Sneaking in an Unofficial Thursday Thirteen

There is just not enough time for me to do the Thursday Thirteens and give it my best effort at responding and visiting other bloggers. Like I said before, even a non-practicing Catholic still has the residual guilt effect which prevents me from "officially" doing a Thursday Thirteen. Blogging has not been at the top of my list of things to do with so many other activities taking up my time.

1. Presidential Race: I had lost that excitement with the upcoming election, but a certain vice- presidential nomination has made me become a political junky again. I can't wait until Tundra Barbie (or Caribou Barbie) is allowed to speak to the press. All information thus gained on the internet indicates that McCain has picked a woman who speaks her mind, and I don't mean that in a positive way. In four days, over 980 knitters/crocheters joined an anti- Sarah Palin group vs. 223 in the for Sarah group. Does this mean that a lot of liberals knit?

2. Football: My son is a senior football player, and I am involved in setting up team dinners. Then there are the games, first game for my son was exciting, he made an interception and ran it in for a 35 yard touchdown.

3. Cross Country meets: My youngest is a runner and we made it to one meet and missed his second. Sometimes you just have to make choices. Keep your fingers crossed and send up a quick prayer for his knee, tonight he came home complaining of pain in his knee after feeling part of his leg go numb while running. Ice and Ibuprofen have been used and he will check in with the trainer tomorrow.

4. Reading- Not enough time in the day to read. But I did finish Chocolat by Joanne Harris, which was a terrific book. The characters were well developed and there was a little magic going on. I liked the good vs. evil and based on what people have told me about the movie, I think the book was different. Good story!

5. Knitting- In the little brown bag next to me, I have a 1/2 finished shawl, one finished sock and an another 1/2 done and little special something knitted for my Autumn swap partner at ravelry. It's sad that I combine playing Canasta online with knitting!

6. Cat grooming- Hello blogging buddies!!! Nobody told me about long haired cats and the need to comb. I took a lot of grief from my friends last week as I missed a morning of golf to take my long haired Stash to the vets to get rid of the matted fur. I read on line not to cut the mats out myself and felt that $28 dollars was worth it. Now I comb him regularly, what a pretty kitty he is.

7. Work- Yuck, back to helping out another department that can't keep it's help. Can't complain too much, it's a nice way to save some extra money for our planned family trip to England next April.

8. The six tomato plants grown in various pots are now providing us with a lot of tomatoes. Ugly set up, but effective. (So what if you could see eggshells in the composted dirt?) Which leads me to the topic of food, do you really know how much a 17 year old football player and a 15 year old Cross country runner is capable of eating? The milk and food consumed is amazing!

9. Back to school, I think I like the routine, but it's still tiring. Let's see how the first progress report looks like for each of them.

10. Senior boy, will he or won't he get college applications to fill out? Repeat after me, not my problem. Last night we got a call from a small private Catholic college offering him a scholarship, and we had never heard of the school! Not sure it would be the right fit for this particular kid. Are some colleges that hard up to call homes based on SAT scores? His scores really aren't that high compared to others.

11. Exercise? Occasionally, how's that for a lame answer?

12. Family conversations- Sad to think that those after dinner conversations with the boys won't be happening in another 3 years...where the heck did the time go.

13. Senior portraits, I am going to say that Prestige/lifetouch is a huge monopoly and I will not be buying any "portraits" from them. I will happily pay a local photographer money to get pictures that I can afford of my child smiling!!

There's my random 13 for the week, a little bit of this and that of my life. Here's a question for you----> Do you really think Charlie Gibson's interview of Sarah Palin will be hard hitting or a fluff piece? ( comments on the internet indicate that we will see her goodby to her son heading to war)