More Ponderings...

Today was one of those days that self-introspection was needed.  We had a busy, busy weekend so my kids were off the wall crazy.  Luckily, Mondays are my Yoga day at the Y so it was nice to have peace and quiet, even for just an hour!

I always feel a little stupid while doing Yoga.  I've only done it a few times so I'm sure I look pathetic, but besides that, I'm not really into the whole "balanced aura" thing.  Still, Yoga does really force you to think about your life.

So as I pondered things, I started thinking about friendship.  What makes a friend?  Is it being the same age/gender/marital status?  For some that's all it takes.  For others, they yearn for something deeper than just the superficial statuses.  In grade school all it took to find a best friend was sharing the same toys.  In Jr. High, it was mutual hatred for something.  Be it boys, a certain girl, parents, life.  Jr. High was always awkward.  Then in high school, friends were made by liking the same activities.  You're a band geek?  Me too!  Let's be friends.  At graduation you'd swear you'd always keep in touch, but reality sets in.  Now looking back, I'm only close friends with one girl from high school.

Now in my 30's, friendships are made a little differently.  It seems that I'm drawn to those women who are in the same life position as me.  Married with children, have a career (even if it's a staying home with the kids), active, likes to goof off and have fun.  You'd think that'd be easy.  Nope.  It's amazing how much harder it is to make friends in my 30's!  I thought I'd join the church play group.  Nope, meets on a day I work.  So I thought I'd go to a women's retreat.  Couldn't do it.  I'm not into the whole "let's hold hands and rejoice that we're women" thing.  The only girl I want to hold hands with is my daughter.  After that, it's just weird.

So as I pondered while in the downward dog pose, I thought of all the friendships I've had over the years.  It took me a minute, not because I've had that many good friendships, but because I never think well with my butt up in the air.  Once we moved onto a different pose, the pondering commenced.

I'm in a stage in my life where friendship is more important to me than it ever has been.  My stress level has skyrocketed over the past few months.  Joel can only listen to me vent for so long before he starts to get that glazed over look.  We all need girlfriends who can understand how frustrating it is to work out constantly and not lose weight.  Or make an awesome dinner, only to have your 5-year-old gag while eating it (that happened tonight!).  And who doesn't want to share the awesomeness of pedicures with a close friend?  It's always nice to have someone with you when you can't understand the technician.  Between the 2 of you, surely you can translate.  :)

As my Yoga class came to an end, I thought to myself, it's time to work on the friendships I have and appreciate those who make me who I am.

And I also need to work on my Yoga poses.  I look ridiculous.

You're standing on Jesus!

Joel has an enormous family.  He's 1 of 6 kids, and the only boy.  You can imagine how awesome it was to be the only girl marrying into that family.  Truly, his family is great though.  His family is also quite fertile.  Three of his sisters have 5 kids each.  Some quick math and you can see that's already 15 grandkids for his parents.  Add in our 2, plus another 2 and you get...19 grandkids.  Yep, fertile bunch.

So his family likes to get together for every most birthdays for the 19 grandkids.  The problem is that no one has a house big enough to hold everyone.  Our house is the largest and that's just sad.  Still, we all pile on top of each other to have family togetherness time.  It's exhausting stressful suffocating wonderful.  :)

Last night happened to be one of those birthday party get togethers.  It was for Joel's nephew, Nathan's 14th birthday.  Nathan's mom (Joel's sister), Annette and family live in BFE the Indianola area on a big huge acreage so there's a ton of land, but a small-ish house.  As usual, we all crammed in there, hoping everyone had showered recently.  I'm glad to say no one smelled.  Yea for us...and soap.

Because they have so much land, and it was the day before Easter, it was decided to have an Easter egg hunt.  One of Joel's many sisters went out to hide the eggs while Joel and I entertained the kids inside.  Instead of being enthralled by Joel and my skills, the kids just wanted to crowd around the front door waiting for the signal that the hunt to begin.  This of course meant that all the kids were falling and stepping all over each other.  At some point in all the raucous we heard a little voice scream, "NATHAN!  You're stepping on Jesus!"

After a moment of silence we realized that a Easter decoration showing Jesus rising from the dead had fallen off the front door and Nathan was stepping directly on Jesus' face.

Oops.

After saving Jesus from Nathan's shoe print, the hunt commenced and all was well.  Next year perhaps we'll put away the Jesus decorations before the kids take over the place.  Did I mention there are 19 of them?

Happy Easter all!

Easter Goats

I know that most people think of bunnies when they think of Easter.  I don't have any stories about bunnies, although we did have 2 for a short time.  They just sat in their cage and pooped...a lot.  It was always gross to clean out their cages.  Perhaps that's why we only had them for such a short time.

However, I have a story about goats.  As in...when I was growing up, we raised goats.

Yep, sure did.  I can't remember when we got our first goat.  I just remember having them.  Now before you think I grew up somewhere in Podunk country, let me just say that we only had the goats in the summer.  One of the men in our church was a farmer.  He always had baby goats that needed to be fed and cared for.  Apparently goats are born in the spring?  That may not be true.  I'm going with it though.

So as soon as school was out for the summer, the goats would arrive.  I can't remember how many we had, maybe 4?  We had a pen in our back yard.  Oh yes, the goat pen.  We lived on an acreage so we had plenty of space for a pen.  It was a pretty big area, fenced in and even complete with a little house for them.  So we had goats.  Because they were baby goats, they had to be bottle fed.  Remember those old Pepsi bottles?  Ya know, the big glass ones?  They aren't made anymore.  Something about the environment, although HELLO!  We were reusing them!  We were being "green" before there was an app for that.  But I digress...so each morning we'd get up, make a bottle up for the goats and go feed them.  Their milk was made from powdered milk.  I'm sure there was something else in there too but I was like 8 when this was going on.  My memory is only so good!  We'd have to attach a nipple on to the bottle and off we went.  At the time I never really thought of how large that nipple was.  Now I think, DANG!  Those suckers were huge!  The goats would gulp down that milk like they were starving.  I remember my sister and I going out to feed the goats.  For some reason we got such pleasure out of feeding them.

I've been asked why in the world we had goats.  Honestly, I have no blessed idea.  I'm sure our parents wanted us to learn about livestock or something.  Maybe be comfortable around animals??  Whatever the reason, we raised goats every summer.  We never thought that was odd.  It just...was.  Now I look back and think...huh.  We raised goats.  And fed them milk from Pepsi bottles with HUGE nipples attached.  Perhaps that is a tad...odd.

Split Pants and a Pine Tree

There has been many times over the past several years that, upon hearing the Cowell Family Kickball stories, there has been desire to join our family in our activities.  After reading this story, you may rethink that decision...

A few years ago my cousin Mike was getting married.  His fiancée-now-wife, Sandy had been a part of the Cowell Kickball Extravaganza a time or two before but I don't know that she fully comprehended the seriousness that is kickball.  Being the Cowells and the fact we do almost everything together, we decided to throw Mike and Sandy a couple's wedding shower.  For those who don't know what that is, it's basically the same as a bridal shower only men come too...and the gifts are mostly "home-ish".

So on this particular day, Sandy's mom, dad, and brother came down for the shower.  We had food and gift opening, a few cheesy games...blah, blah, blah.  And then the real fun began...KICKBALL!!!

Now the Cowells don't wimp out on kickball.  We've been known to have instant replay (Aunt Faye video tapes then we play back if there's a questionable call), the National Anthem is sang (Salli and I have a fabulous rendition we like to display), and lines are either spray painted or mowed.  Oh, and we have an electric scoreboard too.  Yep, we're hardcore.

So out we went to Uncle Don's backyard.  We figured out the teams, rules, and prepared to play.  But before all festivities could begin, Salli and I lead the group in a singing of the National Anthem.  Probably the funniest part of that was later while viewing a picture of it, Shawn had his hand over his heart.  Rumor has it, although not confirmed that Sandy's dad did the same.  We are nothing if not patriotic.  :)

The game began and was off with a bang.  At some point I was up to kick.  I'm really thinking Salli was all-time pitcher because she was uber pregnant with Natalie.  I kicked the ball and ran like the wind.  Nearing first base, I could see that the ball was being thrown towards me to get an out.  Well that just isn't acceptable.  I tried to run faster but there was a problem.  The grass was wet.  Therefore when I increasing my foot speed, all I ended up doing to sliding.  One foot went forward, the other backwards.  Now while you ponder how this looks, let me help you out.  I did the splits.  I've never before in my life done the splits.  My legs just don't go that way.  They did this day though.  I heard a ripping sound and truly though I had ripped something vital.  But as I stood up and took a look, I had ripped a hole in my pants.  In the crotch of my pants.  Classy.  However, I was safe on base!

Soon after the crotch ripping experience, I was in the fielding position.  Someone, can't remember who kicked a ball right over my head.  I went running backwards/sideways for it.  As my hands closed over that ball, I ran smack into a pine tree. I didn't just gently brush against the thing.  Nope, I annihilated it.  I was completely and totally inside the tree!  So now besides a rip in my crotch, I also had pine needles in my hair and scratches on my face from the tree.  One would think that after a head-on collision like that, concerned family members would run over to make sure I hadn't done permanent damage.  Yes, those questions were asked.  But only after it was determined I had indeed caught the ball.  Only after I had exited the tree, wiping the blood and pine needles from my face with one hand and holding the ball in the other.  Even then there was much discussion about whether or not the tree counted as the ball hitting the ground prior to being caught since, of course the tree is attached to the ground.  Then I was asked if I was ok.  I'm pretty sure by now Sandy's parents are totally thinking I am we are the most neurotic family in the world and why would Sandy want to be in it!  Can't say I blame them.  Mike's cousin (me) looked like I had been in a bar fight.

By the end of the day Sandy's family must have figured out we're not that bad because they still let her marry Mike.