July Update

It's pretty clear that my blog has been neglected the past month.  Even without a 9-5 job July is pretty crazy busy.  I looked at the start of the month and there were about 5 days where Monica and I were actually free in the evenings and two of them were last night and tonight.  A couple others opened up, but it's busy, busy, busy.

Softball really becomes a dominant factor in July.  We have weeknight games which are always challenging to field a team. The playoffs start and takes a lot of time to get my team RSVPs and get ready for games.  As league commissioner there are a lot of little things to deal with -- questions, complaints, issues, players going postal on umpires, etc.  Oh and then I actually have to play softball.  We won our first two games, including knocking off the #1 seed which was a great start.  But then a bit injured and a bit shorthanded dropped our next two to finish in 3rd place.  3rd out of 11 teams isn't bad but when you think you have a championship caliber team and there are only 4 real contenders, 3rd of 4 isn't that exciting.  Still we had a pretty good year, had a lot of fun, and were well behaved.  My team actually likes each other which is a good thing.

Mariners.  Yuck.  Still going to a lot of games and watching/listening to my team.  Cubs, ditto though obviously I'm not going to games.  Can baseball season be over yet?  I can't recall a year where my teams had so much "potential" and were so terrible.  Can't believe the excitement is the Cubs reaching for .500 and the Mariners trying to avoid 100 losses.

Busy around the house.  Deck is done.  Hardwood floors are done.  I put in grout between the hardwood floor and the tile edges.  Learned a lot and will be easier next time.  Of course, "next time" will probably be 20 years down the road and I won't remember anything.  Don't you hate when that happens.  Have been watering plants and the lawn now that summer has arrived and it doesn't rain anymore.  Sadly everything is too wet in May and June and then dies in July and August.  Re-arranged the art with help from my parents.

My mom and dad visited for 5 days last weekend and I spent a lot of time running around town with them.  We mainly spent time at the Belleve Arts Fairs.  Monica and I bought a few things for our house and my parents found an anniversary gift for us -- though we have to pick what we want and order it -- but I'm not sure they actually bought anything despite hours of looking at arts and crafts.  They also helped with hanging art as noted.  They are helpful, but it's really more their presence inspires me to hang things up.  And dad likes putting up pictures.

Tommy has been getting acupuncture twice a week and will start the underwater treadmill next week.  We're trying to strengthen his back and legs or at least make sure they don't get any worse.  Cocoa has horrible yeast infections in his ears that won't quite clear up.  They're better especially in one ear, but we're still working on it.  Hunny Bear is good.  He's suddenly the easy one.

With all that, I really haven't played much poker.  I active in online forums thinking about my game, but really need to find time to play.  Hard to believe, but someone it never quite happens.