Grateful II

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

I hope everyone had a good Xmas! Since I didn't go away this year, I spent the week cleaning, decorating, and entertaining. Since one of my New Year's resolutions is going to be staying on top of keeping the house clean and orderly, I've got a jump on it, to say the least. We'll see if I can maintain the resolution. I'm a pack rat by nature and keep a blind eye to chaos with the best of them.

As 2008 closes out, I want to express how grateful I am for the foundation my mother gave me. First and foremost, she gave me my love of books. From her my first passion were the gothics: Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney, Victoria Holt and our very favorite Jane Aiken Hodges. We would vie for who would be first to read the latest releases. I was the fastest reader, but Mom was home during the day. If the book came in on the weekend, I normally got dibs; but if a weekday, she got to read it first.

However, she also gave me my second passion: sports. Mom's brothers played football in high school, and to the day she died, she was a rabid football fanatic. While football remains the sport I know the most about and can understand the verbage better, I love nearly every sport. For a brief time in high school, I competed on a swim team. Then in college, I considered being a sports reporter. For one of the campus newspapers, I wrote a few human interest pieces, including an interview with a professional wrestler and his mother.

I didn't travel down that career path, but I have taken in a ton of sporting events, from car races to tennis matches to soccer to football. I absolutely love the Olympics. I remember when the Olympics were on TV all day long...when you could watch the athletes ranked last have their moment in the spotlight. I have to admit, though, to getting saturated after 17 days of watching the China extravaganza. However, I've recovered and can hardly wait for 2010 Vancouver.

So for 2009 I figured I'll 'dive' more into sports. :) Carol