You Know How I am

My husband is so...I guess a good word would be unaffected. He doesn't stress. He doesn't worry.  He is like, whatever about most things.  So when it comes to his Birthday I'm usually at a loss as to what to do for him. He wants to treat his Birthday just like any other day but I think he is special and therefore his Birthday is most definitely not any other day.  What do you want?  I don't know, I don't really need anything.  Do you want cake? No.  Do you want anything special for dinner? No as long as it's low carb and healthy I don't care.  Do you want to go out to dinner? No, it's a Thursday.   He want's nothing and wants to do nothing.  Am I just supposed to ignore my husbands Birthday and act like it's not happening just because he tells me he doesn't care?  Well, luckily his tennis shoes are on their last legs.  They broke this week so a gift card to get new ones was the obvious perfect gift.  Birthday Present-check.

Wine // Meatloaf muffins // Bundtini's

I briefly contemplated picking up KFC on the way home for dinner.  It was a long busy week and we all know I'm not the cook in this operation but it felt wrong to allow my husband to eat KFC on his birthday when I technically had time to make something.  I surfed the interwebs and decided that he was having meatloaf for his Birthday dinner.  Yes, meatloaf but I impressed even myself with how I got creative with it.  I came home, I cooked and I conquered because I made the meatloaf into muffins and he loved them so much that he had 4.  They are only 85 calories each so why not.  Birthday dinner-check.  I've never made him a Birthday cake.  It just feels lame because I would go Duncan Hines and he makes cakes from scratch.  On my lunch break I picked up bundtinis in five different flavors from Nothing Bundt Cakes.  This cake is really amazing.  It literally melts in your mouth and we both love it.  Birthday Cake-check.  We spent the evening drinking wine with dinner, eating cake and watching a movie.

My husband may not care about his Birthday but I do.  I've already established just how awesome I think he is and I would feel like the crappiest wife ever if I didn't at least try to make it a little special for him even if it was a Thursday and he could really care less.  What to do for a man who wants nothing to do with his Birthday.  I mean, you can't do nothing.  A thoughtful gift, a tasty dinner and something sweet and indulgent.  That about covers it.  When we went to bed that night I told him that I hoped he had a good day.  His response.  You know how I am.  And I do.  Which is how I knew he would say that he didn't care and that I would take it upon myself to care for him and do what I could to make it special anyways.

My Husband is Awesome

I don't think working full time and going to school is for everybody.  Lots of people are doing it but I seriously don't know how they survive it.   I am weak.  I'm a baby when I don't get enough sleep and I get stressed out when I have a lot on my plate.  I did two semesters part time at community college and it just about killed me.  I came home from class in tears because I was so exhausted and so tired and had no idea where I would find the time or energy to get everything done.  My husband is a lot stronger then I am.  I already knew that.   WE already knew that, but doing what he did is just one more example of how much stronger.  For the past three years Mj has been a fixture at the dining room table doing homework for hours and hours on end.  I come home from work and there he is posted up in front of his laptops.  I'm chilling on the couch on Sunday catching up on the old DVR and there he is doing homework all. day. long.  I really did feel sorry for him slaving away while I dozed in and out of sleep on the couch.  Some week nights we'd hardly even talk because he'd be doing homework from when I got home until we went to bed. 

He's been counting it down month by month, week by week and day by day.  Literally.  I got an update every week.  I "used" him as motivation to get some writing done and got him to come with me to my favorite coffee shop to work.  I wish I'd started it sooner because I got a lot done with him and it was fun.  He spent all Sunday working on his final project and now after years of hard work he finally has his degree and is so happy to be getting his life back.   Not that he ever really stopped living it.  My husband is a busy body.  He still hung out with his friends.  He cooked and went through all kinds of random baking phases.  He did his Army Drills.  We went on vacations.  We had date nights and DVD nights at home.  He went biking.  He did two cycles of P90X last year.  He did kick ball, dodge ball and is in his second flag football league in a row right now.  In fact, he's in two different leagues.  He just does not stop.  Needless to say he's really good at multi tasking while I'm tired just thinking about it. I'm such a slacker. He says he doesn't know what he's going to do with all this extra time and I'm thinking he may not want to tell me that because I'm sure I can think of a few things to help fill the void.

I'm so very proud of him.  When we met he told me that getting his Bachelor's degree had been a goal that he set out for himself a long time ago.  He did active duty Army, traveled the world then once he went to part time Army the degree was next on his list.  He had some setbacks.  It took him longer then he planned.  Army reserve training, deployments and life in general got in the way but he buckled down and got it done.  And what's really awesome aside from the whole getting your college degree thing is that between the GI Bill and his job benefits he hasn't paid a dime out of his pocket.  How freaking amazing is that in a time where most college graduates are drowning in student loan debt?  He even has a new job position lined up for next month.  He's a smart one alright, and he's cute. I'm just glad I snatched him up when I did.
 
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Volunteers Wanted

I hate painting. Painting our house started out fun but ended up being torture.  With the prepping and taping and extra coats it takes so long.  We still have 3 bathrooms and two bedrooms with plain white walls that I do not even want to touch. So when Mj signed us up to paint the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) Building at 7:30 am on a Saturday I wasn't too thrilled.  It was for a good cause so I didn't fuss. Well, not too much anyways. They had a bunch of projects going on to spruce up the building.  We signed up to outside painting which is a heck of a lot better then painting inside because outside you don't have to tape things off and if the paint falls on the ground it's no big deal.  Everyone grabbed brushes and pitched in wherever it was needed and by the end of our time there the we'd all painted a garage, two cinder block walls, part of the building and you know what?  Turns out it wasn't so bad after all.  It was actually kinda fun.

We did this through the company that Mj works for.  They fed us breakfast and lunch and provided us with giant sexy red T-Shirts.  The kind that I won't even wear to the gym.  It will go in the drawer with the rest of my collection of T-shirts of sentimental value that I won't wear OR get rid of.  We were done by 11:30am and still had the rest of our Saturday.  And what did we do with it?  Showered, watched a movie and then took a great nap on the couch.  Then Mj spent the rest of the day doing homework while I lazed around on the couch getting caught up on House Hunters.  Since last Saturday I was in LA and this Saturday I was painting a building our house went another week without a cleaning.  Technically I could have done it when I got home, but realistically; yeah right.  If I don't do it Saturday morning when I get up it probably 'aint gonna happen.  Oh well.  There is always next weekend. 

I donate money here and there sporadically and I haven't done any kind of volunteer work in a really, really long time.  Sometimes I do feel very badly that I don't do more when I know how fortunate I am to have what I do.  Time is so precious when so much of it seems to be spent at work, doing chores and trying to fit in time at the gym.  It's always the same old excuse.  I don't have time.  I only get the weekends and I want to enjoy them.  I have too much to do. So while I was annoyed at first I'm glad that Mj took the initiative and signed me up for it too.  It felt good to volunteer my time to do something good for others.

 
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Wanna Be Photographer

There are 6 Conferences in NCAA Gymnastics:  Big 10 Championship, Big 12 Championship, Pacific 12,  Mid-American Conference, Southeastern Conference and Western Athletic Conference.Each conference has it's own championship for the Conference Title AND qualification to Regionals.  The top 6-7 teams in each region earn a place in Regional Championships and are assigned to one of six held across the nation.

Road to NCAA Championships
Columbus Regional– UCLA, LSU, Arizona, Ohio State, Central Michigan, North Carolina State
Corvallis Regional  – Georgia, Oregon State, Arkansas, Boise State, Arizona State, Cal
Gainesville Regional  – Florida, Minnesota, Auburn, Maryland, Bridgeport, Pittsburgh
Morgantown Regional  – Michigan, Nebraska, Illinois, Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina
Norman Regional– Oklahoma, Stanford, Penn State, Washington, Iowa, Southern Utah
Tuscaloosa Regional  – Alabama, Utah, Denver, Kent State, Brigham Young, Iowa State

• The top two teams and the top two all-around competitors not from an advancing team at each regional receives a berth in the NCAA Championships.  In addition, individual event winners who did not already qualify with their team or as an all-arounder will advance.
• At the national championships, the twelve teams that made it compete in two different qualification sessions on Day 1 to make it into the team finals. 
• The top three teams from each session advance to the Super Six Team Finals which is held on Day 2.
• The top four individuals from each semifinal in each event (including ties) from Day 1 of competition will compete in the individual-event championships which is held on Day 3. 
• There is no separate event for the Individual All Around.  The top finishers who did all four events in the team qualification round are ranked based on those results. 

So what we saw at the 2013 NCAA National Gymnastics Championships was the best of the best college gymnasts from across the nation and lots of great gymnastics.  Gymnastics levels go from 1-10 with competition starting at level 5.  After Level 10 is Elite.  The girls you see in the Olympics are Elite gymnasts which is a whole other ballgame and the girls that are competing division I college gymnastics are closer to level 10 although a lot were former Elites.  You will not see the difficulty that you see in the Olympics in College Gymnastics.  They are limited to 20 hours per week of training per NCAA rules whereas Elite gymnasts will train 30 hours plus.  Elite routines require a lot more difficulty then the level required for NCAA Gymastics but almost everything at any competitive level of gymnastics is pretty incredible considering a lot of people can't even do a cartwheel.  Very few make it to the Elite level and even fewer make it to Worlds or Olympics.  For some girls College is the dream and for others it's what they do after their Club/Elite gymnastics career is over so there are quite a few former Elites, Olympians and World team members in NCAA's. The vibe in college gymnastics is a lot looser and fun then what you see at the elite level.  They are just as competitive and determined but they let loose a lot more.  A lot of the girls broke into random dancing to the piped in music between rotations and they always high five their whole team after each routine.

As a former gymnast myself I know how hard the sport is.  And I wasn't even that good!!  Gymnasts are incredible.  No matter how many times I watch it I am never any less amazed at the tricks they do.  They are so strong and they make it look so easy.  The thing is, that people aren't supposed to do the things that they can do.  Not only do they they defy gravity but they are fearless.  They stand there, raise their arms over their heads and launch into a tumbling series on a four inch beam like it's nothing.  They are in such good shape too.  Muscles popping out everywhere.  In the crowd there were a lot of gymnasts and you can spot them a mile away because of their toned legs and build.  I have abs and pretty solid muscle tone to this day that I think is from doing gymnastics so many years ago!  I maintain that gymnastics is the best sport in the world and nobody can tell me any different.

The real photographers were on the floor where they were confined to this little taped off square box area.  I'm a wanna be photographer so I got what I could from the stands.  We had pretty good seats.  Here are some of my favorite shots.

Marissa King, Florida- Team Qualifications // 2008 Canadian Olympian

Shayla Worley, Georgia- Team Qualifications // Former World Team member

Nansy Damianova, Utah-Team Qualifications // 2008 Olympian for Canada

Vanessa Zamarripa, UCLA-Team Qualifications // Former Elite & US National Team member

Marissa King, Florida-Team Finals

Mackenzie Caquatto, Florida- Team Finals // Former World Team member

Bridget Sloan, Florida-Team Finals // 2008 Olympian, 2009 World Champion

Oklahoma, Team Finals

Chelsea Davis-Georgia, Team Finals // Former Elite & US National Team Member

Shayla Worley, Georgia- Team Finals

Ashley Priess, Alabama- Team Finals // Former Elite

Shalya Worley, Georgia-Team Finals

Bart Connor and Kathy Johnson were right in front of us

Chelsea Davis, Georgia Bar Finals

Emily Wong, Nebraska- Floor Finals, 3rd Place

Standings after Team Qualifications Session I and II
1. University of Florida, 197.775
2. University of Alabama, 197.350
3. Louisiana State University, 197.325
4. University of California-Los Angeles, 197.200
5. University of Oklahoma, 197.200
6. University of Georgia, 197.150

Final Results

1. Florida, 197.575

2. Oklahoma, 197.375

3. Alabama, 197.350

4. UCLA, 197.100

5. LSU, 197.050

6. Georgia, 196.675

Bridget Sloan from Florida won the All Around.

 
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