It’s been a long time since I posted. In fact, I wrote the title and the first several sentences of this post on April 3, then got sidetracked again. I blame three events that kept me swamped on the home front.
Event #1. Spring Break ski trip to Idaho, all five of us. When I’m planning a trip, I tend to obsess over the details. I’ll spend weeks looking at possible destinations. Warm climate or cold, high energy or relaxing, city vacation or out in the sticks. Truth be told, we don’t have too many relaxing family vacations. We tend to attack our trips like a platoon of commandos, although our girls are not always as keen on our plans as we’d like. (“Not another museum!”) Once we’ve picked a place, I’ll pore (pour?) over websites for days looking at hotels, motels, condos, cabins, yurts. Then there’s finding gear for the cold weather that we rarely see here in Texas, ski/board rental, car rental, meal plans, your top three “must see” attractions, etc. We decided on a mid-sized resort, Brundage Mountain, near McCall. We got a lot of snow.

Let it Snow...as long as we get down in one piece!

One day, we got 14 inches, most of it while we were on the mountain. None of us are good enough to be super excited by deep powder. When you fall, it’s almost impossible to get back up. That said, we had a fun time, and no one broke any bones! I call that a success. We stayed in a cabin rental from vrbo.com that was lovely. When we weren’t skiing or boarding, we watched movies, worked on puzzles, read books, and talked over meals in the cabin or out on the town. The older the kids get, the more I treasure the time we spend together.

Asst. Coach Danny Manning talks with Thomas Robinson

Event #2: March Madness, baby! Rock Chalk Jayhawk! Shawn and I had such a fun time following this year’s team right on through the championship game. We lost four of the five starters to graduation and the NBA, and at the beginning of the year, our three top freshmen were declared ineligible by the NCAA. This wasn’t the most talented team, but they were very creative in finding ways to win. Having been a fan since the early ’80s, I’ve never seen a group that came back from so many deficits. They followed that script right to the end. To borrow a phrase from my Aggie daughter, we didn’t lose to Kentucky, we just ran out of time.I spent lots of time during our run watching games, Sports Center, reading coverage, one could say I get a little too into it. Thomas Robinson, who is headed for the NBA draft, will go down as one of my all-time favorite players for overcoming the adversity of losing his mom and both his grandparents within three weeks last year. He came back this year focused and determined. It was also the end of an era with my favorite Jayhawk of all time, Danny Manning, leaving Kansas to take the head coaching job at Tulsa. He has done so much for KU basketball that I wish him and his family the best.

Event #3: Attack of the killer weeds. Before we went to Idaho, we had a lot of rain. I used this as the perfect excuse to not do yard work. When we returned from our trip, we had the biggest crop of dandelions and dallisgrass I had ever seen. Shawn and I both spent many hours for multiple days on our hands, knees, and backsides pulling hundreds of weeds. I paid the girls $10 an hour to pull weeds and paid out about $100 between Rebekah and Anna, but Shawn and I spent many more hours than that, and we weren’t getting paid. We’ve been busy every weekend weeding, spraying, mowing, tilling, planting, and mulching. We are still not done with it all. We are vowing to never let it get to that point again. Only time will tell… In the process of cleaning out my flower bed, Shawn dug up a trumpet vine root that looked like a giant anaconda.

Trumpet vine root takes over the world, or at least my garden.

 Tending my garden reminds me of how bad habits can sprout up like weeds. If you let some negative thought or action take root in you, watch out! It could go to seed and give you a huge crop of weeds. My trumpet vine is good when it provides shade on our patio, but it has gotten completely out of hand and is coming up where it doesn’t belong. If we allow something good in our lives too much free rein, it can become destructive. That can happen with relationships, food, possessions, work, hobbies, even (dare I say?) Jayhawk basketball. Good thing God has the answer: “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” – 2 Peter 1:3