PMD

Even though it looks like possibly the crappiest day ever outside, I won't focus on that. This is a collection of mostly positive random thoughts.

1) Grandma Claus is coming to town! My Grandma flies in today and will be here for 10 days or so. She lives in New York, as do the rest of our relatives, but still makes it out here every Christmas. She's still pretty active at 83 (swims very often) and a NY Times crossword junkie (it's rare that she doesn't finish one). It will be nice to have her in town.

2) I played soccer on Monday! My knee felt good last week (did 3 miles Thursday and 3.5 miles Friday on the elliptical machine) and my options were test it out on Monday or wait another week and a half to play. Needless to say, I played. :) I couldn't stay away any longer lol.

It went fairly well. Changing directions and cutting were kinda slow, but running straight and backpeddling were ok. It was tough staying with people on D and I got burned a couple times, but I wasn't too much of a liability. It'll take a little more time to get my strength back in my knee, but at least I wasn't in pain. :)

I did have one play that made me forget the physical problems: from the right side, I curled a pass up over a defender to a teammate making a run to the back post. I weighted it well and put it right on his head for a decent header but the goalie made a better save. It made me smile because although I'm not 100%, I can still pass the rock!

3) Planning a surprise party is fun...and that's all I'll say about that. (No, they don't read this blog - I'm not that retarded!)

4) Ok, slightly more serious note. Every year, you hear about tragedies during the holidays and they seem...worse simply because of the timing. As my dad always says, this time of year is about "family togetherness," and you hate to see or hear about something that ruins that "togetherness." So, I wish all of you have a safe, safe, safe, two weeks. Drive and/or travel safely and watch out for the crazies.

5) No, #4 doesn't mean I'm done blogging for two weeks - just throwing out the safety reminder ahead of time.

6) #4 and #5 is more evidence that I'm turning into my dad. That's not a bad thing...it just means one day I'll annoy the crap out of my kids with "parental warnings" every five minutes. :)