

Thanksgiving Weekend 2009

"Family traditions counter alienation and confusion. They help us define who we are; they provide something steady, reliable and safe in a confusing world." ~Susan Lieberman

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with my family back home at the ranch. We have some great family traditions (which will hopefully remain unless Emily gets her way....) :) that happen on Thanksgiving. Here are just a few snapshots of the fun.

Tradition 1: Bedlam football game
Okay, let's just get it out there. The Bedlam game was more than a nightmare. My cousin took this picture, and I'd say it pretty much sums up my game watching experience. That's all I have to say about that.
Tradition 2: Dinner out on Friday night
We always go eat out with the whole family on Friday night. This picture is of me and Baby Cousin. He's the one who was drafted by the Giants. Had to tippy toe a little to be as tall as him. As you can see, I'm still waiting on my growth spurt to catch up with him. One day I won't need the chair.

Some of my and my brother's best friends from high school joined in for dinner. Not sure they realized exactly what they were walking into.....screaming and chaos and the night ended with Carly setting off the fire alarm. They love us at a restaurant!

Tradition 3: Saturday family lunch

So becuase we don't eat enough on Thursday and Friday, we binge again on Saturday with ridiculous amounts of food. Seriously, we had like 5 racks of ribs. It was disgusting. We also have a lovely tradition of taking group pictures as people are leaving in the yard. Here you go.

This one is all my first cousins and their kids. We're missing four people. We're a big family. My brother and I are bringing down the average.

Tradition 4: Gathering cattle on Thanskgiving to preg check

For those of you unfamiliar with the cattle business, it means what you think....we check to see if they are pregnant. If so, they get to stay. If not, you'll see them soon at a sale barn near you.

We decided to end the day with a family photo for the Christmas card. No, seriously.

Anyway, there is just a quick look into Thanksgiving with my family. I think I say it a lot on here, but I could not have asked for a better one. We're loud and crazy and probably a little strange, but I wouldn't expect it any other way.